I was reading the New York Times this morning while eating my cinnamon-caaaandy bagel and I came acroo a hero. So we Bears created the Bear Award for Heroism so we would have something to reward him with.
The story is here:
F.D.A. Considers Implant Device for DepressionBasically, a company has created an implant for servere depressioo (which has not responded to other treatments) that goes in your chest like a pacemaker, and then has wires leading into your neck, where they apply a charge to a nerve leading to the brain. There has only been one controlled experimoo of the device for use with depressioo, a double-blind experimoo in which all the participants had the device installed, but only half had it turned on, and they left the device off in the other half. The study found that the device only worked a small percentage of time (17 out of 111 of those with it turned on showed significant improvement), and
worked no better in patients with the device turned on than in patients with the device turned off. Nonetheless, the FDA will quite likely move to approve the device.
Our Bear hero is Dr. Michael Thase. Despite the fact he was consulting for the company that makes the product, he still said there was "simply not a good enough basis in evidence" to approve the device. For standing by his principles, and the principles of honest scientific research instead of saying what the group doing the funding wanted him to say, we present Dr. Michael Thase with the first Bear Award for Heroism.
OK Bye
Noel "Snowflake" Chompsky
