Nerd Valentine’s Pub Night with Ben Goldacre

Come hear pop-science writer Ben Goldacre speak about his new book, Bad Pharma.

Ben Goldacre is an award-winning writer, medical doctor and academic, and author of The Guardian’s Bad Science column, best-selling book of the same title, and Bad Pharma <http://www.randomhouse.ca/books/221748/bad-pharma-by-ben-goldacre>.

He’ll speak about the $600bn global pharmaceutical industry, and how the evidence base for the prescription drugs we use every day has been distorted, how our systems have been broken, and how easy it would be to fix them.

Doctors and patients need good scientific evidence to make informed decisions. But instead, companies run bad trials on their own drugs, which exaggerate the benefits by design. When these trials produce unflattering results, the data is simply buried. All of this is perfectly legal. In fact, even government regulators withhold vitally important data from the people who need it most. Doctors and patient groups have stood by too, and failed to protect us. Instead, they take money and favours, in a world so fractured that medics and nurses are now educated by the drugs industry.