For some reason or other the BBC interviewer didn't see fit to say anything about possible conflicts of interest of this "Ariel Beresniak ... international expert in modelling and decision making in life sciences" who used his eminence to undermine the calculations behind how NICE decide what treatment are good value for money in the NHS. If they had, listeners might have learned that he was the CEO of a Swiss company, Data Mining International, with an exciting press release from 2007 on its web site saying how it "picks the fruits from all statistical trees, and finds the best ways to profit from clinical studies ... from which major clients such as Novartis and Bristol Myers Squibb have already profited" (excuse my French)0749 European researchers say The National Institute for Clinical Excellence ( NICE) should abandon the formula it uses for deciding which drugs should be funded by the NHS. Dr Ariel Beresniak, the project leader on the European research, and Professor Karl Claxton, professor of economics at the Centre for Health Economics, University of York, discuss NHS funding for drugs.
So far I've failed to find any public information about this company's profits,Data Mining cueille les fruits de tous les arbres statistiques
La société genevoise s'exprime aujourd'hui à BioData sur les meilleures façons de profiter des données fournies par les études cliniques.
.... Les applications possibles de cette technique, dont profitent déjà de grosses pointures telles que Novartis et Bristol Myers Squibb, sont nombreuses.
which is disappointing when set against the exemplary transparency of the publically funded NICE
Up against this guy was a simple economist, defending the use of numbers and as-good-as-possible mathematical formulae to capture what is best for the public good, saying that any thing else leads to far worse health outcomes for the public at large, although not for the very rich.
Part of me would like to be on the Save Lewisham A&E March tomorrow, but I have to visit my elderly father, who's concerned about the increasing levels of pain he is suffering, and wondering what we should be saying to his GP. But if anyone else wants to do something more to help save the NHS, please lobby your MP and anyone else to protect NICE, and essential protector itself of the NHS.