Week Commencing 19 June 2023
Book - Drugs and the FDA (Amazon)
In my post In Defence of Popular Science, I mentioned that one of the most compelling types of non-fiction is intimate, first-hand accounts of events that you can only get from someone who was directly involved. Some great examples are Bad Blood and Dead in the Water, where we follow the journey that the journalists went through in exposing a grand conspiracy. In Drugs and the FDA we go directly to the source as Mikkael A. Sekeres recounts the Avastin hearings, in which he served on the Oncological Drugs Advisory Committee, in a way that reads like a medical thriller. Between the narrative, he takes detours to give the reader a history and overview of the FDA and the anatomy of clinical trials to further contextualise this landmark case. The fine line between patient safety, medical research, and access to experimental drugs is a super interesting one that will only get even more contentious as technology advances. I would recommend supplementing this book with From Oversight to Overkill - some of the stories in there will make you want to pull your hair out, check out Scott Alexander’s review for a TL;DR. For even more context, listen from 3hrs 25m. I learned a lot from this book and it has given me a ton of jumping off points and further questions to interrogate.
Blog Post - Stump the Medical Expert or GPT-4? (Ground Truths)
I’ve become quite disappointed with a lot of the clickbait about GPT-4 in medicine. It started with the JAMA study about doctor empathy which was one of the absolute worst things that somehow got published, yet people who presumably didn’t actually read the paper were posting sensationalised headlines about how CHATGPT OUTPERFORMS DOCTORS IN PATIENT EMPATHY. Here is a much more balanced review of a more interesting set of results that give some optimism for the role of LLMs in the very real problem of misdiagnosis.
Podcast - Huberman Lab: Tim Ferris (Youtube)
Andrew Huberman never misses. I must admit I am one of the very few people who isn’t a huge fan of Tim Ferris. I read the 4-Hour Work Week and thought it was genuinely awful. To this day, I can never understand how it seems to be a life-changing book for so many. Having said that, I loved this conversation and now think maybe I missed out by not listening to Tim’s podcast over the years. There’s so much good stuff in this marathon episode that I will probably revisit it at some point.
The Ashes - First Test
Is there anything better than test cricket? I don’t think it’s worth criticising the first innings declaration or suddenly overanalysing the Bazball approach - if England won we’d all be calling Ben Stokes a genius. England’s approach to test cricket is churning out quality games that are making test cricket the spectacle it deserves to be. This is the most excited I’ve been for an Ashes series in a very long time.
Article - Time for a Change: How Scientific Publishing is Changing For The Better (The Seeds of Science)
Podcast - All In E134: Ukraine counteroffensive, China tensions, COVID Patient Zero, RFK Jr reaction & more (Youtube)
Bilbao
Went on a family holiday to Bilbao over the weekend and could not recommend the place enough. It’s a perfect weekend destination since you can do pretty much everything in two days. Highlights include:
Vizcaya Bridge - the first bridge in the world to carry people and traffic on a high suspended gondola. Would recommend taking an elevator to the top and walking across for insane views of Bilbao
Gure Toki and El Globo for the best pintxos in Bilbao hands down. The basque cheesecake at Gure Toki is now on my death row meal
Guggenheim Museum - Not a huge art guy but this was a must-see in Bilbao and the exhibitions were pretty good (also see the big puppy and the spider nearby)
Food tour - We did this food tour which was really fun with loads of pintxos and wine and basque cider, though it was slightly overpriced and you can probably do it yourself for much cheaper
Mercado de La Ribera - Most of it was closed when we went but still a great place for food and drink