Published 31 October 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2347
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2347

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On drinking from a poisoned chalice

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

For a period in the late 1990s there were repeated headlines about research on children in North Staffordshire NHS Trust using continuous negative extrathoracic pressure (CNEP). They alleged that excessive deaths had occurred. As regional director of public health I had already commented to the media that premature babies of that age had a significant mortality and that the children in the trial had fared no worse that expected. Public health passed the story to the research and development directorate.

The story did not go away and local MPs took it up. A meeting with the relevant minister and one of the MPs took place. The director of research and development should have gone, but he was in America. The minister wanted someone from the regional office to be present. I went.

By the time of the meeting formal complaints had already been made both to the General Medical Council . . . [Full text of this article]

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