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LETTERS: Roger H Jones Stance is worst type of spin BMJ 2007; 335: 465 [Full text]

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Cause and effect: who knows?

Neville W Goodman   (12 September 2007)

Cause and effect: who knows? 12 September 2007
Neville W Goodman, Consultant Anaesthetist Southmead Hospital, Bristol, BS10 5NB Send response to journal: Re: Cause and effect: who knows?	It is impossible to get away from circularity in any discussion of cause and effect when thinking about how medicine and doctors are perceived by the public. Jones has clearly been stung by Dearlove, but most of Jones's editorial would have stood perfectly well without having to refer explicitly to 'the Holy Trinity'. As it is, Jones's response is to say that "After Alder Hey, Cancer UK reported a sharp fall in donations of tissue to the national tumour bank for children's cancer, and 3000 families joined in a legal action against the NHS." This is supposed to counter the suggestion "that the political and professional responses to the unholy trinity were a conspiracy between the government and the media is ... bizarre". Competing interests: None declared