No confusion and distress were intended

EDITOR—Our letter1 was a response to Brewer's own letter2 and reported reasons why we had decided not to collaborate with him on the study of opiate detoxification under anaesthesia. Brewer has expressed concern to us that our expression of “dislike of Brewer's proposal that NHS funds should be diverted from the NHS into his private treatment business” raised an inference of professional impropriety on his part and implied that his motives for wanting to collaborate were at least in part to enrich himself with NHS funds, and that our earlier mention of the need for “objectivity and equipoise” in medical researchers could be considered to be an implication that he might in some way behave dishonestly if a trial were to be conducted. We accept that Brewer's offers of collaboration were made on an ordinary friendly academic basis. We regret …