Bad Pharma 2013 – a great succes

bad pharma skype

300 students reading one book, summarising it contents and discussing three propositions in order to grasp the essence of the book. This might sound a bit boring perhaps…But what if it Goldacres book Bad Pharma, you only have to read 30 pages and still get the content of the complete book, and get to Skype with the author? Great fun!

And we weren’t the only who had fun: Ben Goldacre addressed 300 students, all with critical questions, and apparently he enjoyed the whole debate:

We also invited AV, a spokesperson of NEFARMA an organisation who represents most pharmaceutical companies in the Netherlands. With him we discussed whether the AllTrials campaign was a waste of time and money. Also, BB  a reporter from the Mare, who has knowledge on conflict of interest of professors joined in on the discussion whether professors should declare their COI before each lecture. All in all, it was a great day in which some of the students were shocked by the message of Ben Goldacre, whereas other students were not impressed and doubted whether there view is too one-sided… The debate still continues!