Academics put their names on papers written by commercial medical writing companies working for drug companies.
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
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Should science journalists take sides?
If you just report what people have said, you’re a megaphone, not a journalist. Analysis is part of the job.
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Salil Tripathi on the ‘incompetence Raj’
This is not a failure of the Indian people or Indian culture. It is the Indian government who have failed so badly with the Commonwealth Games.
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Australia’s “saint” exposed a paedophile priest
And was excommunicated partly for revenge, a new documentary claims.
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Muhammad Sahimi on Ahmedinedjad’s lies
Some of his lies are so brazen that even his supporters in Tehran have expressed astonishment and rebuked him.
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Poll: 1 in 5 Americans believe Obama is a cactus
The most Americans to identify the president as a water- retaining desert plant since he took office.
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Archbishop urges Catholics to be more irritating
Archbishop of Westminster says Catholics should be more ready to make the sign of the cross and say “God bless you” to people.
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Geoffrey Robertson on the Holy See as Santa Claus state
The world’s most absolute dictator presumes to lecture our present leaders on the sins of democratic society.
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Henning Mankell: argue with Sweden Democrats
“It was precisely the refusal of the other parties, from left and right, to debate with the SD that allowed them to grow from nothing to 6% of the vote.”
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Deaf abuse victim is suing the pope
The headmaster of St. John’s School for the Deaf raped and molested as many as 200 deaf boys, according to court and church documents.
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Johann Hari on Liberal Democrats as hostages
They twitch nervously as they mouth supportive platitudes about Cameron’s planned cuts.
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Paul Sims asks: is burning the Koran a crime?
Kenan Malik notes, “There are two notions of incitement that all too often get conflated.”
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UK: six guys arrested for burning a Koran
They were arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred and released on bail pending further inquiries.
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Jesus and Mo tell the barmaid how to build alliances
Don’t mention the e-word.
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Dan Savage and Terry to bullied high school kids
It gets better. The despair of high school does not go on forever.
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The burqa is a feminist issue
The burqa is a blank; a deliberate erasure not only of public face, but of one’s entire public existence. Not new self but un-self.
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A formal farewell to a vestige of monarchical power
The curious case of the royal financial memorandum is a headline disguised as a footnote.
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“The Royal family is part of the dependency culture”
“Someone appears to have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect the Royal family from public scrutiny.”
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Caspar Melville reports on RSA debate
Marilynne Robinson was subtle, Roger Scruton was mischievous, Jonathan Rée was disturbed by the “new” atheist Tone.
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The thing that made the things for which…
…there is no known maker.