NMT are suing Dr Wilmshurst. So how trustworthy are this company? Let’s look at their website…

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• Format Texts, Websites
• Language/s English
• Target Audience Self-directed learning
• EBM Stage 0 - Why EBM?
• Duration <5 mins
• Difficulty Intermediate

Key Concepts addressed

• 1-3b Anecdotes are unreliable evidence
• 1-3c Expert opinion is not always right

Details

Ben Goldacre, The Guardian, Saturday 11 December 2010

You will hopefully remember – from the era before Wikileaks – that US medical device company NMT are suing NHS cardiologist Peter Wilmshurst over his comments about the conduct and results of the MIST trial, which sadly for NMT found no evidence that their device prevents migraine. The MIST trial was funded by NMT, and Wilmshurst was lead investigator until problems arose.

Wilmshurst has already paid £100,000 of his own money to defend himself, risking his house, and spent every weekend and all his annual leave, unpaid, dealing with this, at great cost to his family. So what kind of a company is NMT Medical, that the British libel courts have allowed to hound one man for almost two years? And how trustworthy are their utterances?

Let’s go to their website and find out. On the front page, you will see positive quotes from patients prominently displayed, on a rotating banner (reload their page to see the full collection), accompanied by smiling studio photographs.

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