Our hats were then blown away when the REMAP-CAP team and the UK government fired an evidence-based carpet bomb in our direction. We saw a trial press release, a preprint article, an alert letter from the MHRA/DHSC, national media coverage and a government press release all within 24h of each other.

We were delighted about the first 2 in rapid sequence and it was great to see the authors release the full preprint manuscript on this at the same time as the press release.

We were less pleased about the latter 2 – this is a drug with a serious side effect profile and very strict prescribing conditions within the context of the research.

There is a very real impact on families, patient conversations and individualised/autonomous prescribing from a government press release describing a new wonder drug, with no mention of adverse events. This is often difficult to unravel on the unit at 2am.

However, this is about the evidence, rather than our angst about knowledge dissemination. Let’s take a look at it.

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