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Vital Signs: Perceptions: Mistrust Seen as Barrier to Blood Donation Among African-Americans, mistrust of hospitals is high, a new study suggests, offering a possible explanation for their historically low rate of blood donation. feeds.nytimes.com |
Personal Health: Even Benefits Don’t Tempt Us to Vegetables Despite the numerous benefits of vegetables, they just aren’t making Americans’ plates. feeds.nytimes.com |
Employment tribunal hears of bizarre hoax phone call The director of Britain's Science Media Centre pretended to be a journalist investigating MP's staff expenses.Few people who are familiar with the small pond that is science journalism in the UK will have failed to gulp on reading about the ex-Labour MP Jim Devine and the unthinkable bullying he unleashed on his boss, Marion Kinley.Devine, who was an MP in Livingston, Scotland, before being done for fiddling expenses last year asked an acquaintance to make a fake call to Kinley and pretend to be a journalist investigating her financial affairs. The story gets darker with every step and you can read more about it here. Devine has since been ordered to pay Kinley £35,000.Though appalling from the off, it was not the top line that shocked many of my colleagues most. What came as a surprise was the revelation far down the story that the fake call in question was made by Fiona Fox, head of the Science Media Centre in London, a prominent venue for press conferences on all matters scientific and medical. Otherwise articulate people who read the story struggled to say more than three letters: WTF?I contacted Fox to ask her about the story and she provided a statement, which she has already sent on to a Scottish newspaper. It reads as follows:"I am pleased Miss Kinley has won her case and deeply regret being unwittingly drawn into this unpleasant saga. In a very, very small way I too was duped by this man. He had assured me that this kind of prank was part and parcel of the humour in his team and that his colleagues gave as good as they got. At that time I had no reason to doubt the integrity of a Member of Parliament who I got to know because of his public support for stem cell research during the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in 2008."By phone, Fox explained that she knew Devine for around five weeks in 2008. A day after making the fake call - and leaving a message on Kinley's answerphone - Kinley called Fox, who admitted the hoax and apologised. Fox says: "I was a first class idiot." I doubt many will disagree.There are many wonderful things about being a science journalist. You get to spend your days interviewing highly intelligent people who have spent their lives wrestling with profound and fascinating questions about how the world works and all that is in it. Now and then a grim story crops up. This is one of them.Controversies in scienceIan Sampleguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Harsh winter hit resident birds Resident British birds such as the robin struggled in the previous harsh winter, while migrating birds such as warblers benefited from leaving the country, according to the British Trust for Ornithology. news.bbc.co.uk |