Thanks to Peggy at the very wonderful Biology in Science Fiction blog I am reminded that I really out to be reading Ben Oldacre’s excellent Bad Science blog on a regular basis. And that led me on to this post, which is ostensibly about other things but also manages to illustrate one of the reasons why the NHS is such a disaster zone. Commercial companies milk money out of the system in various ways, and suppressing evidence of negative field trials is just one of them. But having a state-owned health service doesn’t necessarily stop that from happening. And if you do have a state-owned system one thing I can guarantee is that it too will suck money away, only it does it through an ever-expanding bureaucracy. Here’s Ben:

Hilary Hearnshaw did an elegant study where she pretended to apply to do a medical research project in the Israel, the UK, and 11 other countries in Europe. She said she wanted to do a trial on a leaflet – contain your excitement – which was designed to help older patients get more engaged with their GP.

Only three countries required the project to go through a process of ethical approval, and in the UK, this was more arduous than in any other country. Getting ethical clearance took ten weeks, required two submissions (because they demanded changes), and five full days of administration, during which the proposal had to be reviewed by full committees, some of which required multiple copies of the application paperwork.

I know this sort of thing all too well. I’ve seen it many times over in state-owned (and regulated monopoly) energy companies. Which is one reason why I tend to roll my eyes in despair when I hear my American friends going on about how wonderful it would be if they had a state-run health service rather than a privately-operated one.

By the way, US readers, do click through to that post, because right at the end Ben starts talking about how the American Psychological Association is supporting the use of torture by government agencies.