Duncan Jarvies

People believed that mesmerism

People believed to have been mesmerised would sometimes show hysterical behaviour, but the French Academy of Sciences were sceptical.

They assembled a distinguished scientific team, including Antoine Lavoisier and Benjamin Franklin, to conduct experiments to test for mesmerism.

The patients were blinded to which objects had been mesmerised or whether a mesmeriser was behind a curtain, and then observed for their reactions.

When they were blinded, mesmerism lost its power and instead the power of blinding was established.

Which then obviously affects retention.

It's an interesting thing here when it comes to the wider public understanding these things, because that's been a big part of maybe the public's education around EBM, is what blinding is, what Narcet is.

And so moving away to something that is a little bit more subtle, we're going to have to have a more nuanced discussion with the public, with the press, with everyone about what this actually means.

So already that's a bit more nuanced.

Well, that's great.

And I'm sure, as Helen said, the little bombshell that's gone out, our audience will have some thoughts on that.

So if you do want to let us know what you think about the issues around blinding, then have a look at bmj.com slash podcast, where you can find out how to get in touch and potentially have your voice on the podcast.

So we're on the portion of the show where we usually give over to Carl to hold forth on a subject but as it's 2020 we've turned over new leafs for the new year.

Helen, I'm going to go over to you.

You have been quite annoyed about Inclisiran this week.

For me, hearing that, it's part of the...

good thing about the system that we have in the UK is we have NICE who are kind of independently assessing the clinical and cost-effectiveness of a drug and for them the Secretary of State for Health to be almost bypassing them or making deals that they go around them seems like a bad way to start something.

Well, there you go.

Carl's angling for another job, advisor to Matt Hancock.

Probably not.