I thought very highly of your piece about the applicability of N=1 trials, and sent it out this morning to the Society of Cannabis Clinicians as both a link and a reprint. (I intended to excerpt it, but not a sentence could I find to cut.)
An odd thing happened when the US National Academy of Sciences held a press conference in January to announce the release of the report you cite, ‘The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids” (which had been available online for a few weeks). Check this out:
Maybe I should ask the NAS to restore on its video the answer from Dr. Marie McCormick, because in light of your MedicalRepublic piece, it seems revealing and significant. The chairwoman, a Harvard Med School professor, said that to her knowledge the NAS review had not turned up any studies based on N=1 trials! McCormick turned to her fellow panelists and asked if they recalled any N=1 studies —you can hear the silence on my tape. Nobody did.
The NAS panelists then praised themselves for conducting a most rigorous search of “The Literature” and winnowing out the chaff. That they missed or dismissed Notcutt et al in Anaesthesia 2004 seems outrageous to
yours truly,
Fred Gardner
