Posted by simon (195.171.230.16) on July 01, 1999 at 18:36:18:
In Reply to: Re: Someone please give Professor Goadsby a nobel prize... posted by Linda B on June 30, 1999 at 23:10:20:
Dear Linda,
You're absolutely right that women can be overlooked
(I'm convinced that a lot of female cluster sufferers
have been bracketed with migraineurs). However, we
must remember two things. One, Peter Goadsby has
investigated women in his research (as we know with Mary back
in April, a contact she made through this board), and
two, that in any research one can only compare like
with like. A comparison which included male and female
would be invalid because other differences could mask
the results.
I know from my own experience with Dr. G. and his team
on this project how keen they are to do everything
in their power to get a good result, without it being
skewed in any way. Given the relatively smaller number
of women affected, getting a large enough sample might
prove difficult.
That said, now, maybe in the States, where there is
inevitably a larger base with which to work (remember
there are probably only 1000 or so women in the Queen's
Square catchment area with clusters, not all of whom
will be in an active state anyway, or indeed on the UCL
lists) someone can follow this up with a female based study.
As we all suffer the same pain, the results are likely to
be the same. If they're not, how much more sad it would have
been had the team missed these results because of a sense
of political correctness.
Rejoice in the fact that someone is producing meaningful
results, and remember all the time that a lot of
what we are seeing is being highlighted through the media.
I know Dr. G. knows the precise male/female balance,
yet it makes a much better press story if they can say
it affects mainly men or mainly women or whatever
(as they did in a similar way with AIDS in the early 80s).
He didn't mention chronic sufferers either, but I'm not
offended - the media don't like chronic anything -
he knows what he's doing in terms of PR as well as medicine.
This is a group who are unbelievably sympathetic to
all of us. Let's encourage that and others like them
in their endeavours.
Simon