26 | New Scientist | 14 September 2019
Editor’s pick
Health apps need to be
a regulated public good
24 August, p 9
From Alan Taman, Birmingham, UK
I was encouraged to read that
the National Health Service in
England is taking the need to
develop IT-based healthcare
seriously. Clare Wilson’s report
rightly pointed out the need for
companies developing IT with
therapeutic or diagnostic aims
to consider evidence-based
development as paramount to
patient safety and effectiveness.
But the greatest danger isn’t
that companies selling “health”
apps that they claim are diagnostic
or therapeutic fail to understand the
need to develop evidence-based
and peer-reviewed products. It is
that the market actively discourages
the time and trouble this takes. It
encourages strategies that focus on
maximising short-term profit with
little or no regard for peer review or
high standards of evidence about
effectiveness. Understanding isn’t
enough: we need regulation.
This is anathema to the market-
led thinking that dominates the
development of “health” apps.
Nearly all of these rely on individual
purchase, so if they work, they run
the risk of exacerbating existing
health inequalities or creating
new ones. The NHS can develop
effective, universal IT-based
medicine that is in every way as
good as, if not better than, many
commercial products. But while
market-led thinking dominates
development, it is fighting with
one hand tied behind its back.We need to understand the
reasons for the Brexit vote
24 August, p 23
From Balint Bodroghy,
Brighton, UK
Opening New Scientist is like
stepping into a stream of cool
fresh air, free of tendentious
partisan advocacy and suffused
by a balanced, evidence-based
view of the world – an examplebeing Andre Geim’s expression of
regret over Brexit and its likely
effect on scientific enquiry.From David Daniels,
Robertsbridge, East Sussex, UK
In the interests of science and
the country, Geim proposes, the
UK must implement the result of
the referendum and leave the EU.
But leading hard-line Brexiteers
follow a political and economic
philosophy that aims to reduce the
role of a societal state in myriad
ways: lower standards for food and
products, less support by the state
for the disadvantaged and reduced
employment rights.
After the referendum, I became
involved with the European
Movement, of which the former
Conservative prime minister
Winston Churchill was a founding
member. I spent time on the
streets engaging with the public
about Brexit.
The level of ignorance about
the EU, the reasons why it was set
up, its operations and benefits and
the peace that has existed since
1945 was staggering.
This points to a decades-long
failure by the EU to counter the
propaganda. Since the Brexitreferendum, the mood on the
streets has changed. Many have
freely acknowledged that they
never understood the full
implications of their decision
to vote to leave and have changed
their minds. The real reasons
behind the Brexit situation
need to be understood.Sexual orientation is
somewhere on a continuum
17 August, p 23
From Robert Epstein,
Vista, California, US
Andrew Barron’s perceptive
view of the simplistic idea
that only two types of sexual
orientation exist is supported
by large data sets that I have been
accumulating since 2006. In 2012,
I published a study of 17,785
participants from 48 countries
that supports the assertion by
biologist Alfred Kinsey that
sexual orientation lies smoothly
on a continuum (Journal of
Homosexuality, doi.org/c92p).
I plan to publish next year
a study with more than 600,000
participants from 219 countries
and territories that further
supports Kinsey’s assertion.It also shows that the magnitude of
the mismatch between the sexual
orientation label one adopts and
one’s actual sexual inclinations
is a good predictor of the distress
one feels about one’s sexuality.The unnecessary carbon
footprint of your kitchen
Letters, 24 August
From Dinah Sage,
Malvern, Worcestershire, UK
As Wiebina Heesterman notes,
kitchen appliances generate
nearly seven times as many
emissions as food transport.
Cooking in a microwave or on
the hob takes much less energy
than heating a conventional oven,
but instructions on ready meals
and in recipes usually specify the
oven, which is unnecessary for
curries and casseroles. Fish almost
always comes with instructions
to cook in an oven, with no
alternative given.
Traditionally, the oven was
used once or twice a week, for
a main course and batches of
baking, to save fuel. Surely
avoiding oven use when
practical would save time,
money and emissions.Views You r le t te r s