There's a great coverage today in @Medscape of our latest @bmj_latest paper. Unfortunately, I'll have to disagree with these comments from an expert which I find disrespectful. RANTORIAL ahead. medscape.com/viewarticle/90… 
All 4 authors in our @bmj_latest paper are medical oncologists. It's our daily job to talk to patients about benefits and side effects of cancer drugs. What's the basis for suggesting that we didn't talk to patients? The no. of medical oncologists in the world is ..surprise. >1!
This statement assumes that cancer drugs make a difference between living and dying. I wish that were true, but it's not. This is false dichotomy. It's nearly always a trade-off, not such a clear dichotomy: life with drug, death without drug. Such false dichotomies hurt pts.
And the whole point of our article is we should ask the patients if the toxicities were acceptable, not just put those labels on our own to patients experiences. That's the entire message of our paper.
Ok, I don't have that long experience but I thought evidence spoke louder than experience. But, again, my big point is: WHY NOT LET THE PATIENTS DECIDE?
Also, while we are at it, maybe we should change the CONSORT guidelines? Why need toxicity data at all? Patients will tolerate anyways for marginal benefits, why bother? Lets change CONSORT because we were simply pointing at the discrepancy between CONSORT and reality. (satire)
