From a fascinating post on the latest attempts to make a drug to treat schizophrenia…..

Now, there’s been a lot of argument about whether the current generation of antipsychotic drugs is really better than the older ones. But I believe that they’re all supposed to come in better than a placebo. As Lilly points out, though, “inconclusive trials are common in neuroscience”, and they’re going to run another one and hope that the patients don’t all start improving again on powdered sucrose or whatever the placebo was. But this is especially surprising (and disappointing) because an earlier Phase II trial, run in a very similar design to the latest one, showed the compound working very well indeed. How do you go from such impressive results to no better than placebo in the same sort of trial design? Easy – just make sure that you’re developing a drug for schizophrenia. Or depression. Or chronic pain, or Alzheimer’s. Stick with the central nervous system, and your drug discovery career will never be boring.

From Spiegel….

A mysterious illness is causing calves to bleed to death on German farms. Veterinarians are stumped over what is causing the deaths: vaccines, genetically modified feed or perhaps even the first mother’s milk?

What can a cattle farmer do when he sees blood running from his calves like water, when they become lethargic and febrile and, by the next morning, are lying dead on the floor, their coats covered in blood?

“Our calves from last summer looked like they had been beaten,” says farmer Robert Meyboom, who is still shocked and perplexed today. “The animals’ bodies were covered with drops of blood, and their eyes were bloodshot.”