Christine Parry

Journalist

Christine Parry is a freelance science writer based in Kent

AI chatbots in pharmacy: a brave new world or looming threat?

Artificial intelligence-driven chatbots have been hitting the headlines since late 2022 and they appear to be evolving at lightning speed. But how is this technology likely to impact the world of pharmacy, and is it an opportunity or a threat?…

Prepare to say ‘Hi!’ to your virtual AI assistant

Computerised clinical decision support is evolving away from deriving rules from guidelines and expert knowledge, into using large datasets of patient case data and advanced artificial intelligence methods to personalise patient care at the bedside.…

Should we be genetic testing before prescribing analgesics?

Managing pain is difficult because there are various factors that can influence how it is perceived, but pharmacogenomic testing may be able to help fine tune pharmaceutical interventions.…

Medication tourism: how far would you go for the right drug?

With drugs up to 90% cheaper abroad, Britons are heading overseas to buy medicines, fuelled by news of medicines shortages or social media tales of miracle cures — but the after-effects could be dangerous.…

Chronic fatigue: it is time to take its treatment more seriously

Long-standing underinvestment has left fatigue science decades behind the understanding of other chronic symptoms. Will the spotlight on long COVID research finally move the field forward?…

Opening the black box: the researchers trying to find treatments for long COVID

With an estimated 1.5 million people living with long COVID in the UK, and this number expected to grow, understanding this troubling condition and how to treat it has never been more important.…

Antivirals for COVID-19: five questions that must be answered

The UK government has secured 730,000 doses of two new oral antivirals that it hopes will help to stop COVID-19 in its tracks and keep vulnerable people out of hospital this winter.…

Why it is too soon to celebrate the Alzheimer’s ‘wonder drug’

The US approval of aducanumab — the first disease-modifying drug for Alzheimer’s disease — based on a trial with a surrogate endpoint, has caused quite a stir. Here we look at the controversy and what the approval might mean for Alzheimer’s research.…

Fatal mistakes: why do ten-fold medication errors in children keep happening?

This feature explores the issue of ten-fold medication errors in children — currently the subject of a national investigation — and what could be done to eliminate them once and for all.…

Taking the P: why the founder of P-values would be turning in his grave

How P-values are used today has gradually morphed further and further from their intended use and scientists are now questioning the prominence they are given when interpreting clinical trial data.…