Andrew Herxheimer

Andrew Herxheimer (born November 4, 1925 in Berlin ; † February 21, 2016 in London ) was a German- British doctor and clinical pharmacologist . He was the founder and editor of the independent Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin from 1963 to 1992 .

Life

Andrew Herxheimer's parents were the German internist Herbert Herxheimer and Ilse M. Herxheimer, née König. In 1939 the family emigrated to London . In 1961 he married Susan Jane Collier, the co-founder of the textile design company Collier Campbell. The marriage, which resulted in two daughters, was divorced in 1974. In 1983 he married again.

Herxheimer taught pharmacology at the London Hospital Medical College and the Charing Cross & Westminster Medical School, among others. He was particularly interested in the harmful effects of pharmaceuticals, which he believes are not investigated and communicated enough due to the funding of most clinical studies by the pharmaceutical industry .

In 2010 he was made an honorary member of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance and an honorary member of the British Pharmacological Society in 2015. Until immediately before his death at the age of 90, he participated in the development of pharmacology, evidence-based medicine and the patient movement through publications, lectures, conference visits and participation in working groups and committees .

Services

In 1962, Herxheimer founded the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin , the world's first ad-free, independent drug information sheet. The idea came to him during a research stay in the USA, where the Consumers Union , a consumer protection organization , had been publishing a periodical called The Medical Letter on Drug and Therapeutics since 1959 . The Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin was aimed at doctors and pharmacists and was committed to evidence-based medicine - at a time when this term was not even established. It appeared every fortnight and was published by the British Consumers' Association.

The draft articles were initially circulated in specialist circles in order to ensure a close connection to healthcare practice and to reach a consensus on questions on which there was no clear evidence. The finished articles were not identified by name - on the one hand because of their collaborative nature, on the other hand to protect the authors from disadvantages such as the loss of funds from the industry. Following the example of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin , Andrew's father, Herbert Herxheimer, together with other clinically active doctors in Germany founded the Medicines Letter in 1967 , the authors of which also had no business interests and always kept an eye on the undesirable effects of drugs. To support similar projects around the world, Andrew Herxheimer founded the International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB).

From 1992 Herxheimer worked for the English Cochrane Center; in 1993 he became a member of the Cochrane Collaboration . From 2007 until his death, he headed the Adverse Effects Methods Group, a Cochrane working group that studies methods for determining harm from medical interventions.

Based on their own experience as patients, Herxheimer and the doctor Ann McPherson (1945–2011) initiated the non-profit project Database of Individual Patient Experience of Illness (DIPEx) at Oxford University in 1999, which has been running the Healthtalk.org website since 2001. On it, patients describe how they experienced their illness and the treatment. Herxheimer is convinced that coherent stories are indispensable for understanding diseases: “Numbers need words.” The methods for collecting such patient stories were developed by the Health Experiences Research Group at Oxford University and are now used in similar projects in 14 other countries.

Works (selection, co-author)

• Nausea and vomiting: overview, challenges, practical treatments and new perspectives. Whurr, London and Philadelphia 2000, ISBN 1861560796 .
• Evidence-based dermatology. Blackwell Pub., Malden, Mass. and Oxford 2008. New edition: Wiley-Blackwell 2014, ISBN 978-1118357675

Web links

• Obituary by Sue Ziebland, University of Oxford
• Obituary from Cochrane UK
• Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin website
• Self-presentation by the Cochrane Adverse Effects Methods Group
• Healthtalk.org

Individual evidence

1. ^ Andrew Herxheimer obituary notice, Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 5, 2016 .
2. ↑ On Andrew Herxheimer's 80th birthday: Focus on patients .
3. ^ Obituary for Susan Collier, The Telegraph , June 6, 2011 .
4. ↑ obituary of ISOP .
5. ↑ Announcement of the BPS ( Memento of the original of February 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . 
6. ^ Obituary by Andrea Tarr, Veterinary Prescriber .
7. ^ Welcome speech by Dietrich von Herrath at the anniversary event on the occasion of the 40th year of Der Arzneimittelbrief , September 2, 2006 ( memento of July 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
8. ↑ obituary of healthtalk.org .