Editor,—When, somewhere between the Devonian and pre-Cambrian layers on the desk, I come across at a late hour a questionnaire, I do not always oblige. It falls into the category of the discretionary rather than the obligatory, and the obligatory now consumes all our physical, moral, mental, and spiritual resources.

When I was a student, cystic fibrosis and leukaemia were both incurable. Since then, the patterns have diverged. Thanks to a series of carefully designed multicentre Medical Research Council (MRC) trials, we have treatments for leukaemia that are based on firm evidence. In contrast, much of the current treatment of cystic fibrosis is based on dogma, masquerading as science.1 Resentment for filling in the MRC forms unless one’s …