Great to see some straight talking common sense from the US. Just because you can have your genome dissected, doesn’t mean you should pay a few hundred pounds for your ‘genetic risk assessment’ as several UK and US websites currently offer. These tests may need FDA approval, says this piece from the New England Journal of […]
Continue Reading →Is your doctor a ‘high flyer’ or a ‘rule bound’?
The latest on AstraZeneca, who are having to pay 198 million US dollars to patients who have developed diabetes on the anti psychotic drug quetiapine is only one bit of a long story. The challenge being made is that the weight gain and tendency to diabetes for some patients was known by AstraZeneca but not acknowledged fully on the […]
Continue Reading →NHS cash for homeopathy
With all the cutbacks to NHS services, it’s worrying to note this job for a homoeopath in Dundee. Thanks to DC for drawing my attention to it – and applying …
Continue Reading →Is UK cancer survival so bad?
The idea that the UK is a bad place to get treated as cancer seems to have been accepted as truth by certain sections of the media. It just isn’t : I’ve been trying to say so for a while with no success whatsoever. Anyway this editorial in the BMJ looks at the reliablity of […]
Continue Reading →The Kings Fund on GP referral management centres
I’m not quite sure what I think of the King’s Fund: some of their papers seem to me to miss the point: academic distance from reality can be damaging. They have examined Referral Management Centres and concluded that they aren’t very good, which was obvious to GPs but lost on politicians. Quite interesting. What I […]
Continue Reading →Do charities need a health warning?
On bad statistics used by health charities, in the BMJ. Have had quite a few messages from doctors and nurses basically approving but none of dissent or otherwise from charities. hmm…
Continue Reading →The health care of detained asylum seekers
..is not being adequately met. Here’s an article just out in the BMJ about the situation. This is one situation which I do think would be helped by public pressure….
Continue Reading →The scandal of poor diagnosis in dementia that’s not
New research is a ‘wake up call’ for GPs- at least, according to Professor Steven Field, who is quoted today in the Telegraph as saying that doctors are needing more training in recognising dementia symptoms. The paper is in the BMJ, here, and I am rather amazed at the conclusions that both Field and the […]
Continue Reading →Not I, Professor Field
Professor Field, outgoing chair of the college I spend a small fortune to be a member of, the Royal College of GPs, has been on the radio rather a lot today. The news is: he scribed a cross article for the Observer, saying that “…too many of us neglect our health and this is leading […]
Continue Reading →Threading is better than Vaniqua
at least, I think so
Continue Reading →