Would anyone like to help the cause of homeopathy? There is an interesting job description in the British Medical Journal this week. It is for both an expert and a lay person to ‘contribute actively’ to the Advisory Board on the Registration of Homeopathic Products. The pay is £275 a day, and they have 11 meetings a […]
Continue Reading →The quiet claims of fruit and veg
There are yogurts with cholesterol-reducing properties and other dairy products which can supposedly produce “optimal” bowel health. Then there are baked beans with “added omega threes” and drinks that profess to reduce blood pressure. The European Food Safety Authority is now providing “opinions” on the science behind such claims. However a lot of the claims […]
Continue Reading →NICE, not easy
Moan as we do about the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), which decides which drugs should be available on the NHS, the idea that there should be a rationale about rationing has been received rather differently across the Atlantic. In the US $2,000bn is spent annually on healthcare, but only 0.1% of this is […]
Continue Reading →Over-the-counter Chlamydia treatments: is it all good news?
Pharmacists were reportedly delighted with a new scheme, just announced, to allow for azithromycin, an antibiotic, to be made available without a doctors’ prescription. This drug is a treatment for the sexually transmitted infection Chlamydia. Since Chlamydia infection can be without symptoms, and since, if it is left untreated over time, it can lead to […]
Continue Reading →Nurses at the door
It was reported today that East Lancashire Primary Care Trust have a plan to deal with overweight schoolchildren. When the children return to school after the summer holidays they are to be weighed, and, if overweight, apparently they and their families will be ‘cold-called’ by nurses, who will then encourage them to lose weight. But […]
Continue Reading →Column: Can Viagra work for women?
Sex sells. I suppose this is why the results of a study entitled ”Sildenafil Treatment of Women with Antidepressant Associated Sexual Dysfunction” were reported with great enthusiasm around the world after they were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama). Yet the study is interesting for a number of reasons. Rest of […]
Continue Reading →Prostate cancer screening – maybe not, says the USA
Prostate cancer screening via use of a PSA (prostatic specific antigen) testing – a biological marker found in blood – is one of the most contentious things around. There is no such contention over seeking diagnosis and treatment for prostate symptoms. It is screening for problems when no symptoms exist that is the issue. While […]
Continue Reading →Homeopathy – good news
One of the medical newspapers, Pulse, has a news article saying that there has been a drop in the number of homeopathic prescriptions by GPs in the UK. In 2005, there were 83,000 written, and in 2007, it had fallen to 49,300. This is good news. It could be that GPs are becoming more critical about the […]
Continue Reading →Column: When tests do more harm than good
Ever more medical tests are becoming must-haves. Now the glomeruli, the hardworking but scarcely acknowledged filters of the kidney, are at last to have their 15 minutes of fame. Taiwanese researchers, reporting recently in the Lancet, say we should all know how well ours are performing. However, the blood test to establish the “glomerular filtration […]
Continue Reading →Health Visitors: evidence and immunisations
What do Health Boards do when something works very well? Change it, of course. Health visitors are the senior and specialist nurses who work in general practice and take a special interest in new mothers and children. While a generation or two ago women might have had physically close relatives with whom to share information and […]
Continue Reading →