now is the time. 330 cases in England in last 4 months. 4,000 cases so far this year in France. Some have died. The WHO says that 18 children die hourly from this preventable illness. MMR is free from your local NHS surgery.
Continue Reading →Panorama and care homes
I couldn’t watch this programme. The abuse was horrific. If you don’t know already, it was about physical and emotional abuse delivered by ‘care’ staff in a private hospital to patients with complex learning disability and mental health problems. Question Time just now is going on about private vs NHS care services. There is no […]
Continue Reading →Atos adverts tug at heartstrings
At least, they try to. New style advert in the BMJ today. Previous ads have emphasised that working for Atos, as ‘disability assessors’ for their contract with the DWP, is good for ‘work life balance‘. The newly worked ad says that “you could make the difference that gives someone on incapacity benefit a brighter future…It’s […]
Continue Reading →The British Journal of General Practice does acupuncture badly
Vested interest: I wrote to the new editor of the BJGP a few months ago asking if I could write about Atos, their disability ‘assessments’, and general practioners, but had an unenthusiastic response. I put this to one side, I hope, to discuss their shiny cover which is very yellow, and gives big font joy […]
Continue Reading →Why doctors should desist from being agents of the state
Just released files published by the Guardian. “Intimate examinations – used to “check the marital status” of Indian and Pakistani women coming to Britain to marry – were on a far wider scale than was previously known. The practice was banned in February 1979 after the Guardianexclusively reported that a 35-year-old Indian woman teacher was […]
Continue Reading →Turning sexual health clinics into prisons
My friend Ben Holden speaking out about the prison created in the sexual health clinic where he works. Asylum seekers are people first.
Continue Reading →NICE guidance on ovarian cancer diagnosis
NICE, in new guidance, are telling GPs to perform CA-125 tumour markers in patients with possible ovarian cancer. They say “Asking the right question – first tests Measure serum CA125 in primary care in women with symptoms that suggest ovarian cancer (see section 2.1 on page 43). If serum CA125 is 35 IU/ml or greater, arrange […]
Continue Reading →Plos Medicine on Guantánamo Bay
A sobering and uncomfortable read. Which makes it important that we do
Continue Reading →“Setting an example?” – BMA news article on screening misses the point.
I wish I could link to this article, which is published as a feature in BMA News, a supplement that comes with the BMJ. It’s worrying. “Professor (Erica) Frank, research chair in preventative medicine and population health at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, has spent more than 20 years examining the relationship […]
Continue Reading →Public appointments of note
for an Audit Committee and Lay Member of the General Chiropractic council.
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