etc, etc. I am getting quite bored of the homeopathy debate. It should have moved on a bit, really. So here is the state of play today: James Le Fanu in today’s Telegraph says the BMA, who have recently voted for NHS funding for homeopathy to be withdrawn, aren’t listening to patients but are instead […]
Continue Reading →Swine flu in the UK – how reliable are the numbers?
So how exactly do we know that there are – as the Health Protection Agency says -around 55,000 new cases of H1N1 “swine” flu each week – especially now that we are no longer swabbing patients before prescribing for it? Extrapolation. The HPA does give a range, between 30,000 and 85,000 cases. There are […]
Continue Reading →Affording the professions
The Fair Access to the Professions report is just out. The bottom line is that there are not many students studying medicine or law from lower social classes. According to the British Medical Association, just 4 per cent of medical students are from lower social classes. I for one am not convinced that it therefore all […]
Continue Reading →Health choices: and smoking in psychiatric hospitals
An interesting survey has been published by the Foundation for Mental Health. It’s called “Death of the smoking den, The initial impact of no smoking legislation in psychiatric units in England in 2008.” In the introduction to the report, Louis Appleby, the National Director for Mental Health is quoted as having said in 2007 “The rest of […]
Continue Reading →Getting to the point
Unfortunately, last week’s column of acupuncture seems to have upset a few people. On the one hand, those who believe in acupuncture have accused me of being unfair to complementary medicine. At the other end of the scale, alternative medicine sceptics have said I am too interested in what acupuncture has to offer. In order to solve this long-running debate once and for all, I’d like […]
Continue Reading →Acupuncturing a myth: column
Britain’s backs are in terrible shape. We spend more time off work because of back pain than for any other ailment, according to the NHS. So it’s not surprising that we are keen to relieve our suffering. A new study on acupuncture and back pain tries to do just this, though in truth it is […]
Continue Reading →Free pens, free lunch, and drug reps
I may not have seen a pharmaceutical rep for over five years, but still the branded pens they gift to medics continue to infiltrate my house and my handbag. I conciously throw out the drug company pens I find, but they just seep back in: every time I lose my own plain biro, there is […]
Continue Reading →Strike off whistleblowers?
Margaret Haywood was struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council last week. She had secretly filmed patients in the hospital where she worked to document the conditions, which she claimed to have previously reported. These images were subsequently broadcast on the BBC programme Panorama. There has been an outcry from nurses, as well as from some families […]
Continue Reading →Check the check up
And lo, the government said, we must woo voters. And they had a great idea: check ups. Let’s not leave them to the private providers. Let’s put them on the NHS. Everybody loves a check up. The Department of Health sets out its new idea in a policy paper “Putting prevention first – vascular checks: […]
Continue Reading →Making over the pharmaceutical industry
Or perhaps not so much a makeover, but a radical shift in how drug research is decided upon, performed and reported. The suggestions come from Sir Iain Chalmers, who is editor of the James Lind Library in Oxford, and Silvio Garattini, director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan. Writing in the […]
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