The NHS’s multifarious patient information leaflets are inaccurate, inconsistent, and confusing, finds Margaret McCartney, and effort is duplicated because each trust commissions its own, often from the private sector Patient information leaflets: “a stupid system” – Free link
Continue Reading →Weekend death rates; confusion and hype
The Today programme have said that there is ” fresh evidence that people who are admitted to hospitals in England at weekends face a significantly increased risk of death.” 4 days ago, the Telegraph reported that Andrew Lansley had decided to fund hospitals to work 24/7 with no weekend change to staffing, and the report cites […]
Continue Reading →False hope and real living
The Quackometer has had some rather unpleasant emails following his criticism of the Burzynski clinic. The issue is that some people wanted to kindly raise money for a child with cancer to be treated there, when the evidence for the proffered interventions is questionable. Other people have examined the science very well. There is something […]
Continue Reading →Show us the evidence for the flu jab
Article in Pulse magazine about flu vaccination in healthcare professionals. Concluding; there is not good enough evidence, and we should be invited to join a trial, not told we are ‘selfish’ for not having it. (Free registration required)
Continue Reading →More or Less
Little 7 minute section on the placebo effect, acupunture, and ethics. Available on listen again on iplayer, here.
Continue Reading →NSAIDs and cardiac arrhythmias
I am beginning to understand Twitter a bit. I was intending to go and write about the headlines earlier this week, about NSAIDs and the risk of cardiac arrhythmias, which made several front pages earlier this week. The Metro put it like this ” popular painkillers such as ibuprofen can put patients at risk of heart […]
Continue Reading →The Surgical Checklist – twitter journal club
Quite excited about Twitter journal club, which is 8pm on Sunday @twitjournalclub The paper for TODAY(!) is “A Surgical Safety Checklist to Reduce Morbidity and Mortality in a Global Population“. At the time it was published ,in 2009 in the NEJM, I had concerns about it, here. A few other people did too, but criticisms […]
Continue Reading →Sick people die more often: not very surprising
ASSOCIATION IS NOT CAUSATION. Now that I’ve cleared that up, let us examine the paper causing the headlines today . “Over 65s who take more than one medicine should consult their doctors. Taking some commonly used medications in combination leads to an increased risk of death or brain impairments in over 65s” says the Guardian. […]
Continue Reading →An early test for Alzheimer’s?
Medicine in the media piece in the BMJ. As a follow up to this Daily Mail article, and the Food for the Brain enterprise.
Continue Reading →Is the US waking up to the harms of screening?
Thanks to Joe Stirt for this. This Washington Post article seems to suggest that there is at least a little bit of light emerging in the debate about breast screening. But they don’t go far enough – breast screening causes harm, tangible, real harm, to women who are diagnosed with tumours that would never have […]
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