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 →Should pharmaceutical firms make cancer drugs more affordable?
The National Institute for Clinical Excellence is proposing that four drugs licensed for the treatment of renal cancer are not to be funded; they are not, we are told, ‘cost effective’. Charities, doctors groups and patients are reported today as condemning the situation with strong criticism of NICE. However, there are surely other criticisms due. If the […]
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 →The latest wonder drug
The problem with so many ‘wonder drugs’ is that one is prone to wonder drug fatigue. So is the new prostate cancer drug, abiraterone, lauded on so many front pages today the real thing? “Cancer drug could save the lives of 10,000 a year” says the Times, and it’s a big ‘could’. It’s a bit unusual for a study containing only 21 patients […]
Continue Reading →Channel 4 and the ‘cervical cancer vaccine’
I am always dubious about being interviewed (I prefer asking the questions.) I worry about how able I am to say what I mean to say, and often realise there was a better way of saying what I was trying to – but half an hour after I’ve left the building. A piece I wrote last year about the ‘cervical cancer vaccine’ […]
Continue Reading →Welcome
Hello. I am a GP in Glasgow and write the Second Opinion column in the FT magazine. My column used to be in the FT Weekend Life and Arts Section, and can be found here . I am hoping that this blog will be a forum for discussion of some of the myriad problems in healthcare, especially […]
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