Here are some of the references I used for todays’  Inside Health on HIV testing. One thing I didn’t get a chance to talk about was how prevalence – the number of cases within a community – influences the false positive rate in the people being tested. The bottom line is that false positives […]

Atos are one of the sponsors of the Paralympics. I struggle to know why. Atos have the multimillion pound contract from the Department of Work and Pensions to assess people who are sick. There are multiple problems with their assessments, and they have never published the evidence, or audit standards for the work they do. […]

Inside Health, all about overdiagnosis. Hope you like http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m0pq6 Here are some of the references I used : High blood pressure http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0012720/   http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD006742.pub2/abstract   http://www.hypertensionfoundation.org/PDInfo/JC5790-Moser.pdf   http://assign-score.com/estimate-the-risk/simd/   http://qintervention.org/   Pre diabetes   http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD005270/long-term-non-pharmacological-weight-loss-interventions-for-adults-with-prediabetes   http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3564   http://www2.wpro.who.int/wpdd/downloads/diabetes_book.pdf   http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2006/9241594934_eng.pdf   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1123928/   http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=193772   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1123928/   http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-08/aha-rie081612.php   http://www.diabetesresearchclinicalpractice.com/article/S0168-8227(07)00309-9/abstract   http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60525-X/fulltext   Osteopenia […]

If any GPs would be free to visit this survey page; http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22GH2CDF7BU I’d much appreciate your views on the insurance industry and paperwork. I’m giving a talk to a lot of people in the medical insurance industry at the end of the month and it would be useful to have your views UPDATE; the results […]

This is a hugely important subject – overdiagnosis. Tonight’s Inside Health is all about CKD, chronic kidney disease. Basically the measurements we use to measure kidney function changed in 2006 and millions of people have been given a ‘disease’ label – and the vast majority will not benefit from this. Here are some of the […]

piece in BMJ, here.

or not. References for tonight’s Radio 4 Inside Health are here. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0007103 http://www.bmj.com/content/309/6970/1690.1     http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2174599/Were-thrown-deep-end-warn-junior-doctors-Lack-help-supervision-deadly-risks-patients.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9350659/New-junior-doctor-rules-will-stop-NHS-killing-season.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9441885/Thousands-of-juniors-start-jobs-in-NHS-killing-season.html  

    References used for Radio 4 Inside Health debate on telehealth   http://mediacentre.dh.gov.uk/2011/12/05/govt-boost-to-uk-life-science-industry/ http://m.gponline.com/article/1127969/Exclusive-GPs-demand-telecare-savings-evidence http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/newsarticle-content/-/article_display_list/13313760/gps-urge-ministers-to-rethink-telehealth-drive-as-low-takeup-in-pilot-area-revealed http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/wsdan_results.html http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3874 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/11/184/ http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e3874#ref-13 http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/main-content/-/article_display_list/14160777/data-does-not-support-the-dh-s-extraordinary-claims-for-telehealth http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1149633

Mail piece here.   References include http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa070972 The Great Prostate Mistake. New York Times, March 2010. www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/opinion/10Ablin.html Franks LM, Latent Carcinoma of the Prostate, J Pathol Bacteriol, 68,2,603-606. http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/92/16/1280.short There are far more references here, many about screening.

LifelineScreening The Guardian, the Times, the Herald; there are probably more newspapers who have carried full pages adverts for Lifeline Screening over the last few years. This company offers screening tests – that is, tests on people who are completely well. If you have symptoms, the situation is very different. Screening sounds logical – picking […]