Free link to BMJ article sorry, it’s here!
Continue Reading →The Lancet and aspirin and all cause mortality
There are three papers today in the Lancet about aspirin. I’m going to ignore the two papers about the effect on cancer metastasis, just now, and concentrate on the third, which is titled Short-term effects of daily aspirin on cancer incidence, mortality, and non-vascular death: analysis of the time course of risks and benefits […]
Continue Reading →New things – Inside Health and screening
My favourite subject – screening. There’s a column on Inside Health about it, as well as a feature on private companies who offer screening for aortic aneurysms. The references I used are here http://www.annals.org/content/152/8/505.full?aimhp http://www.scielo.org.ar/pdf/rac/v76n2/en_v76n2a20.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK33513/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK33507/ http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001923/carotid-endarterectomy-for-asymptomatic-carotid-stenosis http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Newspublications/News/MRC006173 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa070972 There is also a feature in the Times today, but it’s behind a paywall, about […]
Continue Reading →It’s cheaper from the publishers
compared with Amazon – see here http://www.pinterandmartin.com/product/The_Patient_Paradox%3A_Why_sexed_up_medicine_is_bad_for_your_health_978-1-78066-000-4 (plus, Pinter and Martin get to reinvest more in their next titles.)
Continue Reading →NEJM Alzheimers study: all it seems?
The study published yesterday has made the headlines across the media; ” The study they funded, led by Professor Robert Howard from the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has concluded that the drugs carry on working in people whose illness has become severe. “For the first time, […]
Continue Reading →Prostate awareness month
is here. Here’s an advert from their sponsors, Marks and Spencers. You’ll note that it says “My husband had prostate cancer. He had no signs or symptoms. How were we going to cope?” This sounds suspiciously like screening (although it may mean that he had no prostate signs or symptoms, but e.g. metastatic symptoms. I […]
Continue Reading →Inside Health – doctors are, of course, human
about whether it matters if your doctor smokes or is overweight. … Listen again is here. I note that Mark Porter says this is a soapbox – no way! The references I used are here, if anyone’s interested. http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.d8041 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/8861843?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn http://ntr.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/2/369.abstract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/8861843?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18425860 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2010.00821.x/abstract;jsessionid=CAC4
Continue Reading →Clare Gerada, Anna Soubry and ‘part time’ doctors
Clare was great. Anna Soubry was not. Andrew Neil: Anna Soubry’s boss, Simon Burns, he claims you don’t represent the views of GPs up and down the country in opposing these health reforms. What do you say to that? Clare Gerada: I think I do, I represent 44,000 GPs, of which over 90%, when we’ve […]
Continue Reading →The Patient Paradox has arrived.
I am cringing rather, but I’ve written a book, and I hope that it will a useful contribution to the debate about the limits of medicine and what doctors are for. The book covers the making of well people into patients for little gain and often harm (screening), what is normal and not, the perverse […]
Continue Reading →CMOs and vitamin D
Am rather concerned by the stipulation that all over 65s should have a vitamin D supplement when the evidence is rather less clear: see Cochrane, who are also clear about risk of harms. Ironic, given how few commercial skin products are SPF- free. Our reference: CEM/CMO/2012/04 Gateway reference: 17193 To: General Practitioners Practice Nurses Health […]
Continue Reading →