Preventicum decided not to go to ASA council and have agreed to amend their adverts.   Because it’s informally resolved, the public don’t get to know what they have been told to change.   So here it is: they are no longer allowed to say that their non evidence based screening tests offer the “highest […]

this is a HUGELY important trial  Have a look at the patient information leaflet used with graphical information on benefit and harm informed choice lancet And then contrast it to the pink fluffy leaflet from the UK and ask yourself – who is treating women as autonomous, capable adults?  

ONS survey http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ghs/opinions-and-lifestyle-survey/adult-drinking-habits-in-great-britain–2013/stb-drinking-2013.html#tab-Key-points-in-2013- Institute of Alcohol studies information on recorded alcohol consumption http://www.ias.org.uk/Alcohol-knowledge-centre/Consumption/Factsheets/Total-consumption-in-the-UK.aspx Joseph Rowntree Foundation Click to access young-people-drinking-choices-summary.pdf Smoking and adults Click to access dcp171776_328041.pdf from HSCIC Click to access smok-eng-2013-rep.pdf ASH figures for 15 year olds Click to access ASH_106.pdf PHE/NICE figures for smoking and young people http://localhealth.org.uk/#l=en;v=map4

Social media and health messages https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270903628_Reexamining_Health_Messages_in_the_Digital_Age_A_Fresh_Look_at_Source_Credibility_Effects ECDC on social media, vaccination, trust Click to access TER-Immunisation-and-trust.pdf WHO on dealing with ‘vaccine hesitancy’ Click to access 3_SAGE_WG_Strategies_addressing_vaccine_hesitancy_2014.pdf Interesting on web 2.0 opportunities and threats http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22172504 on social media and information http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25413375 ‘new’ (2012) ‘reasons’ for not giving MMR in the UK http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11020883 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X12002083

https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/patients/patient-leaflets/air-travel-pregnancy/ Click to access sip_1.pdf    

Risk of cancer with gastric symptoms in primary care; http://www.nature.com/bjc/journal/v108/n1/full/bjc2012551a.html   The important bit is this table. Look at the PPVs (positive predictive values) on the right hand side.  so ‘dyspepsia’ in this population signals cancer 0.2% of the time. Other studies put it a bit higher, but I think this is the most relevant […]

cold weather warning from Public Health England – average temperatures to drop to 2 degrees or below. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-issues-cold-weather-alert Boiler on Prescription Report – The story so far (1) EvaluationofWarmFrontScheme Local action on fuel inequalities – cold home related fuel problems    Papers of note http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935102000099 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24602854 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21764645 “There was a fundamental belief that residents in […]

Tamiflu letter   Here is a letter from the directors of Thames Valley NHS England. Note the use of language regarding prescribing. Here is my response.

Who is counting the harms from changes to the benefits system?   Why I love #parkrun    

Forecasting with google flu trends – doesn’t work http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0056176 http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/12016836/The%20Parable%20of%20Google%20Flu%20(WP-Final).pdf?sequence=1 wikipedia was a bit better; correlation of page views and CDC data http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1003581 or there’s twitter, which fits on historical data modelling http://currents.plos.org/outbreaks/article/twitter-improves-influenza-forecasting/ Several models incorporated additional data besides clinical or laboratory-based surveillance data to generate forecasts, including internet search queries and meteorological data. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0094130 […]