The best evidence that we have about the effectiveness and harms of breast screening comes from a large review done independent of the breast screening industry – with a patient information booklet available here – which states that It may be reasonable to attend for breast cancer screening with mammography, but it may also be reasonable […]
Continue Reading →Too many referral forms
I’m very chuffed to have a piece in the Christmas BMJ, jointly with two colleagues. It’s here
Continue Reading →The first day of (detox) Christmas
I forgot to put up the first detox press release of this Christmas season. I know I shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t help it. Sense about Science on detox remains good. ” Please see attached some information on Chris James’s brand new 12 Day Mind & Body Cleanse. I’ve also attached his biography so you […]
Continue Reading →Aspirin: don’t believe the hype. It’s still not a miracle drug
From yesterdays PM, Radio 4: Professor Peter Elwood, epidemiologist at Cardiff University: “I have always held that it is for the individual himself or herself to decide whether or not he or she would take aspirin – they should be told the risks or the benefits and it should be the patients or subjects value […]
Continue Reading →Selling health to the public
for the BMJ, article here.
Continue Reading →Healthcare charities and the uselessness of GPs (again)
..and so, again and again, that GPs are in some way ‘undertrained’. We aren’t specialists – we are generalists. It’s a different job, with different skills. But it’s a myth to repeat that just because a GPs doesn’t have specialist training somehow means that the doctor is incompetent or lacking in training. GP training consists […]
Continue Reading →The NHS, complaints, and data
I’ve said it so many times I am boring myself, but if you want to save money in the NHS it’s not so hard to do it. Choose and Book, all NHS logos and branding, all NHS advertising health promotion campaigns, NHS Direct for all except acute care, the electronic records system, etc, etc, etc. […]
Continue Reading →Health insurance – on a TV near you
It was actually quite hard to track down the adverts for this piece from the BMJ. Thank goodness for Youtube
Continue Reading →The advertising policy for this site
has just been written. I have been approached by several suppliers over the last few months asking for advertising of their health related products or “even better”, guest posts on this site. Never mind that these are things which usually come with very little evidence attached – and the answer is of course no. To […]
Continue Reading →Peter Wilmshurst, free speech and libel
An article in TheHeart.org – Dr Wilmshurst is now being threatened with libel over a radio interview he did a year ago. I interviewed Dr Wilmshurst for the FT at around the same time. It was a shortish interview, discussing the reasons why he’d spoken out about the research he’d been involved with and the […]
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