This follows on from a post a couple of weeks ago about this paper in the BMJ and the duty of doctors to explain both pros and cons of breast screening to patients. Here is a letter and article on this subject today in the Times.
Continue Reading →Antibiotics, antibiotics, available everywhere
Antibiotics don’t work on most colds, flu or sore throats. This is old news, but the Department of Health is re-launching their Antibiotic Awareness Campaign to remind us. Indeed, the more antibiotics are used, the bigger the problem resistance becomes. So I’d like to know what the sense is in making antibiotics prescribable by more healthcare […]
Continue Reading →Drug Truths: just not getting it
I’ve been reading a brave book that I wanted to like but I don’t. It is called Drug Truths: Dispelling the Myths about Pharma R&D. The author is John L LaMattina, who is the retired president of Pfizer Global Research and Development. The pharmaceutical industry has had a bad press over the past couple of […]
Continue Reading →Do St John’s wort and echinacea work?
Duchy Originals was established by the Prince of Wales in 1990 to raise the profile of organic food and farming. Lines from the company, which gives its profits to the Prince’s own charities, include Rose and Mandarin Shampoo, oaten biscuits, sherbet lemons and handmade Sandringham Strawberry Preserve. With regal glee, the Duchy website recently announced […]
Continue Reading →Brain training: better off dancing
The number of computer programs that promise to sharpen, train and preserve brain function seem to be proliferating. There has been a lot of press coverage about a paper in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia . The authors reviewed all the evidence available on interventions aimed at preserving cognitive function in healthy elderly people. Just as I […]
Continue Reading →Smoking: Your employer is watching you
In the UK, smoking in workplaces is banned. But we can do what we want in our own homes and in our own time (as long at it’s legal). Glancing through job adverts (reading them is a recurrent hobby, not a search) I note that the World Health Organisation wants to recruit only people who […]
Continue Reading →Are medical surveys good for our health?
Invitations have been pouring through letterboxes all over the UK to take part in the Biobank. If you haven’t received one already, let me explain what this particular bank wants from you (thankfully, it doesn’t involve money). The Biobank is a research project, and its aim is no less than to improve the “health of […]
Continue Reading →Dying of cold
The snow falls, public transport grinds to a halt, schools are closed, and the Met Office issues “severe weather” warnings. And death rates go up: as the temperatures drop, so-called “excess winter mortality” kicks in. This phenomenon has been noted in many other countries, too, but why does it happen? A reasonable suggestion is that fuel poverty […]
Continue Reading →Facing the facts about the MMR vaccine
When is it time to say “enough”? As Barack Obama settles into the White House, I am hoping that his new surgeon general, widely expected to be CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta, will decide that with one particular issue, the time has come. The MMR – measles, mumps and rubella – vaccine is […]
Continue Reading →Breast screening; better information?
For several years I have been trying – and, evidently, failing – to suggest that the information that women get about breast screening isn’t very balanced. The problem- as I see it anyway – is that services are geared to get women to turn up for screening. Whereas, I would like services judged not on […]
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