When I was at medical school, hormone replacement therapy was not just the treatment of choice for the flushes and sweats of menopause. It was also thought to reduce the risk of heart attacks, strokes, dementia, colon cancer, bone and even teeth loss. Yet over the past few years new research has made many doctors […]
Continue Reading →Is paracetamol still safe for children?
Medical lore has created something of a cult around the measurement of children’s temperatures. A fever seems to be something which is suspected and then recorded, swiftly followed by the administration of medicine to “bring it down”. Some confessions. My home medical kit isn’t up to much. At one point it did contain a thermometer, […]
Continue Reading →The President’s records
When it was announced that both the presidential candidates were allowing sight of medical information about them to be read and reported on by journalists, I was slightly perturbed. Sure, I could see that perhaps the knowledge that one had no outstanding concerns with their health might – might – have some kind of relevance […]
Continue Reading →Why randomised trials still work best
The only thing separating reiki and reflexology from rational medicine and progress is evidence. And what evidence-based aficionados like me love best is the randomised controlled trial, the process by which most drugs and treatments aspire to be tested. But are we now hearing its death rattle? In a recent lecture at the Royal College […]
Continue Reading →‘Normal’ cholesterol: to treat or not to treat?
Much ado with a new paper published by the New England Journal of Medicine . This study was placebo controlled and focused on treating people with “normal” cholesterol but a high “c-reactive protein” (a marker of inflammation) with rosuvastatin (which is not a new statin as some media outlets have reported, but one already in use). Reports have […]
Continue Reading →“Professionals” in pay
“GlaxoSmithKline is to make public the level of advisory fees it offers to doctors and medical academics, and will strictly cap the payments they can receive in the US to $150,000 (£88,000) a year each. Andrew Witty, chief executive of the UK-based pharmaceutical company, said he was introducing tougher new rules to impose a cap […]
Continue Reading →A CT scan is not the answer
Free newspapers, a takeaway menu, special offers from the supermarket and, in the pile of mail cascading on to the doormat, a glossy leaflet from a health clinic, advertising a special check-up service. “Put your mind at ease with a health check from Lifescan, the UK’s leading provider of private CT assessments,” it said, alongside […]
Continue Reading →The ASA and Lifescan
The Advertising Standards Authority have announced that they are upholding my three complaints against a leaflet about Lifescan. You and Yours are doing a piece about it at noon today. More on this later.
Continue Reading →The two-tier NHS
Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, has announced that patients will now be allowed to buy and be treated with medicines not available on the NHS – but without affecting that person’s entitlement to NHS care. Previously, the rule had been that if a patient was having additional treatment in the private sector, they lost their […]
Continue Reading →Dealing with the fall-out
In the wake of the subprime crisis and the stock market slide, counselling and psychotherapy services have been quick with offers of help for those dealing with the fall-out. A generation or two ago, discussion of one’s personal problems was more commonly done in the public house, with a priest or parson, or with friends […]
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