I am perturbed. The US Preventive Services Task Force, a government health body, has decided that doctors should stop offering prostate-cancer screening to men over 75. It has made a definitive statement: “Do not screen for prostate cancer in men age 75 years or older.” But instead of happy relief at this rare outbreak of […]
Continue Reading →Inequality kills
The World Health Organisation are presenting their findings of a three year investigation into the ‘social determinants of health’ today. The report is available here. We are all used to hearing that the latest health news is ‘shocking’ and ‘appalling’, but this report is a rare exception – it does actually deserve these descriptions. Life expectancy in one […]
Continue Reading →The curse of ‘wellness’
‘Health’ I understand. But ‘wellness’ ? ‘Wellness’ appears in the dictionary. But it is a mushy, ill-defined, nebulous word that is inherently anti-science (as it has no clear meanings or parameters). I find it to be a very irritating word. ‘Wellness’ is a word which, I have noticed, seems to increase in use in proportion to the money that […]
Continue Reading →Column: Why flu jabs for kids could protect the elderly
It may be summer, but doctors are already ordering stocks of vaccine ready for the flu season. The NHS pours a lot of money and effort into its annual drive to vaccinate as many people in the high-risk groups as possible, and it has a pretty decent record of doing so. So there’s a good […]
Continue Reading →Mortality not NHS’s fault
The latest medical scandal is that dead bodies are left on hospital wards for ‘hours’ before they are taken to the hospital morgue (so says the Herald in Glasgow, the Scotsman in Edinburgh, the Telegraph, the Independent and BBC News) . I discern a distinct lack of a story here. Dying happens, and I am […]
Continue Reading →NICE, not easy
Moan as we do about the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), which decides which drugs should be available on the NHS, the idea that there should be a rationale about rationing has been received rather differently across the Atlantic. In the US $2,000bn is spent annually on healthcare, but only 0.1% of this is […]
Continue Reading →Column: Are statins for everyone?
Pretty soon, it might well make more sense to ask who isn’t on statins, rather than who is. More than three million people are estimated to take these cholesterol-lowering pills – mainly to help reduce the risk of heart disease – and recent plans to offer everyone over 40 a cardiac risk assessment could more […]
Continue Reading →Over-the-counter Chlamydia treatments: is it all good news?
Pharmacists were reportedly delighted with a new scheme, just announced, to allow for azithromycin, an antibiotic, to be made available without a doctors’ prescription. This drug is a treatment for the sexually transmitted infection Chlamydia. Since Chlamydia infection can be without symptoms, and since, if it is left untreated over time, it can lead to […]
Continue Reading →Matters of life, death, and knickers
This week’s BMJ carries a review I’ve written on Iona Heath’s new book ‘Matters of Life and Death: Key Writings’. Dr Heath is a GP in London and is someone whose attitude towards medicine I’ve admired for many years. This book has made me think hard about what it is that doctors are meant to […]
Continue Reading →Nurses at the door
It was reported today that East Lancashire Primary Care Trust have a plan to deal with overweight schoolchildren. When the children return to school after the summer holidays they are to be weighed, and, if overweight, apparently they and their families will be ‘cold-called’ by nurses, who will then encourage them to lose weight. But […]
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