24 posts tagged “health”
Dr Ben Goldacre who blogs at Badscience.net posted the following on 5th Feb: Er, “help”. Legal Chill from LBC 97.3 and “Global Radio” over Jeni Barnett’s MMR scaremongering
LBC have instructed their lawyers to contact me.
Two days ago I posted about a broadcast in which their presenter Jeni Barnett exemplified some of the most irresponsible, ill-informed, and ignorant anti-vaccination campaigning that I have ever heard on the public airwaves. This is important because it can cost lives, and you can read about the media’s MMR hoax here.
To illustrate my grave concerns, I posted the relevant segment about MMR from her show, 44 minutes, which a reader kindly excerpted for me from the rest of the three hour programme. It is my view that Jeni Barnett torpedoes her reputation in that audio excerpt so effectively that little explanation is needed.
LBC’s lawyers say that the clip I posted is a clear infringement of their copyright, that I must take it down immediately, that I must inform them when I have done so, and that they “reserve their rights”.
~Click on the link I posted to read more.
The issue seems to be that the people who are backing the bad science are being legal bullies. Legal in that they are likely to be legally correct in applying the law. Bullies in that they are really trying to suppress a particular opinion. I don't know lots about the issues (I do know a bit about the MMR issue, that is different) and invite people to check it out for themselvs.
Cases of measles have risen sharply in parts of Europe, reflecting the mobility of people carrying the disease and the failure to complete vaccination strategies among key communities, The Lancet reported on Wednesday.
*Sigh*
The MMR vaccine debacle has been shown to be a whole load of hooey, yet people still choose to avoid the vaccine.
"Around 197,000 people died from measles in 2007, a fall of 74 percent from 2000, thanks to a massive immunisation campaign, according to WHO figures published on December 4.
In the early 1960s, as many as 135 million cases of occurred each year, six million of them fatal."
Yahoo Story LinkAn Italian court for the first time authorised a man on Wednesday to remove the feeding tube which has kept his daughter alive for 16 years, but the Vatican condemned the ruling as justifying euthanasia. Story Link
This may be a horrible question but who pay's for the medical care?
The last thing we want is people to be denied care because they can't pay, but in situations where there is negligible benefit, at what point is money/resource/time being used up when others could benefit?
Sadly there is, and probably always will be, a link between medical care and money. It is less visible with the NHS here, or any state subsidised care, but even then there is only so much in the pot and someone somewhere has to decide what is, or is not, important.
And in other medical news, "No criminal charges will be filed against medical staff at a troubled inner-city hospital over the death [from a perforated bowel] of a homeless woman who writhed in pain on the emergency room floor for nearly an hour, a county prosecutor concluded Tuesday."
OK. this shocks at first (and second) read. why did this happen?
Facts culled from this CNN Report:
~ Brought to hospital by police after screaming
~ Misdiagnosed with gall-stones
~ Triage nurse ignored her pain, and concern of others
~ She had been seen 5 times in the past 2 weeks & given medication
~ She was a homeless drug-addict and viewed as putting it on for food & drugs
~ The hospital was such a mess it was only seeing outpatients
~ Previous misdiagnosis meant she was already beyond help on arrival
It is wrong that she was allowed to suffer. It is wrong that the hospital was in such a state that no-one was paying real attention. It is wrong that someone becomes so pigeon-holed as "homeless drug-addict" that when they DO need actual help that they are ignored.
My last post/poll was about vaccinations in fact. [Note for Voxers, this was on my LJ]
Specifically vaccination of children against various diseases such as Mumps, Measles & Rubella (MMR). The problem is that the more parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated the lower the coverage.
22Feb2008: Measles cases jump by 30%
23May2008: Adults catch it too
Were you aware that all 3 of those are notifiable diseases along with things like plague, TB and rabies?
The article I pointed to in the poll post is about the US but:
CDC officials estimate that fully vaccinating all U.S. children born in a given year from birth to adolescence saves 33,000 lives, prevents 14 million infections and saves $10 billion in medical costs. Part of the reason is that the vaccinations protect not only the kids who receive the shots but also those who can't receive them—such as newborns and cancer patients with suppressed immune systems. These vulnerable folks depend on riding the so-called herd-immunity effect. The higher the immunization rate in any population, the less likely that a pathogen will penetrate the group.
Wikipedia explains the herd immunity best.
Yet, there is still a risk ~ oh the 'it causes autism' is semi-debunked, but people react to chemicals stuffed in their bodies in different ways. Adults react poorly to vaccines, antibiotics and all sorts of other stuff so why not kids?
Hence it is logical that a parent would choose not to immunise their child in the hope that they would be protected by the herd effect of everyone else being immunised. But that is the same view all the other parents are taking too.
At what point do people need to suffer to remember why they protect themselves?
Best-selling fantasy author Terry Pratchett is to donate $1m for research into Alzheimer's disease.
The creator of the Discworld series was diagnosed with a rare early-onset form of the disease in December. Pratchett, 59, will announce the pledge of about £494,000 at the Alzheimer's Research Trust annual conference. Telling leading dementia specialists of his determination to find a cure, he will say: "I intend to scream and harangue while there is time."
He is also quoted as going to say:
Personally, I'd eat the arse out of a dead mole if it offered a fighting chance. I am, along with many others, scrabbling to stay ahead long enough to be there when the cure comes along.
Say it will be soon - there's nearly as many of us as there are cancer sufferers, and it looks as if the number of people with dementia will double within a generation. In most cases, alongside the sufferer you will find a spouse suffering as much. It is a shock to find out that funding for Alzheimer's research is just 3% of that to find cancer cures.
That number translates (according to the article) ~700,000 people in the UK have Alzheimer's disease with £11 per patient per year spent on research into the disease. If you have cancer (in the UK) you get £289 / patient / year.
Sigh. My Paternal Grandmother had early onset Alzheimers in the 40s or 50s and ended up in an asylem as she couldn't be cared for at home: She was younger than her husband by 15-20 years (I forget) and he couldn't care for her. They were both dead before I was adopted when Dad was 40.
"I am, along with many others, scrabbling to stay ahead long enough to be there when the cure comes along."
I find that one line close to hearbreaking. For anyone, not just one of my all time favorite authors.
And it goes for so many diseases. And it is so expensive to find those chances, those vauge hopes to find out if that one, maybe, is the one that will help ease or even cure a particular suffering.
Dried Frogs Pills anyone?
Terry Pratchett: 'I had a stroke - and I didn't even notice'
Thankfully for Terry, who has sold 55 million books and just published Making Money —the 36th novel in the Discworld series — his ability to write, controlled by the left side of the brain, was unaffected.
"My speech is no less clear than before. I still have the lisp I was born with," he says.
It is likely that Terry suffered a transient ischaemic attack (TIA), a mini-stroke which can last a few minutes to a few hours and from which the sufferer recovers within 24 hours although there will, of course, be side-effects as brain cells are killed off.
Like Terry, many people often do not realise they've had a TIA, although retrospectively they might identify having had a "funny turn".
Terry responds waspishly: "My whole life is a funny turn."
I have a cold. This is annoying as I also have holiday next week.
However it is Halloween so sweets, sprouts and apples for the dear witchlings and ghosties tonight.
Trick or treat?
Of course this always brings out the discussion about is it right / wrong / demanding candy with menaces / excuse for egg throwing and mayhem.
So, a few weird tales for you:
Undead No, Unsober Yes! A man who fell asleep on a train after a Hallowe'en fancy dress party prompted a police investigation in Germany.
Britain's most haunted Blickling Hall topped a list of the National Trust's top 10 most haunted houses which was compiled to coincide with Halloween.
Its Breast Cancer Awareness Month. How many people do you know that have been touched by the disease?
Submitted by Karen.
I don't know. On-line, a few. Off-line, a couple.
This includes me.
My adoptive mother died of bone cancer almost 20 years ago which was secondary to breast cancer she had when I was 9, 11 years previously.
She didn't keep up the check-ups ~ we moved country, there was no continuity of care. It makes it more annoying if anything that there was no reason for this: we were not poor by any stretch, and always had good quality private health care. She... just didn't.
The balloons are from our work 'support Cancer research / Breast Cancer Awareness Month' day. We wore pink, we sponsored a balloon that was released with a tag. I wonder where mine will end up.
Are you a registered organ donor? Why or why not?
Submitted by jacolily.
Yes, In the UK. Why, because after death I am spare parts that will moulder in the ground as fertiliser if I am buried properly or be burned to increase CO2 emissions.
I do not believe that my body needs to be whole in order to ascend into heaven, let alone that heaven (as we poor humans comprehend it) even exists. I do believe in some form of Deity however.
I understand people get icky about being cut up and all sorts of yukky stuff, and hate the idea they will be dead one day and decompose unless pumped full of preservatives and stuck in a sealed box or burned to ashes as the fat drips to the floor and then burns into smoke in a crematorium, and I am not helping one bit!
I personally find the idea of being used as spare parts for the sake of someone else's life being far more reasuring and consoling than anything else.
In an ideal world I am as useful as possible post-mortality: spare parts used for as many people as possible, my corpse a possible teaching aid, and my body disposed of in a shroud buriel to be composted by a tree upon my grave.
Of course this all really depends on who is left behind to actually do this, and at the end of the day I may have my wishes but once dead it is those I leave behind that will be the only ones with a say.
HIV rise blamed on belief in cure ~ I just find this depressing!
The Dr quoted & Terrence Higgins Trust survey of 1,000 people both mention certain stats:
- 20% of 18-24 yo thought there was a cure.
- almost a 1/4 (25%) of 18-24 yo though condoms had holes which let HIV through.
You may have to take 2-3 different pills up to 4 times a day. You will have restrictions for LIFE* on what is a Good Idea (TM). So please, think.
May I also take the time to point out that in many parts of the world this is no longer predominantly a homosexual / drug user disease - in many many countries the primary source of infection is heterosexual / straight sex as shown by the fact that in Tamil Nadu (India) up to 50% of prostitutes have AIDS. Sleep with a prostitute, go home to your wife. In so many countries women do not have the right to ask their partners to wear a condom.
(A version of this is cross-posted to Livejournal_UK)
