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Health Care

Doesn’t ring right really

Calmette and Guérin could have never imagined that their research would inspire scientists investigating an entirely different kind of disease more than a century later. Yet that is exactly what is happening, with a string of intriguing studies suggesting that BCG can protect people from developing Alzheimer’s disease.

If this is true then those who have had the BCG should be protected against Alz. Yet all those in the care homes are of an age where they would have had the BCG in childhood…..

What’s the bit I’m missing here? Attenuation (right word?) of the effect over time?

That’s somewhat, umm, unlucky

Man dies from measles in Ireland
It is the first confirmed case of measles in Ireland this year

We all know that measles can kill, obviously. But for the one single case so far this year to end in death – and of an adult – is somewhat unlucky, no?

Umm

Prosecutors in Canada have upgraded murder charges against the man who allegedly mailed “suicide kits” and is allegedly linked to more than 100 deaths in several countries.

Kenneth Law, who is due to appear in court on Thursday, now faces 14 counts in Ontario of first-degree murder and 14 counts of counselling and aiding suicide in the province. Canada’s criminal code punishes anyone who “counsels or abets” a person to die by suicide with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison. The victims range in age from 16 to 36.

Fair number of doctors are going to get caught by that, aren’t they?

Oooops, sorry, of course it’s legal for the State to do what people can’t.

Two things here

A former Champneys spa doctor has been struck off after he had a nine-year affair with a patient.

GP Simon Berrisford, 57, began seeing the woman after meeting her during a consultation.

The woman, named only as Patient A, was also given prescription drugs from Mr Berrisford until the couple split up in 2018.

Yes, shagging the patients is a bad idea.

But there’s an obvious thought. The complaint came 9 years later – after the split up. Which leads one to possibly suspect that it wasn’t the how they met but how they left which led to the complaint. Almost as if there was this technical matter which could be weaponised over the leaving, not the meeting.

But this:

‘‘The Tribunal acknowledges Dr Berrisford’s ongoing right to deny the allegation but found that his characterisation of the GMC’s proceedings as ‘persecutory nonsense’ exemplifies his hostile attitude towards his regulator.’’

How very dare you not take the posturings of bureaucrats seriously? A most serious crime that is.

Something I didn’t know

Just recently we had someone claiming that beating diptheria was one of those NHS victories:

By February 1945, 73% of children received milk in school, compared with 50% in July 1940. Free vaccination against diphtheria was also provided for children at school.

Nowt to do with the NHS at all.

Possibly, possibly

Prof Monica Lakhanpaul, a consultant paediatrician at Whittington health NHS trust, said she was encountering more children with iron and vitamin deficiencies and rickets, caused by a lack of vitamin D and calcium, describing the problem as a “hidden crisis”.

While there has been a focus on reversing these deficiencies in low- and middle-income countries, she said, children in the UK were increasingly at risk. “We don’t screen for it, we actually don’t know the scale of the problem on a population basis. That’s my worry,” she said. “What’s on our doorstep we forget about very quickly. We need to know as a nation that people’s health in this country is deteriorating.”

Strongly linked to milk intake, yes, but also sunlight. One of the reasons paler skin developed was in order to be able to process – into thoser vitals – the weak sunlight of a Northern winter.

Has there been any substantial change in the skin colour of the British population over the past 10 to 15 years? Well, yes, actually there has. Would I insist that’s the cause?

Nope. But those who collected this information should probably do some checking against ethnic origin, no?

But then this is The Guardian, so of course they won’t.

Just a little thing

AstraZeneca vaccine linked with ‘spike’ in cases of rare disease that can paralyse victims
As studies report rise ‘attributable to’ Covid jab, The Telegraph speaks to people who developed Guillain-Barré syndrome after vaccination

But this is a known side effect of all vaccinations.

Now, whether there’s more with this one is interesting, possibly even important. But some? Normal.

Typical doctors

Medics treating critically ill babies are quitting their jobs owing to “considerable moral distress” caused by a rightwing Christian group behind a series of end-of-life court cases, the Guardian has been told.

Senior doctors claimed the behaviour of some evangelical campaigners was “prolonging the suffering” of seriously ill infants. They accused them of “selling falsehoods and lies” to families and of using legal tactics condemned by judges.
….

He said: “These groups are complicit in prolonging suffering and not allowing for a good death, which makes someone’s death longer and more painful than it needs to be. That’s what keeps us awake at night.”

How dare anyone disagree with my estimation of someone else’s life?

This is how we got eugenics of course…..

I don’t understand

Winter is coming, as it always does, and the NHS creaks and groans. The chancellor will not tomorrow hand over the £1bn it needs to cover the cost of strikes,

The NHS doesn’t charge for, doesn’t get paid by, the number of treatments it gives. So, a strike which reduces treatment should not reduce revenue. But a strike should reduice costs – as it’s not paying the strikers.

So, what £1 billion cost of strikes?

Lower costs, same revenues, what costs?

Just an amusement

A potential cure for two inherited blood diseases using gene therapy has been authorised by Britain’s medicine regulator in a world first.

The treatment, Casgevy, for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia, is the first to be licensed using the gene-editing tool known as Crispr – which earned its inventors a Nobel Prize in 2020.

That the treatment exists is wondrous and that it’s authorised is good. That it costs £1 million a pop isn’t so good but give it 15 years (-ish) for the patent to run out and it’ll drop to £50k a pop or whatever. For a one-time treatment that cures a genetic problem. Excellent, the world gets better every day.

The amusement? We’re the first to approve a treatment for diseases which – before the mass immigration of the past couple of decades – pretty much didn’t exist in Britain. They’re pretty strongly – to very strongly in fact – linked to, respectively, West African or Mediterranean genetic background. Still a good thing, it just does amuse.

Well, yes, obviously

Boris Johnson told scientists he was in favour of a Swedish-style approach to the pandemic, rather than more lockdowns, in Autumn 2020, an Oxford University epidemiologist has told the Covid Inquiry.

As the inquiry prepares to hear from Mr Johnson’s closest advisers this week, evidence from Professor Sunetra Gupta suggests that the former prime minister was persuaded by a Swedish expert that lockdowns could be avoided by implementing less restrictive rules.

Given that the Swedish plan was the original British plan of course it was a good idea.

Some people, really…..

The e-commerce giant launched Amazon Clinic last year, a virtual healthcare center allowing customers to speak with a healthcare professional for minor illnesses. The new ”cough, cold and flu” addition will connect users with a telehealth professional who can prescribe medicine through Amazon Pharmacy. Amazon rolled out other healthcare amenities earlier this year such as one-hour drone deliveries for medicine in Texas and $5-a-month drug prescriptions with RxPass.

Amazon Clinic does not require insurance or an appointment, and the company says it can treat more than 35 minor illnesses such as pink eye, erectile dysfunction and urinary tract infections, all from the Amazon app.

Apparently this is free with Prime?

Anyway, cheap, immediate, online health care is evidence that:

Amazon Clinic Is the Latest Sign That American Healthcare Has Failed Us
Other countries have free healthcare,

My sweet summer child……

Oh, right

Canada will legalize medically assisted dying for people who are addicted to drugs next spring, in a move some drug users and activists are calling “eugenics.”

The country’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) law, which first came into effect in 2016, will be expanded next March to give access to people whose sole medical condition is mental illness, which can include substance use disorders. Before the changes take place, however, a special parliamentary committee on MAID will regroup to scrutinize the rollout of the new regulations, according to the Toronto Star.

Anyone familiar with hte phrase “slippery slope”?

The other thought being, well, how long will it be before someone else gets to decide, not the individual?

Wrong decision

Mercy killings may not always be prosecuted, new guidance suggests
Dignity in Dying welcomed the new guidance, which they said distinguishes between malicious homicide and compassionate assistance to die

Always, but always, prosecute. That’s what the jury’s there for – to decide.

The Glorious NHS, Wonder of the World it is

The NHS Trust had asked the court to approve a palliative care plan for Sudiksha, meaning that she would no longer receive dialysis and would die from kidney failure within a few days. The trust believed that her apparent refusal or inability to accept that her disease will result in her early, if not imminent, death amounted to a “delusion” and therefore she is incapable of making decisions for herself.

The proof that you are mad and should therefore die is that you wish to keep living.

Fuck ’em

Can you say professional protectionism?

Doctors have launched a campaign to curb the use of unregulated assistants being deployed as a “short-term fix” to plug gaps in the NHS workforce.

Medics say that the health service is turning more and more to “associate” practitioners because they are much quicker and cheaper to train.

They have warned patients, often unaware when they are seen by such staff, that they are not being treated by a qualified doctor.

Friedman on hte AMA is a good guide to what’s happening here.