Placebo, participation and surgery
A therapeutic effect that cannot be attributed to an active ingredient of medication is termed ‘placebo’. The ‘placebo effect’ is far from a neutral description of the effect of ‘inert drugs’, being associated with the quackery and deception of sugar...
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Scotland’s Drug Death Crisis
The newly published figures of annual drug-related deaths (DRD) in Scotland are appalling. The National Records of Scotland figure of 867 represents the highest annual total recorded – a 23% increase on the previous year, and a 100% increase since 421 Scottish...
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Why we keep playing the Generation Blame Game … and why we need to stop
Successive generations’ healthy disregard of the previous generation’s tastes, habits and customs is a necessary ingredient of human progress. But there is something about the current carving up of the population into ever smaller generational slices of entitlement and opprobrium...
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UK policy turns people with learning disabilities into commodities, study reveals
There are well over a million people with learning disabilities in England. Like anyone, people with learning disabilities or autistic people can experience times of crisis and heightened distress, particularly when they and their families have not had the support they need....
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Climate change set to increase air pollution deaths by hundreds of thousands by 2100
Climate change is set to increase the amount of ground-level ozone and fine particle pollution we breathe, which leads to lung disease, heart conditions, and stroke. Less rain and more heat means this pollution will stay in the air for...
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The ADHD chronicles: Squeezing through the bars of the iron cage
My first two attempts to get evaluated for ADHD only resulted in promises that the psychologist would call me back. This never happened, and the only official indication that I was ever in contact with him/her was the invoices I...
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Not in the club? It’s par for the course
Golf is a game where individual players hit a small plastic and rubber ball (a descendant of the ‘hairy ball’ it is believed), with a largely metal club. It is widely understood to have originated in Fife, on the east...
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Falling out of love with the car?
Have we reached ‘peak car’? Many pointers in the UK and internationally suggest we have. There’s been a slow down, even a reverse, in our love affair with the private car. On average, those of us in high income countries...
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Governing in the heat
As I write it’s baking hot, and seems to have been for days. The usual risks apply to writing about it though. By the time this is published the thunder storms we have been promised may have brought cooler wetter...
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On Brexit, Nurses and Migrant Workers in the NHS
Figures released this week by the Nursing and Midwifery Council show a 96% drop in the number of EU nurses applying for jobs in the UK after the Brexit vote in June 2016. In July 2016, 1304 nurses joined the...
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Tory landslide Was Averted
So, there is a general election tomorrow. Maybe one of the most critical elections in the post-war period. If you are reading this blog, the chances are that you deeply care about the NHS, schools, universities and believe in having...
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Why the NHS needs an immigration policy with strict hypocrisy controls