Antibiotic Resistance. A Dire Emergency on Planet Earth – (fixable if the price is right…)
The issue of ineffective anti-biotics is one driven more by market economics than treatment resistant diseases. A change of spending priorities could change the face of global health, but given the profit margins, this is unlikely to happen.
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Mr Drew’s School
The unintended consequences of targeted school interventions ‘Well what did I come down here for? Do you not know? I’m a problem child. I have problems behaving. Is there a part of that you don’t understand?’ Clark, aged 11, Mr...
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Statins – making people ill for the common good?
While Public Health zealots trumpet their claim to the moral high ground over statins, it’s still worth asking: “are they right?” Here’s a strange piece of news. This week, two of Britain’s top doctors (Knights of the Realm, no less)...
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Holiday parasites and furry friends
What did you bring back from your last holiday? Some happy memories, a sun-tan or perhaps something more exotic? A parasite? A stray dog? Both? Seventy-five per-cent of new human diseases are zoonotic. Concern for human public health means monitoring...
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Letter from America
A visit to the ‘land of freedom’ with its catastrophic health care costs is a warning not to be complacent about the NHS … Where it’s brushed against poison ivy, Kelly’s skin is badly blistered, a rash slowly spreading down...
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The English school food plan needs a few more ingredients
Schools are a key battleground for public health professionals and policy-makers trying to improve young people’s diet in the UK and internationally. The Department for Education recently released a new English School Food Plan (SFP) which was produced by the founders...
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Fat Chances? The Obesity Problem in Tamworth
A childhood friend recently told me Tamworth, a Staffordshire town which I’ve called home for the majority of my 25 years, had received the tragic honour of being the UK’s ‘fat capital’. This particular term was used by Joanna Moorhead...
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Be happy, be healthy and get well soon
Rows continued to rumble this week about the proper content of general practice in the new NHS. Are GPs ducking their responsibility for out of hours care? Are they being pulled away from medical practice by the new responsibilities of...
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Older and cared for
Recently I was gently but clearly reprimanded in my local pharmacy. I had gone with my chicken-poxy child to buy some anti-itch ointment. Sweden, like the UK, does not routinely vaccinate children against the varicella zoster virus. ‘It’s very contagious,...
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Black masculinities and ‘the Beast’ that is prostate cancer
A new report Hear me Now by the organisation BME Cancer Communities has highlighted an ‘uncomfortable reality’: black African Caribbean men in the UK are 30 per cent more likely to die from prostate cancer than white men. They have...
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“Processed meat” – it is advisable to engage brain before opening mouth
When the number crunchers at the EPIC project noticed a significant statistical association between processed meat consumption and premature death, someone involved thought it was a good idea to go public. And what better way to draw their findings to...
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Statins and their side effects