Medicine

Petition for you to Sign: Tobacco giant is attempting to dictate health policies in Uruguay

by

So here is the story (I’ve stolen the following text from the Wikipedia page all about this) … on 19 February 2010, when the multinational tobacco company Philip Morris International filed a complaint against Uruguay.[1] The company complains that Uruguay’s anti-smoking legislation devalues its cigarette trademarks and investments in the country and is suing Uruguay for compensation under the bilateral … Read more

Liverpool NHS to review £30k homeopathy bill

by

The Liverpool Echo reports the following bit of good news … Liverpool health bosses are spending £30,000 a year of taxpayers’ money on treatment the NHS admits does not work. The Good Thinking Society, a pro-science charity, threatened the Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) with legal action over its funding for homeopathy. The organisation has … Read more

Preventing Cancer

by

My Father had colon cancer, my grandfather had colon cancer, my great-grandfather had colon cancer (are you seeing a pattern here yet?), so if you have a family history like this then please keep reading. Now here is the challenge, colorectal cancer can be present for several years before symptoms develop, and by the time … Read more

Anti-Vax Lunacy “Melanie’s Marvelous Measles” gets trounced on Amazon reviews

by

Stephanie Messenger, an anti-vaccine advocate who truly believes that giving your kids Measles is the best approach, published a book on Amazon entitled “Melanie’s Marvelous Measles”. In this she advances the following absurd idea … Melanie’s Marvelous Measles was written to educate children on the benefits of having measles and how you can heal from … Read more

Making good choices – why do so many of us not do this?

by

Harriet Hall, the skeptic-doc, writes over on Science Based Medicine a fabulous article all about why people ignore the facts and instead buy into absurd ideas when it comes to making decisions that can potentially be the wrong side of the line between life and death. (Side note: she is a fascinating person, not only is she … Read more

The Detox myth busted

by

There is a really really good article over on the UK’s Guardian by Dara Mohammadi. For background, he is a Health and Science writer at the Guardian, also presents the Lancet’s news podcast, and is a senior assistant editor at the Lancet. “Detox” is one of those extra special words that if encountered should trigger … Read more