This thought hit me over the weekend in Tesco’s car-park; I was still mulling over the reliability, or lack thereof, of science reporting in the media. I was also thinking about the PCC and how powerless it is, largely because it’s simply a boys’ club for editors. However, in my finding-a-trolley reverie, it occurred to […]
Category: Thinking Aloud
Night Thoughts on Journalism
There’s an illuminating item that’s recently been posted on Enemies of Reason about the way that the press has been handling H1N1, and the way in which the distinction between deaths from and deaths with the illness has been blurred. And it’s very easy to look at the newspaper stands and laugh at the manner in which […]
Can Saving a Life be the Wrong Thing to Do?
Doubtless many of you will have heard by now of Kerrie Wooltorton, who, apparently depressed by her fertility problems, drank anti-freeze, called an ambulance, and handed a living will to staff at A&E. Her story is reported by the Telegraph under the headline “Suicide woman allowed to die because doctors feared saving her would be assault” […]
ECHR Rulings: Keeping the Faith
I’m going a bit off-topic with this, I think, but John Coggon’s reply to today’s earlier post has got me thinking. His reply pointed out that [i]t might be worth noting that Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (presumably the key right under issue) states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of […]
The difficulty of identifying gradual changes in health status
It wasn’t until I was eight that I first got glasses. This wasn’t because I wasn’t short sighted before then, rather the contrary I was very short sighted I just hadn’t noticed. I thought trees were just blurry green blobs at a distance, I sat at the front of the classroom so I could read […]
DNA Databases and Crime… part 34
The New Scientist this week is running a series of short articles on how to make the world a better place. One of the suggestions is to legalise drugs – I’ve blogged about why this is a good idea before (and Ben Goldacre has a nice account of why we haven’t done it already). Another […]
Mental Illness – even if it’s Gordon Brown’s – is not Interesting.
Dependably right-wing blogger Paul “Guido Fawkes” Staines has been circulating the idea that Gordon Brown may be taking anti-depressants – specifically, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors – under the touching and understanding heading “Is Brown Bonkers?” and making some sniggering schoolboy allusions to Malcolm Tucker-like tantrums. This allegation – and quite why it’s an allegation is beyond me […]
Physicians on Facebook
There’s a short piece in the latest JME about the use of social networking sites by medics that’s got me thinking. In it, Guseh, Brendel and Brendel suggest that physicians need to be especially careful about accepting, say, a Facebook friend request from patients because of the nature of social networking sites and the possibility […]
And Justice (and Healthcare) for All
A convicted double murderer has won the right to have cosmetic surgery to remove a birthmark on the NHS. Good. Predictably, the foaming-at-the-mouth brigade is having a field day with this in the comments section of the Daily Fail‘s coverage. Equally predictably, they’re wrong. The reason is straightforwardly to do with considerations of rights and […]
AIDS=Nazism?
This is a very strange story that’s been picked up by the Daily Telegraph: a German Aids charity has been attacked for launching an advertising campaign – and a pretty sexually explicit one at that – in which people who spread HIV are presented as Hitler. I’m not sure whether the target is people who […]