Here is the bottom line. Health is full of vested interest and information can be easily selected to support a particular view. We need to be questioning of the pronouncements of governments and experts. They do not always know what is best for your health even if they are well meaning.
The person primarily responsible for your health is you. You are best placed to make decisions about your health based on your own circumstances. There has been a tendency over the last 30 years to see governments as having the primary responsibility for our health. This is seen in calls for the government to “do something” about problems like obesity and smoking to name but two.
Personally I do not have a huge amount of faith in the recommendations of government departments and some of the “experts” that they draw on. Regular readers will be familiar with my view on the response to the advent of the H1N1 (swine flu) virus and how billions of dollars were wasted and needless fear was generated. As it turned out many of the experts recommending mass vaccination of the population had financial ties to manufacturers.
There is now a push to vaccinate boys against the HPV virus. This vaccine has been approved for use in girls. Whilst it has been promoted as a vaccine against cervical cancer, it is in reality a vaccine against four strains of a virus, which is implicated in the development of cervical cancer. The push for extending the use has come from the manufacturer (as is their commercial right) but it is easy to whip up fear when one plays the cancer card in any health story. At this point rational assessment can go out the window.
Against this backdrop two circulars from government health departments crossed my desk in the same week. The first from the W.A. health department was about a plan to get women who missed their third dose of HPV vaccine to have it. The dosage schedule was zero, two and six months.
This is from the circular “ While the optimal schedule is to administer Gardasil * at 0,2 and 6 months, the Australian Chief Medical Officer has stated that delayed administration especially of the third dose is expected to give at least comparable and most likely superior immune responses…”
Run that by me again! If delaying the dose gives a better response then how can the current schedule be optimal? Or if the current schedule is optimal then how cannot sticking to it give a better result? Go figure!
The other interesting piece of advice came from the Federal Health Department. A new campaign has been launched to encourage smokers to quit. Readers of my website will have seen my article on how a major analysis of over 800 studies showed that 70% of people quit with no aids or assistance. It also highlighted that most studies compared stop smoking aids with each other rather than against no aid and that manufacturers funded many of the studies. Questions were raised as to why this information was not promoted more widely to encourage and empower people to stop smoking.
Yet the letter from the Chief Medical Officer tells me “… smokers are about twice as likely to quit with smoking cessation drugs than cold turkey alone” and quoted one study, which had shown this. So here we have the government urging use of drugs when for at least 70% of people none are needed.
Exactly why this is the case is a mystery to me. The key point is that government recommendations may or may not be in your best interests.
Gather input from a variety of sources. Be aware that vested interests may be involved. Be questioning of “experts” and always consider your own circumstances. The person best equipped to make decisions about your health and that of your family is YOU.
* Gardasil is the trade name of the HPV vaccine
Medical Doctor, author, speaker, media presenter and health industry consultant, Dr Joe Kosterich wants you to be healthy and get the most out of life.
Joe writes for numerous medical and mainstream publications, is clinical editor at Medical Forum Magazine, and is also a regular on radio and television.
Joe is Medical Advisor to Medicinal Cannabis Company Little Green Pharma, Chairman of Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association and sits on the board of Arthritis and Osteoporosis WA. He is often called to give opinions in medico legal cases.
He has self-published two books: Dr Joe’s DIY Health and 60 Minutes To Better Health.
In 2024 due to public demand he commenced a podcast, Dr Joe Unplugged, which can be accessed via Spotify, Apple or YouTube.
Through all this he continues to see patients as a GP each week.
