A report from the BMJ recently claimed that medical error or misadventure was the third largest cause of death in the USA. The annual figure, estimated at 251,000, was greater than deaths from respiratory disease, stroke and accidents. The key word is estimated....
A while back I received a letter from a soft drink maker. It sought to explain how soft drinks could be part of a healthy balanced diet. It also suggested that diet soft drinks were something doctors could mention to patients wanting to lose weight. As a doctor I get...
I read an interesting article by writer Brendan O’Neill about trust. Essentially he made the point that in the UK, officialdom had fostered a climate of mistrust. “The institutions and organisations which crow most loudly about a crisis of trust are the same...
Sometimes it is just so clear as to why solutions are not found to the various so-called health “crises”. Nobody is asking the right questions and hence nobody finds the right answers. I was at a panel discussion recently. The panel comprised a mixed group including...
Fire is something, which if used correctly enhances our lives by keeping us warm and cooking our food. Uncontrolled it can burn the house or destroy wide areas. Hence fire is not intrinsically a good or bad thing. It is also not avoidable or entirely controllable. The...
