A year ago a journalist […]

A diagnosis of cancer is really scary. It can seem as if there are only two options, neither very appealing. Conventional treatment which promises a lot but is likely to be toxic and gruelling or the complementary route, seen to lack the punch needed to beat cancer.

A radical new theory about […]

Have you heard about the NHS trust that recently introduced an incredibly brutal, and possibly illegal, form of drug rationing to save money? Patients suffering post -operative pain will get half the dose normally required to keep them comfortable, kidney dialysis will be done twice a week rather than three and all diabetics will get the same amount of daily insulin regardless of their blood sugar levels.

 Several million people in the […]

Trust me I’m a doctor has become a knowing, cynical catch-phrase but the underlying truth is that we do need to trust our doctors, not only because trusted doctors exert a beneficial healing effect but also because we are entrusting them with something precious – our health.

The secret data from statin […]

Would any doctor continue to prescribe a drug which they had been told would benefit 20 per cent of patients with a specific illness, once the truth was revealed to be around 7 per cent, only one percent better than no treatment at all? You’d have to hope not and that concerned and angry doctors would then shout loudly that they had been lied to and that patients had endured years of pointless treatment.

For years scientifically-minded patients strongly […]

Last week a massive piece of research extolling the benefits of statins was published in the Lancet. Its headline message was that the benefits of statins are hugely underestimated and far outweigh any harm. It had found that only 2 people per hundred suffer side effects while 15 people per hundred avoid strokes and heart attacks.

It came garlanded with the full majesty of the medical profession. Thirty pages long with 28 authors, 300 references and a declaration of interests that filled 44 lines of small type and mentioned more than 20 of the largest pharmaceutical companies. This juggernaut was designed to bury the widely publicised doubts about the effectiveness and safety of these drugs already prescribed to 6 million people.