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Alzheimer’s pill put profit before patients
Here’s a particularly shocking example of the kind of irresponsible and evidence-free, so-called health journalism found in sensational tabloids like the Daily Mail. It’s a story claiming that coconut...
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Coconut outtakes: what the Mail didn’t say
So you’ve read the Daily Mail story today about how it’s possible that coconut oil can help with some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. No one knows for sure because the idea has never been properly...
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Silver Bullet Award for dangerous drug promotion
When I saw recently that Simon Singh, energetic “quack buster “ and scourge of homoeopaths, chiropractors and their ilk, had established an award called the Golden Duck to be presented to the person...
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Big oil and big pharma: brothers in harms
I got to thinking about big pharma’s similarities with big oil reading Fred Pearce’s article in New Scientist this week. It was about plans for a massive pipeline – Keystone XL – to deliver Canadian...
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Prescribing drugs with no evidence just got a bit easier
Recently I had a revealing “discussion” with a very senior and respected academic about whether illegal marketing by drug companies was putting patients at risk. By the end he was claiming my view – it...
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The link between South Staffs hospital scandal and losing weight
The Francis report on the dreadful doings at the Mid Staffordshire hospital can only be welcomed. The events were horrific, something went terribly wrong and heads should roll. But could what happened...
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Ways to cut antibiotic resistance but will drug companies allow it?
Most of us are aware that antibiotic resistance is growing. Nasty infections and one-time killers, such as pneumonia, gonorrhoea and tuberculosis are threatening to return in new forms, impervious to...
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The evidence–free drug that costs the NHS 70 million a year
Just as Catholic cardinals condemn paedophilia, so mainstream medicine formally rejects treatments not supported by evidence in the form of clinical trials. But in reality interfering with novices or...
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Ten top tips to boost your disease free survival
In quieter moments, pondering the end of your life, how many years to you think you might be effectively house-bound with a number of chronic diseases before you pop off? The jargon for describing this...
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Treating disease with diet – new possibilities
There were several reasons I got interested in the low-calorie liquid diet I’ve written about in today’s Daily Mail – mainly the fact that evidence is mounting that it can reverse diabetes and other...
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Could you be suffering from brain hijack?
A spring holiday change of pace here. Nothing about evidence or drugs just some rather extraordinary tales of the ways tiny single-celled micro-organisms can hijack the brain – mostly of insects but at...
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Silver Bullet Awards: the winners
OK the judges have finished their deliberations, all the votes are in and it is time to roll out the blushing red carpet of shame and announce the worthy winner of this year’s Silver Bullet for the...
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We know how to cut diabetes deaths. So why aren’t we doing it?
Who’s responsible for our diabetes/obesity epidemic? Is it those fat lazy bastards who eat crap food and sit on the couch all day or is it the drug companies that spend billions researching and...
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Why randomised controlled trials don’t tell you what you want to know
Earlier this week the Daily Mail published my feature on side-effects and how patients aren’t properly warned about them. Antidepressants, for instance, can cause compulsive heavy drinking but you...
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What is wrong with randomised trials Part 2
Could alcohol get a licence as a drug for depression? How do you test for the safety of a drug that causes the same side effects as the disease it is used to treat? These are just two of the points I...
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Alzheimer’s: we want a cure but please don’t mention B vitamins
The article in today’s Daily Mail about B vitamins and Alzheimer’s is the story of the triumph of dogged scientific persistence – do read it first if you can because this blog would become impossibly...
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Hidden dangers of diabetic drugs exposed – yet again
Incretins are the newest and most expensive class of blockbuster diabetes drug but according to a remarkably through investigation just published by the BMJ (British Medical Journal) the risk that...
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Why hounding homeopaths is both batty and arrogant.
There is no shortage of villains in the world. Psychopaths – domestic and national – whalers, toxic waste dumpers, global eavesdroppers, billionaire tax avoiders and their army of accountants – all...
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The Alzheimer’s charities are in a hole but they keep digging
Earlier this week I won freelance consumer journalist of the year at the Medical Journalists’ Association awards which was fantastic. You had to send in three features to enter and two of mine each...
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Manflu: a new twist to the debate
Manflu is one of the not so hardy perennials of domestic debate. Are men justified in claiming unlimited sympathy when they retire to bed with flu on the grounds that they actually suffer more than...
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