No time to talk
The profession that's notorious for not looking out for each other or after themselves.

Planet Under Pressure| Pollution: A life and death issue:

"Diseases carried in water are responsible for 80% of illnesses and deaths in developing countries, killing a child every eight seconds. Each year 2.1 million people die from diarrhoeal diseases associated with poor water"

Aspirin: The Story of a Wonder Drug
Well, just not in under-16s.

Stunning
"As a doctor, I have been practicing for more than 10 years and giving electric shocks (‘stunning’) (Electro-Convulsive Therapy - ECT) to patients (with mental illness) but only after a general anaesthetic. The Medical Council would strike my name from the register if I should ever dare to give ECT without anaesthesia because it is very cruel to do so. I wonder, is it not cruel to do this to an animal too? Although the voltage used in ECT is smaller than that used for animals, is it not still cruel?"
Dr.A.Majid Katme
Chairman, Islamic Medical Association

Report of the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones
However, as many point out, there has been no time to do long term studies yet; the expansion in mobile phone usage has been phenomenally fast. Make up your own mind.

Medact - WMD & Conflict - Impacts of War

The UK government has made no effort to count how many Iraqis
have died or been injured since the 2003 invasion.

Read the full report:

"This report assesses the impact of the recent war in Iraq and the ensuing period of
insecurity on health, the health care system and health reconstruction initiatives. It describes the reported 100,000 deaths and many more injuries attributable to conflict and violence and the current pattern of mental and physical illness. It gives an overview of the Iraqi health care system and barriers to good health care including problems with access to services, fragmentation, damaged infrastructure, inadequate medical supplies and poorly trained and supported health workers. It also highlights problems with the infrastructure that influence health, such as water and sanitation. In analysing the efforts at reconstruction, it highlights the inadequacies and challenges of efforts to build a new health system based on primary health care principles, freely available to all."

The Book of Visiting the Sick
Riyad-us-Saliheen
Compiled By
Al-Imam Abu Zakariya Yahya bin Sharaf An-Nawawi Ad-Dimashqi

Mental Health in Islam

Sometimes I can't believe people with no deen can have any peace of mind/mental health,whilst dealing with the issues life throws at them. Its no wonder all these problems are on the increase.

Islam saved my mental health and returned my soul

Bag of Worms
"It is indeed a heavy coat that we put on when we choose "doctoring" as our commitment. Part of that weight is caused by our hard won knowledge that life does not often measure up to our expectations of justice, fairness, or logic."

The Observer | UK News | Science shows up Supernanny:

"A mental health expert warns that fashionable advice to ignore your child's tears may cause lifelong harm "

No Free Lunch
Hmm. Drug reps.

Even my husband can now spot one in a crowd of patients, and he's not a medic.

Its nothing personal. I know these people are just trying to do their jobs, earn a living, feed their families just like us. It's just the niggling inner thoughts that keep suggesting, "What is he hiding, why is he telling me this..." Just as well that we're trained now on how to speak and deal with them.

To me, the most annoying thing is having them want to shake hands. As if we haven't had enough trying to dodge that from the patients.

France passes "right to die" law

MuslimOptician.Net
Pretty impressive site!

Breastfeeding reduces the risk of infant death in USA
Potentially delaying or saving about 270 deaths in the US per year.

Mumps is back and GPs are in the frontline.
As predicted...
"Some 1,352 cases of mumps were reported between April and June 2004 ­ the highest in the seven years since records began

·MMR uptake fell to 80 per cent across the UK in 2003/4

·Uptake of first MMR vaccine by age five also fell by 0.5 per cent and coverage of the preschool booster plunged by 0.6 per cent in the last quarter

The country-wide outbreak started several years ago and so far there have been 3,756 confirmed cases in the first nine months of 2004 compared with just over 372 in 1999 ­ the cause is in part due to how the MMR programme was implemented in the 1990s and in part to the ongoing concern about adverse vaccine events and its knock-on effect on MMR uptake.

Palestine: the assault on health and other war crimes

I cannot believe that by publishing this article in the BMJ they got so much hate mail from angry Israel supporters. Over 400 responses in a few days, wanting vengence, wanting the editor to resign, threats of cancelling BMJ subscriptions....
And it had the desired effect of forcing the BMJ to write a response saying that Summerfield was wrong. Even though he gave evidence and references for what he said. Just shows what sort of a world we live in.

National Dietary Guidelines rewritten to favour industry Tracking the Bush Administrations misdeeds. It seems sometimes the more we know about something, the less they want us to know about it.

Stay calm everyone, there's Prozac in the drinking water
The result of so many people having prozac-deficiency!

Iraq death toll 'soared post-war'
"Poor planning, air strikes by coalition forces and a "climate of violence" have led to more than 100,000 extra deaths in Iraq, scientists claim.
A study published by the Lancet says the risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58 times higher than before the US-led invasion"

Palestine: the assault on health and other war crimes "The wall will isolate 97 primary health clinics and 11 hospitals from the population they serve."

"Physicians for Human Rights (Israel) have lambasted the Israeli Medical Association (IMA) for its silence in the face of these systematic violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which guarantees the right to health care and the protection of health professionals as they do their duty. Remarkably, IMA president Dr Y Blachar is currently chairperson of the council of the World Medical Association (WMA), the official international watchdog on medical ethics."

The Observer | UK News | Babies with three parents ahead... More confusion ahead.

Darfur Photo Diary "The people here have taught me the real meaning of courage, strength, generosity and kindness."

BBC - The Other Medicine

Ban Trans Fats Scary obesity maps...What a mess.

Aspartame and its effects on health However, my mother-in-law won't touch it with a barge-pole...and I am still worried about it. Some very good responses to the article can also be read.

It's time to give up - British Heart Foundation (BHF) Anti-Smoking Campaign Ramadan is an excellent time to stop. "Smokers are up to four times more likely to give up successfully if they use their local NHS Stop Smoking Service together with Nicotine Replacement Thearapy, than if they rely on willpower alone." For more advice ring 0800 169 1900.

The Hunger Site : Give Food for Free to Hungry People in the World

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours - 4 October 2004 - The A-Z of Autism Sounds like an interesting series of programmes on "the puzzling and complex condition" of Autism

The Observer | UK News | End to Green Wing wild life as medics knuckle under Now it seems you can buy your degree if you have the money!

Stephen Hawking A moving account of how a human being can make the most of his life despite illness. SubhanAllah, it reminds me of how ungrateful I am.

Doctors and their faiths

Miswak Literature & Free Miswak Offer

"MiracleBrush.com came to be by the constant reminder from scholars of Islam and from the outlook of the general community, specifically in the UK, were a lot of people are falling behind of using this great gift that we have. The miracle brush is called the miswak. Its an ancient brush which has been used by many cultures throughout the ages."

Thiomersal doesn't cause developmental disorders

Need to know: older mothers

Expert warns of self-medicating with herbal medicines

Been really busy moving house and city. I thought this was interesting...
UK health officials launch five in one vaccine for babies
No more nasty tasting polio drops for babies.

Evidence of the Harmfulness of Smoking

Grows and grows.

But yet, Annual tobacco deaths in poor countries to reach 7 million by 2030.
"Awareness of the health hazards of tobacco is also low. In 1996 two thirds of adult Chinese smokers believed that cigarettes did little or no harm. Low levels of education in many developing countries also make it harder for people to understand the hazards."

Unfortunately it doesn't seem uncommon for Muslims to be amongst this group. Why is the ignorance so commonplace? One of the original studies which showed the cause of the sharp increase in lung cancer rates that begun in the last century, was referred to, in relation to the fiqh ruling on smoking, in the Reliance of the Traveller. [w41.2; Evidence of the Harmfulness of Smoking. Reliance of the Traveller, Ahmad ibn Naqib al Misri, trans.Nuh Ha Mim Keller].

A more accurate picture has now emerged due to the original study having continued to 2001...

The Mortality in relation to smoking: 50 years' observations on 34 439 male British doctors study just published, leaves even less room for ignorance or dispute regarding the hazards of smoking:

"Among the particular generation of men born around 1920, cigarette smoking tripled the age specific mortality rates

Among British men born 1900-1909, cigarette smoking approximately doubled the age specific mortality rates in both middle and old age

Longevity has been improving rapidly for non-smokers, but not for men who continued smoking cigarettes

Cessation at age 50 halved the hazard; cessation at 30 avoided almost all of it

On average, cigarette smokers die about 10 years younger than non-smokers

Stopping at age 60, 50, 40, or 30 gains, respectively, about 3, 6, 9, or 10 years of life expectancy"

So let the 60 year old smoker in the family know that even they could gain at least three years of life expectancy by quitting.

BestTreatments :: Home

See where your doctor's decisions are coming from...

"Why do we focus on the evidence?
Some research studies are better than others. And it's important to use the best evidence when you're trying to decide which treatment to have...

Being Bilingual Protects Against Some Age-Related Cognitive Changes

"WASHINGTON — Most will agree that two heads are better than one in solving problems. The same logic may be true for language and retaining cognitive processes as we age. Being fluent in two languages seems to prevent some of the cognitive decline seen in same-age monolingual speaking persons, according to the findings of a study appearing in this month’s journal of Psychology and Aging."

Reading this brought to mind the blessed Prophet, upon him be Allah's peace and blessings, who was "given mastery of language"
"He learned the dialects of the Arabs and would speak to each of their communities in their own dialect and converse with them in their own idiom." From Ash-Shifa of Qadi 'Iyad, tras.by Aisha Bewley. Section 5, Chapter 2.

The prejudices of good people

Thought for the Day, Sidi Abdal Hakim Murad
"Perhaps religion is there to remind us that there can be no clones; there are no identical twins."

Global Warming

Health Impacts may be abrupt as well as long term.

A New Ice Age: The Day After Tomorrow?

Worried about global warming? Talk to a few scientists at Woods Hole. Oceanographers there are seeing big trouble with the Gulf Stream, which warms both North America and Europe.

Guardian Unlimited | Life | Why do the Japanese live so long?

Baby food could trigger meningitis

Powdered baby milk has been found to contain deadly meningitis causing bugs, it has been reported.

As many as ten per cent of samples tested by researchers were contaminated with stomach bacteria, according to the New Scientist.

The findings led experts to warn parents to take steps to ensure baby milk is properly sterilised.

Traditionally baby bottles are thoroughly sterilised with boiling water - but parents may assume that milk powder is safe.

False syllogisms, teddy bears, causality and MMR

Most parents are not trained in analysing clinical evidence, yet they can spend hours on the internet, and reach dangerous conclusions about whether to immunise their children.

"Many parents, wanting to do the best for their children, have been convinced by apparently logical arguments for a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Aristotle, the father of logic, introduced the concept of syllogisms: "An argument in which, when certain prepositions have been laid down, something distinct from these is seen to follow necessarily from their existence". Not all syllogisms are valid: an invalid, or false, syllogism is an apparently logical but in fact illogical argument, for example "All cats have four legs. This animal (a horse) has four legs. Therefore the animal is a cat".

How not to do science

The beautiful black seed flower. 

The Exam

I was attending a PGCE course about a month ago - trying to improve my teaching skills. However, as is often the case, my mind started wandering. My defence was that the spring board was something the lecturer said. He was describing the principles in the ideal exam - "the perfect exam should have clear criteria that the students know about, nothing else should be tested, it should be fair and take into account diversity of the student population". Criterion....furqan...And the perfect exam came to mind.
The rules are explicit and clearly set out for all to see. The Examiner is fair and diversity is always kept in mind.

Rose

The Defence of Dirt

"As the Duchess of Windsor once remarked, one can never be too thin or too rich—wisely, she did not add too clean. The hygiene hypothesis aims to explain why some people have allergies and some do not, and why the prevalence of allergic disorders has been increasing over the past century. It suggests that the modern obsession with cleanliness may be counterproductive; in childhood, at least, it may encourage the development of allergic disorders..."

I cannot help but touch on this as I am always getting asked if I would give my child the MMR.

It has been said,

"An unimmunised child is the infectious equivalent of a drunk driver"

MMR, autism, and Adam

"Adam was born in January 1990. His early development was uneventful though slow by comparison with that of his older sister. At 15 months, when Adam received his measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, he was beginning to articulate two word utterances. After 18 months, however, Adam began to show signs which gave my wife and me cause for concern..."


MMR...the evidence?

"More media circuses about vaccinating children with MMR, and the "association" of MMR vaccination with autism and inflammatory bowel disease. Frightening stuff, but much heat and little light."


MP raises new allegations against Andrew Wakefield

Authors reject interpretation linking autism and MMR vaccine

MMR Myths and Truths

Homeopathy?

I've been trying and trying to find reasons for if and why this works. This is because my mind finds it really difficult to comprehend and believe something when it doesn't make sense. Maybe one day I'll go on a course and just rote learn all the theories. Acupuncture made some sense to me, as does herbalism and osteopathy. But sitting in on Traditonal Chinese Medicine doctors' consultations was one of the spookiest things I ever did. Maybe in a hundred years this will be more popular than modern medicine, but I think lots of us still need more convincing. I've found one study in the New Scientist but I find this hard to believe. As a colleague pointed out:

# it implies disaster would strike if the homeopathic solution would fall into a river. It would just be too powerful.

# how do the industrial scale factory produced homeopathic medicines sit with the idea of a personalised homeopathic prescription?

# how do you wash out your bottles after making up your homeopathic mixtures? (Each time you try to wash it, the residual traces of medicine would only become more "potent"!)

# how is homeopathy meant to have a "good" but not a "bad" effect? (How does the remedy know when to stop suppressing or stimulating the coagulation system say when it is at the optimum level for health?)

# if you were to make up a serial dilution of say 100 different homeopathic remedies, to a dilution below Avagadro's number, then how could you tell them apart? (If the labels were removed!) Could anyone, or any test, scientific or homeopathic tell them apart with an accuracy greater than chance?

But, I suppose, it apparently does work for some people.

Baby milk clue to future health

SubhanAllah, why are we not surprised?

"Formula milk may boost the size of infants excessively, placing them at risk of serious illness later in life, researchers are now warning.

A new study suggests new reasons why breast-feeding is good for babies.

According to the British researchers, breast milk enables a baby to grow at a natural pace.

Writing in the Lancet, the team from the UK Medical Research Council tell how they conducted a series of studies of the impact of early growth on later life.

They found that babies that experienced rapid growth in their early months became prone to obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels - in turn placing them at risk of heart disease and stroke.

Researcher Professor Alan Lucas, director of the MRC's Childhood Nutrition Research Centre, said the researchers had conducted randomised clinical trials over a period of 20 years.

He said: "We assigned babies to different diets and then followed them into adult life. Such studies had not been done before and have taken us over 20 years.

"Now that the results have come through they have greatly changed our understanding of the importance of early nutrition and growth for long-term health.

"The evidence is very strong and supports a clear message. Slower growth as a baby reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke in adult life and the best way to achieve this is to breastfeed."

The researchers' latest analysis of some 216 teenagers finds that breast-fed infants had a 14 per cent better mix of cholesterol than bottle-fed babies by the time they reached their teens.

Researcher Dr Atul Singhal, of the Institute of Child Health, London, said: "Our findings suggest that breastmilk feeding has a major beneficial effect on long-term cardiovascular health."

Lancet 2004; 363: 1571-78; 1642-45"

more evidence

Placebo, good or bad?

I'm trying to decide whether I like these or not.
I think I rather like the idea of a placebo. Sometimes, when a patient attends, you know they have nothing specific wrong, but they so want to take something to make them feel a little better. Some of my senior colleagues have dished out "tonics" to these patients, and the patients love them. "Oh I don't know what was in that medicine doctor but after taking it I feel much better". Nowadays though, I might get struck off for doing something like this. Or, with my luck, the patient's grandson will be a medical student or the patient will turn out to be the local pharmacist, and will corner me later to ask what on earth have I been prescribing and hadn't I better start prescribing proper medicines with some daleel behind them...

But, if the patient goes along and sees a practitioner of alternative medicine (something more and more GPs are now getting their hands into in the UK), they'll tell them what it is that's wrong, and prescribe a little bottle of something, and it'll have the same effect as the tonics. So they'll come back and tell me and I'll think again about why the "evidence based" health care system that I work for isn't doing me any favours.

However, when one of my relatives goes to see one of these people and pays an arm and a leg to get the little bottle of nothing, this I can't take. It just seems a mockery of good science, so this, I know, I would hate from the bottom of my nafs.

So in conclusion I think they are rather unethical.


What's wrong with the placebo effect?

'Myths' stop women breastfeeding

I was amazed when I went to my post-natal class, three months after our babies had been born: out of about 20 mothers, only I seemed to have carried on breast-feeding. However looking beyond this, some mothers for some reason or other, cannot breastfeed. My friend for example, had to stop, because she needed to take steroids for a conditon she had. Others had to start formula milk because the baby was losing too much weight. You do get some well meaning friends and relatives that can really create doubts to a new mother about her chosen way of feeding. Its really easy for someone to come along and make comments, but they aren't the ones going through it, and its not easy! What's really annoying is hearing someone who's not even a mother saying "Oh my gosh, you're not breastfeeding?" or older aunties expressing their disgust that you are breastfeeding. SubhanAllah, just shows you cannot please everyone.

"Myths" stop women breastfeeding

Alcohol and Gelatine in Medicine

Nowadays there are alternatives available to most medicines, so if you find that the one you have been prescribed has something doubtful in it, just ask if there's an alternative. When I told my non-Muslim GP that I didn't like taking medicines with gelatine, she put an alert on her computer screen, so everytime I went back to her surgery, an alert would come up, reminding her of this.

alcohol:
http://www.sunnipath.com/resources/Questions/qa00002583.aspx

gelatine:
http://www.sunnipath.com/resources/Questions/qa00000452.aspx

Before you even dream of having children, please follow this guide.

How to Know If You Are Ready to Have Children

I. Mess Test:

Smear peanut butter on the sofa and curtains. Now rub your hands in the wet flowerbed and rub on the walls.
Cover the stains with crayons. Place a fish stick behind the couch and leave it there all summer.

II. Toy Test:

Obtain a 55-gallon box of Legos. (If Legos are not available, you may substitute roofing tacks or broken bottles.) Have a friend spread them all over the house. Put on a blindfold. Try to walk to the bathroom or kitchen. Do not scream (this could wake a child at night).

III. Grocery Store Test:

Borrow one or two small animals (goats are best) and take them with you as you shop at the grocery store. Always keep them in sight and pay for anything they eat or damage.

IV. Dressing Test:

Obtain one large, extremely annoyed, live octopus. Stuff into a very small oil-covered plastic sandwich bag, making sure that all arms stay inside.

V. Feeding Test:

Obtain a large plastic milk jug. Fill halfway with water. Suspend from the ceiling with a stout cord. Start the jug swinging. Try to insert spoonfuls of soggy cereal ( such as Fruit Loops or Cheerios) into the mouth of the jug while pretending to be an airplane. Now dump the contents of the jug on the floor.

VI. Night Test:

Prepare by obtaining a small cloth bag and filling it with 8 - 12 pounds of sand. Soak it thoroughly with water. At 8 p.m., begin to waltz and hum with the bag until 9 p.m. Lay down your bag and set your alarm for 10 p.m. Get up, pick up your bag, and sing every song you have ever heard. Make up about a dozen more and sing these, too, until 4 a.m. Set alarm for 5 a.m. Get up and make breakfast like this for 5 years. Look cheerful.

VII. Physical Test

A. Women: Obtain a large beanbag chair and attach it to the front of your belly. Leave it there for 9 months, then remove 10 of the beans.

B. Men: Go to the nearest drugstore. Set your wallet on the counter. Ask the clerk to help himself. Now proceed to the nearest food store. Go to the head office and arrange for your paycheck to be directly deposited to the store. Purchase a newspaper. Go home and read it quietly for the last time.

VIII. Final Assignment:

Find a couple who already have a small child. Lecture them on how they can improve their discipline, patience, tolerance, toilet training, and child's table manners. Suggest many ways they can improve. Emphasise to them that they should never allow their children to run wild this experience. It will be the last time you will have all the answers.

Granny Guards the Genes

It's difficult not to see the nur on elderly muslima faces after they've done years and years of ibada. Often they are a source of great strength to their families. But how is it that they live so long? "Human women tend to live well past their reproductive years..."

http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/granny-guards-genes0415/

Complementary and Alternative Therapies

"My auntie was under the doctor for six months, but it was only when she started on homeopathy that she got better".

Many of our friends and patients are interested in this area. Some of them have tried Western Medicine, some haven't. Umm Ilhaam is of the opinion that although some of these therapies may work (found by experimenting on close family members!), for reasons known or not, certainly not all of them do. At the end of the day though, we feel its good to see some evidence. That's where Bandolier comes in.

Have you ever thought about why bogus remedies seem to work? If so, then here's something to think about.

"#Many diseases are self-limiting

The old saying is that a cold will go away in a week or in seven days if you treat it. Determining whether an intervention has made a difference is therefore difficult. Unless rigorous study methods are applied, an apparent benefit cannot be ascribed to the intervention or the natural course of the disease.


#Many diseases are cyclical

Allergies, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and gastrointestinal problems like irritable bowel syndrome all have their ups and downs. Sufferers may seek therapy on a down, so that when an up comes that has to be due to the therapy, doesn't it. Again, only rigorous study design combats this.


#Placebo effect

Both the above contribute to what is called a placebo effect. It can be seen as the natural course of things. For instance, some people need no pain relief after surgery, making a pre-emptive intervention which claims to reduce pain after surgery a sure win. There will always be some people publicly to declaim its value. Natural "placebo" rates depend on what the problem is and what the benefit is. There will always be some people who benefit without an intervention.


#Bets are "hedged"

"My auntie was under the doctor for six months, but it was only when she started on homeopathy that she got better". The fact that the poor infantry slaved away for six months is forgotten in the glamour of magic.


#Original diagnosis may be wrong

Bandolier has highlighted the difficulty of diagnosis. If the diagnosis is wrong, then miraculous cures are less miraculous.


#Mood improvement or cure

Alternative healers often have much more time to spend with their patient than a harassed GP loaded down with kilograms of guidelines and tight prescribing budgets. Is it any wonder that alternative healers can make patients feel better? That mood change is sometimes seen as the cure.


#Psychological investment in alternatives

Alternative healing can be as simple as some herbal remedy bought from a shop. Sometimes it can involve huge amounts of time, massive involvement of the family, and an intense psychological investment in believing that something (anything) will work. It is not surprising, then, that many people find some redeeming value in the treatment."

http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/booths/altmed.html

Common Misconceptions

"At least ten misconceptions can lead parents to question the wisdom of immunising their children.

Misconception #1: Because of better hygiene and sanitation, diseases had already begun to disappear before vaccines were introduced.
Misconception #2: The majority of people who get the disease have been immunised.
Misconception #3: There are hot lots of vaccine that have been associated with more adverse events and deaths than others. Parents should find the numbers of these lots and not allow their children to receive vaccines from them.
Misconception #4: Vaccines cause many harmful side effects, and even death -- and may cause long-term effects we don't even know about.
Misconception #5: DTP vaccine causes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Misconception #6: Vaccine-preventable diseases have been virtually eliminated from the United States, so there is no need for my child to be vaccinated.
Misconception #7: Giving a child more than one vaccine at a time increases the risk of harmful side effects and can overload the immune system.
Misconception #8: There is no good reason to immunise against chickenpox (varicella) because it is a harmless disease.
Misconception #9: Vaccines cause autism.
Misconception #10: Hepatitis B vaccine causes chronic health problems, including multiple sclerosis.
Misconception #11: Thimerosal causes autism: Chelation treatment is bogus."

The following site (although it could be slightly more up to date) gives the answers to these common misconceptions:

http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/immu00.html

"Now, it behoves him for whom death is his destruction, the earth his bed, the worm his intimate, Munkar and Nakir his companions, the tomb his abode and the belly of the earth his resting place, the Arising his tryst and Heaven or Hell his destiny, that he should harbour no thought or recollection but of death. No preparedness or plan should he have save for it, and his every expectation, concern, energy, waiting and anticipation should be for its sake alone."
Imam al-Ghazali, The Remembrance of Death and the Afterlife.

The way one of my friends sees things, even though we may not have a terminal illness, we still could die at any time, so, in effect, we may as well think that we do.

Living with Cancer
http://www.eternal-optimist.ca/living/archives/cat_my_story.html

Die Well, Father
http://www.freewebs.com/qalam2/father_ssoekanto.htm

My Mother Has Cancer But Its the Time of My Life
http://www.freewebs.com/qalam2/mother_ssoekanto.htm

Intimate Partner Violence

This is an issue close to Umm Ilhaam’s heart at the moment, as she didn’t pick up that it was happening to a close friend for two years. It’s the new term for domestic violence. It has been described as a major public health and human rights issue. Women are overwhelmingly the victims, but it affects entire families, including children, making the statistics even more shocking.

In the latest issue of Q-News, http://www.q-news.com/thisissue.htm in an excellent article on “Making Our Homes Soulful”, Sidi Nazim Baksh reports that domestic violence occurs in 60% of marriages, and is, not unexpectedly, the most underreported crime. From American studies, in 90% of cases involving battered women, children were present. Last year in South Africa, the number of children and families exposed to this violence increased by 80%. Scary huh?

We will soon have reliable estimates of its international prevalence, determinants, and consequences when the World Health Organization reports on its multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence against women. www.who.int/gender/violence/multicountry

The attitudes of boys and young men towards girls and women are formed and impressioned by the acts they see in their own homes, and so the next generation carries in the vicious cycle without knowing any different. As we don’t like to talk about it, I feel our silence is often acceptance.

“The Muslim community has shamefully tolerated abuse for a long time. How much longer will Muslim families (and therefore the Muslim community) be weakened by abuse? How much longer will abusers be allowed to run free and unpunished in the community? How much more abuse will Muslim women have to endure before the community decides that enough is enough?”

http://www.jannah.org/sisters/wifeabuse.html

As Sidi Nazim says,

“Our homes should be places where our children and our women are safe. Husbands and wives should make a pact with each other and with their children that voices should not be raised in the home. Let us commit to make our homes gentle, pleasant, clean and tidy places, infused with beauty.”


Another good site dealing with this issue:
http://www.themodernreligion.com/index2.html

World TB day was three weeks ago. You probably know at least one person who's had it. Its no surprise to find that nine million people developed tuberculosis last year, and two million of them died. We have the tools and the resources to determine the future of the TB epidemic.


Still, someone dies of TB every 15 seconds. Almost everyone could have, should have been cured.


Eight million people develop active TB every year.


Each one can infect between 10 and 15 people in one year just by breathing.


The best way to prevent TB is to treat and cure people who have it.


Drug-resistant TB is caused by inconsistent or partial treatment, when patients do not take all their drugs regularly for the required period because they start to feel better, doctors and health workers prescribe the wrong treatment regimens or the drug supply is unreliable. A particularly dangerous form of drug-resistant TB is multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), which is defined as the disease due to TB bacilli resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampicin, the two most powerful anti-TB drugs. Rates of MDR-TB are high in some countries, especially in the former Soviet Union, and threaten TB control efforts.

http://www.stoptb.org
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/who104/en/

Some depressing thoughts from South Asia that I read about:

In Pakistan, one in three people are anxious or depressed
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7443/0-b

Even worse,

"South Asian countries are among the countries whose hygiene levels are "disastrous...

In India alone, 519 500 children die every year from poor hygiene; the equivalent figures in neighbouring Pakistan and in Afghanistan are 135 000 and 48 000 respectively...

Frequent illnesses, especially diarrhoea, undermine children's growth by taking away their appetite, inhibiting the absorption of nutrients, burning up calories in fever, and fighting infection, says the council. As a consequence, the percentage of children not growing normally is as high as 47% in India, 38% in Pakistan, 47% in Bangladesh, 47% in Nepal, 48% in Afghanistan, and 33% in Sri Lanka, says the report."

from Every Breath You Take
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7443/0-b

"The pleasure of corrections"

We just want to say somewhere at the beginning of this web log that anything you find that is useful is from Allah Most Kind, and the mistakes are ours, so we hope you don't hold us to task for them, or even worse, sue us. LOL.

We wholly acknowledge and accept that mistakes occur more frequently in the class we belong to: mothers, wives, daughters, doctors and insaan. So, as we are a disastrous combination of trying to do all of these roles at once, please accept our apologies in advance.

Especially as day by day, our age-related cerebral degeneration is impaired by post-natal memory loss.

According to this week's British Medical Journal, "great publications...are full of corrections". LOL. We will try to point out our mistakes and so hopefully we won't have to hire a "corrections editor"....

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/328/7442/0

Watch out for health fraud...a waste of time, costing people thousands.

Quackwatch
Your Guide to Health Fraud
Quackery, and Intelligent Decisions

http://www.quackwatch.org/index.html

Yes, we hate them. They mean anyone can follow us anywhere and at anytime. No corner of the earth seems to be free from them. One even followed my father on Hajj and even when he dropped it at Mina amongst the millions of people someone found it and rung him. Yes, its the mobile phone.

Unfortunately I own up to having one, I have to, as I realise my 3 year old nephew knows what to do with a SIM card before I do. It's hard work keeping up with kids these days. But IS IT SAFE? According to the research available to us...

"Clinical bottom line (2003)
There is no convincing evidence linking mobile phone use to cancers of the head. What evidence we have points to there being no link, though what cannot be excluded is long-term heavy use of mobile phones, with a long latency for cancer development.

There is evidence of a small increased risk of leukaemia with occupational exposure to electromagnetic fields."

Time will tell I suppose.

Mobile phones, magnetic fields, and cancer
http://www.jr2.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/Cancer/mobmagca.html

The Report Tackling cancer in England: saving more lives has just been published by the National Audit Office.

Umm Ilhaam remembers that whilst at Medical School she was taught that in a certain area of England, the Muslim women have really high rates of breast cancer and late diagnosis. This was found to be because they didn't like being examined so left their suspicious symptoms until it was too late. Although this may sound like a ridiculous mistake to some, it still happens. She now practices in this area and has met people where she works who don't like their women (or even themselves!) being treated by "kufar". At the same time they don't like their women to study or work in Medicine. Is it any wonder they have some of the highest rates of disease in the country?

The frightening stats are as follows:

"More than one in three people in England will develop cancer at some point in their life. One in four will die from it. There are about 225,000 new cases per year in England, and some 130,000 deaths. The leading four cancers – breast, lung, bowel and prostate - account for about half of new cases and deaths....

The report stresses that more action is required by patients to report suspicious symptoms.

Today's report highlights the fact that the most effective way of preventing cancer is for people to stop smoking. One contribution to this is that the NHS has encouraged hundreds of thousands of people to stop at least for a short period."

Read the report http://www.nao.org.uk/pn/03-04/0304364.htm

Some medical fiqh relating to treatment by the non-Mulsim or opposite gender:

The order in seeking medical treatment (for a woman) would be from a:

a) Muslim female doctor
b) non-Muslim female doctor
c) Muslim male doctor
d) Non-Muslim male doctor

see full article:
http://www.sunnipath.com/resources/Questions/qa00002659.aspx

and also, "I have a breast lump but donÂ’t want to be examined by a male doctor"
http://www.sunnipath.com/resources/Questions/qa00003021.aspx

اللهُمّ صَلِّ عَلَى سَيِّدِنا مُحَمَّدٍ

طِبِّ القُلُوبِ وَدَوائِها

وَنُورِ الأَبْصَارِ وَضِيَائِهَا

وَعَافِيَةِ الأَبْدَانِ وَ شِفَائِهَا

وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَسَلِّمْ

O Lord! Send blessings on our master Muhammad,
The medicine of hearts and their cure,
The light of eyes and their illumination,
The health of bodies and their healing,
And upon his family, companions, and send peace.

http://www.sunnipath.com/resources/Questions/QA00000764.aspx

This is the first post on this web log. The above is a the Salaat al Tibbiyya, a prayer especially for illness. There are people in this world who do this dua all the time, when they walk they recite it, when they stand they recite it, when they sit they recite it. Oh Allah make us like them and with them in this world and the next. Amin.