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!