By Rebecca Knight

Work invades my sleep. I lie in bed thinking about editors I should email, sources I need to call, and story ideas I ought to follow up on.

To be honest, sleep has never been my strong suit. I suffered terrible insomnia as a kid and into early adulthood. I’ve tried quiet yoga, warm milk, and long, languorous bubble baths before bed. I feel relaxed and cosy as I climb under the sheets, but once my head hits the pillow, it’s all over.

Apparently, the remedy to my restlessness is simple: I should stop working. According to a study by researchers at the University of Turku in Finland, retirement is followed by a sharp decrease in the prevalence of sleep disturbances.

Continue reading "To sleep better all you need to do is…retire"

The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre is currently alive with the sound of thousands of GPs discussing ‘Excellence in Practice.’

But just what is a working definition of excellence? The Right Hon Mike O’Brien, Minister of State for Health, made a rather brave speech. He seemed likeable and pleasant, and able to tell mildly risque jokes about bishops, which made his frequently contradictory references to “evidence” slightly disappointing.

Continue reading "The UK Royal College of GPs conference focuses on excellence and screening"

Sometime companies dabbling with branding just try too hard. GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer announced a joint venture for all their HIV products last April, but only this week launched it - and announced the name: ViiV Healthcare.

The idea? It contains bits of the words Virus and HIV, sounds like life in French (the mother tongue of its new chief executive) and it’s a palindrome - handily reflecting its two corporate shareholders (though Pfizer only holds 15 per cent).

It may not roll off the tongue, but at least its creation reflects the new spirit of austerity. It was dreamed up in-house, with no expensive brand consultant brought in. It’s at least no worse than many such costly offerings.

Now all the company has to do is deliver new drugs.

The UK Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, fired Professor Alan Nutt - former chief drugs advisor - at the end of last week after he criticised the government for reclassifying cannabis for political, rather than science-based reasons. This sacking is a disaster.

Prof Nutt’s government post was unpaid and, by the sounds of things, demanding of time and energy. You can read about some of his university work and research: biography and research interests of proff Nutt. His approach is rooted in evidence. He clearly saw his job as making sure the government understood and were updated, on what is known about the harms of illegal drugs.

Prof Nutt was accused of “lobbying for change in policy” about the classification of cannabis. He felt that there was no evidence to make cannabis a class B drug, and should have been made class C. But the government disagreed and discharged him of his duties.

Prof Nutt’s sacking is a disaster because it implies, firstly, that debate is unhealthy. If you look in any medical journal, or attend any lecture at a conference, you will find people noisily going on about what the degrees of certainty are and what isn’t known.  This is good: this is what can cause progress.

Second, it means that independent experts may only be appointed in future if it is felt they will keep quiet where there is disagreement between evidence and politicians, or will only interpret evidence to suit political masters.

Ultimately, this leads to a loss of confidence in the “independent” evidence government is exposed to. And lastly, it is a disaster for science. There will be incidences where government does not wish to take up the advice of experts for various reasons, and sometimes this might be warranted.

But that gulf should be visible to us, the electorate, as a means to judge our elected representatives. This debacle, frankly, does not do the Labour government any favours.

I think I have calmed down enough to write about this. The tabloid and radio headlines a few weeks ago declared that if you were a child of a working mother, you were likely to be “less healthy” or “fatter and lazier” than children of non-working mothers. Yes, I’m sensitive about the care my children get. Guilt and worry are my bedfellows, despite knowing that my children love being looked after by people more patient and creative than I am.

The paper prompting my angst appeared in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health; it asked if there was a relationship between the hours a mother worked and her children’s diets and physical activity. The researchers analysed data provided by mothers of more than 12,500 five-year-olds.

They found that children whose mothers worked were more likely to drink unhealthy drinks, spend more “inactive” time on the computer or watching TV, and be driven to school than children of mothers who had never been employed. Children of mothers who worked full time were also less likely to eat healthy snacks between meals or have enough fruit in their diet.

The remainder of this article can be read here. Please post comments below.

By Ross Tieman

France’s vociferous Committees for the Defence of local Hospital and Maternity Units are getting their marching boots back on after the country’s Health Ministry confirmed it will announce a raft of hospital operating theatre closures by the year end.

The Ministry says the decree will target about 180 theatres which each carry out fewer than 1,500 operations a year. Theatres that carry out fewer than 100 gynaecological operations a year are also thought to be threatened, though the Ministry wouldn’t confirm it.

National opposition to closures of this sort began back in 2004, at the instigation of defenders of my “local” hospital in Saint-Affrique, southern Aveyron. Although it’s not much bigger than a cottage hospital, it still seems to be functioning, five years on, though I’d never dream of going there.

Continue reading "French healthcare could benefit from more ‘Saint Bernards’"

So, just because something is statistically significant, doesn’t mean it’s clinically significant

And just because it’s clinically significant, doesn’t mean you should be doing it.

And here is why. In this illuminating article from the New England Journal of Medicine - Lost in Transmission - FDA Drug Information That Never Reaches Clinicians - Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin illustrate how the distillation of evidence that goes into the package inserts of drugs is not always clear or complete.

Continue reading "A fantastically sobering article from the New England Journal of Medicine"

Links to previous interviews by Margaret McCartney:
Professor David Colquhoun, professor of molecular pharmacology and campaigning blogger

Dr Tom Jefferson and pandemic flu vaccines 

Two things in particular made me want to talk to Richard Bandler, the American co-creator of “neuro-linguistic programming”. The first is that an email arrived from his PR agency in London, entitled “Richard Bandler: Shrinks are a waste of money”. It went on:

“His method is to teach the depressed, stressed or disillusioned to dispose of their poisonous memories, their fears and self-doubt, by exploring how we think, communicate and behave, changing negatives into positives by adopting more successful ways of using the mind. Richard, whose techniques have successfully helped millions of people, including billionaires, sports stars, celebrities and the mentally ill, says: ‘… They come to me in desperation - and often, I only need to see them a couple of times to re-program their thinking and give them a whole new outlook on life, success and happiness.’”

Continue reading "Interview: Richard Bandler, co-inventor of neuro-linguistic programming"