Most recent blog entries

How the EU proposes to get more children on drugs

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 05:42:21 GMT

We are told new legislation by the European parliament will improve the regulation of drug treatment for children, says a child health expert in this week's British Medical Journal.

Over the past ten years, studies have shown widespread use of unlicensed and off-label drugs to treat children, writes Professor Imti Choonara from the University of Nottingham. What a surprise?

In 1999, concerns were raised about children in Europe receiving unlicensed or off-label drugs instead of ones that have been scientifically evaluated and licensed. So in December 2006, the European parliament passed legislation to ensure that drugs used for children are subject to high quality research. Would anyone know the difference.

It will also provide better data on the benefits and harms of drugs used in infants and children, without subjecting children to unnecessary clinical trials and without slowing down the introduction of new drugs for adults. I wonder will this include vaccines. No they are safe anyway and do not need so much testing.

The legislation provides considerable financial incentives for the drug industry to study drugs in children. However, the author points out that experience in the United States has shown that the drug industry is more likely to study drugs that are prescribed extensively in adults and generate the most profit than those that infants and children require clinically.

A European register of clinical trials of drugs for children will also be established and the results submitted to the regulatory agency will be made public. This transparency is essential, says the author, if it is to benefit children in Europe. Personally I would take Dr Mendelsohns advice "How to bring up a health child inspite of your doctor"

Hopefully the new legislation will stimulate scientific interest in the study of drugs in children and increase the number of paediatric clinical pharmacologists in Europe, Is that a good thing???

Pseudoskepticism

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:45:47 GMT

There are many skeptic websites and magazines around the world. For example www.skeptics.org.uk. They advertise themselves as skeptics but are actually disbelievers who take a stand against unconventional thinking and can become very abusive if you take an alternative view.

Scaremongering and vaccination

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:23:07 GMT

With four children and a chiropractic clinic to run, I did not realise how hard it would be to keep up a blog. Prompted by the hysterias which always surrounds Andrew Wakfield and particularly this week as he appears before the GMC, I will try again. When we say we have not vaccinated our children people always assume we mean MMR. Readers of the site may also be of the view that Wakfield inmy opinion has always been a diversion from the real issue vaccination policy in general especially the DPT vaccine with thimersol (mercury) in it which was withdrawn two years ago after questions were being raised particularly after the death of the late Sally Clark’s son Harry.

This week we have all this self righteous journalists telling the public, it’s the media who is at fault for creating all the hysteria around MMR. Nick Cohen in the Evening Standard July 18 tells us most journalists “don’t understand science” while at the same time telling us implying MMR is perfectly safe. Ben Goldacre on the same day accuses the media of being the real villains of the MMR story ignoring the fact is just shooting the messenger in a very polarized debate. We all want to do what is best for our children and few will consider the possibility they may have been wrong. If I was to see one credibile study that vaccinated children were healthier of course we would vaccinate the children.

Consider the article by medical student Alex Thomas in Mondays Society Guardian (Full text in Forum) “The best way to protect children and avoid scaremongering over MMR is to make vaccines compulsory”.

Then she tries to scare the life out of expectant mums by telling them about the film she saw of babies with whooping cough (pertussis) gasping for their last breath. How their “newborn babies” will almost certainly get sick and perhaps die because of the stupidity of parents like myself. Then describing little Thomas who got pertussis at eight months “on a ventilator” “tubes down his throat” “Intravenous lines going into her limbs”

In her enthusiasm for compulsory vaccination Alex has not considered that Thomas would have had his pertusis and it failed to provide the protection “guaranteed” on the box. Therfore the blame must lie with parents who don’t vaccinate,who do their best to ensure their children have strong immune systems. Thye most likely explanation for Thoma’s struggle was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) 2006. Forty four percent of children with persistant cough had serological evidence of pertussis infection and 85.9% of these children had been fully immunised. The vaccine is not as effective as thought and GPs believe in the vaccine to such an extent they are failing to diagnose occurrences of pertussis in immunized children and focus on a very small group who experience complications to promote vaccination programmes.

Last summer three of our children were diagnosed with pertussis and reported to the Health Protection Agency (HPA). Molly and Isabelle were 30 months, Eloise was only two weeks old, the. disease ran its course like a mild cough. Were we just lucky or were our “bizarre social reasons” to breast feeding and avoid medicines, why our children that their immune systems have been able to cope with the germs that have come their way. What surprised me was the HPA were not interested in how we coped or why our children had not become seriously ill. In fact the only subsequent contact we had with the HPA was a call to offer pertussis vaccination to the children. I explained that contracting the disease provided life long immunity which the vaccine does not.

Another BMJ study in 2005 showed that exposure to illness in day care in infancy reduced the risk of leukaemia. Prevention of infectious diseases is seen universally as beneficial to the health of society. However few have considered the possibility that natural selection and these diseases, played a role in the development of the immune system to fight more deadly diseases.”

There is no doubt that the introduction of mass vaccination programmes in

Cuba after the revolution reduced the incidence of death from measles and other

childhood diseases, at a time when sanitation, nutrition and housing was poor.

Cuba now has achieved life expectancy and infant mortality rates similar to

developed countries. However, Cuba also has a high prevalence of autoimmune disorders unusual for a developing country and similar to North America and Europe where vaccination rates are also high.

As long ago as1959 Rene Dubos argued that all the accomplishments of science and technology would not bring about the “health promoters” dream of universal well-being, because science and technology ignore the dynamic process of adaptation to a constantly changing environment that every living organism must face. Scarlet fever disappeared without a vaccine. We know the environment is changing unfortunately our consumer driven society refuses to allow the human species to adapt with it.

Childrens Sports Day.

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 11:01:58 GMT

Molly and Isabelle were looking forward to their sports day at Dolphins class all week, unfortunately it was a complete wash out.

Then one of the mothers Susan who had been training her son all year tried to get over her dissapointment by starting a wet T-Shirt competition. Susan's two year old daughter Harriet had to jump on her to protect Susan's modesty as poor Alexander hung his head in shame.

Many had warned Susan to stop eating the wine gums.

Whats in a little prayer?

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 11:05:38 GMT

Today I was at the nursery nativity play. It was really nice and well produced. Molly picks things up very quickly, I was surprised a few weeks ago when I heard her reciting a prayer. Although it was cute to hear her, the second last thing I want in my house is religion. I was brought up an Irish Catholic when I was seven a nun locked me in a cupboard so that I would know what the “Dark Hole” was like before you entered the fires of hell. My experience was based on fear, my children are brought up with love the central theme.

Another punishment was to serve mass at 6am (I went to boarding school). This particular priest who was punishing me, had a nose which suggested he liked alcohol and I was serving his morning mass. You have to pour wine and water into his chalice for the “consecration”. I particularly felt a sense of injustice this morning and dripped the wine into his chalice as if it were rationed, after a long wait with little wine in the chalice he nodded for the water and I just poured practically filling the chalice. Serving mass was not used again as punishment for me. Last June a Franciscan Priest Ronald Bennett from my school was given a suspended prison sentence for abusing four boys in the mid seventies, his sentence was suspended because he claimed he did not to realise what he was doing was wrong. I believe he abused over a hundred boys but past pupils from one of the best schools in Ireland would probably rather forget about it.

Anyway I stopped believing in God when I was about 10. My Granny warned me that God would strike me down if I did not behave. So I fell to the floor, at first she was not sure if she had in fact willed it, after that there was no God or hell to stop me misbehaving.

Molly praying posed a slight problem, I did not want to be seen like some old nut without a sense of humour, on the other hand I did not want some fundamentalist putting religious beliefs into her head behind my back. When they are old enough, if they find God fine but not when they are three. I felt sorry for the nursery teacher who is excellent with the children. I told her that if Molly was learning a prayer in the context of a nursery rhyme that was ok. However if she was expecting to actually hear “Gods word” I was not happy.

I think they have taken it to heart Molly painted a picture of Joseph Mary and the donkey the other day, when I asked her who was in the picture she told me “A lady and a gentleman”

You need to be able to trust your GP.

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 14:09:00 GMT

For a number of years GPs have been criticised for putting so much effort into reaching their vaccination targets. Patients who did not want to vaccinate were struck off the practice registers. It is very difficult for parents to feel they are getting objective advice about vaccination. I am sure most GPs believe in the Governments vaccination policy, they are trained to focus on symptoms and provide medicine to relieve these symptoms, so I dont believe they just do it for the money.

However when a GP Jayne Donegan comes to a different conclusion and tells a court that she supported two mothers decision not to vaccinate their children (see the story in the “news” forum).

She felt the two young girls would not be in mortal if they were not vaccinated and backed it up with references. However the powers that be decided these references were “Junk Science” and she has been hauled before the General Medical Council and charged with being biased.

If Dr Donegan is found guilty of Professional Misconduct how can parents trust the advice they get from their GPs anymore. Parents will be wondering if the advice is influenced by the GMC’s decision to charge Dr Donegan, or is the GP short of numbers to get the bonus.

Be positive!

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 14:04:58 GMT

A cancer specialist is warning people with cancer off being "exploited by alternative therapists" inthe latest British Medical Journal. His article outlined below stops short of saying; when the biomedical model says there is no hope, take it like a man!

My mother died of cancer 15 years ago. Over a period of seven years and many operations most of her intestine was removed, right up to her death she maintained her profile on Irish TV and radio in her fight for social justice dying happy just four hours after it was announced Nelson Mandela was to be released.

Hope is what kept her going the last two years of her life, when she was told the cancer was terminal and she did not have long to live. An event that transformed her battle with cancer was a week spent at the Bristol Cancer Centre. This centre came in for criticism a few years ago because research showed their success was much less than the NHS. Researchers forgetting people who go to Bristol have been told there is no hope by the NHS. Bristol gave my mother the hope that she could still live her dreams and she did.

A patient of mine was recently told the chemo had not worked and after 2 years medical treatment there was little more the doctors could do, she canceled her next chiropractic appointment through her husband. I asked her husband to ask her to come in for a chat

I told her about my mother and Bristol and reminded her about chiropractic not being simply a treatment for her back pain it has improved the quality of her life. This is an intelligent woman, she is not under the impression chiropractic cures cancer. She does know that chiropractic has helped her in the past and she has nothing to loose by going to Bristol and continuing chiropractic care.

When I saw her again three days later she was transformed. Had booked her week in Bristol and was up beat again. There are those who would say I am not being scientific or following the "best evidence" They may say its palcebo, surely "placebo" is the body doing what it is supposed to do, heal and regulate itself. Thats our philosophy for healthy children.

Kids need to be active.

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 13:52:47 GMT

It was reported in the Guardian yesterday that the NHS is going to pay for obese kids to have surgery. The hope is that after the surgery these children will start eating lettuce and running marathons. On the other hand it is more likely they will have to it again and again. Surely it made more sense for the Government to ban the advertising of junk food to children.

Molly and Isabelle walk every where. In fact when we go in to Kingston people think they might be lost so rare is it to see children walking down the street looking into shop windows. Most kids are strapped in, while their parents rush to where ever they are going and people wonder why children become hyperactive. Young children need mechanical stimulation for their brains to develop properly. TV only provides mechanical stimulation to the eyes.

Children must be aware of dangers "street wise"

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:47:50 GMT

I have just been swimming with Molly and Isabelle a beautiful new pool in Walton upon Thames. Lots of kids in there, many with water wings.

Molly and Isabelle have never worn wings, we always wanted them to have respect for the water and the dangers it carries. They have been going to the pool most weeks since they were 12 months. They have only turned three and can both dive in swim a few meters and get out of the pool by themselves.

When my son who is 20 was little we lived in a flat and numerous times going down the stairs he had bad falls. With Molly and Isabelle we decided not to have a stair gate and let them learn how to negotiate a stairs because you might not be there every time they go on the stairs. Very early they were crawling up the stairs and coming down on their stomach. They have never fallen on a stairs.

We don’t always hold their hand walking along the street because they need to think for themselves when to stop and go and respect traffic its dangerous.

Every time our three girls go out in public they get exposed to germs, we can keep them away from other children, or do our best to ensure their immune systems have the ability to deal with what comes their way. Alternatively we could take the easy option and have them vaccinated, it is complete tosh for anyone to suggest that would make them healthier children.

Whats in a cold. Not a lot.

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 13:37:31 GMT

Eloise has made a remarkable recovery. Crusty nose is all thats left. Now it could be I got the diagnosis wrong and the runny nose, watery eyes and coughing were something else.

Because if my diagnosis is right and children can recover from a cold with out using the shelves and shelves of potions one sees in most chemist shops I may be onto something, unfortunatly there is no money to be made from doing nothing.

Every day I see people come into my office after beeing prescribed all sorts of chemicals for pain relief. Despite the dangers the billion dollar drug Vioxx is back on the market because people suffering were told there is no allternative, they question theyshould be asking how were people allowed to end up in such chronic pain, dependent on these drugs.

Any one who watches sport may have noticed that injured athletes never reach for a jar of pills, they allways put ice on their injury because it dilates the blood vessels reducing inflamatatory chemicals around damaged tissue and the cold sensory stimulation has the added effect of reducing pain sensation. I have yet to meet a patient who has been advised by their medical doctor to use ice. WHY?

Perhaps because salesmen are not doing the rounds selling frozen water, frozen water would not do much for the share price and the share holders allways come first in corporate health care.