Hilary's Desk

It's that time of year again, when the annual magical crystal ball from Lance Jennings predicts that Swine Flu will swarm back to mop up, hospitalise and possibly kill some of those not-previously-whacked-by-the-pigs-that-flew last time.  He's obviously missed the fact that others have moved on, and are demanding that everyone be vaccinated for the next pandemic, H2N2, NOW!... The first question you need to ask about Dr Jenning's crystal ball is, "What are we not being told?". 

The first thing is that the Swine flu vaccine produces non-functional antibodies in most people.  Just a mere inconvenient detail, that...

Did you know that Poland doesn't use seasonal or pandemic flu vaccines, and they had a far lower rate of Swine Flu than countries which do use them, as well as fewer serious cases?  Why might that be?  A December 2010 letter by Monsalvo, to Nature Medicine, detailed that serious cases of Swine Flu were those who had had "prior" exposure to influenza viruses, BUT had not made protective antibodies against them.  Read Full Blog

Everyone wants answers, just as much as Serenity's grandmother wants answers. There's no doubt that some parents kick kids around like footballs.  The problem is ... where do you get the WHOLE truth? What do the medical people mean by saying that the injuries were "similar to" shaken baby syndrome? Either they are, or they aren't.  And this is important, particularly when, as one expert says, at least half of all parents tried for Shaken Baby Syndrome, have been wrongly convicted. Apart from Tony Wall at the Sunday Star Times, the rest of New Zealand media automatically assumes that any diagnosis that comes from that shrine, Starship, has to be right. Presumably under the guise of "balanced reporting" Sunday Star times, allows Michael Laws to call the family, "feral", as if they are guilty before proven so.  Yet, the internet is full of stories like this one where just maybe, the parents didn't do it after all.  Key lawyers, world wide, are starting to question what they see as serial injustices. Read Full Blog

There are none so blind as those who appear to be control freaks.  Peter Gluckman’s words - “For the first time ever, we have a way of working out what mothers should eat” – were considered worthy of the subtext box front page of the paper version of the Herald on Tuesday. You have to wonder why.  Here’s the online version.  Read Full Blog

In his book, "How Doctor's Think", Dr Jerome Groopman describes an ultrasound doctor, who detects in a baby, inside a woman 5 weeks from giving birth, a strange shaped space inside the baby's brain which should look like a tear-drop with sharp edges, but just doesn't look quite right.  Not badly wrong, but just not quite right. Because the shape is pretty near normal, she almost doesn't tell the mother.  Two things change her mind. She wants to protect any obstetrician from being charged with causing damage to a baby, should it turn into something significant... and she also thinks parents should know in advance in case they need to consider the realities of bringing up a damaged child. The mother has an MRI, and a brain haemorrhage in the baby is discovered, so the birth is attended by paediatric neurologists.  Read Full Blog

You don't think you need to know?  Well, according to Dr Jerome Groopman, you do.  Dr Groopman belongs to a rare species in medicine who tell it as it is - perhaps because he's been at the butt end of a few medical bum deals in his day. He knows what it feels like to be run over by his own medical system, and has the clout to write about it.  His writing is vitally important, and utterly frustrating in the same breath.  It's vitally important, because everyone who ever walks into a doctor's surgery needs to read this book, but most never will. It's frustrating, because  Groopman misses a very important issue - which is what the next blog will be about. But first, the book itself. Read Full Blog

People with any brains, can see, when they are told that ordinary flu kills 400 New Zealanders every year, that 20 deaths from swine flu is chickenfeed. They also wonder why it was only last year, that steps were taken in medical practices to stop people with "influenza like illnesses", from infecting everyone else, while they sit in the waiting room. Some even asked the question as to whether there were ONLY 20 deaths because doctors, for once, applied common sense in waiting rooms! Perhaps the other 280 deaths were caused by medical neglect. Which isn’t too far fetched given the number of medical papers I have which show that doctors waiting rooms and hospitals is where you want to go if you feel the need to pick up something which you didn’t have before, but need, to get sick, so that you can legitimize a few days off work. Read Full Blog