As the year draws to a close it is interesting how three of the key themes that I have written about this year have all raised their heads. And those are 1) The medicalization of life 2) Over diagnosis from screening tests 3) Pharmaceutical companies misbehaving...
What’s your blood count? Blood pressure? Bone density? PSA? If it is abnormal, odds are that you will want it to be normal. In doing so, you are making the same leap of faith that your doctor is making when he commences treatment: that treating the numbers will...
It is taken as read that check ups and screening are good for us. The logic is almost intuitive. Finding disease early is better than finding it late as treatment can be more effective. Also not everything has symptoms so testing and checking may uncover problems...
Fans of Dire Straits will remember the line in Industrial Disease which goes “Two men say they’re Jesus – one of them must be wrong”. With this in mind consider two headlines. The first from Australian Doctor magazine “Early Dementia Diagnosis of Benefit to...
Once upon a time people only went to the doctor when they felt sick. For most of human existence there was not much the doctor could actually do when you got there. Yet somehow the human race managed to get through to the second half of the twentieth century when...
Children are seen as a group where medication use is low and hence a potential group for increased use (sales) of medications. Two crazy ideas have been floated in different parts of the world. In the USA the latest idea is for cholesterol level screening in children....
