Since the 1940s our welfare state has been built around the assumption that it’s possible to distinguish between people who are “sick” and people who are merely “frail” or “disabled”. While we consider…
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Health – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 5601 - 5625 of 5660 articles
The death of 83-year-old Jean Tulloch is to be officially investigated after her son’s claims that doctors attempted to speed up the end of her life by withdrawing food and fluids. Once again we see more…
Millions of people use diclofenac, an over-the-counter painkiller, to relieve pain and inflammation caused by arthritis, backache and other conditions. But on Friday, the UK medicines regulator, the Medicines…
Over the past decade there have been more than 100 hospital mergers in the UK. The reasons usually given when hospitals merge is that it saves money and leads to better quality of care. However, there…
For the first time, preventive drugs are to be offered to women at risk of breast cancer under the NHS. The drugs, tamoxifen and raloxifene, were recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care…
Without vitamins in our diet we wouldn’t survive but taking too many can be harmful. There’s a limit to how much we actually need. However, since the discovery of vitamins - or “vital amines” as they were…
It’s a traditional part of the theatre of health policy for trade unionists to give secretaries of state for health a hard time. The latest example of this was the vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt…
The Get Britain Fertile “campaign”, funded by a pregnancy testing company and fronted by television presenter Kate Garraway, aims to get women to think about having children when they’re younger. But later…
Breastfeeding children boosts their chances of climbing up the social ladder – and makes it less likely they’ll slip back down. The number of new mothers attempting to breastfeed has fallen in England…
More and more women are requesting surgery to replace their hymens, in an effort to “fake” virginity. But virginity is a psychological state, and a hymen is no reliable indicator it exists. The idea of…
Last Wednesday was a good day for those of us who have been campaigning for years for more understandable food labelling. The UK Government announced their final recommendation for front-of-pack nutrition…
We’re grappling with a rapidly increasing number of children who are obese. In the US, where a third of Americans are considered obese, a leading group of doctors have officially designated obesity as…
Those for whom Viagra is indispensable might be a little surprised that the ubiquitous blue, diamond-shaped pill was a chance discovery by a group of research pharmaceutical chemists at Pfizer’s research…
Foundation essay: This article on the relationship between health and social care in the UK by Bob Hudson, Professor of Applied Social Science at Durham University, is part of a series marking the launch…
The voice is an important tool which we use to communicate and express ourselves. But our voices convey so much more than the words we say. Just a few words can reveal clues about someone’s gender, age…
Moors murderer, Ian Brady, is fighting to end his life. This week he has appeared in public for the first time since his trial in the 1960s. He has been force-fed for the past 13 years and is begging to…
A violent attack by someone who is mentally ill quickly grabs the headlines. And it’s usually implied that mental illnesses are a preventable cause of violent crime. Tackle that and we can all sleep safer…
On March 25th 1968 a relatively unknown French medical journal l’Ouest Medical published a remarkable paper based on observations of 127 children with mothers who drank heavily. Paul Lemoine, a paediatrician…
Data on hospital performance often shows a wide variation and this poses the question of whether it should be available to the public or kept confidential. The government wants more transparency and announced…
As many as 500 brain scans are performed in Scotland every week. These scans are mostly used to diagnose - or rule out - serious diseases like strokes and tumours, but this is not their only function…
Millions of women in the US will have access to affordable genetic screening for cancer after the US Supreme Court ruled that a commercial company cannot patent human genes. The screening tests for mutations…
As a doctor it’s my job to prescribe lotions and potions. To do so, I read information about drug trials in books and medical journals to keep me up to speed on the latest drugs, dangers and side effects…
A new study shows an association between less access to GPs and high rates of attendance in nearby accident and emergency (A&E) units. It’s an interesting piece of work but risks inflaming an already…
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is happening across the UK but despite being illegal for nearly 30 years, there have been no convictions. Fortunately, politicians are beginning to pick up on the issue…
In 1632 the Catholic Church convened a case against Galileo on the grounds that his work using the telescope to explore the nature of the heavens contradicted the church’s teaching - the culmination of…