Hilary's Desk

Dear Paul,  On rethinking your email to me, and given that you are our electorate member of parliament, I feel I need to address a few issues to you more thoroughly. You say:  Read Full Blog

Everywhere we look, we see nothing but pictures of coloured surgical masks as if these have some paranormal ability to “protect” the wearer. These, we presume, work. Right? After all, they are part of the “national plan” to stop the spread of flu viruses right? We’ve been told that the two main means of infection are contact: as in shake someone’s hand, put hand in mouth; picking up droplets from furniture (fomites), or being directly coughed or sneezed over. Right? Masks supposedly are to contain what the infectious people cough out, to protect others, so wearers also assume that masks protect them from the “environment” around them. Why else would people on the streets of Mexico, and doctors, be wearing them? Right? Wrong, actually, on both counts.  Read Full Blog

We have very strange habits. Like: refusing to wait in doctor's waiting rooms, unless we're the first there in the morning. Refusing to take our patently infectious sick children into waiting rooms, or doctor's surgeries and wait there.  "What???" I hear you screech.  "How irresponsible is that???"  Quite the contrary.  The current medical system which encourages sick people to sit in their waiting rooms has created a culture of contamination and complacency, which one day, might return to bite them.  And you. Read Full Blog

The Sunday Star Times has a magazine called Escape in which their regular medical columnist, Dr Paul Trotman, pontificates on a diverse range of medical issues. He is known for his vigorous denouncement of anything thought to originate from, or be, “anti-vaccine”. His latest contribution however, is remarkable for the utter stupidity of opening the mouth prior to opening the brain. Apparently, comments about overcrowding being the biggest “cause” of meningitis are dismissed as some “attitude” of anti-vaccination people. The column reads:  Read Full Blog

As the UK medical gestapo proclaim 1,000 measles cases a national disaster, and go after parents who have refused to vaccinate their children against measles, there is an interesting "discussion" at the BMJ website. Peter Flegg, an infectious disease specialist has made some extraordinary claims. That's nothing new. He's done that at the BMJ for years. For those who want are keenly following the UK situation, here is the debate. Read Full Blog

Dr Robert Wachter runs a blog which is well worth adding to your regular reading list. His Bio shows that he’s well qualified to talk about many things, and does so with a degree of candidness you don’t see in this country. A recent blog which interested me was the possibility of putting cameras into hospitals to try to raise the inadequate hand washing amongst staff. It would appear that since many nurses and doctors don’t appear to be motivated to wash their hands, some consider the answer is “Big Brother”. Anyone trained by the medical profession 170 years after hand washing debates started, who doesn’t think washing their hands is important needs their heads looking at. Read Full Blog

No doubt you have all read book reviews about Paul Offit’s book, “Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure”, like this one here:  Read Full Blog

"Turia sets dangerous example" was the headline for a letter by Anna Hardy RN, on behalf of the Stewart St Surgery Team at Marton. (Herald on Sunday, July 17, 2005 page 36)  The surgery was in an uproar because Tariana Turia, a former Associate Health Minister, decided against giving her granchildren, then aged 3 and 5, the MeNZB vaccine. Read Full Blog

The May 2008 edition American Academy of Pediatrics newsletter published this extraordinary letter from All Star Pediatrics   which AAP is encouraging all other doctors to adopt.  Read Full Blog