Hilary's Desk

Two weeks ago, when CDC, po-faced told us, that this “new” virus, never seen before in pigs…, was a combo of Eurasian/America swine flu/avian/human viruses, you believed them, right? Now, they are back tracking, saying, “No no,no.. only pig. Not human or bird.” Shhh…..  Read Full Blog

Bouquets to the Health Department for finally waking up to the fact that their infection protocols are ludicrous. We hear on the news tonight that they are concerned the infection could spread like wildfire through doctors surgeries! Well, hello??!!! Do they think that doesn’t happen with ordinary flu, all the time? Do they honestly believe that in “normal” times, doctors’ surgeries are a model for a Savlon advertisement? Don’t they realise that doctors’ surgeries are always, the ultimate pathogen liberation centres?  First Brickbat:  Trying to use hotels and motels to isolate patients, is plain silly. But it would appear that the Department of Health are “reinventing the wheel” at last. Just let everyone know where the “infection hospitals” are please, and DON’T make them part of ordinary hospitals. Read Full Blog

How's your day? Full of humour and irony? No? Well, let me make your day for you, or stuff it up, depending on your perspective. Consider the irony and illogic from the reportage team who wrote yesterday's New Zealand Herald articles on the swine flu. Let me join a few dots for you, following on from yesterday's blog serve. 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

Here we go again. Another media beat up. Make a huge story out of... what??? An influenza virus which has caused thousands of cases, which in that horribly polluted smoggy lung coughing place called Mexico City, has caused serious pneumonia in some of them, which killed just over 100 of them.  Some thousands of cases you say?  Maybe.  Cruising all the medical reports, it's pretty obvious that there are far more cases than we're being told. More importantly, why call this the "Swine flu pandemic"?  Where did the media get that idea from?  Maybe some medic whose repeatedly cried wolf, and really needs to justify their job?  They made a cash cow out of the non-existent bird flu, so why not bolster Wall street yet again.  What a sound-bite to get the adrenalin running! "Swine Flu epidemic here to kill us all"!  It's time the media got real, and started doing some real journalism; real reading; and asking some real questions. Like... who called this particular strain a swine flu virus? Why has there been absolutely NO contact with pigs in even ONE case, anywhere in the world? Unlike the media, a professional medical organisation called PROMED has questioned the name "swine flu". They say it's a human flu.  But just what sort of human flu? Where did it come from? This is what PROMED has to say: Read Full Blog

You remember all the paranoia about that pandemic cash-cow called bird flu? You remember that the New Zealand humoured whatsisname... Rumsfeld??   ... who profits gazillions from the company that makes Tamiflu, by buying a few million dollars worth of a useless drug, which wasn't necessary, and is now well past it's use-by date? Well, don't hold your breath, about either the value of Tamiflu, or whether Bird Flu will naturally find it's way here any time soon, or that any vaccine with be worth having. 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

Such is life.  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

So you think about the really bad days in the 19th century and decide to look at your family tree. Looking at the death causation in your 5 century old family tree, you start to wonder how all of your ancestors survived in those REALLY bad old days when diphtheria, polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough and the plague stalked the earth, and they didn’t have vaccines for most of those things. Read Full Blog