Category Archives: Health Policy
Cancer alert over toxic tattoo inks
The Sunday Times 22 September 2013 SCIENTISTS are calling for more research into tattoos amid fears that the toxic inks can permeate into people’s bodies and may increase the risk of cancer. With an estimated one in five adults now bearing tattoos, British scientists have found evidence that nanoparticles from the ink can get into […]
Laser test to tell us when we will die
The Sunday Times 11 August 2013 SCIENTISTS have patented a “death test” that can tell people how long they have left to live. The simple, non-invasive test is the first of its kind in the world. A painless laser pulse is applied to the surface of the skin through a wristwatch-style device. This measures how […]
Jolie gene flaw — now first man has surgery
The Sunday Times 19 May 2013 A 53-YEAR-OLD Londoner has become the first man in the world to have his prostate removed after discovering he is carrying a “faulty” gene that puts him at increased risk of developing cancer. The businessman, who has family members who have suffered breast or prostate cancer, discovered he was […]
My girl was judged too young to live
The Sunday Times 21 April 2013 Chloe Drury died aged 17 after being refused access to a trial drug CHLOE DRURY’S mother says her teenage daughter was too young to die but, as a result of the inflexible system of prescribing experimental drugs, was deemed too young to live. The 17-year-old, who had been diagnosed […]
Dying beg to become medical guinea pigs
The Sunday Times 14 April 2013 A COALITION of influential medical figures is to spearhead a campaign to allow the terminally ill access to unlicensed experimental drugs. The Right to Try campaign has been inspired by Les Halpin, a millionaire who is suffering from motor neurone disease (MND), a degenerative condition of the nervous […]
Who Cares?
The Mid Staffs scandal has thrown a light on the growing role of untrained healthcare assistants The Sunday Times 1o February 2013 As she visited her mother, a heart patient on an acute hospital ward, Ann Smith, a nurse trained in the 1980s, was dismayed to discover no one was monitoring whether the 78-year-old was […]
Male infertility Male infertility is soaring. So why do doctors keep blaming the woman when she can’t have a baby?
The Daily Mail 5 December 2012 Lois Rogers To the outside world, Dennis Robinson has an enviable life. Happily married to an attractive woman with a comfortable home and a secure job, he is a father figure to his wife’s eight-year-old son. There is, however, a yawning chasm in Dennis’s life. He cannot father a […]
Buy one, get one free on breast ops
The Sunday Times Published 15 July 2012 Lois Rogers COSMETIC surgeons are offering supermarket-style discounts for multiple breast enlargements, nose jobs and fat-removal operations in order to boost business. Mothers and daughters are among groups of women being attracted by “buy one, get one half-price” style offers. Online shopping carts and time-limited no-refund special offers […]