Category Archives: Health
UK breakthrough on zika vaccine
BRITISH scientists believe they have developed a vaccine that will tackle the zika virus by neutralising disease-laden mosquito saliva before the virus can spread around the body. Experts at Seek, a small biotech firm in London, think the vaccine will also be effective against other mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, and it […]
High Street chemists who charge the NHS £300 for skin creams that should cost £12
Sickening rip off sees NHS paying many times over the odds for products Countless patients with debilitating skin conditions are denied treatment Toby Butt, now 12, has lived with agonising eczema all this life Has been one of the lucky ones, getting a cheap and effective treatment Many patients with severe eczema, psoriasis or […]
Scandal of patients denied 5p pill that shrinks cancer: Last week we revealed NHS pays crazily high prices for life extending drugs. But the madness doesn’t end there
Sickening rip-off sees patients not being offered effective ‘old’ treatments Instead, the emphasis is on the latest, often eyewateringly expensive drugs Cancer patient Mary Nike, 58, from Brewood, was treated with a 5p pill Within seven weeks of starting on a new treatment, the tumour in Mary Nike’s left breast had shrunk from 1½ […]
Sickening rip off: Smaller than a matchstick, this is a year’s dose of a life extending blood cancer drug. The NHS pays £115,000 for it – yet it costs just £100 to make
Mani Coulter, 42, from Caversham, Berks, had only months to live in 2012 Became one of first people in Britain to be given Kadcyla for breast cancer Three years on, she’s convinced the £90,000-a-year treatment saved her life Mani Coulter is testimony to the wonders of modern medicine. When she became one of the […]
New jab to end need for annual flu shot
SCIENTISTS believe they are close to creating a universal flu vaccine that could end the need for annual injections in as little as three years. A team of researchers from Seek, a small biotech firm in London, developed the FLU-v vaccine after working on a group of non mutating proteins that are common to all strains of the flu virus, including those that can cause pandemics. FLU-v accelerates the creation of particular groups of T-cells, a type of […]
Crippled by statins: Cholesterol-busting drugs left David in a wheelchair – but doctors insisted he keep taking them
David Purkiss started taking a statin when he was 44 He was at risk of a heart attack and was told it could protect him The carpenter, now 70, from Titchfield, developed terrible muscle pains When David Purkiss was told he was at risk of a heart attack, and taking a cholesterol-lowering statin could protect him, it […]
Targeting metabolic pathways: why are we missing a trick in cancer treatment?
BIOLOGICAL AND TARGETED THERAPIES, IMMUNOTHERAPY ORIGINAL PUBLICATION DATE: 30 JULY, 2015 AUTHOR: LOIS ROGERS A new route to effective cancer treatment is emerging from research showing impressive results from drug cocktails of immunotherapy and metabolic medicines alongside conventional chemotherapy. The evidence from a growing number of studies suggests that using this approach to interfere with […]
Doctors to test statins on private cancer patients
The Sunday Times 17 May 2015 A GROUP of doctors are to offer a cocktail of common drugs including statins to 5,000 terminally ill cancer private patients to create a large-scale trial that they hope will convince the NHS to adopt the treatment. Their patients, who will each be charged a fee of £400 and […]
Scandal of fruit netting ‘approved as surgical implant’
The Sunday Times 11 January 2015 AN OXFORD scientist joined an undercover investigation to expose how the regulation of medical devices is so lax that mesh packaging for fruit could be approved as a medical device to be implanted in people’s bodies. Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at Oxford, agreed to produce a fake […]
Thousands of deaths blamed on stroke drug
The Sunday Times 15 June 2014 A CLOT-BUSTING drug given to stroke patients is being blamed for thousands of extra deaths. The treatment is being widely used despite original research indicating that up to 10% of patients may be killed because, although it cleared blockages in blood vessels in some people, it promoted uncontrollable fatal […]