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WDDTY e-News Service - 01 April 2004

Fri, 2 Apr 2004 15:18:47 +0100

 

 

WHAT DOCTORS DON’T TELL YOU - E-NEWS BROADCAST No. 76 - 01 Apr 2004

 

Please feel free to email this broadcast to any friends you feel would

appreciate receiving it.

 

 

 

 

THE SILENT EPIDEMIC: It may kill up to one in five, and yet nobody knows its

name

 

There's an epidemic that is starting to take hold in many Western countries. It

already claims the lives of 1800 people in the UK every year, but it will be

another 11 years before it reaches its peak when up to one in five lives may be

at risk.

 

Yet it's a disease that nobody has heard of, nobody has written about, and

medicine seems to be at a loss as to how best to treat it. It is mesothelioma,

a cancer of the lungs and chest that is a reaction to exposure to asbestos.

 

Asbestos is now a banned material, but it was commonly used as an insulator, in

filters and cements, and in boards until the 1980s.

 

Those most at risk are men who worked with it, so carpenters and joiners are

especially susceptible. But there have already been cases of wives and

daughters, who were exposed to workmen's overalls at home, dying from the

disease.

 

Mesothelioma is a very slow-acting cancer, and can take up to 25 years to

develop. The epidemic is expected to occur in the UK, the rest of Europe and

Australia, where asbestos-usage has been particularly high. It is thought that

the disease may have already peaked in the USA as health officials there were

quicker to act in banning the material.

 

Symptoms can include chest pain and breathlessness, but sometimes there are no

indications of the disease. Treatment is limited, and surgery to remove the

tumours has occurred in just 20 patients in the past five years in the UK.

 

Another option is radiotherapy, but the best therapy is not known because there

has not been any research up to now into the disease and treatment.

 

Presumably people who worked in buildings with asbestos insulation will not

develop the cancer. If they do, a tragedy may become a national catastrophe, and

one that was avoidable if our public health 'watchdogs' had the same commitment

to our well-being as their American counterparts.

 

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2004; 328: 237-8).

 

* To find out about the latest therapies and discoveries in treating cancer, you

need to be at the next WDDTY conference, The Cancer Battleplan. Some of the

world's leading exponents will be talking, including Bill Wolcott, pioneer of

metabolic typing. The conference will be held in London on June 19 and 20. To

find out more, : http://www.wddty.co.uk/conference_about.asp

 

 

 

 

 

 

VETS AND VACCINES: The boosters are unnecessary, they admit

 

A group of vets in the UK have announced that booster jabs for your pet are

unethical and unnecessary. Several have said that the boosters have also caused

a range of illnesses. Jabs are far more powerful than the pharmaceutical

companies admit, say the vets, and their protection lasts far longer than just a

year.

 

* To find out the truth about veterinary and pharmaceutical care and your pet,

you must read the WDDTY report What Vets Don't Tell You. It tells you

everything you need to know about caring for your cat or dog safely and

responsibly. To order your copy of this 'must-read' report, :

http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=389

 

 

 

TAINTED RESEARCH: What's good for Wakefield is good for the rest, too

 

Our thoughts have turned to Dr Andrew Wakefield, whose research findings of a

possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been discredited.

 

As you may recall, a Sunday Times journalist discovered that a few of the 12

children in Wakefield's study programme were also taking part in a different

study being funded by the Legal Aid Board. The consequence of all this,

according to the journalist who was acting as judge and jury, was that

Wakefield's conclusions were tainted, and suspect.

 

So why have we started thinking about Dr Wakefield again? Well, we happened on

a new study that found that 40 per cent of all studies published in two medical

journals in 2001 had conflicts of interest. They were either directly funded by

the drug company whose drug was being tested, or some of the researchers were in

the employ of the drug company concerned.

 

This would seem to be a clearer case of discredited research than anything

undertaken by Dr Wakefield.

 

But have these studies been similarly dismissed? Perhaps we just missed it.

 

(Source: Journal of Internal Medicine, 2004; 19: 1).

 

 

 

NOW WASH YOUR HANDS: Our children may do it, but our doctors won't

 

Possibly the greatest breakthrough in hospital care was the novel idea that

doctors should wash their hands after seeing a patient. It was an observation

first made in the 1850s, and there was a sudden and dramatic improvement in

patient recovery.

 

Patients will not be delighted to hear that it remains a rare event. The vast

majority of doctors still do not wash up, but instead spread germs to the next

patient on their rounds.

 

In an attempt to encourage doctors to visit the little boys' room, the Mayo

Clinic is recommending a super alcohol-based hand rub as a great way to keep

down those nasty germs.

 

But if the average doc shirks away from good old soap and water, it's unlikely

he's going to run for the new hand wash.

 

(Source: Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 2004; 79: 109-16).

 

 

 

FOLIC ACID: More good news (we really should be buying shares)

 

Hard on the heels of the article last time about the benefits of a diet rich in

B vitamins comes more good news. Researchers have discovered that men who

consume large quantities of folic acid are far less likely to suffer a stroke.

A similar result was found in men who had a high intake of B12.

 

Folic acid, part of the B family, is naturally found in fruits and vegetables.

The US government recently advised all manufacturers to fortify grain products

with folic acid, although, as we reported last time, scientists are concerned

about long-term health hazards with synthetic folic acid.

 

The latest study merely repeats findings of earlier trials, which confirmed that

folic acid could reduce levels of homocysteine, now recognized as a major cause

of heart problems.

 

(Source: Stroke, 2004; 35: 169-174).

 

 

 

READERS' CORNER

 

Drugs and the elderly: Most drugs are prescribed to the elderly, and yet older

people are rarely involved in pre-licensing trials, as we reported last time.

But one correspondent heard a radio advertisement the other day from a drug

company that appealed for elderly people to participate in a drug trial.

Although we didn't hear the advert, there is a world of difference between a

pre-licensing trial and a post-marketing one. In the latter case, people for

whom the drug is intended clearly get involved, although the drug company is

under no obligation to publish the results.

 

 

 

Informed consent: Our piece last week about the guidelines of the General

Medical Council for informed consent prompted a reply from one complementary

practitioner. To her mind, informed consent should mean only that the patient

understands the nature and purpose of the proposed treatment, and has been

informed of every known side effect. She never recommends any alternative

practitioner to obtain 'informed consent' as it could lead to a malpractice

claim. Instead, 'valid' or 'effective' consent should be sufficient. Informed

consent, as we understand it, involves the practitioner making the patient aware

of any and every treatment, proven or otherwise. Take, for example, the use of

chemotherapy. It has a very low success rate, and yet the effects on quality of

life can be enormous. This means that the patient could suffer unnecessarily

when there was a more benign option also available, which was just as effective,

but about which he or she was unaware.

 

 

* To search the WDDTY database - where every word from the last 14 years of

research can be found – click on http://www.wddty.co.uk/search/infodatabase.asp

 

 

 

 

Listen to Lynne

 

On the radio: Hear Lynne McTaggart on Passion the new DAB Digital Radio Station

focusing on your health and your environment -

http://www.wddty.co.uk/passion_main.asp

 

On demand: Select and listen to any of Lynne's archived broadcasts on Passion,

there's a new one each week - http://www.wddty.co.uk/passion_archive.asp

 

 

View missed/lost e-News broadcasts:

 

View our e-News broadcast archives, follow this link -

http://www.wddty.co.uk/archive.asp

 

 

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