WHAT DOCTORS DON’T TELL YOU - E-NEWS BROADCAST No. 182 - 18 August 2005

[Guest guest]

" WDDTY e-News " <e-news

WDDTY e-News Broadcast - 18 August 2005

Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:56:11 +0100

 

 

 

 

 

WHAT DOCTORS DON'T TELL YOU - E-NEWS BROADCAST No. 182 - 18 August 2005

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

appreciate receiving it.

 

 

 

NEWS CONTENTS

 

AUTISM: Could the gut play a part after all?

THE DRUGS DON'T WORK: Resistance isn't such bad news

MEDICAL UNSCIENCE: Dullards dance to the dollar

HOSPITAL ERRORS: Not many dead

 

 

 

AUTISM: Could the gut play a part after all?

 

Despite the sterling efforts of the media, Dr Andrew Wakefield and his

research into a link between the MMR vaccine and autism just won't go

away.

Dr Wakefield had put forward the theory in 1998 that the vaccine might

cause a reaction in the gut that could lead to autism. For his

troubles he was invited to give up his position at the Royal Free

Hospital in London, he has faced trial by media, and he has had to

explain himself to the medical regulators.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, he left the UK for Texas, where he is

continuing his research at the Thoughtful House Center for Children.

Sadly, the main point of his work - that there may be a causal link

between gut disorders and autism - got lost in the furore over the

vaccine, and yet it's something that may provide an invaluable insight

into autism and its progress.

Dr Wakefield has just published a new study that adds weight to the

theory, irrespective of the part played by the MMR jab. The new study

involved 178 children who suffer from gastrointestinal symptoms such

as diarrhea and abdominal pain. Around 140 of the children also had

autism, and most had regressed after normal early development.

Only the children with autism had inflammation of the intestinal

lining, and the degree of swelling of the intestinal lymph glands was

also more severe. The study also dispels the old medical myth that

swollen lymph glands are 'normal' in children.

" The results of this study give us additional clues on understanding

what is going on in the gut and how it may lead to the brain disorder.

The findings of this new study add to the clear evidence of a novel

and treatable disease of the intestinal immune system in children with

developmental disorders. These are medical diseases, which should be

treated as such. This study, in combination with previous work,

raises the possibility that treating bowel disease may alleviate some

of the symptoms of autism itself, " said Dr Wakefield.

His theory, which is becoming increasingly likely with every study,

could offer genuine hope for autism sufferers, and their parents and

carers. For which he will doubtlessly be pilloried.

(Source: European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, August

2005, and http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/pub_06.htm)

 

 

 

THE DRUGS DON'T WORK: Resistance isn't such bad news

 

The consequence of over-prescribing is a resistance to drugs. It has

already happened to antibiotics, and now the same thing is being seen

with the antiviral drugs. As a result, diseases such as HIV and

hepatitis B are more difficult to manage.

New research, which tracked 4500 HIV patients, found that 10 per cent

were resistant to an antiviral within two years, and nearly a third

were resistant after six years' usage. One in 25 HIV patients has

built up resistance to every type of antiviral.

The same picture is occurring among hepatitis B patients. It's been

reckoned that a fifth of all strains are now untreatable because of

their resistance to existing drugs, and there are early signs that

influenza is also not reacting to drugs.

But it's not all bad news. Although the prescribing of antibiotics

has dropped by half in UK hospitals in the past 10 years, there hasn't

been the expected rise of bacterial infections.

Nobody is quite sure what to make of the statistics. Could it be that

antibiotics had been unnecessarily prescribed in the first place?

Have people found better ways of countering bacterial infections?

Whatever the reason, there's life beyond drugs after all.

(Source: British Journal of Medicine, 2005; 331: 328-9).

 

 

 

MEDICAL UNSCIENCE: Dullards dance to the dollar

 

Readers were probably shocked to read in last week's bulletin about

the raft of EU legislation that could kill off alternative and

nutritional medicine in Europe.

Could it be that alternative medicine is dangerous, that it presents a

threat to life and limb? Or perhaps is it because people are making

vast fortunes from sick and needy people? While both accusations can

fairly be placed at the door of conventional medicine, the real reason

is that alternative medicine is not scientific.

It hasn't been through the rigour of double-blind placebo studies,

reporting without fear and favour in the way that conventional

medicine does. As a result, legislators feel they have to put in the

controls that haven't been imposed by a scientific community.

So when a learned journal such as the British Medical Journal reports

that conventional medicine isn't terribly scientific either, the

legislators should sit up and pay attention.

Conventional medicine prides itself on being a science, but it is also

an industry, and one that produces vast profits for the drugs

companies. When there's a lot of money at stake, opinion can quickly

become fact, and 'findings' can become firm conclusions.

E-news has reported before that around one-third of all medical

studies are questionable, usually because the sponsor - invariably a

drug company - expects positive returns for its investment.

Another problem, as a research team has discovered, is that the data

underlying any study is never independently verified. This means that

it can be altered, and nobody would know. Not even legislators in

Brussels.

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2005; 331: 245-6, and 267-70).

* If you really want to understand the unscience of medicine, and the

dubious practices of the drugs companies, you need to read WDDTY's

Secrets of the Drugs Industry. Consider it as part of your education

as a citizen of the world. To order your copy,

http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=341

 

 

 

HOSPITAL ERRORS: Not many dead

 

What's the difference between 840 and 40,000? An awful lot of

liability insurance payments.

New research into errors in UK hospitals has put the annual rate at

around half a million. A 'staggeringly high figure', the researchers

admit, but what seems staggeringly low is that just 840 people died as

a direct result of these errors.

This would suggest that just 0.16 per cent of these errors, many of

which included the prescribing of the wrong drug or the wrong dose or

both, resulted in death. It's also far removed from the 8 per cent

estimated by other researchers, which would put the annual death rate

from hospital errors at 40,000.

So why the big difference? Could it have anything to do with

liability payouts and wrecked careers? Or is it really the case that

a typical UK hospital is by far the safest place to be?

(Source: National Patient Safety Agency annual report).

* Not convinced by the statistics? If you're not entirely impressed,

and especially if you're about to go into hospital, the WDDTY Hospital

Survival Guide is more important to you than the anaesthetic. Grab

your copy today by clicking on this link:

http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=14