Post Archive by Month

When I first started to fight the anti-vaxxers who were led by Andrew Wakefield in 2001 it was a straight-forward job. The whole medical profession agreed MMR vaccination wasn’t hazardous. At the time, millions of children had been vaccinated without harm and … Read More

Four pints a day? Doesn’t sound like much does it? Yet despite NHS guidelines, it’s adults who regularly drink this amount that are at risk of needing a liver transplant due to ­alcoholic cirrhosis. Experts at the Royal Free Hospital … Read More

Where did this fad for veganism come from? ­ Vegetarianism is an age-old rejection of eating meat but still eating milk and eggs. But with veganism we’re talking about the ­rejection of any food of animal origin. And yes, I … Read More

The new reclassification of ­cannabis for medical use means it can be prescribed on the NHS. If only that were ­entirely true. The reality is few people are likely to get a script for medical cannabis, according to a BMJ … Read More

We all know our motivation to lose weight is high when we manage to lose weight quickly, and we can do this when we replace meals with diet drinks, shakes and soups. So could doctors use this high ­motivation in … Read More

It seems that baby boomers, born and raised during the hippy era of free love, dropping out and turning on, are still at it despite their age. Among the over-50s the ­latest statistics reveal the number of people receiving hospital … Read More

As a smoker in my early 40s, I remember seeing a chest X-ray after I’d had a bout of bronchitis going on to ­pneumonia. It showed quite a nasty picture of lung damage. When I got back to my office … Read More

More and more of us are prey to ‘junk’ sleep – waking in the night and not being able to return to slumber. Could this junk sleep be responsible for, at least in part, the soaring quantities of junk food … Read More

Car fumes are toxic. It’s almost 20 years since leaded petrol was banned in the UK to ­protect children’s brains from its damaging effects. Other components of traffic ­pollution, including carbon monoxide, have been shown to be ­“neurotoxic”. There’s more and … Read More

Want to hear a shocking example of sexism? Professor Chris Gale, a consultant cardiologist at Leeds University, says thousands of women are dying from heart attacks because they get worse care than men. His study showed poor treatment contributed to … Read More