The Ginkgo biloba or Maidenhair tree is a beautiful creature, and I’ve several growing myself.
But the gardener’s delight may be a patient’s peril – recent tests suggest some ginkgo products in Australia have been adulterated and that consumers are being conned.
Dr Ken Harvey, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the School of Public Health at [...]
How do we know if our general practice/hospital/dentist/aged care service is providing safe and quality care? At the moment, it’s almost impossible to answer this question in any objective manner.
But at least we now have some idea of what sort of questions we should be asking, thanks to a report released this week by [...]
For those who would like to dig deeper into the issues surrounding swine flu and vaccination, it’s worth having a read of this interview with Dr Tom Jefferson, a medically trained epidemiologist who has long experience as a reviewer for the Cochrane Collaboration, examining the evidence around seasonal influenza vaccines.
The interview, conducted by Maryann [...]
Following the previous post about informed consent and swine flu vaccination, I thought it might be useful to have a consumer organisation’s view on the issues.
Carol Bennett, executive director of the Consumers Health Forum, is encouraging the public to discuss the pros and cons of vaccination with their health provider, rather than relying on [...]
The organisers of a forum on pharmaceutical regulation, to be held in Adelaide on Thursday, are promising a “robust discussion”. I hope there are plans for a podcast as I’m sure there will be plenty of interest in the debate.
Healthy Skepticism is hosting the panel discussion, at the Women and Children’s Hospital, to examine questions [...]
Some fascinating insights into the mental health sector emerged from a survey of participants at The Mental Health Services conference in Perth last week.
The importance of prioritising the needs of youth and children, the unhelpful impact of the dominance of the medical model in mental health, and the potential to expand the role of [...]
Dr Julie Leask, a social scientist in the medical faculty at the University of Sydney, has done much research and thinking on the issues around public acceptance, or otherwise, of vaccination.
She wrote an interesting article in Crikey today about the image problem of swine flu vaccination and the need for “full transparency from the [...]
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