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The duplicity of the NHS

You have to wonder where the billions poured into the NHS go. Well, I’ve found out where some of it goes:

http://guidance.nice.org.uk/TA75/
http://guidance.nice.org.uk/TA106/
http://www.nhs.uk/hepatitisc/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/hepatitis-c/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Whilst the first 2 have at least got merit, the second two appear to cover basically the same thing, just with extra prettiness. Oddly, they both seem to cover the same stuff, just on slightly different bits of the overarching NHS site.

Clearly the ‘hepatitis’ budget and ‘NHS Choices’ budget were completely separate.

The NIH pages on Hep C are vastly better too. Lots of video and distinctive design don’t exactly help a user access information any more easily.

Music Catch

Hey,

Again just a quick update/review of a free flash game I have found on the internet and have consequently wasted a fair bit of time on.

The game in question is called “Music Catch” and it involved you moving the cursor around the screen catching bits of “music” that the game throws at you. You pick up the occasional yellow bits that increase the score multiplier (and makes your “paddle” larger and harder to control) and avoid the red bits that will decrease your score multiplier.

Sounds easy right? Well that’s all there is to it, and it would be like any other free flash game but for the disarmingly “charming” soundtrack that creates the “music” that you catch. Coupled with the really old school game of giving you huge scores (I got 2,496,741 on my first play) it’s definitely one I’d reccomend.

And done…managed to fob off a review of a flash game as “acceptable” blog posting.

Pictures will come.

Ang

The game can be found here

“Collectively, the studies suggest that migraine patients benefit from acupuncture, although the correct placement of needles seems to be less relevant than is usually thought by acupuncturists.”

That’s my emphasis. Hah. :)

Reference: Linde K, Allais G, Brinkhaus B, Manheimer E, Vickers A, White AR. Acupuncture for migraine prophylaxis. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2009, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD001218. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001218.pub2.

http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD001218/frame.html

Hey,
Just a quick one. It’s always annoyed me that people go out and buy branded “common” drugs such as paracetamol, aspirin or pheylephrine (and so on…) If you look at what the pill contains : it’ll read something like “Paracetamol – 500mg” etc…it’s easy to check if you don’t believe me.

You’ll also perhaps notice that close to the expensive medicine, there is most of the time a chemists/supermarket “own brand” paracetamol. Usually, they’ll match the expensive pills in strength (the most likely difference is possibly changing how the body responds to the drug “pharmacokinetics” – affecting uptake/metabolism into active form) but for the most part, and for reasons that people generally take such medicine the difference is moot.  Of course you’ll get a bit of placebo effect, cos you’ve paid top dollar for the medicine and whilst the pill is not exactly glam rock standards, there is usually enough embossed shiny  stuff on the packaging to outdo a disco ball.

Last I checked, cheap ass paracetamol is around 16p-30p for 16 tablets, whilst expensive stuff goes up to £2 for the essentially the same thing. Think of what could be done with the change!

You could a) save it up, and spend it on yourself. Or if you don’t want big pharma to lose some of that profit margin, b) Next time you go buy medicine, go for generics rather than propietaries – work out how much you’ve saved and donate it to a charity that tries to secure and supply essential medication to those in need.

One such as http://www.msf.org.uk/

Ang

My sarcasm sense maybe be misfiring today, but i can’t quite detect whether this is parody or not.

I’m going to say yes, and hope yes…

If it is parody is it even funny? THIS DOESN’T WORK ON SO MANY DIFFERENT LEVELS.

As reported earlier by David Colquhoun, you can no longer embark upon a BSc degree in Homeopathy starting in the year 2009, which will hopefully preemptively destroy a few people’s hopes of becoming a professional quack. The last one offered prior to this was at Westminster university, and when questioned on the removal they replied that they had done it due to ‘poor recruitment’ and that it was a strictly financial decision. To be entirely honest, whatever the reasoning, this is pretty good news.

For those of you out of the CAM loop, which is just where everyone should be:

“Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine that treats a disease with heavily diluted preparations created from substances that would ordinarily cause effects similar to the disease’s symptoms.”

In a lot of cases this means that NO MOLECULES OF ACTIVE ANYTHING ARE PRESENT. Sounds ludicrous right? The kind of thing used as a plot device in a shit sci-fi film, well did you know there are at least 4 Homeopathic hospitals still open in the UK? It’s reasonably lucrative madness, i think i should start peddling it:

I’ve been pretty lazy recently.
Sloths are famed for their lazyness.
Therefore: if i purée sloth cortex, and dilute it until it’s water, ALL OF MY PROBLEMS WILL BE SOLVED.

Simple. I think this sums it up really, (stolen from Ben’s FB page):

I have no idea how this managed to pass under my radar, but it did. Apparently earlier this year Ubisoft realeased a Grey’s Anatomy game for wii, sounds potentially quite good right? Especially since games like Trauma Center are very okay.

I’ve never seen the appeal of Grey’s Anatomy anyway, especially when House is so good. Oh well there’s only been two reviews so far, so i’m gonna reserve any opinion just yet.

It does look pretty shitty though:

This really shouldn’t be necessary by now, but a surprising amount of people i’ve spoken to recently still seem to believe this. So if you are one of these people take heed:

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT CHOCOLATE CAUSES SPOTS.

There has been some research recently suggesting that milk might be a contributing factor to acne formation, but it takes second place to other factors like androgen levels, and amount of bacteria on the face.

Simple. Now gorge yourself on Easter eggs. Or not.

Just a quick check we are heading in a right sort of direction.

An addendum

Hey,

Good work keeping which medical school we go to under wraps Myles.

But Hermes’ magical wand makes another appreance on medical school property.  Albeit one that is tucked away and hard for the general public to gawp at.

See, the university decided in the not so recent past to put up a plaque to name and probably honour some visiting professors or whatever.  This is the result:

hermeswandplaque

Oh dear oh dear – the plaque looks like it cost a pretty penny as well.

Also, good work to those who have kept checking the site during “low season” – your faith has been ‘rewarded’

Ang

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