The headline is always a lie
In a cunning meta-twist which simultaneously proves and disproves its own claim, the headline above is itself a lie. It’s of course not true that every single headline you read in a newspaper is absolutely false.
It is, however, a pretty good rule of thumb.
That’s because the purpose of headlines is to sell newspapers, and most stories on most days are actually really boring. (“X said Y about Z, blah blah.”)
The only way to achieve the desired aim, then, is to exaggerate, distort, amplify and bend aspects of the story until you arrive at a formulation of words somehow derived from the real facts which will capture people’s attention long enough to extract their money, at which point it doesn’t matter when they find out it’s complete rubbish.
It’s rather like homeopathic “medicine”, where you’re being sold a bottle which actually contains nothing but water, but which was once waved in the general direction of the ingredient it pretends to be an extract from and claims to retain a “memory” of it.
Today’s apocalyptic front-page splash in the Daily Record is similarly derived from contact with a person vaguely related to news, but has nevertheless resulted in a story not containing a single actual molecule of it.
Dr Miles Mack is chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners (Scotland), and is a popular fixture in the press. He was the source of this story the last time the Record ran it, back in April 2015, by the same author (again with a highly-misleading headline which presented a worst-case scenario as the reality).
But we have no great beef with Dr Mack. His job is to fight the corner of his members, and to try to secure for them the biggest possible slice of the Scottish Government’s budget, which continues to fall in the sixth year of Tory austerity. Fair enough.
But he at no point actually suggests “a future without family doctors”. He makes some vague hypothetical criticisms of new models of care provision which are currently being trialled in order to try to cope with a predicted increase in demand at a time when resources are stretched.
And as the article progresses he lets slip a couple of rather interesting facts:
So what the Record chooses to describe as a “GP funding crisis” amounts to an increase in the number of GPs and a real-terms increase in GP funding over the period in question. That’s a funny sort of “crisis” in most people’s eyes.
With its budget being cut by Westminster, the Scottish Government has nevertheless somehow managed to employ more family doctors and provide more funding. (Up from £705m when the SNP took power in 2007 to £853m now. In England, GP funding has been cut by £984m since 2010.)
The NHS – in both Scotland and the UK – faces serious financial challenges in years to come. But the hysterical scaremongering in today’s Daily Record is a spectacular misrepresentation of the truth. As a general rule, readers might find it advisable to always start from the premise that a headline is a lie until proven otherwise.
The Daily Record is fast becoming the spiritual successor to the Daily Sport, but without the fleshy titivation on every page.
The Sport ceased publication and entered administration in April 2011.
With any luck, the Record will go the same way.
Looking at the Daily News stand screaming anti SNP and the sheer Brit Nat Butcher’s Apron waving TV programmes, it never ceases to amaze me that the SNP is actually on the rise, despite them a’. Do you think the public has grown immune to Brititis?
‘headline is a lie until proven otherwise.’
So is their claim, ‘Newspaper of the Year’. Did they win the Daily Record Newspaper of the Year award?
The late Feb early March circulation figs for the Labour rag should be interesting.
Any bets on sub 170,000?
Good article Stuart, but poor show using homeopathy as an analogy.
Homeopathy works and I am living proof that it works.
My statement does not lie!
Does this also mean my spring fashion worries have not been sorted?
And then same unionist hack frauds are presented on BBC vote SLab Scotland with all that grand old UKOK dignified gravitas and brevity, instead of being laughed at.
My..and a day before the FM’s questions too?
I’m awfy cynical aren’t I?
The Unonist press will go to any length to belittle Scotland and the SG in particular.It is their blundering attempts to confuse voters, make them feel we cannot do anything right, at the end their aim is to steal votes by propaganda methods.
They will get worse, as panic mode makes them more outrageous in their headlines and editorial.
They are the scum of the earth, BUM right enough.
The Daily Record claims to be “newspaper of the year”. Which year, it doesn’t bother to specify.
I’m guessing 1962.
Who actually buys this paper as when I do my rounds in various workshops I don’t actually see anyone reading newspapers, is the figure for sales include online membership because they cant be that many stupid people in Scotland ?
We don’t have enough villages for everyone to have there own village idiot !
“GP funding crisis” amounts to an increase in the number of GPs and a real-terms increase in GP funding
It’s a crisis if they need 350 GPs and they only got 35.
Press lies.
Who’d have believed it? It’s as Stuart has said, they’ve been king of their territory so long they’re accustomed to being accountable to no one. Dare to criticise or challenge and you’re a marked man.
More here: https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/jumping-the-snark/
For anyone unclear on how homeopathy works there is a very useful guide here. http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/
The one thing I can say with definitive experience is that when times are as tough financially as they are now, then ill health and visits to the GP seem to increase in parallel. Folk suffer from an assortment of ailments both physical and psychological as a result of hardship and worry.
This is especially true in England at the present time where there are no “buffers” in place to mitigate for the effects of government cuts.
Taking the training and exams to be a GP is a demanding exercise,and in the main they serve us well.
They must be under enormous pressure with an ageing population adding to the factors mentioned above. They have my backing ,and hopefully the future will resolve many issues.
The Daily Record——bum paper.
What’s the betting Kezia trots this out at FMs questions tomorrow ???
It is a sad memory that newspapers used to make you work to shoot peas through the headlines. Now all you need to do is read the first paragraph.
Here is links to an article I was reading this morning,an explanation of how the UKOK propaganda machine is employed and it’s aims. Worth a read.
https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2015/06/21/part-1-propaganda-the-new-word-order/
But this doesn’t help me to work out when I should change my pants. Poor show, Daily Record.
Aw, come on now. This is the Daily Record, Scotland’s champion that we are talking about here.
What did you expect, real, factual news.
A wee laugh for all of us this morning. A certain Torquil Crichton is reporting that operation to keep us in Europe is called, wait for it. PROJECT FUD. I kid you not.
Ian says:
27 January, 2016 at 10:52 am
For anyone unclear on how homeopathy works there is a very useful guide here. http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/
Utterly Fantastic
:#>
Fergus Green 10:40 a.m.
With the greatest respect, you are not “living proof” that homeopathy works. I assume you got better and I’m really pleased for you about that. You may also have received homeopathic “treatment”. That does not equate to proof of anything. Have you heard of the placebo effect?
Stu’s analogy is sound. It had not occurred to me before, but I hold homeopathy and the Daily Record in broadly equivalent levels of contempt.
In a local shop last week, if you bought any item, they were offering you a free copy of the rag whose name I will not say. Suppose this all goes to add to their, probably fictitious, circulation figures.
@Smith 10:47
You have to query if they need 350 GPs as there are already 8 for every 100,000 Scots, whereas the obviously better English and Welsh NHSs work more efficiently with 6.6. The Scots are being molly-coddled.
Echoes of this last night when the self-appointed opposition to the A9 speed cameras, a doughball named Burns from Inverness, was given air-time to challenge the governments good-news story on road fatalities.
I’m ashamed to say I went into the DR website to read this “article” and found that they managed to counter the claim that “the Scottish Government needs to be clear and open with the public” by waffling on and hiding unwanted facts in a jungle of hack jargon.
Guess we can be confident on what Kez will have on the agenda at tomorrow’s FMQ then…
Thankfully the vast majority of the reading public now look behind the headlines,hence the downward trend in newspaper sales, largely due to sites like this one, in fact, “wings” has, and continues to show the way to other “independence” minded sites.
The dailys, such as the Record, and Scotsman, are really only catering to the hard core, ( hard of thinking!) unionist.
Read this to see why homeopathic claims are as credible as Daily Record headlines.
http://www.badscience.net/2007/11/a-kind-of-magic/
And I still don’t know what I’m going to do about my spring fashion worries1
Beware of posts beginning with the words ‘With the greatest respect…’.
They have a tendency to become disrespectful, offensive and sometimes downright ignorant.
@Donald Anderson
at 10:37
You wrote “Brititis” should that not be “Brittinnitus”? you know that constant and extremely annoying whining that you get in your ears whenever there are some Yoon`s about.
On the other hand there is a very excellent and easy to understand exposition of economic Scotland penned by Wee Ginger Dug in today’s National. Probably make a great leaflet.
That’s a very satanic looking image of Tony Blair on the front page of the DR. That evil expression, and especially the thermal skin tone – straight from Hell. Has he really had that many jolly trips in the sun, or has there been a wee bit of naughty photo-editing going on?
Fergus Green
Sorry if I offended you, but I am at a loss to understand why. I may have challenged your beliefs, which you posted of your own free will, but is that not in part what this site and others are about?
I cannot find anything disrespectful about you in my comment. I was disrespectful about homeopathy and the Daily Record. That’s because I don’t respect them.
GPs contracts are far too generous in terms of hours in practise expected.The terms have to be overly generous because the job itself has turned from being an enjoyable and rewarding,if tying and demanding,profession into being a highly stressful shit of a job that they want to retire from as soon as possible.I find that quite sad.
BBC Scotland news website showing a civilised group of smiley faces protesting outside Holyrood (which is their right) on the SG marine environment debate, but the Herald is showing another version of what happened.
https://archive.is/qTioR
Started to use BUM a couple of months ago to describe Scotland’s press. Time to change it to ARSE (Auld rubbish spread eventually). What a disgrace to the written word the Redcoat has become! Bill
So, I changed my pants. What about my socks?
We need to know. Why has the SNP government not issued guidelines?
I noticed in the Daily stranger’s story there was no mention of when the Tories were last in power how they changed the way GPs were funded.
The change meant that GPs were to be paid by the number of patients they had registered with their surgeries.
I am only surmising here, but I suspect, this meant GPs taking on more patients than their surgeries could handle, hence the complaints over the years from patients about not being able to walk in and see their GP the same day, as they had been able to do so before.
Jake Gittes said:
“The late Feb early March circulation figs for the Labour rag should be interesting.
Any bets on sub 170,000?”…
Here are the Wiki figures for Daily Record circulation Jan 2010-Jan 2015:
323,831 (2010)
306,872
291,825
251,535
227,639
203,725 (2015)
I’m thinking your ‘sub 170k’ is a little optimistic (nice train of thought tho’ ;)) but my personal target is sub 200k.
Whatever, we’re heading in the right direction.
Jarman
Brittinnitus
Like it ?
Its not hard to be cynical of the UKOK tory boy creep show we voted to stay ruled by. Yesterday Tesco were exposed for all kinds of extremely creepy business practises, google got away with paying virtually no UKOK tax on vast profits, neither Osborne or his same crew of treasury creeps that terrorised Scotland 2014, refuse point blank to explain any of the google tax con, why, how much, nothing. Tesco wont even have to pay a fine for their goonery because legislators only brought in fines after their investigation began into massive, they say, well this is how it began to be sold via BBC propaganda
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29821061
UKOK Serious Fraud squad, Financial Conduct Authority, City regulator, Tesco say sorry, its in the past, no one charged, etc or just another day in teamGB.
Firefox from now on. Every little helps.
The Dirty Redcoat journos, honkin tw@ts
the lot of them, squelching at the sound
of their own lying motions.
The Rev Stuart Campbell, putting pants
on the BUM to stem the flow of shite!
Vote SNP x 2
@Smith says: 27 January, 2016 at 10:47 am:
“It’s a crisis if they need 350 GPs and they only got 35.”
It depends on who, “They”, are, who assessed the 350 needed, and if they were attempting to prove someone else’s figures were wrong.
mealer
‘ an enjoyable and rewarding,if tying and demanding,profession into being a highly stressful shit of a job that they want to retire from as soon as possible.’
I don’t know of many people who don’t say that about their job,so nothing new there.
Except,it looks like Osborne and co. are considering raising retirement age to 80,so it’s all good,isn’t it?
We are after all,far far better together you know.
Hirsute hack slams harmless homeopathic healing agent.
“Today the R****d can reveal that a vile cybernat site has turned to smearing water in its relentless abuse of all things pure and simple”
“Scottish Water refused to comment.”
It’s true to say newspaper headlines are designed to draw the attention of potential readers and hopefully get them to part with their money for a copy, but there is another primary purpose beyond basic sales.
Most of the major British titles run at a loss, some at a very substantial loss. No paper invests in serious investigative journalism the way they did 20 or 30 years ago, and many not at all. Online consumption is increasing by the day, and in pure balance sheet terms the entire editing, printing and distribution operation is prohibitively expensive. So why do they persist?
The press still has the power to set the political agenda via TV and other media. As has been pointed out on this site many times, few people read the whole article and will take their interpretation from the headline that appears on the newsagents’ stands and boards outside the shop. And that includes the majority who do not buy the newspaper(s) in question. Nevertheless, the titles’ concerns are taken to represent broad views of the population rather than the narrow interests of their corporate owners / media moguls. These slants on current events – including distracting people from important information by talking about what actress has a sliver of cellulite showing – will be discussed seriously or regurgitated in a slightly subtler form by newscasters and politicians using appropriately interpretated inflections and intonation.
Taken together the daily drip-drip of screaming bold assertions that “Nats cut NHS” or “Migrants are Terrorists” has a subliminal, cumulative effect on the unwary and the disengaged. Come election (or referendum) time, however, a fair percentage of those same disengaged and unwary will cast a vote based on little analysis beyond gut instinct. Or, to be more accurate, on what their sub-conscious has been fed for decades on end.
That’s just one reason Wings and others’ sites are so crucial. Your alternative narrative is essential – and, of course, that’s why they hate you. Keep it up.
@Ian says: 27 January, 2016 at 10:52 am:
“For anyone unclear on how homeopathy works there is a very useful guide here. http://www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com/
“
That should read, “if it works”, Ian.
O/T
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/10B02/production/_87945386_national.jpg
Today’s front page giving a reminder that the crowd funding remains short of target…
Dig deep folks!
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-people-versus-carmichael#/
We do have a crisis in some parts of Scotland in recruiting and retaining GPs and other essential health and social care professionals.
The fault doesn’t lie with Government per se. It’s down to the fact that in some areas – especially our remoter and more rural communities – nobody wants to do these jobs.
The reasons behind this are complex and I won’t waste everyone’s time with going into it all here – it would take several thousand words and about 50 references to do it justice.
In terms of GPs specifically, the population of Scotland has increased by 230,000 between 2001 and 2011 census. In order to meet that extra demand in primary care an additional 200 full-time equivalent GP posts would have been needed but this hasn’t happened.
At present the SG has offered to increase the number of GP training places by 25% from 300 to 400 but we can’t fill 25- 30% of the existing 300 places. Put simply, and for whatever reasons, young doctors do not wish to become GPs and we cannot force them to do so.
At a more general level general practice/primary care deals with 90% of patient contacts with the NHS but does this on only 9% of the NHS’s budget.
Dr Mack’s complaint is that overall primary care’s share of the NHS budget has fallen and that this is a false economy because spending more in primary care saves more than it’s costs in terms of reducing costs in secondary care.
But in the end of the day if we cannot persuade docs to be GPs then SG has no option but to come up with alternative models for delivering primary care to those who need it (which, at some point in our lives, is all of us)
I liked the homeopathic medicine analogy. Reminds of Noel Coward’s dictum:
“A perfect Martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy.”
GP’s are private contractors. They get benefits over and above pay. The fringe benefits regarding retirement plans, premises given grants or free gratus if on NHS premises. Nationalise them! Here is the salary , here is the hours- including week-end work (just as their colleagues in hospitals already do. If you are so good run off and work privately.(SOME DO ALREADY -IT IS CALLED A DAY OFF)
The whole issue of the NHS and snp bad is being plugged by the Herald today as well. (Minister slapped down by NHS Chief)http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14231959.Minister_slapped_down_by_NHS_chief_over__inconceivable__children_s_hospital_staffing_plan/
I am pretty positive that Chief Executive in question is one of labour/tories graduate managers of long ago who moves around the system until its time to go!!. My memory if correct is that in the 80’s he was on the tele defending the number of suicides in a particular Glasgow Hospital. Then off to Lanarkshire etc.
Manager, Chief Executive, Chairman, Chief Executive is how the top in the NHS work. Don’t dare ask a question on behalf of the people!! Who does the minister think she is!!
Haven’t the professionals forgotten something. They work for us.
Smells of the labour/tory coalition at work.
So is their claim, ‘Newspaper of the Year’. Did they win the Daily Record Newspaper of the Year award?
Not the “Newspaper of The Year” (awarded by the British Press Awards and which seems to have cycled between the same 6 England-based suspects for the last 20 years) but the Scottish title awarded in 2015 by The Scottish Newspaper Society. Their site seems too ashamed to publish a list of previous winners – but a little googling shows that the title seems to alternate between the Herald and the Record. So its not exactly a global honour (and probably one of the few occasions where the Record would seek to champion something Scottish over a competitor from down south).
What’s the betting that Eleanor Bradford will be popping up tonight on Reporting Scotland with the same old slanted story…
@Fergus Green says: 27 January, 2016 at 11:10 am:
“Beware of posts beginning with the words ‘With the greatest respect…’.”
Perhaps, Fergus, you might explain what is, “disrespectful, offensive or downright ignorant”, about pointing out the truth that, in this instance, homeopathy, is an unproven cure of anything?
Facts, being facts, are the only proof acceptable of such things and the facts are that people get better from no apparent treatment.
The people in drug trials who are given placebos yet get better believed they were getting a drug that would cure them and they didn’t actually get any drugs.
The people at Lourdes who believed that GOD would clear them and got better cannot even prove Gods exist.
Faith Healers have people who claim they were cured by them.
Truth is that there are cases of people getting better of diseases with no known cure. During the recent Ebola outbreaks some survived without treatment of any kind.
There is nothing about telling you that simply believing homeopathy works, when there is no scientific proof that it does, that is disrespectful, ignorant or offensive.
Actually claiming it is may probably be far more offensive and ignorant.
Doom gloom and disaster crisis after crises,well daily record just who is to blame for the cuts since you seem to forget very easily that we are still in the UK you idiots.
The real story here is just how does the SNP do it when faced with a scorched earth policy from westminster and just what could they do without the ball and chain,robbing gits that are the UK treasury doing everything they can to stop the SNP from being a good government,something we havnt seen in the UK in its entire history.
I know which political party i trust with the SNHS and in May i will vote for them twice,other prospective candidates from other political parties need not apply ,cause frankly i would not trust you to run a piss up in a brewery.
This isn’t intended to be offensive, but if you think homeopathy has any kind of efficacy beyond placebo, then you have ALL your work ahead of you. In every clinical trial ever undertaken, it has been consistently shown to have an efficacy no greater than placebo, ergo, it’s fantasy, and often a dangerous one if being pursued as a treatment for serious illness.
It’s not enough to indulge in the blatant deceit that ‘complimentary therapy CAN help’, you also have to prove the how, and that how must be repeatable in the laboratory. Otherwise, it’s no more than fantasy.
As others have noted, here’s the chain for Wednesday to Friday.
Record report Wednesday – Bradford report Wednesday night – Dugdale at FMQs Thursday with question – Davidson at FMQs with slightly differently worded question on same subject – Rennie at FMQs with slightly differently worded question on same subject – Friday Record, Herald etc. scream Sturgeon engulfed in GP crisis – Brian Taylor rounds off week with ‘questions to answer for FM’ piece to camera on Reporting Scotland.
Yawn. And yet they still think repeating this week after week after week will shift huge numbers of independence supporters to Unionism.
Deja vu… A penny for Scotland. That went down well if I remember rightly. 🙂
https://archive.is/E4LBP
Actually, in cities and larger towns it would be much more efficient to have purpose-build neighbourhood medical centres or polyclinics, with numerous GPs and some specialists, than individual GP practices.
Poor show Stuart on using Homeopathy, as you are falling victim to the concerted PR campaign against it. I have come to expect better research from you:
It does work, we don’t know how it works, we just aren’t advanced enough to understand why it “can” work.
This paper is good place to read up on it:
http://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2046-4053-3-142
As the paper points out, it is the first research in the world to look at Homeopathy from the way it is “actually used”, rather than trying to fit it into a series of tests designed for a different nature of treatment.
Yes there are caveats to the findings and further research is required, but it does find that homeopathy is more effective than placebo.
The comments here are very enlightening as well:
http://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h1478/rapid-responses
And the placebo effect isn’t that effective either!
http://www.dcscience.net/2015/12/11/placebo-effects-are-weak-regression-to-the-mean-is-the-main-reason-ineffective-treatments-appear-to-work/
Its the “get better anyway” effect.
Maybe that’s what Scottish Labour are pinning their hopes on!
@Hamish100 11:47am
Here’s your Herald link sorted with an archived version (so no-one helps them get click-dollars from their advertisers!)
https://archive.is/LXBJW
Typical Daily Redcoat diversionary pish. Talking utter mince as usual. And even then, with their mince, it escapes their attention that they merely attack the (non-existant) symptom rather than the root cause of this this hyperbolic, totally fabricated ‘crisis’
Attack the Blue Tories, Redcoat. THEY are the ones who are cutting Scotland’s budget.
With respect, all that paper does is effectively re-assess the bias risk in a meta-analysis, concluding that ‘some’ homeopathic treatments ‘may’ have an efficacy greater than placebo. That language couldn’t be any more couched if it’s authors tried. And again, no evidence of mechanisms or function, just a vague allusion to ‘some homeopathic treatments’might be working better than placebo if you tinker with the data a little and introduce an arbitrary bias risk subset.
Even if we are to grant the authors’ findings full credibility, it still doesn’t provide any proof whatsoever that ‘homeopathy’, that is the entire field of ‘treatment’, is anything other than complete fantasy.
I suspect that’s why it’s published in an open source journal, rather than the usual peer review journals.
Bidge at 12:22 p.m.
Did you actually read the article you link to? I quote from the conclusion:
“Medicines prescribed in individualised homeopathy MAY have small, specific treatment effects.” (My emphasis).
By implication, they might not have even small, specific treatment effects. And:
“The low or unclear overall quality of the evidence prompts caution in interpreting the findings”.
If that is the best you can do in terms of finding support for a discipline that purports to be scientific but is in fact quackery, then there isn’t a lot more to be said.
Bidge 12.22
I quote from the conclusions of the research to which you provided a link.
The low or unclear overall quality of the evidence prompts caution in interpreting the findings.
Coupled with my “get better anyway” link at 12.22, I rest my case.
OT slightly.Posted yesterday on a previous thread.
Well worth a reminder—– UK Labour marching North to Scotchland to bolster Dugdale and the Bettertogether Tory/Labour Branch Office.
“UK Labour is sending its top team to Scotland in the coming weeks to bolster Kezia Dugdale’s efforts to reverse her party’s fortunes.
Leader Jeremy Corbyn, deputy leader Tom Watson and shadow chancellor John McDonnell will lead the charge of UK Labour MPs keen to assist the Scottish campaign following an “incredibly well received” rallying call from Ms Dugdale in London today.”
https://archive.is/APOjG
As long as the person suffering feels better it doesn’t matter how that came about.
No point in arguing amongst ourselfs about Homeopathy , we have bigger fish to fry.
Hom
Indeed Lenny, well said, gie it a rest folks, each to their own. 🙂
Fred @ 11.03
I saw that too.
Yoon idiot unchallenged.
The ‘reporter’ should have asked – ‘so you support removal of the cameras and are prepared to see further sustained loss of life on this stretch of road, can you please justify your point of view to us Mr Yoon arsehole’. I think he tried to but his response was absolutely pathetic. Typical of the type.
So, a measure that delays people only slightly, has minimum impact on trade and saves lives at the same time is a bad thing? Dick.
Road deaths are bad enough in the NE, I was totally shocked at the level of RTA’s when I first moved up here. It’s still as bad. Thank god for SNP infrastructure investment.
On topic, the DR seems to be disappearing up its own arse at an ever increasing rate. Not long till it’s gone forever hopefully 🙂
A headline hot from the waste expulsion pipe
Jack Murphy says:
27 January, 2016 at 12:44 pm
OT slightly.Posted yesterday on a previous thread.
Well worth a reminder—– UK Labour marching North to Scotchland to bolster Dugdale and the Bettertogether Tory/Labour Branch Office.
Hope our Imperial masters guy is oiling his bike.!!
Lenny Hartley 12.59
http://anas.scot/category/scottish-national-party-snp/
@Christian Schmidt says: 27 January, 2016 at 12:16 pm:
“Actually, in cities and larger towns it would be much more efficient to have purpose-build neighbourhood medical centres or polyclinics, with numerous GPs and some specialists, than individual GP practices.”
Which is exactly what we do actually have, and not just in larger cities or towns. My own GP’s practice is in The Lochgelly Medical Centre. As well as several GP practices there are Fife Health Board services, such as community nurses, midwives, physiotherapists and so on.
It has been that way for a very long time, at least in Fife.
Sorry off topic
Today’s pmq’s was truly disgusting. Cameron is not fit to be prime minister. Shameful and thoroughly disgusting.
and as for that poisonous wee speaker.
Need to go for a walk.
@ Les Wilson
Yea me too Les but i really dont think they will have the brass neck to walk from the station again and will sneak in under the cover of darkness lol
” amounts to an increase in the number of GPs and a real-terms increase in GP funding over the period in question. That’s a funny sort of “crisis” in most people’s eyes.”
Naughty, naughty, you’re selectively quoting out of context.
Dr Mack’s substantive point was the fact that around a third of GPS are close to retirement which is a matter of concern and could be seen as a crisis.
The thirty-five extra GPs was a response to the Scottish Government’s incorrect claim (what you would call a lie) that Scotland has 7% more GPs since the SNP came to power. Which it doesn’t.
So, if you are looking for “misrepresentation of the truth”, you can start with the beam in thine own eyes and then move onto the SG’s press releases.
Homeopathy is where an item is greatly diluted in water causes an effect that cures a problem.
Using this theory if I dilute a measure of vodka in a swimming pool I should get out my face on a thimbleful of said swimming pool water.
Should make for some cheap BBQs this coming summer.
Hang on though what about the wee!
@Bidge says: 27 January, 2016 at 12:22 pm:
“Poor show Stuart on using Homeopathy, as you are falling victim to the concerted PR campaign against it. I have come to expect better research from you:
It does work, …”
Can you not read, Bidge?
No one has said it doesn’t work. Read the comments for goodness sake. Thing is it works no better than administering placebos, Faith Healing, Lourdes or, believe it or not doing bugger all.
The claimed cure rate of homeopathy is no better than no treatment whatsoever.
In illness’ that have no known cure, a percentage of patients get better withot treatment. Having faith that your God, whichever one it may be, will cure you works too, belief that a Holyman/woman laying on hand can cure or the proverbial Snake Oil salesperson or Lourdes all have a percentage of miracle cures.
That’s the way the human body and human mind works together. Placebos given as controls in medical trials all have a percentage of cures to their name because the patient believed they would.
Quite simply Homeopathy has no greater proven success rate than doing nothing.
@ Wulls says at 10:56 am ”What’s the betting Kezia trots this out at FMs questions tomorrow ???”
That goes without saying Wulls. Let’s not forget that the Daily Record and the Scottish Labour Party work hand in glove (Torcuil on the phone to Kezia constantly).
Remember the VOW CON? The Daily Record and Labourite Gordon Brown interfering in a National Referendum and manipulating the Scots into voting no thereby influencing the outcome: Breaching the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
And on a more personal or collective level (for them) they can’t seem to see that their constant lying, attempts at manipulation, spreading doom and gloom and continually spouting SNP Baad has led to them heading down the stank …. hand in glove.
Lenny at 12:59 p.m.
K1 at 1:03 p.m.
You want to close down the discussion of homeopathy. I think you are missing the point. The main thrust of Stu’s article is that the Daily Record draws completely false conclusions from minimal (if any) factual input. It seeks to “con” its readers. Similarly, homeopathy cons patients by giving them “treatments” which have the active ingredient diluted to a point where statistically it is highly unlikely that there is a single molecule of the active ingredient present.
If you support the approach taken by Wings in presenting factual evidence from which reasonable conclusions can be drawn, then you cannot with any consistency support or believe in homeopathy which is still paid for to an extent out of NHS funds in Scotland. The Daily Record and homeopathy are both founded on distortion and they thrive on people’s gullibility.
If people want to read the Daily Record then of course they should be free to do so. But it is up to those of us who oppose its values and its aspirations to challenge it. If people want to indulge in homeopathy, then of course they should be free to do so, but it is up to those of us who prefer our medicine to be science-based to point out that it is nonsense. And at least the Daily Record is funded by its readers and advertisers – not the public purse.
Re: Homeopathy.
Personally I used to swear by my, now deceased, mothers lips. She could kiss just about any dire affliction known to medical science better in roughly 15 seconds.
I know it worked because I always felt better afterwards. I rest my case.
K1 wrote:
“Indeed Lenny, well said, gie it a rest folks, each to their own.”
I second that!
_______________
@ Nana (1.18pm):
Add a few years onto yer life and do yer heart the world of good,
stop watching! I know i can’t watch any of them for more than a couple of minutes at best. I rely on others with a more calmer disposition to alert us to anything newsworthy. Works for me!
😉
Always amazed at the antagonism towards homeopathy.
If you don’t believe in it, fine but I have used it as has my family and it does work.
My GP who has sadly since retired, used both conventional & homeopathic remedies.
Because no-one can explain how it works is probably due to the fact that our knowledge of the human body is still very limited.
Canary Wharf’s Daily Record:- “Be afraid—-be very afraid.”
Straight out of Labour’s Election Poster Campaign.
Victoria and Albert Museum,London.Archived:-
“Artist/Maker:
Centurion Press (Printers)
Labour Party (issued by)”
https://archive.is/uuC3H
Re; David Wardop@11.04am
It’s the usual tory bleating on. When they say that the Scottish gov need to be open and clear, they really hope that readers will go along with that myth. The Scotgov could hardly be more open, you just have to look at their website etc. My inbox is full of updates and info on policy and what they are doing, on a daily basis, I just don’t have time to keep up.
Kez will be reading this to get ideas, or maybe not.
Regards homeopathy, if it works that’s great. However, it is more likely the power of the mind, try telling the little nasty bugs to take a hike next time you have a cold, or sore tummy, it really works. You just imagine the good bugs winning the battle, crazy I know, like star wars in your body. :-))
Not sure about more serious illnesses though, the Dr probably best port of call.
I hope I don’t get the flu for saying that now!
@Les Wilson
I passed the said bike just down the street from John Lewis last Sunday in Glasgow. Looks in reasonable nick too.
PS: Update.
Fishermen defend smoke canister protest outside Holyrood as “a bit of fun”
https://archive.is/AhCMM
The Hootsman’s take on it.
https://archive.is/sOKrc
PS:
@Robert Peffers
Very true and it still works to this day… 🙂
@Liz,
Indeed. Every modern medication is made from known matter found on this planet..Nothing is from outer space.
Some of the best medications come from plant matter or fauna. Homeopathy is just a very controlled form of this.
Whether you will find research supporting homeopathy seems to depend on where you look:
“The evidence base
Up to the end of 2014, there have been 189 peer-reviewed papers, with useable data, that reported randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in homeopathy. Of these, 104 papers were placebo-controlled and were eligible for our detailed review programme: this literature represents research in 61 different medical conditions. Of these 104 RCT papers, 43 (41%) reported positive findings, 5 (5%) were negative and 56 (54%) were non-conclusive – see section Randomised controlled trials in homeopathy.”
http://facultyofhomeopathy.org/research/
@ Mike Cassidy 1.11
The prospective SNP candidate, who is a pharmacist, is proposing to ban homeopathy. A risky stance I would say. Needlessly antagonising your electorate doesn’t sound too clever. It is not homeopathy that is starving the NHS of cash.
Even if it is only a placebo effect, it might well be worth £2m a year. What evidence does he provide to support his stance?
Furthermore, anyone who believes that conventional medication is objective and scientifically driven should read “Cracked” by James Davies.
Hmm, took a quick look at the Anas Hassan (SNP candadite) story where he wants to scrap all funding for homeopathy. He is a pharmacist. There is no mention of any research trials as to whether it works, considering the SNHS spend 2m a year?
The thing is we also have to watch out because some medical trained can have vested interests in
promoting convential meds, the pharmaceutical business is massive worldwide.
Not saying that is his motive, but he would need to back up his argument because anytbjng that works in medicine, long as not harmful, should be given a chance.
Sorry this is all going off at a tangent now.
I remember thumbing through a copy of the Sport left on a bus away back in 1997 and with the exception of the sports pages, every page was full of tits. A bit like a Cabinet Meeting in Westminster today.
Stephen Roney.
This headline is distracting bullshit!
They are hoping we will forget to change our underpants, or that we won’t pursue the BMW Scratcher!!!
No chance! Get back on message DR!
@Bob Mack – some research suggesting homeopathy might be a form of nanotechnology/nanopharmacology.
Still lots to learn.
Kevin
Just to say that my sub 170,000 circulation wish for the Record might not be impossible. Their last recorded figure and the most up to date which was August 2015 showed daily sales at 183,000.
So you never know.
“His job is to fight the corner of his members, and to try to secure for them the biggest possible slice of the Scottish Government’s budget, which continues to fall in the sixth year of Tory austerity. Fair enough.”
Substitute “His / Her” for “His”, and it’s an absolute general rule for all people in charge of or influencing any public budget, unless we got some sort of fabulous ideal society.
In fact he / she would be failing in their job if they didn’t.
Sad, but true.
Initial disclosure: I’m a GP.
Two issues really:
1. The main story- NHS funding and primary care in particular. I think primary care does get a bit of a raw deal in terms of percentage funding v secondary care, however I accept most of the 2ry care stuff is more expensive, and it’s hard to recruit us (though I’m not sure why because we have a really rewarding job). Of course the chair of RCGP Scotland should be trying to get more money into GP…that’s sort of his job. I’m not really sure why this made front page news, to be honest.
2. Homeopathy. This is clearly bunkum (until proven otherwise). Always be wary of things which tests have shown not to work. Be particularly wary of the people who stand to make money from these things, especially when they then claim “the results are bad because the test is wrong.” Maybe- but that’s the standard of testing we have. Either come up with a rigorously robust alternative and prove your magic beans to work that way, or stop whining.
Remember these tests (randomized control trials) look at actual people being given the actual things and the endpoints. Most of the time in medicine we don’t actually care too much about how stuff works, we care IF stuff works. We’re not looking at how homeopathic stuff interacts in vivo, we’re looking at whether giving people water cures their illness. Take statins- we know they prevent heart disease and strokes, but we have NO IDEA how. Some people will tell you it’s about cholesterol and blah blah- rubbish. loads of things lower cholesterol, they don’t stop heart attacks and strokes. Statins must do something else. What? Don’t care- they work. It’s been proven. It’s not even as if the bar is particularly high- there are loads of medicines out there that do almost nothing, approved on minimal trial data. That homeopathy can’t even get THAT level of evidence is damning.
A wise man once said “there is no such thing as alternative medicine. There is medicine, and stuff that doesn’t work. If it worked, it would be called medicine.”
Everything you ingest effects how your body works, everything is a chemical.
Medicine is tightly controlled and makes HUGE profits for the pharmaceutical industry. They control the price of medicine, they like control. They don’t control vitamins, vitamins bad medicine. They don’t control herbs and plants, herbs and plants bad medicine. They will control plants if they can get their genetic crops into the food chain. They are trying to get the sale of vitamins banned in the USA.
All studies of alternative medicine are carried out by those with a vested interest in making sure of the outcome. It’s like asking Westminster to carry out a study to see if Scottish independence would work.
Berocca has a huge advertising campaign on how its drinks are packed with vitamins that improve your mental performance and release your energy. You can buy the same vitamins contained in Berocca for a tenth of the price. Berocca is owned by pharmaceutical giant Bayer. Pharmaceutical vitamins good. Over the counter vitamins bad.
Doctors in the USA are not allowed to prescribe vitamins. A recent study has shown that 90% of doctors take vitamin supplements. Strange that.
Keep an open mind.
If you are curious about this subject then have a read of Othomolecular Medicine for Everyone by Abram Hoffer and Andrew W Saul. It might just change your life.
I think the good doctor has made his own case for independence. A nation well run with a constructively integrated and funded SNHS putting people above politics.
No service, private or public will ever be ideal since there will always be different views on what the ideal should be but the health service is far better in Scotland than the rest of the UK so the Retard should be very careful what it is implying.
History Woman, your starter for 10: wp.me/p4fd9j-3Tl
Almannysbunnet You are looking for a conspiracy where one doesn’t exist. The UK market is not particularly lucrative for big pharma. Yeah, they’re soulless and make huge profits and bad eggs etc etc, but they do actually make the things that prolong lives and minimize suffering.
All the evidence on vitamins (unless specific deficiencies such as B12, vit D) shows that they not only do nothing, but may shorten lifespan. If you want to have expensive urine be my guest and buy vitamin pills. But the taxpayer buys medicine in Scotland and therefore it is right that we restrict the prescribing to things that are shown to actually do something.
Yes there’s a huge problem with evidence worldwide, particularly non release of negative trial data, but that’s not justification for risking the lives of the vulnerable on sketchy mumbo jumbo sold by charlatans.
Oh dear. Not the “expensive urine” sneer again.
So apart from scurvy, rickets, spina bifida, anaemia, infections, brittle bones, beri beri and nervous disorders; what have vitamin and mineral supplements ever done for us?
And don’t get me started on psychiatric drugs. Allopathic medicine has had it’s disasters. From the book “Cracked” by James Davies.
“The charge sheet is damning: negative drug trials routinely buried; antidepressants that work no better than placebos; research regularly manipulated to produce positive results; doctors, seduced by huge pharmaceutical rewards, creating more disorders and prescribing more pills; and ethical, scientific and treatment flaws unscrupulously concealed by mass-marketing. Cracked reveals for the first time the true human cost of an industry that, in the name of helping others, has actually been helping itself.”
With reference to the discussion on homeopathy this article, although from 2007, excellently debunks myths that homeopathy supporters put forward, whilst describing why the placebo affect may make people feel better even though the pills they are given may be useless. A must read for a bit of background on this subject:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2
I asked my GP a few years ago, “Should I take multi-vitamin capsules?”
He said that they wouldn’t do any harm but if I had a decent, varied diet, I should get all the vitamins I need from my food. I haven’t had scurvy, rickets, spina bifida, anaemia, brittle bones, beri beri and nervous disorders, without the multi-vitamins – touch wood.
Various infections over the years, fixed by the partaking of antibiotics.
@ BDTT
These vitamins and minerals are routinely added to bread, butter and milk. Otherwise you might have had these conditions. Rickets is coming back and many children are still born with spina bifida through lack of folic acid in the mother’s diet.
Cod Liver Oil and the Orange Juice used to be prescribed!
Capella, the point being contested was in fact about vitamin pills, not stuff added to food. Also, you may note I specifically excluded B and D vitamins. Vitamin C also does no harm and improves health, but none of them except D are a struggle to get in your diet.
Also, citing a source saying negative trials are buried and lots of drugs performed no better than placebo in a rebuttal to someone who said negative trials are buried and lots of drugs perform no better than placebo is…an interesting strategy.
Also, the expensive urine “myth” as you put it isn’t disproved by saying vitamins are good for you. Of course vitamins are, largely, good for you. The questions are:
Are we deficient? (largely no)
Does extra do anything if we’re not deficient? (Again, largely no)
Can excess harm us? (yes)
That’s why we don’t advocate them.
I’m not sure what your point is re cod liver oil and orange juice… “We used to prescribe” doesn’t say anything positive or negative about anything. We used to prescribe thalidomide for morning sickness and heroin for coughs…
Electro-mangnetism? Nah, but then James Clerk Maxwell studied it, analysed it and then demonstrated how it works. And i’ll be damned to understand why I think of a close friend or family, then the phone rings. its that person, or they arrive at my door.
Homeopathy? I’ve no idea whether it works or not.
I do know,the UK doesn’t work – for me – nausea, nor arguably for the majority of Scotland’s population. Mebbe, like homeopathy, a dose of independence, though not a proven remedy, could be the cure for what ails Scotland.
Fascinating. The point about vitamins of course is that a lot of people’s diets aren’t good, balanced or fresh, we live in a pre-cooked convienience culture. Even for those of us that cook our meals, some ingredients – vegetables and fruit – can be too expensive, and don’t keep long enough, especially if pre-washed (they rot quicker, a lot quicker). Sadly or perhaps gladly, you can get a frozen “meal” for £1. So for them added vitamins are going to be a good idea, to supplement what they are short of.
Homeopathy – no idea. Herbs and plants, well, duh, what are most drugs made from? Point about any plant is that its constituents are very variable when analysed, depends on nutrients, air and water, and the plant itself. Scotland’s actually got a very good reputation for life sciences. A point about taking them is that it’s slow yield and dilute, as opposed to drugs which are concentrated but fixed constituents. Most herbalists won’t say “stop taking the drugs”, and in fact “alternative medicines” ususally (always??) recommend consulting with – a GP. Some GPs will even suggest taking an alternative medicine, as well as the drug.
Diet, now that’s my favourite hobby horse, every GP practice should either have one or have one on call people can make an appointment with. It could go a long way to allieviating the shortage of GPs, over time, as well as vastly improving general health and wellbeing.
Velofello 5.36
How often do you think of close friends or family – and they don’t phone or knock on the door?
@ Martin
Perhaps you are much younger than me. All children were given Cod Liver Oil and Orange Juice in the 50s because of the high incidence of rickets and deficiency disease. There’s even a folk song with that title.
Hamish Imlach, not for sensitive!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zch5NQcmWKI
BTW I didn’t use the term expensive urine “myth” – I said “sneer”, which is what it usually is.
Also, I didn’t link to the Ben Goldacre article – that was Steve B. The research article I linked to was this one:
http://facultyofhomeopathy.org/research/
Who buys this rubbish?
They are giving the Sun away at petrol stations
TD:
If you support the approach taken by Wings in presenting factual evidence from which reasonable conclusions can be drawn, then you cannot with any consistency support or believe in homeopathy…”
Do fuck off, there’s a good TD.
I think you’ll find people can make up their own minds regarding any subject and may object to being ‘preached’ to by other ‘fundamentalists’ such as yersel.
Actually we need to talk about how a GP is made.
That’s the real crisis.
They’re often regarded as failed SHO’s which is quite wrong but we need to address Doctor training and career snobbery. Front line & Family medicine should me remodelled for a modern society and a progressive country such as Scotland.
Maybe a soapbox article if I have time to explain this.
@ Mike Cassidy: , OK, a re-phrase. A thought of a close friend comes randomly (?) into my thoughts, and then…
Nothing in the cosmos is impossible. Why do I say that? Because we don’t wholly understand the cosmos. Back to electro-magnetism and James Clerk Maxwell.
Until you know for sure, have an open mind.
The headline is a lie until proven otherwise?! Oh, c’mon
That’s like saying 80% of statistics are just made up on the spot.
?
Slightly off-topic (though you started it) – homeopathic medicine that works is called…
medicine
The role of GPs and the wider primary care team (district nurses, health visitors, physiotherapists, OTs) in preventing escalating costs in secondary care is important as GPs;
‘Improve health outcomes (earlier diagnosis-
1 extra primary care Dr / 10,000 patients reduces average mortality by 5.3%)
GPs reduce admissions and hospitalisation,referrals and prescribing costs and reduce health system costs overall.
A 1% increase in the proportion of patients seeing a particular doctor results in 7.6 fewer elective admissions p.a. for the averaged-sized practice (savings £20,000 p.a.)
90% of patient contacts take place in primary care, the future of the NHS depends largely on the health of general practice’
RCGP: ‘Patients, Doctors and the NHS in 2022: Compendium of evidence’
Primary care in Scotland does need a cash injection of about 3% and this will make a major difference to providing the kind of care in the community that most of us would want
This blog from the BMA sums up the challenges across the devolved health systems but is also a reminder of the hostility that the UK government has towards the NHS (over a 30 year period where is has institutionally marketised and fragmented NHS England)
http://www.bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/the-bma-blog/2015/december/champions-of-care-from-beginning-to-end
The challenges to the NHS generally and the survival of general practice is the same across the British Isles;
https://hee.nhs.uk/sites/default/files/documents/The%20Future%20of%20Primary%20Care%20report.pdf
However healthcare is one aspect of the welfare state which serves to provide citizens with adequate social protection and living standards through housing, education, pensions etc. All aspects of the welfare state together improve the health and wellbeing of the population.
Until SG has absolute autonomy and control over Scotland’s economy and political structure this ‘crisis’ will continue. All aspects of state services are under pressure and given the financial constraints of SG where Scotland is treated as a charitable institute independence from WM is the only answer to provide the public services we need, grow our economy and provide for future generations.
At least the Record were inept enough to superimpose a smiling face on their Armageddon headline. It actually sums them up – not to be taken seriously.
I’m sure that ‘Rice Krispies’ were being advertised, in the 60s, as having added vitamins.
Riboflavin springs to mind?
Perchance, the inadequacies of diet were recognised, even then?
I don’t really see a problem with vitamins/minerals added to foodstuffs to make up for perceived deficiency. If the result is peeps getting the required daily amount…
K1 at 7:18 p.m.
Thank you for your intellectually robust contribution.
…I wonder if Kezia will go with this at FMQ?
Usual pattern – Daily Record tees up the sound bite for Labour 🙁
TD, and thank you for proving my point. Patronisation is indeed your forte. Have a good evening 😉
“If you support the approach taken by Wings in presenting factual evidence from which reasonable conclusions can be drawn, then you cannot with any consistency support or believe in homeopathy…”
Whit’s intellectually robust about this TD?
If you agree (support) with Wings (and it’s methodology) then you can’t agree (support) with Homoeopathy?
The premise is flawed TD.
Whether ‘supporting’ Wings’s ‘approach’ or not, it does not follow that one cannot ‘support’ Homoeopathy.
Your reasoning merely back up your ‘prejudice’. Your mind is made up.
Your don’t ‘believe’ that Homoeopathy has efficacy and you’re trying to compare the ‘efficacy’ of Wings’s ‘…in presenting factual evidence from which reasonable conclusions can be drawn’ to what you consider an absence of ‘efficacy’ in Homoeopathy’s use as a medicinal ‘tool’.
But not only that. You are in fact making out that anyone who does not agree with your efficacy standard, cannot by that very standard ‘support’ Wings.
It’s a circular logic you employ here. You may as well have just written, can’t be arsed with Homeopathy, don’t agree wi it. Left it at that. As it is you came across as profoundly up yersel. Which is what my robust reply to you was actually concerned with.
On the subject of Homoeopathy, I had already stated: ‘each to their own’.
Not to ‘shut down’ the debate TD, but to make the point that many people find comfort and help in many different healing practices, who the fuck are you to tell people ‘how’ they should approach their own beliefs? Or what intellectual constraints should apply.
Let’s play wi this. Substitute Homoeopathy with any other ‘belief’ and see how far we all get pissing each other off? For no good reason but to make some fucking intellectual ‘point’.
“If you support the approach taken by Wings in presenting factual evidence from which reasonable conclusions can be drawn, then you cannot with any consistency support or believe in God…”
“If you support the approach taken by Wings in presenting factual evidence from which reasonable conclusions can be drawn, then you cannot with any consistency support or believe in Buddhism…”
Etc etc etc…
All Scientific evidence based methodologies started out as ‘ideas’ in someones’ heed TD. They weren’t necessarily applying the ‘logic’ you seem to imply is essential. Even Einstein said:
“Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed.”
He also said: “Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.”
I’m somewhat ‘religious’ in this regard myself. I would not dare to tell others what they themselves are at liberty to discover in a Universe of possibilities.
And I have little time for ‘preachers’ of the ‘religion’ of so called ‘western thinking’ in this regard either.
Rant over.
slightly o/t if you look at Herald articles they borrowed an edited a Daily Record (Charles Green) one and one about Jack the Lad’s sister robbing a pensioner https://archive.is/FqLhZ from another Trinity Mirror bit of trash the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald
I suppose it’s Labour Party policy Stealing from Pensioners
Having a look at some of the articles in the Herald. The PMQ one in particular,I think there may have been an overflow of Giggling Ginger
K1
Insulting people who express an opinion different to yours is obviously your forte. You must be so proud.
We didn’t have a ‘difference’ of opinion TD.
You lack nuance. And are patronising, which is what you are continuing to show in your responses. I rest ma case. Yer totally up yersel. 🙂
What is wrong with these people?
Why do they hate Scotland?
They must be held accountable for this pish.
Cheers for digging rev.
K1
When I posted at 11:39 I had not refreshed my screen and had not seen yours at 11:33. Now that I have seen it, I was tempted to pick it to bits and point out all the flaws. But having thought about it I don’t think I’ll bother.
I do however hope you feel better for your rant.
Test
Brilliant as ever, but not so keen on the homeopathic medicine comparison – why so damning?
Capella,
I’ve heard the song, it’s hilarious. But saying we used to prescribe something is still meaningless: usually there’s a reason we stopped.
As I say, I’m not against vitamins, I’m against vitamin tablets. Vitamins added to, or already in food are far more bioavailable than these tablets which have consistently been shown to do nothing (except a small few exceptions in the case of deficiency). If they were 40p a tub I wouldn’t mind.
I’m similarly nit against homeopathy if the therapist is a good listener (this is increasingly thought to be one of the key reasons for patients liking it) and the pills are cheap, and targeted at things where serious health risks don’t exist. But I’ll never prescribe the stuff, because all the evidence tells me it doesn’t work better than placebo. And here’s the really fascinating thing: If the care giver doesn’t believe that the pill they’re giving will work, the placebo effect hugely disappears. Placebo is brilliant, so is noceno…fascinating! Homeopathy? A con.
Until individuals start taking more ownership of their own health and wellbeing, the NHS will never be able to meet need. Throwing clinicians at the service, even if we could find enough, merely exacerbates the issue. The NHS is an ill-health service. We need to shift the point of focus to keeping people well out of the NHS, so that it’s there for those times it’s unavoidable. Allopathic medicine has its place, of course it does, but wellness and supporting people to flourish doesn’t necessarily sit within a medical model. In fact, the more you can do to avoid becoming unwell and staying outside the medical system, the better. Win/win for all concerned. I say this after over 10 years in the NHS and personal experience.
JoolsB
Hear hear!
That is all