Swine flu parties are the hottest ticket in town. Everyone’s been talking about them yet no-one seems to know anyone who’s been to one. Peter Flegg, a physician in Blackpool, […]
Latest articles
H1N1 – the science bit
Yesterday the number of deaths in the UK rose to seven. So far all of those who have died with H1N1 in the UK have had serious underlying health conditions […]
Joe Collier: In defence of arrogance
If I am to believe my critics, I am arrogant. By definition, arrogance is usually used pejoratively (as are such terms as unpatriotic, subversive, anti-establishment, irreverent, all of which I […]
Flu vaccines and swine tig
Vaccination plans for the UK are slowly beginning to emerge. On Thursday Sir Liam Donaldson confirmed that 60 million vaccines are scheduled to be produced by the end of the […]
Richard Smith on doing the right thing – but at a snail’s pace
One of the things about being an “old guy” is that you realise how extraordinarily slow we are at doing the right thing. You also see wheels being constantly reinvented. […]
Partners in swine
Yesterday I attended the Department of Health briefing on swine flu where the suave new secretary of state for health, Andy Burnham, and his partner in swine, Sir Liam Donaldson, […]
Ed Davies: Medical workforce planning
The BMA’s annual representative meeting can often feel a bit like Groundhog Day. The chairman kicks off events with some combative rhetoric about the government, the usual suspects speak in […]
Was H1N1 leaked from a laboratory?
391 cases of H1N1 were confirmed in the UK yesterday bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 6929. In Argentina, the state of Buenos Aires has declared a health […]
Come swine with me
My plans for a H1N1 themed dinner party “come swine with me” are in tatters after Dr Jarvis, chairman of the British Medical Association’s public health committee, yesterday declared swine […]
Julian Sheather is anti anti-psychiatry
In my early twenties I was felled by a bout of mental illness. It started with a panic attack. I was standing on the station at Leamington Spa waiting for […]