A convicted double murderer has won the right to have cosmetic surgery to remove a birthmark on the NHS. Good. Predictably, the foaming-at-the-mouth brigade is having a field day with this in the comments section of the Daily Fail‘s coverage. Equally predictably, they’re wrong. The reason is straightforwardly to do with considerations of rights and […]
Category: In the News
AIDS=Nazism?
This is a very strange story that’s been picked up by the Daily Telegraph: a German Aids charity has been attacked for launching an advertising campaign – and a pretty sexually explicit one at that – in which people who spread HIV are presented as Hitler. I’m not sure whether the target is people who […]
Healthcare costs: NHS vs US.
At risk of flogging a dead horse, there’s still quite a lot being said about the NHS as a comparator for American healthcare. With that in mind, there’s an interesting little piece on Liberal Conspiracy at the moment comparing the UK and US systems in terms of cost per head. Do these numbers, and what’s […]
The NHS: It’s Great.
Further to David’s post about the absurd claims spouted about Stephen Hawking and the NHS by some opponents of healthcare reform in the US, it would appear that the man himself has decided to put his side of things. “I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS,” he told The Guardian. […]
Rhetoric Fail
By David Hunter Thom Brooks on facebook has pointed out this hilarious rhetorical fact checking fail from Neo-conservatives debating the public provision of health care in the US: […]
Assisted Suicide in the UK
By David Hunter Astute readers are no doubt already following the story of Debbie Purdy who is seeking to have the law of assisted suicide in the UK clarified, given that historically those who have traveled overseas and provided assistance have not been prosecuted in the past, despite it appearing that they are breaking the […]
Coroners Bill Amendement thrown out.
Lord Falconer’s amendment to the Coroners Bill, which would have made specific legal provision for those helping others to travel to places like Dignitas, was rejected by the House of Lords last night. Oh, well. As Falconer admits, it’s not obvious that it’ll make all that much difference on the ground, because few, if any, […]
Snaf(l)u?
There’s been a lot of ink sneezed recently on how we should organise our response to H5N1 and, latterly, H1N1 – on questions of who should be top of the Tamiflu distribution list and on how the distribution should be organised. (To give a recent example, Dan Sokol touches on the question here.) However, one aspect […]
Letter on Dignitas and the Coroners Bill
Rowan Williams, Vincent Nichols and Jonathan Sacks wrote to the Telegraph on Tuesday to voice opposition to the Coroners and Justice Bill currently making its way through Parliament. They allege that the amendment dealing with assisted suicide introduced by Lord Falconer (and reproduced here, on the Dignity in Dying website) is a step on the […]
Praying for patients? God help us.
Via the Press Association, the BBC has been reporting the motion to be discussed by the BMA conference that would explicitly seek to allow doctors to offer to pray for their patients. The full text of the motion is available via the Christian Medical Fellowship’s website. Right. Go and make a cup of tea. We […]