Hilary's Desk

Do you, like some other kiwis I know, roll up and get your five yearly "pneumonia shot"? You did know, of course, that it was useless, right? Of course not. I mean, if that was the case, your doctor wouldn't have given it to you, right? You did know that the Cochrane Collaboration, medical doyen of evidence based medicine, has stated that the polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine is useless since their very first review of it right? (Latest one, 2008),  You didn't know that? Well, that's because your doctor didn't tell you. I wonder why? Just like they don't tell you that the Cochrane collaboration says the flu vaccines are also rubbish. Well guess what? The UK vaccine committee, the JVCI has just announced on 17 March 2011, that they are removing the adult pneumococcal vaccine from their schedule which they've used and persuaded people for decades that it was worth having..., because it doesn't work. Why might this be? Altruism towards their patients? Of course not. they pulled it  because on 13th March 2011Pfizer filed for use, a new PREVNAR 13 for adults. But the story doesn't end there. Read Full Blog

 Professor Hemila quite rightly asks sciblogs why they blethered on about mice and cancer instead of actually DOING a literature review on vitamin C and Pneumonia....  Did Sciblogs...  actually put their brains into gear?  Professor Hemila's Finnish website is the BEST place on internet to find early and more recent published medical information on Vitamin C.  I'd like to think that Sciblogs might learn something from this airhead episode, but seriously, ...  I very much doubt it.  Here is Professor Hemila's post, for anyone interested: Read Full Blog