Hilary's Desk

I've had all my shots."  So said Javelin Thrower Stewart Farquhar.  This just about epitomizes the effort which the average New Zealander puts into learning about the real world. Fact.  The things which bite you on the bum in India, are NOT likely to be the things for which you have had shots. FACT: What might hit you harder on the bum if you go to India now are two things: India-derived superbugs only discovered in December 2009 - and the consequences of giving antibiotics like Doxycycline to the athletes to prevent Malaria, or other antibiotics, to treat infections while at the Commonwealth Games.  Therein lie the real dangers. Let's look at why: Read Full Blog

Everywhere we look, we see nothing but pictures of coloured surgical masks as if these have some paranormal ability to “protect” the wearer. These, we presume, work. Right? After all, they are part of the “national plan” to stop the spread of flu viruses right? We’ve been told that the two main means of infection are contact: as in shake someone’s hand, put hand in mouth; picking up droplets from furniture (fomites), or being directly coughed or sneezed over. Right? Masks supposedly are to contain what the infectious people cough out, to protect others, so wearers also assume that masks protect them from the “environment” around them. Why else would people on the streets of Mexico, and doctors, be wearing them? Right? Wrong, actually, on both counts.  Read Full Blog

Two weeks ago, when CDC, po-faced told us, that this “new” virus, never seen before in pigs…, was a combo of Eurasian/America swine flu/avian/human viruses, you believed them, right? Now, they are back tracking, saying, “No no,no.. only pig. Not human or bird.” Shhh…..  Read Full Blog

How's your day? Full of humour and irony? No? Well, let me make your day for you, or stuff it up, depending on your perspective. Consider the irony and illogic from the reportage team who wrote yesterday's New Zealand Herald articles on the swine flu. Let me join a few dots for you, following on from yesterday's blog serve. Read Full Blog

We have very strange habits. Like: refusing to wait in doctor's waiting rooms, unless we're the first there in the morning. Refusing to take our patently infectious sick children into waiting rooms, or doctor's surgeries and wait there.  "What???" I hear you screech.  "How irresponsible is that???"  Quite the contrary.  The current medical system which encourages sick people to sit in their waiting rooms has created a culture of contamination and complacency, which one day, might return to bite them.  And you. Read Full Blog

Dr Robert Wachter runs a blog which is well worth adding to your regular reading list. His Bio shows that he’s well qualified to talk about many things, and does so with a degree of candidness you don’t see in this country. A recent blog which interested me was the possibility of putting cameras into hospitals to try to raise the inadequate hand washing amongst staff. It would appear that since many nurses and doctors don’t appear to be motivated to wash their hands, some consider the answer is “Big Brother”. Anyone trained by the medical profession 170 years after hand washing debates started, who doesn’t think washing their hands is important needs their heads looking at. Read Full Blog