Hilary's Desk

Everyone wants answers, just as much as Serenity's grandmother wants answers. There's no doubt that some parents kick kids around like footballs.  The problem is ... where do you get the WHOLE truth? What do the medical people mean by saying that the injuries were "similar to" shaken baby syndrome? Either they are, or they aren't.  And this is important, particularly when, as one expert says, at least half of all parents tried for Shaken Baby Syndrome, have been wrongly convicted. Apart from Tony Wall at the Sunday Star Times, the rest of New Zealand media automatically assumes that any diagnosis that comes from that shrine, Starship, has to be right. Presumably under the guise of "balanced reporting" Sunday Star times, allows Michael Laws to call the family, "feral", as if they are guilty before proven so.  Yet, the internet is full of stories like this one where just maybe, the parents didn't do it after all.  Key lawyers, world wide, are starting to question what they see as serial injustices. Read Full Blog

There are none so blind as those who appear to be control freaks.  Peter Gluckman’s words - “For the first time ever, we have a way of working out what mothers should eat” – were considered worthy of the subtext box front page of the paper version of the Herald on Tuesday. You have to wonder why.  Here’s the online version.  Read Full Blog

Yesterday, in discussing the cozy relationship of the medical profession with big pharma while paying lip service to nutrition, I remembered an old book I have on this topic.  It's quaint title is, "Intestinal Gardening for the Prolongation of Youth". It was written by Dr James Empringham, and published in 1926.  It's fascinating; makes me chuckle, and roll my eyes at the same time.  Why?  Because it shows just how insular the average doctor was.  And by proxy, still is.  Much of what he writes is just plain common sense, which us fruitloops have long been wise to.  There are a few interesting gems in this book, so have a gander at this lot: Read Full Blog

In his book, "How Doctor's Think", Dr Jerome Groopman describes an ultrasound doctor, who detects in a baby, inside a woman 5 weeks from giving birth, a strange shaped space inside the baby's brain which should look like a tear-drop with sharp edges, but just doesn't look quite right.  Not badly wrong, but just not quite right. Because the shape is pretty near normal, she almost doesn't tell the mother.  Two things change her mind. She wants to protect any obstetrician from being charged with causing damage to a baby, should it turn into something significant... and she also thinks parents should know in advance in case they need to consider the realities of bringing up a damaged child. The mother has an MRI, and a brain haemorrhage in the baby is discovered, so the birth is attended by paediatric neurologists.  Read Full Blog

Yesterday, in the Far North, Dr Jonathan Jarman had high blood pressure because he feared that 28 cases of measles in the last two months, in pakeha homeschooling, alternative life stylers in Hokianga, could trigger measles cases and deaths left, right and centre. His advice to health workers was to bail up everyone unvaccinated, born after 1969, and shoot’em up with an MMR vaccine, and to rope in anyone who hadn’t had an MMR, and see to it that they were injected. Not in that kind of language, but given information passed on from Kerikeri, the hard word tactics have already started.  Read Full Blog

We've all heard how wonderfully safe Gardasil is. The many trials that were done, and blended into one. The literature brims with glowing recommendations, with only a few inconsiderate pesky naysayers getting in the way of the the vaccine publicity machine. Read Full Blog