I promised myself I would make at least one entry per month, just to keep myself up-to-date with myself. Not forgetting my reader, of course, so welcome to the August Entry.
Health Progress
August is the month when my periodic checks come around, so I have given blood for testing and will get the results next week. All the normal stuff - Lipids, blood sugar, liver and kidney function. But the main health issue has been caused by another change in the prescription process. I had a letter from the GP informing me of the new system that was available and a form to sign up for it. This new repeat prescription process is as useless to me as the previous one. I had already said 'no' to that some time ago. However, I was given 9 sheets of prescriptions, which the chemist would not honour, as I was not prepared to register with them for the repeat process. I do not always use the same chemist, so if I put all eight repeats with just one I am likely to miss out on some drugs sometime soon. After two journeys to chemists and one to the surgery I am back on the old process - and my blood pressure is back to normal.
Some good news is that my weight is the lowest it has been since the beginning of 2008, when I was 17 stone (238 lb, 108.1 kg). On Saturday I was 14st 10.8lb (206.8 lb, 93.8 kg), or if the scales do the conversion 94kg - an anomaly I do not yet understand.
Bank Holiday Weekend
Andy, Jess and Leo came to lunch on Sunday, Liz and Ray joined us in the afternoon and in the evening we all headed to Nandos for tea. So much of the good health work was undone, but that is what bank holidays are for. Andy, Jess and Leo stayed overnight, and so we enjoyed breakfast with them too.
The bank holiday is a washout (as so often happens) so I can catch up with some work on revising the History page on the church website.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Monday, August 25, 2014
Monday, April 08, 2013
Another avoidable public health disaster
There is a measles outbreak is south wales and northern England. This is the result of a large number of people choosing not to be immunised. Why would anyone in their right mind not want their child immunised against measles? It is a horrible disease, and can cause some nasty side effects - blindness and even death (although this is only 0.3% in the USA, that will be similar here in the UK).
The reason is simple. The perception of the vaccine was that its effects were worse, much worse than the disease itself. This is the time that the MMR vaccine was thought to cause autism. The separate vaccines were still available, but the stubborn government refused to let people have a choice. Most would have chosen three vaccines and received the same immunity, but the government had decided that it was better to only allow the combined vaccine. Those who could afford to get the separate jabs privately went and did just that. The MMR vaccine is better because it reduced the chance of babies catching the disease as they could receive the vaccine earlier.
The threat of actively damaging your child, and giving him autism meant that people voted with their feet and stayed away from clinics. As a result, there are large populations of children now in their teenage years who have no immunity. It was predictable, even expected, but it seems nothing has been done to follow up these children. Now there is an epidemic. That is also entirely predictable. Now there are expensive emergency vaccination programs, but for some it will be too late - they will catch measles and suffer side-effects that will blight their lives.
People make their decisions on the best data they have available - scare stories are all too easily available, but the issue here is not really people fearing a side effect. The issue here is 'pig headed' government that will not give people what they want. A democracy is supposed to do just that, and in this case it would have been sensible just to continue with the old vaccines and wait until the fuss died down. Then there would (most likely) not be an epidemic.
We see this sort of approach from government time after time, but how do we finally do something about it?
The reason is simple. The perception of the vaccine was that its effects were worse, much worse than the disease itself. This is the time that the MMR vaccine was thought to cause autism. The separate vaccines were still available, but the stubborn government refused to let people have a choice. Most would have chosen three vaccines and received the same immunity, but the government had decided that it was better to only allow the combined vaccine. Those who could afford to get the separate jabs privately went and did just that. The MMR vaccine is better because it reduced the chance of babies catching the disease as they could receive the vaccine earlier.
The threat of actively damaging your child, and giving him autism meant that people voted with their feet and stayed away from clinics. As a result, there are large populations of children now in their teenage years who have no immunity. It was predictable, even expected, but it seems nothing has been done to follow up these children. Now there is an epidemic. That is also entirely predictable. Now there are expensive emergency vaccination programs, but for some it will be too late - they will catch measles and suffer side-effects that will blight their lives.
People make their decisions on the best data they have available - scare stories are all too easily available, but the issue here is not really people fearing a side effect. The issue here is 'pig headed' government that will not give people what they want. A democracy is supposed to do just that, and in this case it would have been sensible just to continue with the old vaccines and wait until the fuss died down. Then there would (most likely) not be an epidemic.
We see this sort of approach from government time after time, but how do we finally do something about it?
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