Category: in the news

Sally Speaks

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Professor Dame Sally Davies – Britain’s Chief Medical Officer – was a busy lady yesterday, speaking to the Commons Science and Technology Committee on a range of health related issues, two of which will come as no surprise to readers of this blog.

First off, as I reminded you guys late last year, we’re all going to die horribly because pretty soon we’re not going to have any useful antibiotics available to us. By “useful”, I mean ones that work.

Prof Davies even went as far as to suggest that:

“…the threat from infections that are resistant to frontline antibiotics was so serious that the issue should be added to the government’s national risk register of civil emergencies.”

She described what she called an “apocalyptic scenario” where people going for simple operations in 20 years’ time die of routine infections “because we have run out of antibiotics”.

I would (and do) agree, but I take exception with her use of the term “apocalyptic”. Recent failed apocalypses (Harold Camping, The Mayans) have meant that the word lacks any sort of gravitas amongst the general public any more. They simply don’t take it seriously. And this is serious, although there’s actually very little that the general public can do about it. Except die. Horribly.

On a lighter, far more comedic note, the meeting of the Science and Technology Committee also included a brief discussion on Homeopathy. This is about as appropriate a conversation about tree-felling methods at a meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee or a chat about the fungal diseases of goldfish at a meeting of the Institute of Motor Mechanics Committee, but fortuitously, Dame Sally dealt with the subject with the ridicule it so richly deserves.

Professor Dame Sally Davies said she was “perpetually surprised” homeopathy was provided on the NHS, and branded homeopaths “peddlers””

She also expressed fears about the prescription of homeopathic remedies to treat malaria and other illnesses:
“I’m very concerned when homeopathic practitioners try to peddle this way of life to prevent malaria or other infectious disease,” she said. “I am perpetually surprised that homeopathy is available on the NHS.”

Dame Sally, who is England’s most senior doctor, concluded by remarking that homeopathy “is rubbish”.

Now all that we need is a Secretary of State for Health that chooses to listen to scientific and er… medical advice. Not like the incumbent Jeremy Hunt, who is an idiot.

Football reading – with a warning

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First off, Oliver Holt in the Mirror, describing Afcon as “the perfect demonstration of South Africa’s World Cup legacy”:

Here’s a funny thing about the African Cup of Nations.
There are no Europeans trying to tell the organisers what to do.
Nobody signing petitions to try to ban fans from blowing vuvuzelas.
Nobody telling the mamas who sell pap and fried chicken outside games they can’t come within five miles of the stadium.
Nobody telling supporters who earn £1 or £2 a day they have to pay £40 a pop for a ticket.
Nobody saying: “Our culture is better than your culture.” Nobody saying: “Why can’t you just be a little bit more like us?”

AFCON 2013 is way better for it, too. It’s like the World Cup in 2010 would have been before Fifa de-Africanised it.

It’s full of life, vigour and colour, the slow drum sway of Nigeria fans, the choreographed vuvuzela-moves of Burkina Faso fans, the delirious joy of the Ethiopians.
It is a celebration of football, of course, and the match between holders Zambia and minnows Ethiopia in Nelspruit on Monday was full of exquisite skill and great drama. But it is also a celebration of South Africa, a showcase for the legacy of hosting the World Cup.

Anyone who read this blog during that World Cup may recall that I argued the same thing while exposing the excuses behind the pathetic French performance against Uruguay:

The vuvuzela is part of the African football experience. I’m sorry you don’t like it. But what you like is not of interest to me right now – you want a World Cup in Africa, then have an African World Cup.

But Holt tonks the nail squarely on the bonce when he notes the real problem with the World Cup legacy is people’s perception:

The legacy of the 2010 World Cup is everywhere in South Africa.
It just depends whether you want to see it or not.

Indeed.

Secondly, a rather (too?) glowing piece on the other side of “football’s bad boy”, Craig Bellamy:

The Manchester City forward is often regarded as being one of football’s bad boys, but off the pitch there is a very different side to him.

Few know… that Bellamy has put hundreds of thousands of pounds into his West African academy, has spent two weeks in Sierra Leone during the past three summers and is well versed in the continent’s history and politics.

There has always been far more to this Welsh firebrand, who physically and verbally confronted a Manchester United supporter on the pitch at the end of last Sunday’s Old Trafford derby, than his ‘Mr Angry’ caricature suggests. His apparent compulsion to venture where others fear to tread is not always misplaced.

It’s an enlightening and thought-provoking article, indicating that there is something to be said for looking beyond first impressions.  And while the writer describes scenes from Freetown, one wonders whether she has ever actually met Bellamy or is just relying on hearsay. That’s because the “she” is Louise Taylor and my first impression of her, which I’m struggling to look beyond, was this:

Why going to South Africa for the World Cup terrifies me:
Statistics, anecdotes and research suggest that touring the Rainbow nation as a fan next summer could be a dangerous option.
In fact, the 2010 World Cup should have gone to Egypt.

And lest we forget, when she wrote that back in July 2009, Louise had never been to South Africa. I’m not sure if she’d ever been to Egypt, but her rationale for awarding them the World Cup at South Africa’s expense was:

surely if the Egyptians could build the pyramids they could host a World Cup.

oh, and:

Moreover, staging football’s biggest and best event in a key centre of the Arab world might just have helped ease tensions between the international Muslim community and the west while simultaneously weakening the Islamic fundamentalists growing hold over hearts and minds.

*cough* Quality predictive journalism, right there.

So Louise, I hope that based on your track record you’ll excuse my reluctance to take your ramblings seriously. I’d love it if Craig Bellamy and his Academy was doing wonderful work in Sierra Leone, but I’ll wait until I see some evidence of it elsewhere before I actually believe it.

Still, if we’re looking for alternative precariously-positioned and potentially risky nations for Craig to further pursue his altruism, perhaps I might be so brave as to suggest… er… Egypt?

NORWAY CHEESE FIRE!

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Yes, it needed CAPS LOCK. This is important!

According to the Huffington Post:

A truckload of burning cheese has closed a road tunnel in Arctic Norway for the last six days.
Some 27 metric tons of flaming brown cheese (brunost), a Norwegian delicacy, blocked off a three-km (1.9 mile) tunnel near the northern coastal town of Narvik when it caught fire last Thursday. The fire was finally put out on Monday.

Yes, apparently the high fat content of brunost means that it loves to burn. But despite the fact that the cheese is a popular dish in Norway, it seems that it doesn’t ignite on a regular basis:

“I didn’t know that brown cheese burns so well,” said Kjell Bjoern Vinje at the Norwegian Public Roads Administration.
He added that in his 15 years in the administration, this was the first time cheese had caught fire on Norwegian roads.

And when someone with as much experience in Norwegian Public Roads Administration as Kjell Bjoern Vinje has never seen cheese catch fire, you know that this is far from an everyday occurrence.

Thankfully.

Donor Everything

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Oh dear, we’re heading “down there” – again.

If you follow me on twitter, you may have seen that I tweeted about this last night after I saw it via a doctor friend on Facebook. Well, because my lab flooded overnight and I have no time to do anything at all today, it is going to serve as today’s blog post, especially for those that… er… didn’t see it last night.

From the New England Journal of Medicine, I give you: Donor Poo!

We randomly assigned patients to receive one of three therapies: an initial vancomycin regimen (500 mg orally four times per day for 4 days), followed by bowel lavage and subsequent infusion of a solution of donor feces through a nasoduodenal tube; a standard vancomycin regimen (500 mg orally four times per day for 14 days); or a standard vancomycin regimen with bowel lavage. The primary end point was the resolution of diarrhea associated with C. difficile infection without relapse after 10 weeks.

Putting that into English for you, they found some patients with diarrhoea and split them into three groups. The first lot got antibiotics, the second lot got antibiotics and a bowel wash and the ever-so-lucky third lot got antibiotics, a bowel wash and then some “healthy” poo squirted into their bowels via a tube in their nose.

Yes. You read that last bit correctly. But why would you do that?

Infusion of feces from healthy donors has been reported as an effective treatment for recurrent C. difficile infection in more than 300 patients.

Indeed, because it assists in restoring the “good bacteria” in the gut. So why isn’t this done more often?

Experience with this procedure is limited by a lack of randomized trials supporting its efficacy and the unappealing nature of the treatment.

No sh… er… no kidding.

And here’s how it was done:

Feces were collected by the donor on the day of infusion and immediately transported to the hospital. Feces were diluted with 500 ml of sterile saline (0.9%). This solution was stirred, and the supernatant strained and poured in a sterile bottle. Within 6 hours after collection of feces by the donor, the solution was infused through a nasoduodenal tube (2 to 3 minutes per 50 ml). The tube was removed 30 minutes after the infusion, and patients were monitored for 2 hours.

#OverlyHonestMethods, right there. Seriously, what twisted individual thought that up?
Far, far more than I needed to know. Or maybe just enough for you to try it at home. Which I am clearly advising you not to do.

But hey – here’s the really important bit – it worked!

Overall, donor feces cured 15 of 16 patients (94%). Resolution of infection occurred in 4 of 13 patients (31%) in the vancomycin-alone group and in 3 of 13 patients (23%) in the group receiving vancomycin with bowel lavage.

Isn’t science brilliant?

Your Headline of the Day

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Yes, I too enjoy eating seafood, but:

Is that Calamari You’re Eating…or Sliced Pig Rectum?

Wait. What?

But yes, hot on the hooves of the UK horse meat burger “scandal”, Americans aren’t always eating what they think they’re eating when they order calamari – allegedly, anyway.

The terms you’ll need to learn for this one include: “imitation calamari”, which is exactly what it says – something which is not calamari, but which is pretending to be calamari – and “pork chitterlings”, the posh name for pigs’ intestines. I love how they’ve dressed that latter one up to sound cute, when actually it’s pig gut. Still, it’s better than its other name:

Though it has a shape and texture similar to the real thing, its component parts are decidedly different. While calamari comes from squid, the replica is supposedly made of hog rectum, otherwise known as “bung.”

Shudder.

Mark Wheeler, a spokesman for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) – the department tasked with ensuring the correct labeling and packaging of our nation’s meat products – told The Huffington Post he wasn’t aware of any products specifically labeled as “imitation calamari.” If it does exist, and is derived from a hog’s rectum, he said it would have to be clearly identified as such.

Which is why when you eat calamari, you should always go for tubes and tentacles, because they are the bits of squid that don’t resemble any part of a pig’s alimentary canal.

As far as I’m aware, anyway.