Too many UK patients are prescribed high-risk drugs

"Findings of a new study suggest that too many patients in the UK are being prescribed high-risk drugs that could potentially cause them harm, and reveals that GP prescribing between practices remains significantly varied. According to the research paper, published in the British Medical Journal online, thousands of patients in Scotland particularly vulnerable to side effects from medicines were dished out 'high-risk' drugs by their GPs."
Read article at pharmatimes.com (UK)

Overall the level of pharmaceutical drug prescribing in the UK continues inexorably to rise, and with it the consequences of harmful side-effects, and the further risks of this abundance of 'legal' drugs getting into the hands of drug-dealers and potential addicts. We need statutory limits on prescribing levels, with serious sanctions, including permanent removal from the Medical Register, for doctors who contravene such limits. - "First do no harm."

US apologises to Guatemala for deliberately infecting nearly 700 people with gonorrhea and syphilis

64 years ago, under the guise of leading to improved public health by discovering more about the possible effectiveness of the recently-discovered penicillin. See BBC News report. The doctors/researchers/evildoers/criminals who perpetrated this atrocity chose Guatemala because this aspect of their 'research' would not have been permitted in the United States itself, and because the people they harmed were mentally ill patients and prisoners, i.e. vulnerable groups with little power to resist or object.

This ghastly revelation "was unearthed by Prof Susan Reverby at Wellesley College. She says the Guatemalan government gave permission for the tests." - I wonder if that government regarded those victims of medical negligence as expendable? I wonder whether there was any financial or other gain for the members of that government?

I deplore the fact that although medical ethics figures a lot in medical pronouncements and studies, it does not seem to figure in the most important matter of deliberately (or negligently) harming patients. I suggest that medical students should be taught to hold certain codes of behaviour pre-eminent in their dealings with patients:

First do no harm.

If you do in fact do harm, seek immediately to remedy it or alleviate it.

Tell the truth about what happened.

Understand that harming some people in order for others to benefit from that is unethical and wrong.

Evaluate honestly the outcomes of your actions and the advice you give.

NHS tolerance of sheer carelessness over patient care leads to high incidence of medical errors/negligence and unnecessary suffering for patients

The Sunday Telegraph reports on "a catalogue of medical mistakes".

The reported blunders are just the tip of the iceberg. Most 'untoward incidents' are covered up or never reported and it is rare for those responsible actually to be held accountable in any meaningful way. When there is a lack of accountability and sanctions there is of course little incentive for the carelessness and negligence to be reduced.

NHS tolerance of sheer carelessness over patient care leads to high incidence of medical errors/negligence, unnecessary suffering for patients and high costs in compensation claims.

Remember those sentences we are encouraged to associate with doctors and with the NHS?

1. First do no harm.
2. The NHS is the envy of the world.

Neither has ever been true.