There has been a climb-down re. NHS computer files records/database

The Government has backed down on plans to put details of patients' records on a national computer system, and agreed to proceed "with caution" with a limited list of medical information.

Good!

Here is more about Helen Wilkinson and about the Big Opt Out

There is more about Helen Wilkinson and about the Big Opt Out from the national database of personal medical records on this page:

NHS Confidentiality

and on this page: Opt out letter is a template opt out letter to send to your GP.

ID database to NHS records & The woman falsely labelled alcoholic by the NHS - Helen Wilkinson

The Government's intended ID database to NHS records stikes me as sinister with its potential for intrusive health-surveillance. And the potential for error and abuse is great. There is no opt-out mechanism for patients on the grounds of concerns about civil liberties.

Woman falsely labelled alcoholic by the NHS - Helen Wilkinson

Extract from the article:

"...millions of patients will inevitably have mistakes in their computerised records which will in the future be read by more people than in the past. The government has not yet delivered on a promise that patients will be able to check their records on the internet for mistakes."

See also Warning over privacy of 50m patient files

and What can patients do? - Extract from this article:

"Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, believes that patients do have legal rights over their medical records: "Write and insist that you are not put on the NHS data spine," Prof Anderson says. "If enough people boycott having centralised NHS records, with a bit of luck the service will be abandoned.""

And there follows a model letter to send - copy each to the Secretary of state for Health and to your GP - if you wish to register your objection to having your medical details on this intended database.

Our Government has an abysmal record with regard to grand IT schemes...)o: - They tend not to work, they tend not to be secure and they tend to contain many errors. - Apart from which considerations, they are monumentally expensive!

Obesity 'could bankrupt' NHS

Obesity 'could bankrupt' NHS a report has claimed.

The report, published in the British Medical Journal, said that obesity causes diseases like diabetes, liver disease, back pain and high blood pressure.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Professor Naveed Sattar said: "Once your body mass index goes above 25, which is effectively being overweight, and not even at the level of obesity, risks do increase."We need to start thinking in real terms what will really generally work and what generally is the cause."

Well I certainly agree that they "need to start thinking in real terms what will really generally work and what generally is the cause" - but sadly I know that they won't...)o: - They will carry on plugging the same harmful message they have plugged for decades, namely eat less and exercise more. They carry on, regardless of the clear fact that this advice DOES NOT WORK and is counter-productive. - This is because obesity is NOT caused by over-eating and inactivity. It is caused by fluid retention in vulnerable groups of people. It can be reduced rapidly by eating less salt/sodium and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. - It is important NOT to restrict calories.

I quote again from my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html :

"It is over 50 years since steroids were first prescribed and it is beyond belief that most doctors are still unaware in practice of their potential for causing sodium and water retention and morbid obesity and the many other serious health problems attendant on these...

Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

Contributing to the increase in obesity we have the widespread prescribing of steroids and HRT and other drugs which cause weight gain, and the failure of doctors to adhere to the protocols connected with the prescribing and monitoring of steroids. But pre-eminent, in my opinion, is the catastrophically damaging calorie-reduction advice that continues to be given despite such a wealth of evidence that it is bad advice.

Another possible factor is the increase in the amount of oestrogen in the water table."

Steroid-free medication 'better for kidney transplants'. - This was not news to me. - Steroids are VERY HARMFUL unless salt intake is minimised.

Steroid-free medication 'better for kidney transplants'

Here is an extract from the report:

"Usually kidney transplant patients take steroids regularly as part of their anti-rejection medication after the transplant, but steroids can have side-effects like obesity and bone disease."

See my post: here

Reduced calorie diet 'may cause osteoporosis'. - This is not news to me. I have been linking 'slimming' with a host of health problems for years now.

Reduced calorie diet 'may cause osteoporosis'.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

Restricting calories is extremely hazardous. It can cause MANY grave health problems. And I am not referring only to 'drastic' slimming. - Eating fewer calories than the body requires is always likely to cause harm. Here is an extract from my website:

"Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 BMJ article for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fat.
It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See Guardian article for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge Finnish research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss."

Obesity is not caused by eating to excess or by insufficient exercise. There has never been a scrap of reproducible scientific research or evidence to support the theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity, nor that calorie deficit reduces obesity. The theory and the advice it spawns should be abandoned forthwith. They cause great harm and suffering. When people whose blood vessels are weaker than the norm eat salt, the result is weight gain and obesity (because of excess sodium and water held in the blood vessels). This condition is sometimes called sodium retention. If these people reduce their salt intake they lose some of the excess sodium and water, and so lose weight, and if they eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables they lose weight faster, because the potassium in the fruit and vegetables displaces some of the excess sodium from the body.

So - all that is normally necessary to lose weight is to eat less salt/sodium, and, preferably, eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

'SLIMMING'/DIETING/RESTRICTING CALORIE INTAKE IS MOST DANGEROUS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE OBESE AND IT IS CATASTROPHICALLY HARMFUL FOR STEROID VICTIMS - THAT IS, PEOPLE WHO HAVE RAPIDLY GAINED A GREAT DEAL OF WEIGHT BECAUSE OF TAKING PRESCRIBED STEROIDS, HRT, AMITRIPTYLINE OR CERTAIN OTHER PRESCRIBED DRUGS.

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html and

IT expert raises concerns about NHS IT project - UK

IT expert raises concerns about NHS IT project

Some extracts from the report:

"Professor Martyn Thomas of Oxford said that glitches in booking appointments for patients in some hospitals using the system were not fully addressed before the next phase of the scheme was embarked on."

"The IT project is so big, that if it went completely wrong, it poses the danger of "wrecking the NHS", Professor Thomas added."

"The man in charge of the project, 42-year-old Richard Granger, failed his computer studies course at Bristol University, it recently emerged."

"Earning an annual salary of £280,000, Mr Granger is the top-earning civil servant in the UK."

What a colossal, risky, grandiose waste of time and public money this unnecessary and largely unwanted exercise in folly is!

Silkwood, the film. The Moral Imperative.

I watched the film, Silkwood, on DVD this evening.

A recurring phrase in the film was "the moral imperative." - This took me back many years to when I was studying Kant's moral philosophy and trying to get a hold on the exact meaning of the Categorical Imperative he urged on us. I found his philosophy quite hard to understand at the time, though I believe I'd got it pretty well sorted by the time I wrote a long essay about it. - Unfortunately, after it had been marked, it - my only copy - was lost in the post...)o: - Even now, 30 years later, I still feel a bit sad about that.

Meryl Streep played Karen Silkwood in this true story of how Karen Silkwood, a metallurgy worker at a plutonium processing plant, was intentionally contaminated with plutonium - and possibly murdered - to prevent her from exposing blatant safety violations at the plant. The plant was closed down a year after her death. She had gradually come to realise that some of the workers were getting contaminated - dangerously so - and that the company and the company doctors and other personnel were giving false reassurances and falsifying radiation readings and other data. - To her it became - fortunately for other workers in the plant - a moral imperative to discover as much as she could about this corporate negligence, collect what evidence she could, and to try to warn others about it in order to safeguard them from harm and to put a stop to the negligence. - Like all too many actual or potential whistle-blowers, she was cruelly and unjustly punished.

The film drew me in and resonated with me on many counts. - In recent weeks in Britain, our news media have been reporting facts about the death of a former Russian spy, who is believed to have been murdered by being poisoned with polonium 210. It is proving difficult for the police properly to investigate the murder because of high level non-co-operation by Russian personnel.

I seek in this blog to obey the moral imperative to protect others from harm, to tell the truth about the causes of obesity and salt sensitivity, to inform people of the safest and most reliable way to become less obese (namely to stop restricting calories and simply eat less salt and plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables) and to expose corporate, professional and individual wrong-doing/negligence that results in great and needless suffering for millions of people throughout the world.

If anything in my blog or in my website has helped you, or 'spoken to you', then I urge you to tell others about my blog and my website. - Let that be a moral imperative for you. If you have a website or blog then please put a link to mine so that more people have the chance of being helped and having their suffering lessened/relieved/prevented.

Most of my readers realise the truth of what I write. Most medical websites have sponsors or banners or adverts or sell stuff. My blog and my website do not. I myself pay any costs of my website. I do not make money out of visitors to my website and blog. I am not in the pocket of any drug companies or food manufacturers or retailers. I am not a consultant to the 'slimming' industry. You can trust me that what I say/write is the truth as accurately as I can deduce, ascertain and understand it, having spent many years doing just that. I want to save others from the suffering I have endured and do endure.

Visit my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ and in particular http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html

Read my Mensa article

Chemical firm (Monsanto) 'paid cancer pioneer' (Sir Richard Doll)

I exchanged letters with Sir Richard in the summer of 2001, when I wrote to him about my findings about obesity and the salt connection. He was the only person of the dozens to whom I wrote that summer (MPs, medics, journalists, scientists,etc) who had the kindness and courtesy to read my letter carefully and to reply to it helpfully. - He agreed with me that weight gain when taking steroids or HRT is caused by sodium and water retention and that the way to lose water gained is to reduce salt intake or take diuretics. I had hoped that he would tell other doctors about this in order to save many more people from becoming obese/morbidly obese steroid victims, but sadly he did not do this, and the vital information continues not to be given.

There is a report here that seems to damage Sir Richard's reputation.

Extract from the report:

"Sir Richard, who first definitively linked smoking to lung cancer, conducted much of his research while in the pay of chemical companies.

The American Journal of Industrial Medicine says that Swedish researchers have found that Sir Richard, who also co-wrote a famous paper minimising the role of chemicals in causing cancer, failed to disclose that he was being paid at the time by the chemical company Monsanto.

From 1970 to 1990, Sir Richard, who died last year, was paid up to £1,000 a day as a consultant by Monsanto, now associated with GM crops rather than chemicals."

See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

Obesity epidemic 'will cause more cancer'

'Obesity epidemic 'will cause more cancer' - My website has been giving information about the correlation between obesity and cancer for a long time. See Social and Economic Considerations

Extract from the 'Obesity epidemic 'will cause more cancer' article:

"Cancer Research UK is warning that by 2010 the UK could see as many as 12,000 cases of weight-related cancer diagnosed every year, prompting fresh concerns over the ongoing obesity epidemic."

What a shame that expert advice about obesity (i.e. to reduce calories and increase exercise) tends to increase obesity...)o: (See BMJ report about Leeds University Research) - I heard a doctor on BBC Radio 5 this lunchtime giving this advice, as doctors usually do. - The advice does not work, because obesity is not caused by overeating or laziness; it is usually caused by salt sensitivity. Salt sensitivity is frequently caused by prescribed drugs, e.g. steroids, antidepressants, antipsychotics, etc. See Steroids and Salt Sensitivity

All an obese person normally needs to do to become less obese is to restrict salt/sodium intake and eat plenty of fruit and vegetables.

MPs want pay rise 'to £100,000 a year' - UK

MPs want pay rise 'to £100,000 a year'

Well I for one certainly am not in favour of such a high salary for MPs. - I regard most of them as self-serving parasites. - You can read about my own experience of their uselessness - and the uselessness of Government Ministers and Departments, etc. etc. - on my webpage http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - and I do urge you to read to the end of the page. - I believe you will find it worthwhile.

"Pfizer suffers lethal blow to $800m 'wonder drug' trials"

Pfizer suffers lethal blow to $800m 'wonder drug' trials

Extract from the article:

"Pfizer has been forced to abruptly scrap trials of its most important new drug because too many patients taking it were dying.

Shares in the world's largest drug company plunged more than 10pc in early trading, following the news that patients in clinical trials taking Torcetrapib were more likely to die or develop serious heart problems than those taking other medicines."

Sadly, there are other drugs made by Pfizer, that do great damage to patients, but are not withdrawn and are far too often inappropriately prescribed. I am thinking in particular of prednisolone, a corticosteroid. Like other corticosteroids and like HRT, it can, and frequently does, cause sodium retention and water retention, and many, many thousands - possibly millions - of innocent patients have been harmed by taking such medications without appropriate monitoring and often in far too high a dose and for too long a period of time. The blame for this does not lie wholly the drug companies, of course. - Negligent doctors who do not check/understand the side-effects of drugs and do not monitor patients' progress while taking the medication share the responsibility for the harm done to their patients. - See Many doctors are failing their patients when they prescribe drugs.

For further information about this, read examples of steroid victims and some of my other blog entries. Also see my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/