Hilary's Desk

I've had all my shots."  So said Javelin Thrower Stewart Farquhar.  This just about epitomizes the effort which the average New Zealander puts into learning about the real world. Fact.  The things which bite you on the bum in India, are NOT likely to be the things for which you have had shots. FACT: What might hit you harder on the bum if you go to India now are two things: India-derived superbugs only discovered in December 2009 - and the consequences of giving antibiotics like Doxycycline to the athletes to prevent Malaria, or other antibiotics, to treat infections while at the Commonwealth Games.  Therein lie the real dangers. Let's look at why: Continue Reading

What epidemic? "Numbers have been on the rise since June this year, but they really spiked up in August," said Dr Alison Roberts, of the Ministry of Health' ... Hiding behind the word "epidemic", as a scare tactic, Alison Roberts continues: "We have been expecting an epidemic around now. New Zealand has a whooping cough epidemic every four to five years, and the last one started in 1999." Really?  has Dr Roberts read this from the ESR? which has a graph showing this:    Continue Reading

Like many of my friends, there was once a time when I trusted the system; was ignorant about the actual lack of “evidence base”; and assumed that what I was told was right. Because of this naivety, I learned the hard way that the system can be wrong. Since then, I’ve done my best to keep myself out of this system, but when neded, I have never hesitated to confront the system  in order to get the best for my family or friends, and protect them from the worst. I’ve only been able to do that, with a backbone honed from years of research into all sorts of diagnostic scenarios, so that I know what is supposedly gold standard treatments, what evidence (or lack of) that’s based on, and the flaws.  Continue Reading

Where are the skeptics, when it comes to looking at the “responsibility” of using intravenous vitamin C in serious illness? Where you’d predict them to be. Shoring up the medical system like good little marionettes.  Continue Reading

In the wake of the TV3 documentary "Living Proof",  thoughout New Zealand, families who have members in ICU with H1N1, are being told that their near-death family members cannot be given intravenous vitamin C because it would cause renal failure. The medical literature does not support this statement. Many times we hear about vitamin C and kidney stones, but where did that "information" come from? According to Professor Hemila of Finland, it is an "urban legend". Quite why the medical profession feel it so necessary to create urban legends, is another matter altogether. Professor Hemila details the literature on this on his a page on his website called "Safety of Vitamin C: Urban Legends" (page pdf'd):  Continue Reading

Are doctor prepared to their patients to die, rather than take note of either Allan Smith, or the known medical literature? Hence, this open letter to New Zealand Herald. Continue Reading

While the medical profession has finally caught on, that the more "educated" a parent makes themselves on the issues around vaccination, the more likely they are to chose not to vaccinate, they are utterly offended that people can chose not to vaccinate.  Furthermore, their take on the issue of "choice" is off the wall.  Their solution to parents not making the 'right' choice, is to back parents into the wall and take pot shots at them with "Refusal to vaccinate" letters (see bottom), which read like legal documents, but are not.  These "refusal to vaccinate" letters come out of such skewed thinking patterns as can be seen in this statement in May this year, from the biggest vaccine defender of them all, Dr Paul Offit: Continue Reading

What happens when paediatricians take a look at the disease incidence in their own country and decide that certain vaccines are not justified on epidemiological grounds?  Nothing, So long as they keep their mouths shut.  What happens when they look into the use of certain vaccines, and find that reactions are being covered up?  Nothing.  So long as they keep their mouths shut. But when they tell the world about both... , no matter that good science is on their side, there is only one possible result. To start with, they will be branded ANTI VACCINE. What better slur is there?  Anti vaccine people are idiots, don't you know?  Truth won't be discussed.  Truth is inconvenient to the vaccine industry, especially to organisations who owe their existence and income to the vaccine industry. Simple as that. Here's the story. Continue Reading

“Warning on blood thinning medicine” rang out the headlines in the Herald on 10 June 2010, in an article which warned that warfarin can result in strokes. This type of article is particularly dangerous, because readers can assume that what is said is the only danger there is. Warfarin is way more dangerous than just causing strokes. Warfarin is a major nutrient robber, to the proportions of being a biological weapon of slow mass destruction. Continue Reading

Drs Hazel Lewis and John Holmes from the Ministry of Health (MOH), took an opportunity in the Herald letters to the editor to “swipe” an article called “Jab no surefire protection”  which they maintain undermines an important health initiative. Never mind that the article was based on a Ministry of Health press release, and gave no negative information about the Gardasil vaccine itself. Reading it, I thought that the MOH would be delighted at the meek compliance of it all. Not so. This MOH whine actually joins the ranks of “pillock” status, because the article was rightly addressing what many published medical studies show and the MOH had identified – that most people vaccinated with Gardasil, think they don’t need smears.  Continue Reading