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Do I need a GP referral for a private consultant?

Sorry to hear about your co-worker's loss. Still: http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/dis...
"Until relatively recently, only a few caught whooping cough, with less than 150 cases being reported in children aged four and under during 2007. Since then cases had been climbing steadily, until the large outbreak outlined above, which affected countries across the world, including USA and Australia. As to why the 2012 outbreak occurred in this way, opinion at the time of writing is divided.
It is possible that the bacteria causing the infection has changed in some way. Conversely, the HPA has conjectured that years of tight control over whooping cough may have led to people's immune systems not being boosted by repeat infections in adulthood, therefore leaving the population as a whole at increased risk."

And also:
http://www.vaccinationcouncil....
"Prior to vaccination, infants were less susceptible to pertussis because real "herd immunity" was in place, and mothers were passing on immunity to their infants during the vulnerable time. Since vaccination, this herd immunity has actually been abolished, and infants are now more susceptible due to their vaccinated or non-immune mothers lacking specific antibody and cellular immunity for pertussis. This can be verified in the medical literature:
"Diminishing maternal immunity increases the risk of infection among the youngest age groups, who have not yet received at least two doses of the vaccine."[3]
When pertussis is left to take its normal course in the community, the supposedly vulnerable infants that the vaccinationists scream and yell about, are protected by maternal antibodies and mother's milk until they are old enough to process the disease on their own. After vaccines were introduced, this protection was vastly reduced, because the mothers were at best, having vaccine antibodies to pass along to their infants, and that defense is neither effective nor long-lasting. The reason for the diminishing maternal immunity is that vaccinated individuals tend to have lower antibody titers long-term, and breast milk antibody (IgA) is not transferred in vaccinated mothers. As we already know, two doses and even three doses of vaccine is far from a guarantee of immunity. In fact that is the exact reason there is a new vaccine in the pipeline to add to the current FAILED pertussis vaccine schedule. This new vaccine will be inhaled, and in this article [4] touting the need for the new vaccine, the authors detail the many problems with the current vaccine. ..."

It's too late to do anything for your co-worker's family, but to prevent such tragedies in the future to others, one might ask (rhetorically, not to the real person):
* was the child breastfed from birth?
* Was the mother vaccinated against pertussis and so had no natural immunity to pass on via breastmilk?
* did they have a home birth and avoid doctors offices and hospitals which spread disease?
* was the mother eating a great diet?
* did both mother and child get adequate sunlight or vitamin D?
* Did both get enough iodine?
* DId other vaccines like HepB at birth weaken the infant?
* DId compulsory work and compulsory schooling practices force the family to be exposed to more diseases (compared to a basic income and homeschooling/unschooling)?
* Did anyone in the family eat junk food, especially with a lot of sugar?
* Were family members getting enough sleep and exercise and laughter (all immune boosters)?
* And so on for other aspects of optimum health, like Dr. Joel Fuhrman talks about in "Disease-proof your Child":
http://www.drfuhrman.com/shop/...

If your co-worker was at all a typical US American, the answers to most of these questions would be unhea

It is often preferred that a patient is given medication orally, even in a hospital setting. There are a number of reasons for this: cost and reduced rate of infection being two obvious ones. MRSA is a common infection at the site of permanent lines. Shouldn't happen of course, but it does. Oramorph is an example of orally taken morphine. The other thing you should realise is that doctors still prescribe medication when you're in hospital.

The main concern is once people leave hospital and are no longer under the direct care of a doctor and the team of nurses (trust me - nurses are far scarier when it comes to regiments of taking medication).

I can almost hear the migraines lining up to assault me now.

Sumatriptan is your friend. I started having migraines badly about 15 years ago. They stopped, but then a couple of years ago. My doctor gave me sumatrpitan, to be taken when a migraine comes on. They are MAGIC. A migraine can be gone in less than 5 minutes.

and a headache severe enough to make my eyes very sensitive to light will disappear in a matter of minutes

Are these headaches migraines? I get them of varying intensity, caused by stress. I've had some so bad that I've gone blind for a few hours. A few months ago, my GP prescribed Migard for them. It works very well. The side-effects I experience are dry mouth and very sensitive (to touch and heat) skin. It's worth it for the relief from the headaches. I often don't need to take any painkillers with them.

Here are the links I promised earlier
Annoyingly enough I can't find the survey itself, but I have found a few articles dating from 2001 to 2009, concerning the subject.
If anyone is interested the survey was, as far as I can tell, carried out by Opinion Health on behalf of Bayer Schering Pharma AG

Dated July 16th 2001 - BBC. Article on Teenage myths about contraceptives
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1441898.stm

Dated May 21st 2005 - Medical News Today. Article on the (mis)use of contraceptives
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/24840.php

Dated August 20th 2006 - The Medical News. Article on rising STD's(STI's in the article) and the appearent lack of sex ed
http://www.news-medical.net/news/2006/08/20/19538.aspx

Dated September 5th 2009 - Health News. Blog referring to the suvey, which I can't find
http://blog.taragana.com/health/2009/09/05/kebabs-coca-cola-chocolate-contraceptive-myths-still-rampant-in-uk-11384/

Date September 7th 2009 - Netdoctor. Article referring the the survey
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/interactive/news/theme_news_detail.php?id=19348358&tab_id=131

and just for good measure here's the wiki statistics on British teen pregnancy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_pregnancy_and_sexual_health_in_the_United_Kingdom

Salmonella is hardly worth the attention you're giving it, since it can be killed by making sure the food is fully cooked. Wtf do you mean you would rather eat "raw Swedish chicken"? Do you actually enjoy raw chicken? Gross.

The article was refreshingly in-depth and it covered both sides of the issue - surprising, considering most ./ articles are not much more than short blog rants. I do wish it had pointed readers to an online location of the studies cited, but the reports are verifiable. I was aware of cooperative studies done after WWII by the US and Japan, among others.

My gut reaction is to accept the information presented as reliably true. I have two reasons for this. First, this was published to a German site. I trust a German site slightly more than your average dot-com because of the competing forces at play in the current US 9/11 mindset. The Bush "gubmint" wants you to cower in terror every damn day fearing random acts of violence by brown people (Appropriate thanks to George Carlin). The more peaceful side of the US continues to try to reassure the public that much of the terror threat is FUD (which it is - seriously, we've been at the Orange terror level for months, meaning "High Risk of Attack". No attacks, no highly publicized failed plots to garner support for the omnipresent Orange. I doubt the FBI/CIA/DHS is doing THAT well). I admit the US has its enemies, and that fact should not be discounted. It's true that someone may someday use a nuke (or more likely a dirty bomb) in an American metropolis. But if this was posted to an American website, I would have a harder time accepting it at face-value, rather than subtle "fear not" messages by pro-nuclear lobbyists. That said, as an American citizen in a metro area, I'm happy to see that moderate radiation may be tolerated by the body better than expected, and i am also in support of more nuclear power plants in the US. Nuclear power done right releases less radioactivity into the air per year than a coal plant...and probably less than the pack of cigarettes I'll finish tonight.

Second, the effects of short-term radiation exposure are typically exaggerated, in my non-professional opinion. A chest X-ray for example, is roughly equal to 10 days' worth of background radiation dosage; fewer if you live 5000 feet or more above sea level. Not bad considering your heart and lungs are the target of a quick 120,000 electron-volt blast (Linkage). Cancer treatments can exceed 10 MeV. Granted, I'm talking about reasonable short-term exposure, something less than 3 or 4 Greys for a one-time worst-case scenario. I'm not going to argue that pulling a Spock and walking into a reactor for a while will leave you anywhere near healthy.

I think long-term radiation exposure is where we need to concern ourselves. For example, Marie Curie handled radioactive material with little to no protection for nearly 40 years, before dying of anemia in 1934. This can be partly attributed to the fact that much of the radiation she was exposed to was alpha radiation. However, long-term exposure to radium (which is over a million times more radioactive than uranium) and its byproducts, including radon gas and ionizing beta particles most likely led to her death. Gamma radiation is much more harmful, with the ability to knock base pairs out of DNA. Even the most loved radiation of all, UV, that elixir of youthful bronzed skin, has been shown to cause harm. But no one gets carcinoma from a single sunburn, or a single tan. The most deleterious effects add up over time, but are not caused by forgetting to slide the lead suit over the family jewels during an X-ray at the dentist.

Saying that only 800 or so out of 86,000 survivors died of radiation-related illness is not enough for me. How many showed non-fatal illness extending beyond 1 year of exposure to the bomb? What was the change in infant and child mortality 5/10/20 years after? How did the population histogram change over time - were elderly affected more than children or vice versa? How much radiation WAS deposited to the environment after the detonation of Fat Man/Little Boy -- accident at Chernobyl -- accident at Three

At last, a positive use for oral herpes. Medical science is truly amazing.

I'm afraid there is a small but significant risk of harm to the mother and/or the unborn child when you take samples of amniotic fluid... too risky? not my call... but there is a risk.

Life is a risk.

If women are already undergoing amniocentesis, then the risk has already been taken, so why not get extra value from the resulting fluid ?

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the fluid is harvested on industrial scales.

While there may be something to the concept of addictive personality or genetic predispositions, other important issues are easy access to the drug and the engineering of the drug to the individual.

Most work environments don't allow drug dealers to visit your workstation, but screening out gaming is hard. More alarmingly, it is only a matter of time before games modify the individual user experience to maximize time spent playing them.

FYI, for some anti-viral medications, see: http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/medicines/effect/infect ions.shtml

But the main point is: Yes, cures are hard. Exactly. And that means they're not good investments for for-profit companies, since the R&D is so high compared to, say, ADHD drugs.

And that's why we need public science. We didn't wait for a private company to go to the moon, or even to build a bridge to Brooklyn. We do public work in such big, public-service areas, and that's what's failing.

I'm not saying there's no place for commercial science. But right now, Bush is in "privatize" mode and the result will be fewer cures and much less science, since so much is proprietary.

The short-term solution, IMO: attach strings to the R&D tax credits for drug companies to encourage more long-term benefit to society (it's corporate welfare, might as well make it work-fare). And increase public science budgets to restore US leadership in the sciences. The means are there if the will exists.

could this be the problem ?

It doesn't take a thousand degrees to eliminate a protein. Diamond will ignite at less than that temperature.

Extended autoclaving at 135 C or immersion in 1.0 N sodium hydroxide will positively disinfect prion-contaminated objects. Granted, those conditions would also kill a patient, but let's not go overboard.

It's bloody difficult to eradicate--we don't have any techniques to do so yet. Perhaps something antibody based would work--something that will recognize the uniquely misfolded prion. I can also see this being a potential application for gene therapy. Regardless, it's a tough nut to crack. On the other hand, it is by no means alone in being an incurable, progressive, degenerative illness. Are the drug companies actually suppressing cures for all of cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, MS, ALS, etc.?

I'll leave the full debunking of the conspiracy theories to someone else. The notion of a pharmaceutical company deliberately murdering people to quiet them is appealing, but this is a dumb way to go about it. If you're trying to silence someone, you don't give them a disease that takes years to manifest--you hire a hit man. They'd also need to get your physician on side, unless you're in the habit of accepting injections from random individuals.

Incidentally, one of the symptoms of CJD can be paranoia. Hm.

Contraceptive coil (IUD, not IUS) and non-spermicidal condom? Or finding a bloke who's had the unkindest cut of all :-)

Amoebic dysentery is a pretty good deterrent for widespread acceptance of your idea, all legislative matters aside.

Sorry...

Yes I do personally very much believe Pfizer hate "viagra spam", here's why:

As we all known the brand name "Viagra" is instantly recognisable and generates a buzz of instant brand recognition which is almost on the same level as "Coke" or "Hover".

For this very reason a couple of years ago Pfizer realised that they could reorganize their Viagra sales teams as the Viagra brand literally sold itself therefore most of their original Viagra sales people were promptly reassigned to other products within Pfizer. Pfizer's own Viagra sales teams are thus now small.

Incidently drug sales is a bit like playing football, each competive company (side) have their own sales people marking each others, person for person. So changes in one companies sales force always impact on their competitors.

Anyway "Viagra" is still covered/protected by patents which (if my memory serves me correctly) were granted for something like 10 or 15 years, this means that legally 100% identical generic versions of Viagra or generic sildenafil can NOT legally be made for a number of years yet.

It is important to realise that commericially Pfizer will be interested in maintaining a good "brand" reputation for a high quality product, they will also be interested in maintaining Viagra at a fairly constant fixed price for as long as is possible during the duration of their patents.

Remebering the fact that Viagra sells itself and you soon realise that Pfizer therefore don't really need to or even want to spend time or money on agressive "spam" type marketing for "low cost viagra" as selling such a product would be counter productive to their own interests.

I am also reliably informed that the apparent "Viagra" that we see being advertised on the Internet are in fact "viagra" copies which have been altered/redesigned often in what are unproven ways to try to get around some of Pfizers patents. So it's very much buyer beware.... !

On a similar note it worth understanding that medcines like Viagra are licensed for treating one particular condition only, e.g. "erectile dysfunction" aka "impotence" in the case of "Viagra". So even though many people found that "Viagra" appeared to make some difference in females Pfizer legally could NOT and would NOT acknowledge this fact. Thus a entirely new drug with a totally different name was created, tested and then licensed/marketed for use by females only.

It's
also used to make the paper the book is made from, and (mixed with morphine) to treat diarrhoea. Not sure whether Brin wanted all these allusions though.