Slashdot Mirror

On February 6 2013, the Prime Minister announced that he had asked Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS Medical Director for England, to review the quality of care and treatment provided by those NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts that are persistent outliers on mortality indicators. A total of 14 hospital trusts were investigated as part of this review. After the reviews, 11 of the 14 trusts were placed into special measures by Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority.

Oh dear!

NHS these days, "Pregnancy is not an Illness", ergo, you need almost no medical care to give birth

Do you have any references for that leap? I looked it up and the references I have found to that phrase is in literature like this.

Pregnancy is not an illness and the majority of women remain well throughout their pregnancy. In fact, research shows that most women who work are healthier during their pregnancy than those who do not work.

It is about the ability to work while pregnant and has nothing o do with the level of care during delivery.

you are encouraged to give birth at home.

According to this NHS page the choice is up to the parent. It looks like they give a pretty balanced picture of the choice between the options.

I don't know, man. Pregnancy is listed under "Conditions", they advice you should NOT have your first child at home, and they provide a mid-wife TO YOUR HOME if you decide to give birth at home.

What are you going on again? Any links?

I don't know, man. Pregnancy is listed under "Conditions", they advice you should NOT have your first child at home, and they provide a mid-wife TO YOUR HOME if you decide to give birth at home.

What are you going on again? Any links?

UK waiting time for surgery, up to 18 weeks unless they decide "it is clinically appropriate that you wait longer. "

UK waiting time for MRI or other tests, 13 weeks.

Yay socialized medicine!

A few years ago I got a Vodafone PAYG mobile "dongle" for internet access while working away from home. Same issue - to enable access to 'blocked' sites I had to verify my age by making a credit card payment.

And the 'adult' site I wanted to visit while away from home? The National Lottery! I assumed that it gets classified as a gambling site, despite the fact that it is government sanctioned.

It'll be intriguing whether certain NHS sites will also get blocked, like Sexually transmitted infections. Unfortunately I won't know as I'll immediately opt-out of all and every filter!

I would think you could get some assistance from one of these resources.

UK: Treatment for Gambling Addiction
UK: Mental health helplines

US: USA Local Problem Gambling Hotlines
US: Mental Health

CA: Problem Gambling Institute
CA: Mental Health

AU: Problem Gambling
AU: Mental Health Services in Australia

I hope you get well soon.

Kinda like you should brush your teeth before going to bed. You dont see articles written about that! Well, it's because you don't brush your teeth ON A COMPUTER!!!! Move along nothing to see here (That slashdot crowd dont already know!).

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/dentalhealth/Pages/Teethcleaningguide.aspx

First of breastfeeding does not impart immunity for the entire time the child is breastfeeding. Studies show at best the newborn gets weeks maybe months of active immunity. After there is some benefit but not the same as a vaccine. This is why doctors wanted to give 30 shots in the first year. It is to close the window which your child does not have immunity. From the National Health Service:

Immunity in newborn babies is only temporary and starts to decrease after the first few weeks, or months. Breast milk also contains antibodies, which means that babies who are breastfed have passive immunity for longer.

And doesn't go to daycare (fewer vectors).

But not zero vectors. While you and your wife and your son might be vaccinated, can you guarantee that everyone she gets into contact with is vaccinated? Unless you keep your baby in some sort of sterile bubble when she goes out of the house, she still has risks. All it takes is for someone at the store, playground, whatever to sneeze on her inadvertently and she could be exposed.

When it comes to chests, take the antibiotics. You really, really, really, do not want a series bacterial chest infection to develop. That's the sort of thing that lead to stuff like sepsis or having bits of your lung surgically removed.

Wrong, most chest infections get better on their own with no need for antibiotics: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Chest-infection-adult/Pages/Introduction.aspx

You should only look for things like antibiotics if you have pneumonia (ie: a real bacterial chest infection), most chest infections though are only viral and your body will deal with this on its own in a few days if you give it the chance.

Sorry, you think DSM has even the most remote connection to real-world mental issues?

Shit, every person on the planet falls under at least one of the 'sexual disorders'. (I fall under several, but that's a topic for another day).

Oh look, I can find evidence on the matter too: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autistic-spectrum-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/894.aspx?CategoryID=68&SubCategoryID=157

NHS hearing aids and new batteries are free. If you lose your hearing aid or damage it, you may be asked to pay towards the cost of repairing or replacing it.

See, as a European (and even moreso as a French), I can't stop being puzzled by US food habits, and marketing strategies like you describe, which are despicable, and worth denouncing, I agree with you on that.

What's the situation in French schools? Schools in Britain aren't allowed to sell fizzy drinks or unhealthy snacks.

I don't think we have anything after food advertisements (but I don't have a TV). The best thing to have happened is a semi-voluntary action by the main supermarkets to clearly label unhealthy food. Soon after this was introduced, many things with a "red" icon were reformulated. Obviously unhealthy stuff wasn't affected so much, but lots of hidden salt, fat and sugar has been removed (e.g. bread, yoghurt, cereal).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18767425 (Since then, Tesco has implemented the labelling.)
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/food-labelling.aspx#Tr

I think there are proposals to force all packaged food to have these labels, but I suspect the current government won't do it. The supermarkets presumably did it to make their own-brand products appeal to health-conscious people as well as those on a tight budget.

Actually, no it's not a perfectly valid treatment for dehydration; it's dangerous to use very pure water when someone is actually dehydrated (through emesis or diarrhoea for example, or some processes for which hyperpenuria is a symptom). For any but the severest cases, treatment should be water *with food* (the food should be slightly salty or sugary) if the patient can tolerate it, or a rehydration solution (which is salted sugared water) otherwise. For particularly severe cases, treatment is usually done with IV drip or a nasogastric feeding line.

It's accurate to say that very pure water in millilitre quantities will do no harm to a healthy person; it is inaccurate to say that it will do any good for someone who is clinically dehydrated.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Dehydration/Pages/Treatment.aspx

Here are the guidelines for asking for a second opinion on the NHS: http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/910.aspx

Frankly, I doubt the government minister will have much effect regarding homoeopathy.

One counterargument: your profit-driven doctors and hospitals might give you unnecessary tests and treatment to increase their profits. (This is what happened when my 10-year-old brother was ill while on holiday in the US. The doctors saw the comprehensive worldwide travel insurance, and $ signs flashed in their eyes.)

For the sake of balance:
Doctors have warned women that concieving later in life carries significant health risks.
The first eggs out the box are always the freshest.

From the World Health Organisation Oral Health Database:

The metric used is the number of Decayed Missing or Filled Teeth in 12 Year Olds.
England has a mean DMFT of 0.7, and
USA has a mean DMFT of 1.19,
that is the average American 12 Year Old has worse teeth than the average English 12 Year Old.

Further, NHS dentistry fees:

£17.50 ($28) for an examination
£48 ($75) for simple procedure, such as root canal work, or removing teeth
£209 ($329) for anything else, such as crowns or dentures

Consider yourself shown up.

'You seem to be forgetting that nobody has ever been able to "cure" a virus ever. EVER.'

Antiviral treatment of chronic Hep C infections has a 50-80% cure rate:

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Hepatitis-C/Pages/Treatment.aspx

They poke you a few times

I assume you are being deliberately glib to try and prompt a reaction.

Checking various factors such as corneal reflex or gag reflex to establish brain involvement is hardly the same as giving someone a poke.

Your implication that doctors don't bother checking if someone is brain dead before pronouncing them is both insulting and ridiculous.

People are healthier in Germany? Maybe because Germany has universal health care.

Which, of course, no English-speaking country has. (And if you want to quibble about those being English-speaking countries, either you're being snarky about the variants of English spoken there, in which case you should be ignored, or you're talking about the second of the countries listed there, where English is one of the official languages, and the other one is also a "strong-FTR" language, to use Chen's terminology, just as English is.)

So, if you insist that your posts are legit, then follow through on your extraordinary claim that a diet consisting solely of rice, milk, canola oil and the occasional carrot is sufficient. I asked you to name a single country, hospital, or clinic that will state as much. You haven't.

On the other hand, here are several countries official guidelines.

And is the one from the World Health Organization

Not one of them agrees with your claims. The diet you proposed is deficient and unhealthy.

Most of us here in UK and across western europe are uncut. We don't have anywhere near the illness figures you're quoting (sources please?).

Uncircumcised men have 1½ â" 2 times the risk of prostate cancer, which affects 1 in 6.

I assume that mess means 1.5 to 2 times the risk
"No modifiable risk factor for prostate cancer has been identified and therefore, at present, there is insufficient evidence on which to base a prevention strategy. The established risk factors are age, family history and ethnicity." - Cancer Research UK (a reputable scientific research funding registered charity)

Over 20-fold decrease in risk of invasive penile cancer, which has a high fatality rate. One in 600 uncircumcised men get penile cancer, which often requires penile amputation.

"Penile cancer is a rare cancer in Western countries. Fewer than 500 men are diagnosed each year in the UK." - again from Cancer Research UK. While they acknowledge that circumcision lowers the rate slightly, it's such a tiny risk it's negligible. Bear in mind that's 500 cases a year, in a country of about 35 million men.

And finally the NHS viewpoint. Bear in mind that as a government funded medical provider, they have a vested interest in stopping men coming down with expensive illnesses. Circumcision is so cheap that they'd recommend it if it stopped 1 illness in every 100,000 men. "Routine circumcision may offer a number of potential benefits, such as reducing the risk of some types of infections. However, the majority of healthcare professionals now agree that the risks associated with routine circumcision, such as infection and excessive bleeding, far outweigh any potential benefits."

Whereas risk of this is only 1 in 500 for a circumcised boy, 1 in 50 uncircumcised male infants will get a urinary tract infection. This very painful condition is particularly dangerous in infancy, and in 40% of cases can lead to kidney inflammation and disease; blood poisoning and meningitis can also result.

"UTIs are a common infection in young boys. About 4% of boys have at least one UTI before they are 16.
Research has found that circumcised boys are 10-14 times less likely to catch a UTI than uncircumcised boys. This is because many UTIs are thought to be caused by bacteria that gather inside the foreskin before spreading to the urinary system.
However, most UTIs are mild and do not cause serious damage, so circumcision is usually only recommended when there is a pre-existing risk factor that increases the likelihood of the boy having repeated UTIs. Repeated UTIs can cause kidney damage.
An example of a pre-existing risk factor is a birth defect that causes urine to leak back up into the kidney. This carries the risk of bacteria spreading from the foreskin, through the urine, and infecting the kidney. In such circumstances, circumcision may be recommended." NHS again
I quote the whole paragraph here so as no to be accused of selective quoting. Yes, circumcision reduces the chance of getting a urinary tract infection, in the same way that locking a kid in an airtight room stops them catching a cold. It's a ridiculous overreaction unless there are extenuating circumstances.

I have to say, I trust the opinion of a cancer research agency and the NHS more than I trust an individual US doctor, whose practise stands to gain money for doing the operation.

Most of us here in UK and across western europe are uncut. We don't have anywhere near the illness figures you're quoting (sources please?).

Uncircumcised men have 1½ â" 2 times the risk of prostate cancer, which affects 1 in 6.

I assume that mess means 1.5 to 2 times the risk
"No modifiable risk factor for prostate cancer has been identified and therefore, at present, there is insufficient evidence on which to base a prevention strategy. The established risk factors are age, family history and ethnicity." - Cancer Research UK (a reputable scientific research funding registered charity)

Over 20-fold decrease in risk of invasive penile cancer, which has a high fatality rate. One in 600 uncircumcised men get penile cancer, which often requires penile amputation.

"Penile cancer is a rare cancer in Western countries. Fewer than 500 men are diagnosed each year in the UK." - again from Cancer Research UK. While they acknowledge that circumcision lowers the rate slightly, it's such a tiny risk it's negligible. Bear in mind that's 500 cases a year, in a country of about 35 million men.

And finally the NHS viewpoint. Bear in mind that as a government funded medical provider, they have a vested interest in stopping men coming down with expensive illnesses. Circumcision is so cheap that they'd recommend it if it stopped 1 illness in every 100,000 men. "Routine circumcision may offer a number of potential benefits, such as reducing the risk of some types of infections. However, the majority of healthcare professionals now agree that the risks associated with routine circumcision, such as infection and excessive bleeding, far outweigh any potential benefits."

Whereas risk of this is only 1 in 500 for a circumcised boy, 1 in 50 uncircumcised male infants will get a urinary tract infection. This very painful condition is particularly dangerous in infancy, and in 40% of cases can lead to kidney inflammation and disease; blood poisoning and meningitis can also result.

"UTIs are a common infection in young boys. About 4% of boys have at least one UTI before they are 16.
Research has found that circumcised boys are 10-14 times less likely to catch a UTI than uncircumcised boys. This is because many UTIs are thought to be caused by bacteria that gather inside the foreskin before spreading to the urinary system.
However, most UTIs are mild and do not cause serious damage, so circumcision is usually only recommended when there is a pre-existing risk factor that increases the likelihood of the boy having repeated UTIs. Repeated UTIs can cause kidney damage.
An example of a pre-existing risk factor is a birth defect that causes urine to leak back up into the kidney. This carries the risk of bacteria spreading from the foreskin, through the urine, and infecting the kidney. In such circumstances, circumcision may be recommended." NHS again
I quote the whole paragraph here so as no to be accused of selective quoting. Yes, circumcision reduces the chance of getting a urinary tract infection, in the same way that locking a kid in an airtight room stops them catching a cold. It's a ridiculous overreaction unless there are extenuating circumstances.

I have to say, I trust the opinion of a cancer research agency and the NHS more than I trust an individual US doctor, whose practise stands to gain money for doing the operation.

Cheers, gone up a bit from when I last had any work done then, but still not too bad, specifically I didn't realise root canal was only in the middle band.

Looked up the full details here:

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1781.aspx?categoryid=74&subcategoryid=742

Didn't realise the treatment course period lasted 2 months either.

Baldness is in the same ball park as erectile dysfunction? No, sorry, it's not.

Baldness issues are vanity. Not even in the same galaxy as erectile dysfunction, which not only can prevent procreation but also cause serious emotional / relationship issues.

If your woman can live with you because you don't have a full head of hair, all that means is you're carrying on with a superficial bitch who will leave you or cheat on you eventually anyway.

It's not just vanity. If you know someone who has lost his hair at an early age you know that it can have a big psychological effect: loss of confidence, etc. It's even worse when it happens to women where it's close to a taboo.

The NHS website writes : "Research by the University Hospital of Wales in 2001 found that women believed that going bald was worse than developing a skin disease like psoriasis. “The psychological impact is dreadful. I no longer felt attractive. I thought my husband wouldn’t want a bald wife," says Steel."

Tell me that wouldn't cause emotional and/or relationship issues.

Vaccines not so much, but second-generation antipsychotics don't seem to be quite the miracle cures the marketing departments suggested. http://www.nhs.uk/news/2007/January08/Pages/Ineffectiveuseofantipsychotics.aspx

They're still doing public healthcare:

http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/Healthcareabroad/countryguide/Pages/healthcareinBulgaria.aspx

http://www.europe-cities.com/en/633/hungary/health/

http://www.europe-cities.com/en/633/slovakia/health/

http://www.europe-cities.com/en/633/estonia/health/

http://www.europe-cities.com/en/633/czech_republic/health/

http://www.europe-cities.com/en/633/poland/health/

My four-year-old is allowed to eat as much as he wants of most unprocessed foods, such as bread, rice, vegetables, fruits. And he eats a lot, almost as much as I do, and I'm a pretty big guy.

That doesn't sound good. The GDA for a child (5-10) is 1800kcal, for a man 2500kcal.

A recent public health campaign for the UK about this is here.

Dont link to that here. Slashdot is an American site (pause for image of bald eagle flying past a fluttering flag) - the NHS is socialism!!! Death Panels! Deeeaaath Paneeellllsss!

My four-year-old is allowed to eat as much as he wants of most unprocessed foods, such as bread, rice, vegetables, fruits. And he eats a lot, almost as much as I do, and I'm a pretty big guy.

That doesn't sound good. The GDA for a child (5-10) is 1800kcal, for a man 2500kcal.

A recent public health campaign for the UK about this is here.

It's not even that simple... some sites directly compete and have contradictory information....

The example they were using on the BBC News channel...

http://www.lovechips.co.uk/ - (chips = French fries to you odd Americans that can't call anything by its correct name... French fries are a specific type of chip and what you call chips are in fact crisps) run by the Potato Council which is a division of the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (a government entity) encourages you to eat MORE chips
http://www.nhs.uk/change4life/Pages/Default.aspx is run by the NHS and encourages you to eat LESS chips

(of course the fact that lovechips was featured on BBC means that their click count has gone way up and now are safe from the cuts... before it had fewer than 100 hits a month, and really should have been cut as it has nothing that is useful to voters or the government.

It would be nice with more refined diagnosis tools on the net tho; easily accessible and structured decision trees which can guide you through how to both rule in and rule out possibilities would make a good tool for both patients and doctors. Done correctly it could even cut down unnecessary doctors visits and/or increase chances of early discovery of some diseases.

The NHS has already produced a pretty good one. They also have a really good selection of information on their NHS Direct site, and a local rate national helpline to talk about general health related issues. Slightly more geekily, they have a Behind the headlines news site which gives the real science behind some of the more heinously bad medical reporting that some sections of the media engage in.

Plenty of controversy over nationalised healthcare systems: can't fault the NHS's online presence though, it's a real anomaly amongst Governmental efforts on the 'net.

a ($20k) liver function test

Please tell me that's a typo? Are we talking about the same thing? An LFT? Where they take blood from you, and check levels of substances? Twenty thousand dollars? It's about £50 max, I'd guess.
They're pretty routine over here. Complaining of something? The doctor will take some blood, and tick the LFT box, oh, and maybe the TFT, and some others.

If that's what privatised medicine does for health care, long live the NHS.
Fuck it. Even if I'm completely wrong about it all, long live the NHS.

Once a year I get a booklet listing all the local health services (found it!).

I also got a leaflet about swine flu, one for Change4Life (healthy lifestyle stuff), and a chlamydia test kit (sent to everyone age 16-25, IIRC).

That's the only health-related stuff that's come through my door :-)

Microsoft is a company that cannot "let go" of anything. Take .NET for example -- it is a miserable failure that they won't let die.

A few web sites that use .NET technology:

Costco - http://www.costco.com/
Crate & Barrel - http://www.crateandbarrel.com/
Home Shopping Network - http://www.hsn.com/
Buy.com - http://www.buy.com/
Dell - http://www.dell.com/
Nasdaq - http://www.nasdaq.com/
Virgin - http://www.virgin.com/
7-Eleven - http://www.7-eleven.com/
Carnival Cruise Lines - http://www.carnival.com/
L'Oreal - http://www.loreal.com/
Remax - http://www.remax.com/
Monster Jobs - http://www.monster.com/
USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/
ComputerJobs.com - http://computerjobs.com/
Match.com - http://www.match.com/
National Health Services (UK) - http://www.nhs.uk/
CarrerBuilder.com - http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Newegg http://newegg.com/
Geico http://geico.com/
Capital One http://capitalone.com/
Zecco http://zecco.com/

And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Maybe you should tell all those sites that .NET is a miserable failure? Or if you were just (successfully) karmawhoring, I am sorry to interrupt the circle jerk on here.

The potato is far worse for you than the fat; being a readily-processed carbohydrate, it is essentially the same as eating the equivalent mass of sugar (except that there is actually a little fiber in a potato.)

Um... I think you need to read up on some basic nutrition advice.
Introduction to Nutrition

Healthier snack swaps

In any case, I eat fast food about once every couple of months so it really doesn't matter. Fries taste fatty/oily, chunky chips simply taste better.

Autism is a disorder, that is true. However, there are various degrees of autism, such as Asperger syndrome, so people usually use Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD, http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autism-aspergers/) to account for this.

Actually, the research was done on mice and cultured skin cells. Choice quotes from the NHS Choices article which discusses and links to the actual research:

• "While the newspaper suggests that the findings are directly relevant to children’s health, this was not investigated by the researchers, though they did suggest their results may have some application in the management of inflammatory skin disorders."
• "This laboratory study ... investigated whether chemicals produced by the bacteria Staphylococcus epidermidis could inhibit skin inflammation."
• "The researchers state that finding out how such bacteria exist on the skin without causing inflammatory responses could help them understand whether these bacteria have a role in immune responses in general"

So it looks like we can't really draw any conclusions based on this, though it sounds logical that exposure to all sorts of bacteria will keep your immune system focussed on the task in hand rather than (e.g.) psoriasis. As is so often the way, the Swedish are way ahead of us: "In a typical Danish Forest School, young children from 3 years are taken into the forest for 4 hours each day of the week."

Unfortunately, it's a long-standing tradition that IP addresses should be used as a unique identifier; we've got 1.3 million people behind a handful of IP addresses at work and it causes no end of fun when people like Microsoft decide to blacklist them within Live Mail for sending too high a volume of email and therefore being a spam bot, which they've done twice this year so far..

I personally run/have run many huge enterprise apps on .NET. It's actually a pretty good platform if you know what you're doing.

Don't take my word for it, though.

When I googled for what you asked to google, I found this list of sites running ASP.NET.

Costco - http://www.costco.com/
Crate & Barrel - http://www.crateandbarrel.com/
Home Shopping Network - http://www.hsn.com/
Buy.com - http://www.buy.com/
Dell - http://www.dell.com/
Nasdaq - http://www.nasdaq.com/
Virgin - http://www.virgin.com/
7-Eleven - http://www.7-eleven.com/
Carnival Cruise Lines - http://www.carnival.com/
L'Oreal - http://www.loreal.com/
The White House - http://www.whitehouse.gov/
Remax - http://www.remax.com/
Monster Jobs - http://www.monster.com/
USA Today - http://www.usatoday.com/
ComputerJobs.com - http://computerjobs.com/
Match.com - http://www.match.com/
National Health Services (UK) - http://www.nhs.uk/
CarrerBuilder.com - http://www.careerbuilder.com/
Newegg http://newegg.com/
Geico http://geico.com/
Capital One http://capitalone.com/
Zecco http://zecco.com/

Maybe you should tell those sites that .NET is a unproven technology? Or will you try to argue that these are not huge enterprise apps? Just because you want something to be true(or maybe you were just karma whoring) doesn't make it true. C# is a better language than Java, though each one has it's strengths. And even conceding your point(I don't) that Java is faster, speed is not everything. Or we would all be coding in assembly or machine code.

'Insurance companies aren't the "wrong hands."'

The US Congress (for example) begs to differ:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR00493:@@@L&summ2=m&

Within the next decade, whole genome sequencing, which has already come down in price from several billion to $50,000 USD, is almost certainly going to become affordable enough to be used a a routine diagnostic procedure, enabling true personalised medicine (a '$1000 genome' is widely predicted). Do you think that filing your genome with an insurance company is placing it in the 'right hands'?

'"pre-existing conditions" are only a problem because, for some reason, insurance isn't structured such that the insurer you had at the time of diagnosis is responsible for that condition and its complications from then on.'

I believe 'for some reason' here translates as 'because it might reduce profits'.

'So there needs to be an option to have continuous coverage from the time of conception.'

You mean like this?:

http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/aboutnhs/Pages/About.aspx

For an excellent overview of this story I recommend this critique of the paper from the English NHS's excellent Behind the Headlines service. Unlike a newspaper it will tell you who did the study, how it was funded, where the data came from and whether the results are worth anything. In this case the data was severaly limited and had put people into either "eating sweets every day" or "not eating sweets" which is very coarse categorising.It also doesn't report the absolute number of children who went on to become adult offenders. In conclusion

"Overall, this study on its own does not provide strong enough evidence to guide childhood dietary advice, although common sense says that eating too many sweets is probably not good for children. Before the newspapersâ(TM) explanation for a link can be believed there must be studies specifically designed to investigate the issue from the outset."

For an excellent overview of this story I recommend this critique of the paper from the English NHS's excellent Behind the Headlines service. Unlike a newspaper it will tell you who did the study, how it was funded, where the data came from and whether the results are worth anything. In this case the data was severaly limited and had put people into either "eating sweets every day" or "not eating sweets" which is very coarse categorising.It also doesn't report the absolute number of children who went on to become adult offenders. In conclusion

"Overall, this study on its own does not provide strong enough evidence to guide childhood dietary advice, although common sense says that eating too many sweets is probably not good for children. Before the newspapersâ(TM) explanation for a link can be believed there must be studies specifically designed to investigate the issue from the outset."

Government health care by contrast, is forced on everyone. That specific fact is what makes it a death panel. The person does not decide for himself what he is insured against, and is forbidden from doing so.

... because in countries with government healthcare, private health insurance is illegal? Oh no, that doesn't seem to be true...

Something like this.

I've not needed to use one, so I don't know how it works in practice.

(You can also phone 08 45 46 47 to talk to a nurse at any time, or use the online self-diagnosis thing, or go to a local doctor (or request a home visit), or go to a hospital if it's an emergency, or call an ambulance. I have done all of these, and so far can't fault the system in any way. But I'm only 23.)

Every year, an estimated 600 liver transplants are carried out in the UK. However, the number of people who need a liver transplant is much higher than the number of livers donated.

Consequently, deaths from liver disease remain high. In 2007, there were more than 13,000 deaths from liver disease in England and Wales.

The most effective way that people can help to reduce the number of deaths from liver disease is to join the NHS Organ Donor Register. See Useful links for more information.

The NHS treatment is free, although private insurance might pay for a room with curtains.

But as far as I can see, the only pertinent question regarding the story in hand is whether money changed hands for the liver itself. That's strictly illegal in the UK, and is the primary reason why people with money might seek a transplant abroad.

I notice incidentally thatLiver Transplant India will do a live donor transplant for only $60,000. But you have to supply your own donor.

Urban legends and sundry anti-virus makers keep us alerted to hoaxes. What about viral health stories? Yes virginia, it's work checking "Behind the Headlines" at NHS Choices before spamming your friends with the latest miracle cure or coffee crisis. Here's the cola crisis analysis. http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/05may/pages/colasapsmusclestrength.aspx. Their bottom line? Be more worried about the sugar effects on teeth and diabetes!

This same story caught the attention of the National Health Service, who published a a commentary here:

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/05May/Pages/ColaSapsMuscleStrength.aspx

This is probably more worth reading than the vast majority of the /. comments.

Choice sentences from the end of the commentary:

This suggests that some of the news coverage of this study may be unnecessarily alarmist.

It should be emphasised that these individuals drank between three and 10 litres of cola a day for an extended period of time.

Feel free to circulate the URL. I'm just an AC and UK taxpayer, rip me off. :^)

You can't actually say that it does nothing for obese people: it may be keeping them from being even more obese, it may be making them even more obese, or it may be doing nothing -- the facts in the webmd article are insufficient to choose among these three options.

What it does conclude is that switching to diet drinks do not make an obese person un-obese.

That is not an especially startling conclusion.

What would be startling is if data that do support the conclusions following the rat pup comments at the end of the article were actually provided -- the implication here is that diet drinks would make an already overweight person obese, or an already obese person more obese. That is, the elimination of hundreds or thousands of kilojoules of energy from simple carbohydrate from sugared drinks would be made up for by even more kJ worth of energy from other intake in a statistical majority of cases.

This startling conclusion simply is not supported within the article. Evidence supporting such a conclusion should be (pardon the pun) weighty.

A more interesting line of investigation would be whether diet drinks reduce harm in people who are already on a trajectory through overweight to obesity, even if it does not arrest or reverse the fattening-up. For instance, do diet drink consumers exhibit differences in insulin metabolism or blood chemistry or markers of these types of disorders (kidney stones, for example)?

In fact, these lines of investigation are regularly done, particularly in societies where the utility function is normalized because the health care system is paid for in taxes paid locally. These investigations tend make for much less interesting copy (particularly for a U.S. audience) than the webmd article.

In fact, the same story gets a very different tone when read on the site of one such health agency that aggregates accessible stuff for an audience of English speakers:

(UK National Health Service - Diet soda linked to higher diabetes risk).

It is easier to switch providers than governments.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+health+insurance
As you can see, there are plenty of companies offering health insurance in the UK.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+private+hospital
You also have a wide choice of private hospitals, which are nicer (more luxurious) than the NHS hospitals.

http://www.nhs.uk/
And there's the NHS, for those that can't afford, or don't want, private treatment. (Or have insurance, but choose not to claim on it.)

The difference being that smoking does no good in itself. Vioxx for the few people that actually needed it probably wouldn't have been a major problem, instead, because of the marketing, we got everybody and their brother using it when they could have used an alternative.

Keep in mind that using Vioxx wasn't a death sentence. In fact, the increased risk of death was not found to be statistically significant in the one story that I found. The increased risk of a heart attack or stroke was about 2% combined:

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2008/10October/Pages/Vioxxriskconfirmed.aspx

When weighed against the debilitating illness that it was meant to treat (vs. what it was used "off label" to treat), living life with a slightly higher risk vs. being in constant, debilitating pain, that risk can be quite acceptable to the user.