|
HealthWatch
HealthWatch is a UK charity which promotes evidence-based medicine. Its formal aims are: # The assessment and testing of treatments, whether “orthodox” or “alternative”; # Consumer protection of all forms of health care, both by thorough testing of all products and procedures, and better regulation of all practitioners; # Better understanding by the public and the media that valid clinical trials are the best way of ensuring protection. Details HealthWatch's President is Nick Ross and its patrons include Lord Dick Taverne, Steve Jones, Margaret McCartney, Sir Michael Rawlins and the comedian Robin Ince. HealthWatch has a small international membership. It promotes evidence-based medicine. It publishes the quarterly ''HealthWatch Newsletter'' and occasional "position papers" on controversial medical treatments. It was inspired by the oncologist Michael Baum, among others, and began as the Campaign Against Health Fraud mostly targeting unfounded claims by proponents o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret McCartney
Margaret Mary McCartney is a general practitioner, freelance writer and broadcaster based in Glasgow, Scotland. McCartney is a vocal advocate for evidence-based medicine. McCartney was a regular columnist at the '' British Medical Journal''. She regularly writes articles for ''The Guardian'' and currently contributes to the BBC Radio 4 programme, ''Inside Health''. She has written three popular science books, ''The Patient Paradox'', ''The State of Medicine'' and ''Living with Dying''. During the COVID-19 pandemic, McCartney contributed content to academic journals and broadcasting platforms, personal blog, and social media to inform the public and dispel myths about coronavirus disease. Early life and education McCartney was born in Scotland, and has said that her earliest ambition was "to be an engineer". She studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen. In 1994, McCartney earned her medical degree from the University of Aberdeen School of Medicine and Dentistry. In 1995 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nick Ross
Nicholas David Ross (born 7 August 1947) is a British radio and television presenter. During the 1980s and 1990s he was one of the most ubiquitous of British broadcasters but is best known for hosting the BBC TV programme ''Crimewatch'', which he left in 2007 after 23 years. He has subsequently filmed a series for BBC One called ''The Truth About Crime'' and has made documentaries for BBC Radio 4. He is chairman, president, trustee or patron of a number of charities. Early life He was brought up in Surrey. His German Jewish father, Hans Rosenbluth, fled Germany in 1933 soon after the Nazi Party, Nazis came to power. In 1940 Rosenbluth was interned as an 'enemy alien' and sent from England to Australia on HMT Dunera, HMT ''Dunera''. When allowed to return, Rosenbluth changed his name to John Caryl Ross and joined the British Army's Royal Pioneer Corps, Pioneer Corps; he became an officer in 1945. His paternal grandfather was Pinchas Rosen (born Felix RosenblĂĽth). Ross went to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alternative Medicine
Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), integrated medicine or integrative medicine (IM), and holistic medicine attempt to combine alternative practices with those of mainstream medicine. Alternative therapies share in common that they reside outside of medical science and instead rely on pseudoscience. Traditional practices become "alternative" when used outside their original settings and without proper scientific explanation and evidence. Frequently used derogatory terms for relevant practices are ''new age'' or ''pseudo-'' medicine, with little distinction from quackery. Some alternative practices are based on theories that contradict the established science of how the human body works; others resort to the supernatural or superstitious to explain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health And Social Care Act 2012
The Health and Social Care Act 2012c 7 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provided for the most extensive reorganisation of the structure of the National Health Service in England to date.''BMJ'', 2011; 342:d408Dr Lansley's Monster It removed responsibility for the health of citizens from the Secretary of State for Health, which the post had carried since the inception of the NHS in 1948. It abolished primary care trusts (PCTs) and strategic health authorities (SHAs) and transferred between ÂŁ60 billion and ÂŁ80 billion of "commissioning", or healthcare funds, from the abolished PCTs to several hundred clinical commissioning groups, partly run by the general practitioners (GPs) in England. A new executive agency of the Department of Health, Public Health England, was established under the act on 1 April 2013. The proposals are primarily the result of policies of the then Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley. Writing in the ''BMJ'', Clive Peedell (co-c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Consumer Protection
Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent businesses from engaging in fraud or specified unfair practices in order to gain an advantage over competitors or to mislead consumers. They may also provide additional protection for the general public which may be impacted by a product (or its production) even when they are not the direct purchaser or consumer of that product. For example, government regulations may require businesses to disclose detailed information about their products—particularly in areas where public health or safety is an issue, such as with food or automobiles. Consumer protection is linked to the idea of consumer rights and to the formation of consumer organizations, which help consumers make better choices in the marketplace and pursue complaints against businesses. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Taverne
Dick Taverne, Baron Taverne, (born 18 October 1928) is a British politician and life peer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Lincoln from 1962 to 1974. A member of the Liberal Democrats, he was a Labour MP until his deselection in 1972, following which he resigned his seat and won the subsequent by-election in 1973 as a Democratic Labour candidate. Taverne's 1973 victory in Lincoln was short-lived; despite retaining his seat at the February 1974 general election, Labour regained the seat at the October 1974 general election, by the future cabinet minister Margaret Beckett. However, his success opened the possibility of a realignment on the left of British politics, which took shape in 1981 as the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which Taverne joined. He later joined the Liberal Democrats when the SDP merged with the Liberal Party. He has sat as a Liberal Democrat life peer since 1996. Career Educated at Charterhouse School, and then Balliol College, Oxford, he gra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Jones (biologist)
John Stephen Jones (born 24 March 1944) is a British geneticist and from 1995 to 1999 and 2008 to June 2010 was Head of the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London.UCL GEE News GEE marks the transfer of headship His studies are conducted in the . He is also a television presenter and a prize-winning author on the subject of , especially . He is a popular contemporary writer on evolution. In 1996 his w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Rawlins
Sir Michael David Rawlins (28 March 1941 – 1 January 2023) was a British clinical pharmacologist and emeritus professor at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. During his medical career he chaired several executive agencies including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for 14 years from its formation in 1999 and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for six years from 2014. From 2012 to 2014 he was president of the Royal Society of Medicine. Rawlins delivered several eponymous lectures during his medical career including the 2008 Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), where he argued that there were other ways of collecting useful clinical evidence other than only randomised controlled trials and he encouraged a range of methods to provide a more holistic evaluation. For his contributions to protecting people from the side-effects of medicines he was knighted in 1999, and for his services to the safety o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Ince
Robin Ince (born 20 February 1969) is an English comedian, actor and writer, known for presenting the BBC radio show ''The Infinite Monkey Cage'' with physicist Brian Cox (physicist), Brian Cox, and his stand-up comedy career. Education After attending York House Preparatory school (United Kingdom), prep school, near Croxley Green in Hertfordshire, Ince was, from age 13, educated at Cheltenham College, a boarding independent school for boys in the spa town Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, followed by Royal Holloway, University of London, from which he graduated in English and Drama in 1991. Career Stand-up comedy In 1990, Ince first appeared at Greyfriars Kirkhouse at the Edinburgh Festival where Eddie Izzard was running a venue. At the time Ince was performing in a play called 'Shadow Walker' by Trevor Maynard. He had appeared at the Cafe Royal as part of the Edinburgh Fringe show 'Rubbernecker' alongside Stephen Merchant, Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais in 2001. As a friend of R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evidence-based Medicine
Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients". The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of the patient, and the best available scientific information to guide decision-making about clinical management. The term was originally used to describe an approach to teaching the practice of medicine and improving decisions by individual physicians about individual patients. Background, history and definition Medicine has a long history of scientific inquiry about the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of human disease. The concept of a controlled clinical trial was first described in 1662 by Jan Baptist van Helmont in reference to the practice of bloodletting. Wrote Van Helmont: The first published report describing the conduct and results of a controlled clinical trial was by James Lind, a Scottish naval surgeon who conducted rese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Baum (surgeon)
Michael Baum (born 1937), Professor Emeritus of Surgery and visiting Professor of Medical Humanities in University College London (UCL), is a British surgical oncologist who specialises in breast cancer treatment. He is also known for his contributions to the evaluation and support of patient quality of life. He has been Professor of Surgery in King's College London, the Royal Marsden Hospital and UCL. He is a notable critic of alternative medicine. In 2007, Baum received the St Gallen lifetime achievement award for the treatment of breast cancer. Baum's team was the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of adjuvant tamoxifen for early breast cancer, which has contributed to the 30 per cent reduction in breast cancer mortality and its efficacy in the prevention of breast cancer in susceptible women. Since then, while at UCL, he was responsible for the largest-ever international cancer trial (ATAC - Arimidex, Tamoxifen, Alone or in Combination), which in record time showed anast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quackery
Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman". The term ''quack'' is a clipped form of the archaic term ', from nl, kwakzalver a "hawker of salve". In the Middle Ages the term ''quack'' meant "shouting". The quacksalvers sold their wares on the market shouting in a loud voice. Common elements of general quackery include questionable diagnoses using questionable diagnostic tests, as well as untested or refuted treatments, especially for serious diseases such as cancer. Quackery is often described as "health fraud" with the salient characteristic of aggressive promotion. Definition Psychiatrist and author Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch defines quackery "as the promotion of unsubstanti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
