Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

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Category: Health

Scare stories and newspaper nonsense

  • Shifting the narrative

    The Conservatives are working on their exit strategy. Not how we’ll exit the lockdown; how they’ll shift the blame for their failures onto others, such as the NHS. For example:

    Care homes are not run by the NHS.

    Care homes used to be run by councils, but years of funding cuts have seen that provision almost disappear. Today, care homes are primarily for-profit private businesses.

    84% of English care home beds are owned and operated by private companies, 13% are run by voluntary organisations and 3% are run by councils. As the authors of a recent report into the sector put it:

    The state has abdicated its responsibility for providing care over recent decades. The private sector may have filled this gap but it consistently puts profits before people.

    …The fact that private equity-backed firms have taken over a significant share of the UK’s care provision, fuelled by debt and driven by the prospect of rising property prices and ever-lower care costs, puts our vital social care system at ever-increasing risk.

    One of my best friends is a care home worker. Like many in the sector they are on a zero hours contract and paid a pittance by a private and very profitable company; they have not been given PPE because the company doesn’t want to pay for PPE. Care homes can do, or in this case not do, whatever they want. Which is why so many people are dying in them.

    The government doesn’t want to be on the hook for those deaths, or for the growing death toll among front-line NHS staff. Hence the emerging narrative that it’s all the NHS’s fault. But it isn’t. The lack of PPE for front-line workers and other key equipment is the result of government decisions and indecision going back to January.

    The dread hand of news management has already kicked in: the allegation is now that key workers aren’t getting PPE because the lumbering, inefficient NHS isn’t allocating resources properly, not that the resources weren’t there in the first place. There are a lot of carefully worded claims doing the rounds, so for example the government is keen to talk about the overall number of items of PPE that have been distributed rather than the details of which items have gone where and in what quantities: there’s a big difference between a gown (which is inappropriate for aerosol-generating procedures) and an FFP2 surgical mask. If there were enough PPE, everyone in the country with a 3D printer wouldn’t be making making visors for NHS staff and nurses wouldn’t be making their own PPE from bin bags.

    Still, we can count on our fearless, non-partisan press ensuring they don’t get away with it. Can’t we?

    Image by Liz Gerard on Twitter. It shows the Sun’s reporting of the COVID-19 death toll last week.

  • Lethal stupidity on a truly horrific scale

    The Sun’s front page after nearly 1,000 people died in a single day.

    The official UK coronavirus death toll will crack 10,000 today. The real death toll, which unlike the official figures includes those who died in care homes, those who died at home and those who had not already been tested positive for COVID-19, is much higher.

    The Centre for Evidence Based Medicine has published a good explanation of why the official figures are inaccurate, complete with spreadsheets so you can see for yourself. The figures we’re given in the daily briefings do not tell us how many people died on a particular day. They tell us how many deaths in hospitals were reported that day. There is often a delay between the death occurring and the death being reported.

    Here’s an example. The figure for 8 April was 828 deaths, but none of the 828 deaths happened on the 8th of April. They happened on the 4th of March, and the 5th of March, and the 31st of March, and the 4th of April, up to the 7th of April. Some of the people who died on the 8th will be reported in the figures for the 9th, and the 10th, and so on.

    What that means is that there’s a big lag between people dying and their deaths being counted, and that lag can be dramatic: the officially announced death toll for 31 March was 679, but NHS England’s statistics now say it was 1,710. The difference isn’t usually that dramatic, but it does mean that the figures are at best a guide to what’s been happening rather than an accurate picture.

    [Update: that means you should prepare for very bad news in the early part of next week: there will be a lag due to the Easter holiday, so we’re likely to see a spike in numbers when those reports come in.]

    However you count it, we’re now on track to have the highest death toll of any country in Western Europe, despite having had more time to prepare than the rest of Western Europe.

    If you can bear to read it, there’s a timeline of the lethal arrogance that’s already killed thousands of people here.

    Nesrine Malik in The Guardian:

    It is a jarring experience to wake up to a British death toll that is almost a thousand a day, and not see that number on every front page, being put to every politician in every single interview, with a demand for an explanation. It is as if those who should be asking these questions, from the media to opposition politicians, have been subjected to a mass memory-erasing exercise. Every report showing the scale of the crisis should be framed in the language of accountability and anchored in the premise of preventability. With all the benefits of hindsight, the government dragged its feet, wasted precious time and infused the issue with a sense of British exceptionalism: drastic measures need not be taken because in the UK things will somehow be different.

    … It’s hard, as we lock down, to nurture an outrage that is based on decisions in the past when the loss of life is happening today – more so when the government has stealthily removed itself from the picture and shifted the responsibility entirely on to the public…

    …Relocate the pain and recall that this need not have happened. Ten thousand people, in UK hospitals alone, have now died.

  • One in ten

    At the time of writing:

    101,000 – total global deaths from Covid-19

    8,958 – total UK deaths from the same virus, excluding hundreds more in care homes

    The UK has nearly one in ten of the global deaths from this virus despite being one of the most recent countries to get it.

    Today’s daily death toll, 980, means for two days running the UK has had more daily deaths than the worst days in Italy or France.

    That’s despite having the benefit of time to see how the virus has spread in other countries, time to order protective equipment and ventilators, time to plan an effective response. Time other countries didn’t have.

    Things could have been even worse. If the football authorities hadn’t become fed up with government inaction and decided to cancel multiple big games in March, the numbers  would be even higher.

    This is a political failure on a truly horrific scale.

    It’s time for the press to do its job and hold the government to account.

  • “Lazy contrarians are putting everyone at risk”

    Alex Andreou, writing for Politics.co.uk:

    I fully support Peter Hitchens and Brendan O’Neill’s inalienable right to be infected with a deadly virus. If they existed in a vacuum, I might buy myself one of those big foam fingers and cheer them on, as they march to the extinction that is the destiny of every dinosaur.

    But they don’t exist in a vacuum. They have no more a ‘right’ to keep congregating in pubs than they have a right to set fire to their flat on the ground floor of a skyscraper. Not following guidance, not distancing socially, doesn’t just imperil you. It is something that imperils my friends, my loved ones, everyone. Nobody has a right to put others at risk.

    … the very talking heads who have been, for some years now, telling everyone else to rediscover the Spirit of the Blitz, were revealed to be the morons who refused to turn their light off during a blackout and endangered their entire neighbourhood.

    It’s becoming very clear who the real “enemies of the people” are.

  • If this is the fast track, I’d hate to be on the slow one

    The BBC has discovered that many trans people are stuck on waiting lists for so long they have to buy their own medicine from overseas.

    The report, while accurate and worthwhile, also serves to demonstrate that the BBC clearly doesn’t have any trans people or experts on trans healthcare anywhere near the newsrooms it so happily fills with anti-trans activists. This is not a new story, and it’s definitely not a new problem. Long lists forcing people to self-medicate have been a huge problem in the trans community for very many years, and the ongoing trans healthcare crisis is a much bigger concern to us than any reform to our paperwork.

    Here’s the graph showing waiting times.

    These are not times between referral and treatment; these are times between referral and first appointment. To be given any medical treatment such as hormone therapy there are more assessments first. In my own case, they took a further seven months.

    It’s interesting to change the measurements here. Talking about timescales in weeks sounds like a short time, but the 100-week waiting list in Scotland means two years. In Northern Ireland it’s over three years.

    We’re talking here about medication that is proven to be safe, effective and in many cases life-saving; if these waiting lists for initial assessment were for any other group of people there would be outrage. But it’s us, so instead we have to endure endless bullshit in the papers about the supposed fast-tracking of trans people while the reality is the complete opposite. I fear that if there’s any outrage at all it won’t be at the broken system but at the people forced to go outside it.

  • Hashtags aren’t healthcare

    It’s #timetotalk day today, a day when people are encouraged to open up and talk about mental health. I’m not going to be negative about it – the organisations involved are good ones and I’ve written a lot here and in my songs about the importance of opening up about sadness, anxiety and other mental health problems. But without action, talk doesn’t change anything.

    I lost two friends last year, both of whom were having mental health problems, and at least one of them had opened up about it. I know that because I was one of the people he opened up to, and we talked a lot about the problems he was having getting the right support and medication from his doctor. He took his own life shortly afterwards.

    Never mind #timetotalk. How about #timetofundmentalhealthprovision? #timetostopstarvingmentalhealthservicesoffunds? #timetoinvestinchildmentalhealthservices? #timetodosomethingaboutgenderclinicwaitinglists? Not as catchy, I know. But much more accurate.

    This, by Hannah Jane Parkinson, is from 2018 but it’s just as powerful and as relevant today (content warning: self-harm).

    [it is] infuriating to come home from a secure hospital, suicidal, to a bunch of celebrity awareness-raising selfies and thousands of people saying that all you need to do is ask for help – when you’ve been asking for help and not getting it.

    …The truth is: enough awareness has been raised. We – the public, the health professionals, the politicians – need to make our words and actions count for more.

    There’s no point in asking for help if there’s no help available.

  • What life is like for LGBT+ people in Scotland

    NHS Greater Glasgow and NHS Lothian have teamed up to research the experiences and health needs of LGBT+ people in Scotland. The full report is here. It’s part of a wider study that includes a literature review and that will help inform future planning.

    It’s a long and often very saddening report, with people sharing some often very traumatic experiences.

    A couple of bits that jumped out for me:

    A common theme in the interviews and group discussions was the change in recent years to society in general becoming more accepting of LGBT+ people, particularly people with gay and lesbian identities. This was in part attributed to equality legislation. Societal attitudes towards trans, non-binary and bisexual people were felt not to have become as accepting to the same degree. Indeed, many felt that attitudes towards trans people, particularly trans women, had taken a ‘backward step’ in recent times, largely attributed to a very negative narrative around trans identities widely reported in the media and particularly social media, often in reference to the campaign around the Gender Reform Act. Many felt that inflammatory media reporting had a measurable impact on how trans and non-binary people were treated in public.

    Despite the progress, almost every participant had experienced homophobia, biphobia or transphobia in a wide variety of settings.

    Many LGBT+ people who participated in the research recounted incidents where they had been threatened or intimidated because of their identity – but they rarely viewed incidents such as being shouted at in the street or name calling as ‘hate crime’, and did not report them to the police.

    …Exposure to negative opinions and stories in the media, particularly social media had an effect particularly on how safe trans women felt. Many trans women spoke about how media reports affected their anxiety and feelings of safety.

    …There was much discussion from all LGBT+ groups about the current discourse on social media against trans people, particularly trans women.

    Depression and isolation were common.

    A common theme for all LGBT+ identities was the struggle to work out their sexual orientation and/or their gender identity, and the toll which their period preceding their self-discovery took on their mental health. Usually, there was a period where they fought against their identity or did not want to accept it. This was more pronounced in environments and circumstances where having an LGBT+ identity would be more difficult (e.g. more deprived areas, rural areas, certain faith and cultural groups), and could lead to internalised homophobia/transphobia which could prevail after coming out.

    …Trans men and women and non- binary people were particularly likely to speak about suicidal thoughts, although these tended to subside after transition.

    LGBT+ people of all kinds reported being unable to take part in certain forms of physical activity. Trans men and women reported no longer being comfortable in swimming pools or gyms, while gay men often felt excluded by the “laddish culture” in many sports.

    Many trans and non-binary people spoke about doing exercises such as yoga alone at home rather than in a class setting because they did not feel they could participate with others. One trans woman described how she went to the gym at 2am because the gym was almost empty at that time and she was also able to use the disabled changing cubicle. A trans man said he could only use the gym if he changed at home.

    There is much, much more – GPs lacking crucial knowledge, lesbian and bisexual women being treated terribly by healthcare providers, horrific waiting lists for pretty much everything, people being scared to talk about mental health issues for fear it would be used against them. The report also explores the experiences of people of various faiths, of people with disabilities and of asylum seekers.

    The research isn’t entirely negative, but the picture that emerges again and again is of LGBT+ people struggling against multiple issues including severely underfunded health provision, social isolation and other people’s prejudices – and of social and mainstream media actively fuelling those prejudices.

  • Boobs from a burger? Now that’s a whopper

    The picture above is of the Impossible Whopper, a meat-free burger from Burger King. Like many vegetable, seed and nut-based products, it contains phytoestrogens – structures that are similar, but different to, the estrogen in people.

    Here comes the internet.

    The above claims, and many like them, are currently circulating on social media. Let’s not get pedantic about the ignorant phrase “a standard hormone replacement therapy shot to become transgender” and focus on the big claim here: this burger will make you female!

    Spoiler: no, it won’t.

    The article that kicked off this particular panic is from a site called National File, which claims:

    the Impossible Burger is a genetically modified organism filled with calorie-dense oils that can make a man grow breasts if eaten in sufficient quantity.

    Man boobs aren’t caused by plants, nuts, seeds or soy. The main cause of gynecomastia is obesity, particularly in older men. If you have a largely burger-based diet of any kind, meaty or meat-free, it’s very easy to pack on the pounds: a Whopper is around 660 calories (630 if meat-free). Add large fries (430 calories) and a large Coke (310 calories) and that’s more than half the daily recommended calorie intake for an averagely active and healthy man.

    National File:

    eating four of the vegetable burgers daily would result in a human male growing breasts

    Even if the claim was true, which it isn’t, if you’re eating four fast food burgers a day it’s not cleavage you need to worry about. It’s a coronary.

    National File’s article is based on a piece by a doctor, but the doctor isn’t a doctor of humans and his article isn’t in a medical or scientific publication. He’s a South Dakota vet, writing for a trade publication (Tri-State Livestock News) written for and funded by the meat industry – an industry that isn’t too happy about Impossible Burgers and other meat-free products.

    You can see why a meat industry magazine might want to try and discredit meat-free food. But why would a political site be so keen to run with the story too? The answer, inevitably, is that the site is connected to the lunatic fringe of the US far right, which is why this story is all across US right-wing media (and why it’s been republished here on the likes of the Daily Mail, which spent over 300 words repeating the claims before quietly admitting that there’s no evidence for any of them).

    The story’s author has previously written for the far-right fantasy factory Breitbart and is a regular guest on the Alex Jones show. Yes, the same Alex Jones who famously claimed that the US government is using a magical, Pentagon-funded “gay bomb” to turn people gay:

    “The reason there’s so many gay people now is because it’s a chemical warfare operation, and I have the government documents where they said they’re going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don’t have children”

    That was in 2010. A few years later Jones claimed that the government was “putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin’ frogs gay… the majority of frogs in most areas of the United States are now gay.”

    It’s easy to laugh at this, but gay frogs are part of a wider far-right theory called The Great Replacement: brown people and feminists and gay people and trans people are a conspiracy against Honest God-Fearing Straight White Folks to feminise the men (via the aforementioned chemicals in the water supply that turn the friggin’ frogs gay, plus soy milk and meat-free burgers and “gender ideology” and the “gay agenda”) and outbreed the women. The theory’s supporters include senior members of the Trump administration.

    When you read it in that context, the Whopper Gives You Tits story isn’t so funny.

  • The great HRT shortage: a very British disaster

    Hundreds of thousands of women in the UK have been affected by the ongoing shortage of many HRT products. The products aren’t made in the UK but the shortage is very much a UK thing. Emma Hartley discovers why.

    The short version: the UK government messed up.

    The slightly longer version: supply problems have been massively magnified by a change to the way the UK prices HRT medication, changes which have also been affected by the Brexit-related fall in the value of the pound.

    Hence a supposedly global problem having disproportionate effects on women in the UK.

    At the heart of a problem so ferociously complex that many in the pharmaceutical industry even have trouble understanding it, could this be a simple case of incompetence?

    It certainly seems to be.

  • This hateful, murderous ignorance

    The thing about bigots is that often, they have no idea what they’re talking about. Sometimes that’s because they’re stupid. But all too often it’s wilful stupidity, where the information is widely and easily available but they either don’t look for it or refuse to believe it.

    Here’s an example from this morning. Over on Mumsnet, aka Prosecco Stormfront, the anti-trans lot are appalled at the idea of trans women being able to change the gender marker on their passports without having to present medical evidence, report to a panel and so on.

    The thing they’re concerned about has been law for 49 years.

    Not only that, but the law simply codified something that’s been happening since at least 1942.

    If you weren’t wilfully stupid that might give you pause: after all, if self-ID were so dangerous and open to abuse we’d presumably have seen a flood of passport-changing predators over the last 77 years; the fact that there hasn’t been a single case demonstrates how ridiculous that argument is. But nobody’s going to change their mind here. All they’ll do is ignore the evidence and demand the law be changed to accommodate their bigotry.

    They’re not interested in facts, or in evidence. They’re wilfully, maliciously, proudly ignorant.

    Their far-right friends show just how dangerous wilful stupidity can be. In Ohio, right-wing forced-birthers have introduced a bill that would force doctors to carry out medical procedures that aren’t physically possible at significant risk to pregnant women’s health.

    I’m not making this up. The bill, Ohio HB413, says that if a doctor doesn’t want to face charges of murder for letting an embryo die, they must try to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy – something that isn’t medically possible.

    A doctor will face criminal charges unless they:

    Takes all possible steps to preserve the life of the unborn child, while preserving the life of the woman. Such steps include, if applicable, attempting to re-implant an ectopic pregnancy into the woman’s uterus.”

    There are no documented cases of this ever being done successfully. The likelihood of success is zero. The risk of killing the woman is significant.

    But these so-called pro-lifers aren’t interested in the health of the woman. They already advocate “watchful waiting”, which means refusing treatment to a woman until she miscarries – despite the very real and significant risk that she may die of a haemorrhage if her ectopic pregnancy isn’t treated.

    That’s where wilful stupidity leads you.

    Women’s reproductive healthcare is not some dark art or some secret. The evidence around ectopic pregnancy, its dangers and how to minimise those dangers is solid and easy to access.

    But these murderous yahoos don’t want evidence. They don’t want facts. They want doctors to do what they’re damn well told because they know better than so-called experts with their “facts” and their “science” and their “not killing women”.

    As Grazia Daily put it:

    This is what happens when people who know nothing about women’s bodies make laws about women’s bodies.