Category: Health

  • Mobile bloody masts and wireless sodding networks

    We’re doomed! says the Times. We’re doomed! says the Independent. Not so fast! say the people of Fark.com, destroying the Indy’s alleged expert with one beautiful, beautiful link and throwing in tedious little facts about the difference between ionising and non-ionising radiation, how radiation exposure works, where wi-fi sits in the electromagnetic spectrum and why…

  • Besttreatments.co.uk is no longer free

    When I was deciding whether or not to have back surgery, I relied heavily on BestTreatments and its sister site, ClinicalEvidence.com. Both sites come from the British Medical Journal, and they’re rare in health sites in that they don’t have an agenda, they’re not trying to flog you stuff and they don’t reprint pseudo-scientific bullshit.…

  • You can’t get scanned when you’re skint

    I know I rant about two-tier healthcare a lot (as in, it already exists in the NHS), so I’ll keep this reasonably short: after our pregnancy scan earlier this week, we had a chat with the midwife about the various tests designed to make sure your baby’s healthy. The biggie, it seems, is the 20-week…

  • One job ad sums up the problem with health reporting

    Posted to a journalism forum: Men’s Fitness is looking for an experienced staff writer to write and edit the Nutrition and Health sections of the magazine. You don’t need to be an expert on health matters, but you do need a proven record of producing sharp, witty and accurate copy for a consumer title.

  • This isn’t about health. It’s hysteria

    The good people of Belmont in California want to expand the city’s smoking ban to the point where the only place it will be legal to smoke is in your own home – provided that home is completely detached (such homes, apparently, cost around nine hundred thousand dollars). Smoking in your own car, by yourself:…

  • Smoking, stalking and unintended consequences

    One of the dangers of knee-jerk legislation is that it sometimes has unintended consequences, so what is generally a good idea can have its downsides. Anti-harassment legislation is a good example of that – as this morning’s Guardian notes, its vagueness means it’s a handy tool for firms to stop people protesting about them –…

  • Dr Ben boots old boot-face

    Ben Goldacre’s gone after Zelda from Terrahawks Gillian McKeith again, and this time it’s serious: ASA verdicts that she can’t call herself a doctor, selling products in defiance of the law, that sort of thing. So naturally he does what any right-minded person would do: he sticks the boot in. Heh.

  • Mobile phones are frying our brains – or at least, they seem to be when we write about them

    This story is being widely reported in the mainstream media: An international team of researchers has found new evidence that long-term use of a mobile phone may lead to the development of a brain tumor on the side of the head the phone is used. In a study which will appear in an upcoming issue…

  • Another mobile phone study

    This one’s important: it’s looking at long-term use of phones. I interviewed the man behind the proposed new study, Professor Lawrie Challis, for last month’s PC Plus story on electrosensitivity and other tech-related health scares, and he’s a great example of how the “no evidence” side of health issues should be addressed (he’s a great…

  • “If electromagnetic waves can penetrate walls, just imagine what they can do to your skin!”

    Various lifestyle mags (GQ and some women’s ones) are running tech-related bullshit from Clarins: artificial electromagnetic waves make your skin go all bobbly or something, and you need to spend your cash on expensive beauty products. Now! – Magnetic Defence Complex protects skin from the ageing effects of Artificial Electromagnetic Waves. – Clarins Anti-Pollution Complex…