Gabriel Symonds – Nicotine Monkey

Gabriel Symonds

Author Archives: Gabriel Symonds

State of the Art or Counsel of Despair

The British Medical Journal (BMJ), which boasts of being one of the world’s oldest general medical journals, from time to time publishes articles intended to guide general practitioners on how to diagnose and treat musculoskeletal disorders. These are the very common ailments affecting the moving parts of the body (the joints, muscles, and tendons) such […]

Hoist with his own petard

Readers may be aware that the title is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and means, literally, to be blown up (hoisted) by one’s own bomb (petard), and thus indicates an ironic reversal or poetic justice. I was recently reminded of this situation when I came across a curious YouTube video: Bible of Psychiatry At first, I honestly […]

Why are Transgender People so Defensive?

Early in my career for a time I worked for a doctor who was also a keen gardener, who gave me some sage advice about putting oneself in the patient’s shoes: ‘Never go to a doctor whose plants are dying!’ I’ll come back to that later. I like to think that I am an open […]

Are Mental Illnesses Brain Disorders?

Why is it that medical men and women practising the honorable profession of psychiatry are sometimes disrespectfully referred to as ‘headshrinkers’, or ‘shrinks’, or even, by a deliberate mispronunciation of the word, as ‘trick cyclists’? Perhaps the answer is to be found in a production of the American Psychiatric Association – where else? – called […]

Transgenderism and Prolixity

These days there seems to be a proliferation of organisations involved in the fascinating subject of transgenderism. One I came across recently is called Genspect. Since it’s based in Ireland it’s not surprising that the people who devised the content of their website appear to have kissed the Blarney Stone. This is what they say […]

Cancer Research UK Wants Only to Reduce Smoking

Cancer is a serious problem and a tragedy for those suffering from it and for their loved ones. Many cases are due to smoking which has rightly been called the biggest single preventable cause of death and disease. Therefore, it is pertinent to ask, what should the government do about this deplorable situation? I am […]

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff

In November 2022 the UK government put out a document with the hyphen-challenged title, The Smokefree 2030 ambition for England. The ‘ambition’ is to make England smoke-free by 2030, but they do not mean that after this date no one in England will smoke; they mean the smoking prevalence will be no more than 5 […]

Free E-Cigarettes – What a Brilliant Idea!

I have written previously about the cock-eyed plan of bribing pregnant smokers to cease poisoning themselves with tobacco fumes. Now Mr Neil O’Brien, MP, the UK Minister for Primary Care and Public Health, has announced the latest wheeze to try and cut smoking rates. On the gov.uk website (11 April 2023) this what, with all […]

Common Sense in Sex and Gender

Everything should be made as simple as possible – but no simpler Albert Einstein I am a man and have never had any doubt about this fact, but I would find it very difficult to say what it feels like to be a man. I would have to compare it to some other state of […]

More Transgender Medical Muddle

The right path? Let’s start by looking at an organisation pompously calling itself World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). In 2022 they produced their ‘Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, version 8.’ This is an impressive document running to 260 pages that lists 118 contributors and has sixty-eight […]

Medical Confusion over Transgenderism

Let’s look at what the British Medical Association (BMA) has to say about trans and non-binary patients in a document they put out in March 2022 called ‘Inclusive Care of Trans and Non-Binary Patients’. Stating the obvious They start by stating the obvious: ‘It is important that all groups within the patient population have access […]

Smoking and Shame

Does the Symonds Method make smokers feel ashamed? Smokers, if they’re honest with themselves, are already ashamed by their apparent inability to stop poisoning themselves with tobacco fumes – a great misfortune. I recently received a message from a smoker in Australia that was rather critical of my approach to helping smokers become non-smokers again. […]

Transgenderism and Humpty Dumpty

In my blog on the question of whether a ‘trans man’ can give birth, I mentioned how the transgender ideology has penetrated even into The British Medical Journal. Now we find it seeping into areas of ordinary discourse as well. We’re in the fantastical world of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, (the sequel to […]

Can a Trans Man Give Birth?

The strange idea of ‘transitioning’ from one sex, or rather, ‘gender’, to another, is nothing new. Here’s an except from ‘A Christmas Carol’, an episode of The Goon Show, first broadcast by the BBC on 24 December 1959, in which the characters Ray Ellington (a black jazz singer, played by himself) and Scratchit (Harry Secombe) […]

Has the World Gone Mad?

According to an online BBC report (21 December 2022), so it must be true, if Scotland is representative of the world it has indeed gone mad. How so? Let me explain. The headline announces: ‘People aged 16 and 17 to be allowed to change gender’. This is what the Scottish Parliament has decided in spite […]

The Invention of Gender Dysphoria

When I was working in full-time general practice I would occasionally see young women whose periods had stopped who came for another opinion after an initial visit to a gynaecologist. The gynaecologist had prescribed female hormones but this hadn’t worked. The reason was obvious. The gynaecologist had failed to look above the patient’s waist: she […]

Gender Expression: Authentic, Ambiguous, or Delusory?

Much about the Harley Street Gender Clinic in London’s west end is ambiguous, not to say confused, just like the idea of gender expression itself. The Clinic is run by a Dr Vickie Pasterski, who according to a TEDx talk she gave, believes ‘there are as many gender presentations as there are stars in the […]

Why Don’t People Just Stop Smoking?

This is the question posed by one Michael Burke. He has a doctorate in education and is a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist, no less. But I was set wondering what he actually knows about smoking when I came upon what he says as the Program Director of the highly esteemed Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center. […]

Bribing Pregnant Women to Stop Smoking

In a story attributed to George Bernard Shaw, he asked a lady at dinner one night if she would go to bed with him for £1,000. The lady agreed. Then Shaw asked her if she would go to bed with him for £1. The lady became indignant and asked, ‘What do you think I am?’ […]

Destroying the Cigarette Industry

Professor Sir Chris Whitty, the UK government’s Chief Medical Adviser, lays it on thick. At a recent symposium on medical ethics, after reminding us that ‘Smoking is an appalling way to die, it kills people in multiple ways,’ he is reported as saying that ‘getting smoking down to zero and destroying the cigarette industry should […]

How to Classify Misery

Medicine is an inexact science, which is rather a contradiction in terms, but in dealing with patients’ problems doctors can seldom be absolutely certain of anything. That is why medical students are taught to be wary of using the words ‘always’ and ‘never’. Indeed, general practice has been called the art of managing uncertainty because […]

Affirmative Care or Child Abuse?

When a woman tries to turn herself into a man There is in Britain a charitable organisation called Educational Action Challenging Homophobia (EACH). One of its aims is to ‘promote affirmative and accurate representations of LGBT lives’, whatever that means, and in pursuit of this goal has put out a video titled ‘What is gender?’ […]

Simple Smoking Cessation

If you’re a pack-a-day smoker, how many lungfuls of poisonous tobacco fumes will you take in a day, a month, or a year? Assuming one cigarette is consumed in ten puffs, the numbers are 200, 6000, and 73000, respectively. This dreadful situation raises the question: what can be done to help smokers cease and desist […]

Pandering to the Woke Brigade

What is it with The British Medical Journal (BMJ) that makes them pander to the ‘woke’ brigade? From an issue in early 2022 in an article on breast cancer screening, which obviously applies to women, they feel constrained to say: Some trans men and women and non-binary people are also eligible for breast cancer screening, […]

The Fashion for Fake Treatments

The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals. Sir William Osler (1925). It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. […]

The Scandal of Low Back Pain Treatment

In March this year The British Medical Journal (BMJ) published an article on ‘Low back pain in people aged 60 years and over’. The authors rightly remind doctors to have a higher index of suspicion for cancer, infections, and bone fractures in older people, but otherwise the approach to back pain is largely the same […]

Does Vaping Make You Grumpy?

In previous blogs I have dealt with how vaping makes you feel bad, induces vulgarity, and is an activity from which you will get no satisfaction. Now I have to add another downside to this abnormal and potentially harmful behaviour: it can result in vapers being grumpy, as I shall explain. Do you know what […]

Puberty Blockers and Sex Hormones on Demand

Amazing news! An entity called gender dysphoria has been discovered! But it certainly is not a mental disorder, apparently. What is it then? To try and find out, let’s look at an outfit called GenderGP. Their website opens with a bold statement: ‘We believe trans people of all ages exist. Full stop. No debate.’ Why […]

Do You Need Support Around Your Gender?

In February 2022 Dr Hilary Cass issued her interim report of an ‘Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people’. There is, however, an assumption underlying this misconceived publication, evident in the very title: that gender identity and the related idea of gender dysphoria are valid concepts for which ‘services’ may be […]

Cotton Candy to Blue Raspberry Disposable Vapes

Here we go again. An article on BBC News (14 June 2022) shows everything that’s wrong with the current approach to smoking and vaping. Let’s start with the headline: ‘Vaping – it is a risk-free option?’ An option for what? For a way of taking nicotine into your body? You don’t need options for this […]

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