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 […]
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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. […]
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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 well. We’re in the fantastical world of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, (the sequel to Alice […]
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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) […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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. […]
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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?’ […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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?’ […]
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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 […]
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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, […]
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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. […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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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Dr Jason Rafferty, a Pediatrics Specialist at the disconcertingly named Thundermist Health Center in Woonsocket, Rhode Island in the US, has attracted a one-star review: My child described him as ‘weird’ and ‘creepy’ after he repeatedly grilled her about her gender identity. She said she didn’t identify as anything, so they put ‘genderqueer’ on her […]
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I have written previously about the problems of using puberty blockers in adolescents. In this post I’ll look at what the NHS has to say about gender dyphoria in adults. As I mentioned, the NHS defines gender dysphoria thus: A sense of unease that a person may have because of a mismatch between their biological […]
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I wrote a critique of the so-called New Nicotine Alliance (NNA) in March 2018. What have they been up to lately? NNA Board of Trustees’ Bios Let’s start with the Board of Trustees on their website. Five names are mentioned, but of one, Mary Stamp, we are told nothing except that her bio is to […]
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First, a definition: the word ‘stonewall’ as a verb means to delay or obstruct someone or something by refusing to answer questions or by being evasive. Second, a very brief history lesson: the Stonewall riots were a series of violent confrontations in 1969 between the police and patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar […]
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The Tobacco Advisory Group of the highly esteemed UK Royal College of Physicians has produced a report called Smoking and health 2021 with the intriguing subtitle, A coming of age for tobacco control? It’s an impressive document, written by fifty-one contributors, running to 169 pages, and includes 1,295 references. The authors are all highly qualified […]
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There was a news item on the BBC recently about a trial of cannabis in patients with Parkinson’s disease who also have visual hallucinations. Parkinson’s disease is undoubtedly a brain disorder but are visual hallucinations also abnormal? One such patient was presented, an elderly man who had hallucinations – they might better be called visions […]
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What’s the difference between sex and gender? It’s like a question that’s reputed to be asked of those wishing to qualify in accountancy: what’s the difference between residence and domicile? Residence is where you live; domicile is where you think you live. Thus, sex is whether you’re male or female; gender is how you ‘identify’, […]
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What has Professor David Nutt been up to lately? He’s been appointed Chief Research Officer, no less, to an organisation with the unpronounceable name of Awakn [sic] Life Sciences. And what will his role be? It’s as muddled as the name and repetitively set out thus: Prof. Nutt Will Drive Progression of a Pipeline of […]
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I have just read a book called Allen Carr Easy Way To Quit Vaping. But taking a second glance at the cover one can discern in small print the words ‘with John Dicey’. Did they both write the book? Obviously not, since it was published in 2021 and Allen Carr died in 2006 (ironically, from […]
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Vapid thinking about the vaping problem is shown in a seven-author Research Letter in an online publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association called Network Open (2 April 2021). Six of the authors are Doctors of Philosophy and one has a Master of Science degree. (It’s part of the PATH study about which […]
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