Publications

Medical Scribblings - October 24 / 2001

I know that this is the age of the consumer but maybe a few words of warning may be helpful to you.

We are all familiar with the idea of political spin and putting the best twist on a story or burying bad news or re-announcing the same pot of money 10 times over. You have to be wary of what is printed in magazines, newspapers the Internet etc. What happens is that a commercial organisation or a drug company will find ways of having articles produced that extol the virtues of their product or service without giving any balance to the piece.

The usual area that I come across this phenomenon is were some new wonder drug is promoted as being absolutely marvellous with little mention of any side effects.

Sometimes such things exist but on the whole NO. These products are always very expensive and until they have been in use for months or years one has not a true picture of any problems.

The other difficulty is that the cost has to be born by the NHS and so any new large bills result in having to cut down on areas that would give better return for the investment. As an example new dieting drugs have become available recently but they are very pricey and we have no long-term experience of their use or complications. For most people, wanting to lose weight, there is much better evidence for regular exercise (a brisk walk is all that is required) say twice a day.

One of our jobs as a GP is to be an honest adviser to you, putting things into perspective and juggling pressures from many quarters so as to do the best for everyone. Not always an easy task!

John Schofield