Primum non nocere A guest post from Dr James Stankiewicz, Boston. One of the fundamental tenants of medicine is “Primum non nocere”—First, Do No Harm. In theory this sounds quite easy to accomplish. And at times it can be. A surgeon should not, for example, amputate the left foot when the right foot is problematic one. But at other times it can become quite complicated to know what to do when...
Merry Christmas
Barts-MS would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas. The Children’s Ward of the London Hospital at Christmas. Image from The Graphic, 30 Jan 1886. Whitechapel Workhouse, Christmas 1874 Scrooge: “Bah, humbug!” Narrator: “Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping...
Iranian MS Hypothesis
Dear Professor Gavin Giovannoni Significant increase in the incidence of multiple sclerosis in Iran has been always puzzling. With strong evidence from Danish MS Registry (Nielson et all) early environment rather than ones genetic is the primary etiological agent for Multiple sclerosis. Iran was exposed to this agent much earlier than other Gulf countries. British and Russian troops invaded Iran...
NOSE-TO-BRAIN DIRECT
A guest post from Dr Frederick Gay, School of Life Sciences at the University of Essex, Colchester. “There- is- an- underground passage,”,said the Badger impressively,”that leads from the riverbank, quite near here, right up into the middle of Toad Hall.” O nonsence! said Toad rather airily, “You’ve been listening to some of the yarns they spin in the public houses about here.” Kenneth Grahame...
Ask Barts December
Want to ask a question this is the place for you.
NICE & Medicinal Cannabis
Last week, NICE finally published the long-awaited guidance on Cannabis-based medicinal products. (www.nice.org.uk/guidance/NG144). This has been extensively reported on in the mainstream media and whilst it is a step in the right direction for the use of Sativex® for patients with spasticity associated with MS (and a reversal on the initial draft guidance), it won’t allow all...
Alignment
Professor Gavin Giovannoni (Prof G) and his team of clinicians and researchers at Barts and at the Royal London Hospital — like many of their medical colleagues — are in frequent contact with pwMS (people with multiple sclerosis), many of whom are untreated. The reason that these pwMS are on no treatment is often economic. No treatment due to economic reasons and can occur in both developed as...
The NHS at its finest
What do you think of this? Reacting to the figures which show a rise in racist abuse suffered by NHS staff, Health Secretary @MattHancock says it's 'shocking' and 'truth be told I've seen it myself on night shifts in hospitals… I think it's horrific.' pic.twitter.com/y9l85Mmwcr— ITV News (@itvnews) October 31, 2019 Quite shocking, let’s hope this is a...
Do we really have equipoise about DMTs?
A guest post from Dr Emma Tallantyre, Cardiff. Definition: Clinical equipoise, also known as the principle of equipoise, provides an ethical basis for medical research that involves assigning patients to different treatment arms of a clinical trial. In short, clinical equipoise means that there is genuine uncertainty in the expert medical community over whether a treatment will be beneficial...