As a public health physician who has previously worked with Medicins Sans Frontieres in Sierra Leone and Turkey, I’ve just finished an assignment setting up an emergency community health surveillance system in Palorinya refugee settlement, northern Uganda. Approximately 147,000 South Sudanese refugees have settled in Palorinya over the last few months, fleeing conflict and violence. […]
Over the last 10 years, since I founded the charity Medical Detection Dogs, I have seen for myself what things these amazing dogs are able to do for human beings. Even before that, I was aware of the incredible benefits dogs could bring. When I qualified as a behavioural psychologist at Swansea and Warwick Universities, […]
Summer holidays are just around the corner and preparation is key when it comes to first aid on holiday. Accidents and illnesses are often more difficult to deal with when you’re not in your home environment, so it’s important to take a few basic precautions to make sure you’re able to help should things go […]
Stem cell transplants have been in use for decades as a cure for blood cancer and blood disorders. Approximately 2,000 people need a transplant in the UK every year, and the majority will rely on Anthony Nolan, or another UK stem cell register, to find them a donor. Matching patients with a suitable donor is […]
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The population of people who are living with HIV and AIDS is ageing fast. This reflects the ‘good news’ story of the effectiveness of anti-retroviral drugs that have meant that many people with HIV now have a near-normal life expectancy. However, part of this growth is also new infections in the older age group, accounting […]
How do you express a legitimate concern about aluminium adjuvants in vaccines without being labelled as ‘anti-vaccine’? We are studying the role and efficacy of aluminium adjuvants used in vaccines. We have been researching the impact of aluminium on life for more than 30 years and we are applying this experience to our understanding of […]
How do malaria parasites invade human red blood cells where they multiply and cause infection? And can we use this knowledge to find a way to prevent this happening? To my mind, despite decades of research, we still know very little about this question or how to capitalise on our understanding of this mosquito-borne disease that […]
The controversial documentary Vaxxed: From Cover Up to Catastrophe, is based on extensive recorded interviews with whistleblower, Dr William Thompson, a former senior scientist at the CDC, (Centres for Disease Control) the US agency concerned with safeguarding public health. The film looks at whether his claims – that he, and four others at the CDC, skewed data […]
I am not an apologist for Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who proposed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism via the guts nearly 20 years ago. Since then Wakefield has had his licence to practice withdrawn and the link declared disproved. But I do feel that we should not simply shut down the discussion […]
A type of treatment for multiple sclerosis that ‘resets’ the immune system may stop progression of the disease in nearly half of patients. In a new study, led by Imperial College London, the treatment prevented symptoms of severe disease from worsening for five years, in 46 per cent of patients. However, as the treatment involves […]
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