Do We Need A National Health Service?
You might say that’s what we’ve got, but what we really have is a National Illness Service
But it is not making best use of resources to make sure we don’t need it.
Consider some of the things that have happened to me in the last couple of days.
I ran out of statins yesterday, which indicated to me that I’d got to get a repeat prescription from Boots. But where was the message to say it was time to pick them up?
It doesn’t matter to me, as the Boots I use, as did my grandmother before the First World War, is only a bus ride away.
Whilst waiting for my prescription, I got talking to a young lady from Cancer Research UK, who was also waiting for her prescription. I teased her about not smoking and I was glad to see she didn’t. I wish my son George had been so sensible.
I then got talking to a lady, who must have been around eighty and we discussed how I tested my own INR. She was familiar with the device and had wanted one for her mother, who had had a stroke. But the cost was just too much, so the surgery used to send a nurse round.
I feel very strongly, that in the right hands self-testing is a real life improver, as any diabetic will tell you. After all, most of us can now use a well-designed device.
We also talked about my coeliac disease, as her two great-daughters had both been diagnosed, but she didn’t know, it can be a cause of not getting pregnant.
When I was diagnosed as a coeliac, a lot of the information I received from Addenbrookes was far too comprehensive and not very practical. But, gradually with the help of various trusted web sites and a previous GP, I’ve found a regime that works for me.
Perhaps, what is needed is a network of local mentors for diseases like coeliac disease, as what you can find differs very much as you go around the country.One regime definitely doesn’t fit all!
For instance, Cambridge, Glasgow and Liverpool are much easier than say Blackpool, Ipswich or Middlesborough.
Incidentally, on Sunday, a young lady and her boyfriend had been a bit confused as to what bread to buy in Marks at Waterloo station, so as I do when asked an opinion, I guided her through the gluten-free section. To be fair to Marks, their staff are usually helpful.
Over the last few months, I’ve been involved in the testing of a new anti-cholesterol drug, at the William Harvey Research Institute.
On a selfish note, it has allayed a lot of fears about my health.
I would certainly recommend that if you have a medical or psychological condition, that you check out the research around your local area and see if you can help by joining a suitable research project.
From my experience with Liverpool University, I know they are looking for people to assist with research, much of which is psychological and just involves answering a few questions.
Over the years, I’ve been involved in research at Moorfields Hospital, Liverpool University, Oxford University and the University of East London, none of which involved any more than looking at a computer screen or filling in a form.
The Moorfields research was in some ways the most interesting, where I had my eyes tested on a series of new machines and was then asked to say which ones I preferred. The project was attempting to find the best machines for the NHS.
So if your local University is looking for research volunteers, in something that might be to your advantage, why not volunteer.
After all, it is our National Health Service and we should bend it to our needs.
With the anti-cholesterol drug, I’ve seen some of the best doctors in the field and I’ve learned to inject myself. Hopefully, it’s a skill I won’t need again.
A Tingling In My Arm
My skin is rather strange.
For instance, if I give blood for testing at the doctor’s or a hospital, I don’t need a plaster afterwards, as I don’t bleed. Considering, that I’m on Warfarin, that really puzzles some medics.
Today, ass Istarted up my computer and started typing, I got a strange tingling in my right arm., on the outside.
I have come to the conclusion, that it is just the hairs untangling themselves after a good night’s sleep.
Remembering A Relative Or Friend
In seven days it would have been my late wife’s sixty-eighth birthday.
C gave her body for medical research and we had a private cremation a year or so later.
In her memory and also in that of my son, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2010, I helped to fund in a very small way some research into the disease at my mine and my late wife’s university of Liverpool.
I wrote about the research in There’s More To Liverpool Than Football And The Beatles!
In some ways, the successful outcome of the research, gave me an enormous lift and now when I think of my son, I sometimes think, that others will hopefully not have to go through, what he and his family did!
Serious research can do that!
So I got to thinking, that perhaps when a friend or relative dies, we should start a fund and give the money to an appropriate charity, that funds research into whatever was the cause of their death.
My funding of Liverpool University’s Pancreatic Cancer research that came about because I asked Alumni Relations at the University to suggest a suitable research project for my donation.
The Devil must have blessed the donation and the research produced a positive result.
But not everyone can be so lucky.
So why not, when someone close to you dies, collect an appropriate amount of money and ask the major charity or perhaps as I did, your old University to find a project to help fund?
I would think that it could be best to go to a central charity like Cancer Research UK or the British Heart Foundation, as they might now something that was very suitable, based in a University of research institution convenient to where you live!
I feel that selecting a well-run and well-respected central charity is that they know the ropes and that the world is littered with charitable failures, set up by individuals with the best of intentions.
Liverpool University Strikes Again!
In the latest alumni newsletter from my old University, there is a link to this page on the University web site, which is entitled Cancer Drug Trial Success.
This is said.
The University of Liverpool has led a successful trial of a drug trial aimed at developing new therapeutic approaches to cancer.
The trial (APR-246) aimed to test the effects of a novel compound on a specific protein, p53, found to be mutated in more than 50% of all cancers.
The p53 gene is from a class of genes called tumour suppressors which are mutated in all cases of one form of ovarian cancer (high grade serous), but have proved difficult to target in the past.
This research was also done in the Institute of Translational Medicine, where the pancreatic cancer research I wrote about in There’s More To Liverpool Than Football And The Beatles! was carried out.
It certainly would appear that something is being done correctly!
Snot Wars
There is no other title for a post about this article on the BBC, which is entitled Antibiotic resistance: ‘Snot wars’ study yields new class of drugs.
The research has been done at the University of Tübingen, which is one of Germany’s classical universities. Wikipedia says this.
Tübingen is one of five classical “university towns” in Germany; the other four being Marburg, Göttingen, Freiburg and Heidelberg.
It certainly sounds to me that ideas for this research, possibly started after a good academic dinner with lots of food and alcohol, if classical German universities are anything like our’s.
After all the idea has been literally up researchers noses for years.
These last two paragraphs of the BBC report describes how the antibiotic-like action was possibly created in the human body.
Prof Kim Lewis and Dr Philip Strandwitz, from the antimicrobial discovery centre at Northeastern University in the US, commented: “It may seem surprising that a member of the human microbiota – the community of bacteria that inhabits the body – produces an antibiotic.
“However, the microbiota is composed of more than a thousand species, many of which compete for space and nutrients, and the selective pressure to eliminate bacterial neighbours is high.”
So why hasn’t this new class of antibiotics been found before?
Could it be that medical research is too much about Loadsamoney and Big Pharma, rather than about ideas, seriously out-of-the-box thinking and dilligent research?
Brains are a lot easier to throw at a problem, than money. Except that good brains are much more difficult to find than good money.
My Mid-Life Crisis
They were talking midlife crises on Radio 5 yesterday, so I sent in a text, which was broadcast.
My mid-life crisis was caused by the death of my wife and our youngest son to cancer smd then my stroke at 63. But I survived and raised money for pancreatic research at mine and my late wife’s University of Liverpool. Yesterday, I visited the unit and left feeling that there is now some hope for people suffering from this awful cancer. My mid-life crisis seemed to be receding as I took the train home.
Hopefully, life can only get better!
Incidentally, since my visit to Liverpool, I’ve spoken to three or four people, who have been affected by pancreatic cancer and I hope my attitude has given them a bit of strength to face the future.
Is A Secondary Effect Of London’s Air Pollution Making Me Ill?
There is no doubt, that i am suffering from a vitamin D deficiency, as it has been measured and I have several of the classic symptoms. Several of my friends seem to be suffering too!
As a coeliac, I get no or little vitamin D from my food, as vitamin D is not added to gluten-free food, so I rely on the sun for my vitamin D.
And there has been very little of that over the last few years in London and the South East of England.
I take vitamin D supplements and these help, but if say I get half an hour in strong sunlight, I feel a lift and a lot better.
I got to wondering, if London’s pollution is cutting out the UVB radiation that I need to generate vitamin D in my skin.
I can’t find any scientific paper, which shows the effect of airpollution on UVB radiation.
Now my health has got worse over the l;ast decade or so, which is a time that corresponds to more diesel cars polluting the atmosphere.
I may be talking sabsolute claptrap, but if I could find a scientific paper, I might be able to be proven wrong.
But I can’t get iot out of my head, that all these diesels are producing pollution, that is cutting the UVB radiation. As my health was appalling in the 1950s, during the legendary London smogs, I wonder if there is a connection.
Unfortunately, to many UVB radiation is an evil as it causes skin cancer. So anything that cuts UVB radiation levels is to be welcomed.
The Diamond Light Source And Ebola
The headline of Ibuprofen ‘disables’ Ebola virus, drew me to this article on the BBC’s web site. This is said.
The painkiller ibuprofen and the cancer drug toremifene can disable the Ebola virus, say researchers.
Scientists used the UK’s national synchrotron facility – Diamond Light Source – to analyse the virus in incredible detail.
They revealed the two drugs could bind to the crucial part of Ebola that the virus needs to infect cells.
It may be only a starting point, but it looks like a success for the Diamond Light Source. I am indebted to Wikipedia for this description of the Diamond Light Source.
Diamond Light Source (“Diamond”) is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility located at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. Its purpose is to produce intense beams of light whose special characteristics are useful in many areas of scientific research. In particular it can be used to investigate the structure and properties of a wide range of materials from proteins (to provide information for designing new and better drugs), and engineering components (such as a fan blade from an aero-engine) to conservation of archeological artifacts (for example Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose.
This is a UK-funded and based facility, I hope that, after Brexit, this type of scientific machine, which cost £260million will still be able to be funded.
Why I Support Cancer Research UK
In yesterday’s post; There’s More To Liverpool Than Football And The Beatles, I talked about how researchers at Liverpool University had developed a better prostate cancer treatment. I posted this from an An article in The Guardian.
The ESPAC trials, which began publishing findings in 2004, showed that chemotherapy with gemcitabine brings five-year survival up to 15-17%, doubling the rate of survival with surgery alone. The latest research, presented at theAmerican Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, showed the two-drug combination nearly doubles the survival rate again to 29%.
It showed, said Neoptolemos, that chemotherapy does work in pancreatic cancer, even though most attention in cancer research is now focused onimmunotherapy, and precision or targeted medicine.
But the trial would not have happened without funding from the charity CancerResearch UK (CRUK), because both drugs are old and off-patent, meaning they can be made by any generic drug manufacturer and are consequently cheap. Drug companies would not foot the bill for such a trial because the profits to be made are small.
“This is an academic-led presentation,” said Neoptolemos. “This shows the enormous value of CRUK. Without them, none of this would have happened. There is a lot of pressure [on doctors] to do drug company trials because you get £2,000 to £3,000 a patient. For something like this, you don’t get anything. It has been quite tough to do.”
That is a very strong endorsement of Cancer Research UK.
Today, there is this story on the BBC web site, which is entitled Bowel cancer: Stents ‘may prevent need for colostomy bags’. This is said.
Bowel cancer patients may avoid the need for colostomy bags if they are first treated by having an expandable tube inserted at the site of their blockage, cancer doctors have said.
The new approach, presented at the world’s biggest cancer conference, showed that the tube, or stent, cut the risk of complications from surgery.
The trial took place at Central Manchester University Hospitals! And who funded the trial? Cancer Research UK!
So I shall keep supporting the work of Cancer Research UK!
There’s More To Liverpool Than Football And The Beatles!
This morning, this story on the BBC web site entitled ‘Major Win’ In Pancreatic Cancer Fight is one of the top stories. This is said.
A new combination of chemotherapy drugs should become the main therapy for pancreatic cancer, say UK researchers.
The disease is so hard to treat that survival rates have barely changed for decades.
But data, presented at the world’s biggest cancer conference, showed long-term survival could be increased from 16% to 29%.
The findings have been described as a “major win”, “incredibly exciting” and as offering new hope to patients.
I must admit that I feel a touch of pride, as the study was led by Professor John Neoptolemos at Liverpool University, which was where my late wife and I met when we were both students at the University.
But I also feel a touch of relief for others, who might get this awful cancer in the future, as now they may stand a better chance of survival, than did our youngest son; George, who survived just a few months after diagnosis.
I also raised a small sum of money for the research by visiting all 92 English and Welsh football clubs in alphabetical order by public transport. The main funding for the research included Cancer Research UK and I think some EU money!
The BBC story also says this.
The trial on 732 patients – in hospitals in the UK, Sweden, France and Germany – compared the standard chemotherapy drug gemcitabine against a combination of gemcitabine and capecitabine.
I’ve looked up the two drugs mentioned and both are on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, which are the most important drugs needed in a basic health system.
An article in The Guardian is also illuminating. This is said.
The ESPAC trials, which began publishing findings in 2004, showed that chemotherapy with gemcitabine brings five-year survival up to 15-17%, doubling the rate of survival with surgery alone. The latest research, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, showed the two-drug combination nearly doubles the survival rate again to 29%.
It showed, said Neoptolemos, that chemotherapy does work in pancreatic cancer, even though most attention in cancer research is now focused on immunotherapy, and precision or targeted medicine.
But the trial would not have happened without funding from the charity CancerResearch UK (CRUK), because both drugs are old and off-patent, meaning they can be made by any generic drug manufacturer and are consequently cheap. Drug companies would not foot the bill for such a trial because the profits to be made are small.
“This is an academic-led presentation,” said Neoptolemos. “This shows the enormous value of CRUK. Without them, none of this would have happened. There is a lot of pressure [on doctors] to do drug company trials because you get £2,000 to £3,000 a patient. For something like this, you don’t get anything. It has been quite tough to do.”
So this is not some elite drug for the rich, famous and powerful, but one that might even be applied everywhere.
I must admit, that I’ve shed the odd tear this morning!
The Anonymous Widower 