Jim McVeagh • Apr 27, 2010 •
Some newspaper articles cause me to wonder what is NOT being said. The Herald today runs the headline: Denied help for sexual abuse, dead days later A review of new rules for sexual abuse counseling has come too late to save a South Auckland mother who died four days after her claim for ACC-funded counselling [...] Related posts: … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Apr 17, 2010 •
Remember those candy cigarettes we could buy as kids (now long ago done to death by the nannies)? I see there has been some fuss in the Herald about the adult equivalent, the so-called e-cigarette. The e-cigarette is an electronic device made to look like a cigarette that nebulises a dose of nicotine from a [...] Related posts: … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Apr 10, 2010 •
Once more the media appear to be wading in to the campaign to lower the legal driving limit for blood alcohol to 0.05%. Strangely, they quote the recent spate of road traffic fatalities as if this somehow bolsters their argument. This is simply lazy journalism. There is plenty of evidence that lowering the legal Blood [...] Related posts: … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Jan 31, 2010 •
Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. Thanks to Crusader Rabbit for pointing me to this lovely bit of medical spam at News.com.au: Energy drinks’ ’serious’ heart risk JUST one energy drink can cause “serious heart conditions”, a world-first study has found. The report, according to Adelaide Now, has [...] Related … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Jan 20, 2010 •
Moves are afoot in National’s “War on Drugs” to restrict the sale of codeine in all its forms, including the combinations with paracetamol (Panadeine, Codalgin et al.). The Herald reports: Public access to a widely-used class of painkillers containing codeine is likely to be restricted within months because of what is said to be an increase [...] Related posts: … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Jan 14, 2010 •
There is a fair amount of news about drug addiction at the moment, with John Key announcing a (somewhat laughable) $7 million boost for P treatment. Garth George, in one of his best columns for some time, points out that the real killer in terms of drug addictions is, of course, alcohol. He laments the [...] Related posts: … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Nov 28, 2009 •
Force Quit is what you do on a Mac when a program freezes to remove the offending program from memory. Force quit also appears to be what the DHBs have in mind to achieve their goal of 80 per cent of hospitalised smokers be given advice and help to quit. Most DHBs are way under [...] Related posts: … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Oct 08, 2009 •
So John Key is going to make pseudoephedrine only available on doctor’s prescription. And he’s not stopping there, either: Mr Key has asked for Medsafe to consider a total ban on pseudoephedrine, which is used to make the illegal drug “P”, pure methamphetamine. Unfortunately Mr. Key is being poorly advised on this matter by his science advisor, [...] … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Sep 22, 2009 •
While no-one disputes that driving under the influence of the drug alcohol makes your driving worse, a new survey reports that people driving under the influence of cannabis say their driving is unaffected or even improved by cannabis. Unfortunately, this is simply not true. Although the dose of cannabis per smoke is variable, a single [...] … Read More
Jim McVeagh • Sep 22, 2009 •
In the Herald today: Dr Penelope Briscoe, dean of the faculty of pain medicine at Australia and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA), says reform is needed to curb the illicit use and sale of powerful prescription medicines. I view statements like this with some trepidation. I don’t know how it is in Australia, but, in New [...] … Read More