Tonight, the entertainer Peter Kay will be performing the first of two special sell-out gigs in Blackpool to raise funds for a very poorly four-year old girl with brain cancer. The story of how this fundraising event came about was told in last weekend’s Observer. However, the £200,000 being raised looked like it was earmarked to send little Billie to a clinic in Texas to enrol in a trial that [read more…]
Yesterday’s Observer contained a full page, heart breaking story of a 4-year old girl, Billie Bainbridge, who has a inoperable and rare form of brain cancer, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma. The only option for this aggressive cancer on the NHS is radiotherapy which may reduce symptoms for a few months. Two year survival is less than 10%. It is difficult to think of anything more devastating for a young family. [read more…]
Wales Online reports the tragic story of a two-year old girl with stage-four neuroblastoma. I cannot imagine the emotions the parents must be going through. I am sure if my children were ever in this position, I would consider anything to save them. Such desperation though provides rich pickings for those offering miracle cures and dubious treatments. As a society, we do a very poor job of protecting children and parents from [read more…]
Maurice Saatchi, the former advertising businessman and Tory peer, has introduced a Bill to parliament designed to encourage medical innovation. After the death of his wife from cancer, Saatchi believed that doctors were being held back from making innovations that could save lives. The “Medical Innovation” Bill is designed to encourage and protect doctors who wish to try new things in cancer treatment with the aim of speeding up the rate [read more…]
What can Anton Chekhov tell us about the placebo effect? Chekhov is best known as a great writer of short stories. But he was also a doctor and wrote many tales of medicine and doctors in everyday life. But recently, again, I have seen homeopaths claim that Chekhov “used [homeopathy] and swore by its curative effects”. No doubt, the source for such claims come from the American homeopathy entrepreneur, Dana Ullman. [read more…]
Richard Branson has apparently intervened to fly a desperately poorly girl from Mexico who was undergoing last ditch cancer treatment to save her life. The treatment did not work and seven-year-old Olivia Downie found herself in a different hospital in a ‘critical condition’ and too ill to fly home. Appeals appeared in the Daily Mail and the Sun saying the parents were trying to raise £140,000 to charter a special [read more…]
The Cancer Act 1939 tends to appear fairly frequently on this blog. The reason is that this piece of legislation looms so large is because it is one of the few acts that actually places a specific restriction on what quacks can and cannot do through a criminal sanction. Under English law, there is a common law right to treat people as long as there is informed consent. Thus, the [read more…]
Earlier this month, I wrote about how Dr Stephen Hopwood was opening a new alternative cancer clinic in Totnes, Devon, that was to “offer real alternatives to the conventional approach to cancer health care”. To celebrate the opening, Hopwood was holding a cancer conference, inviting people with cancer to come along, and inviting a range of cancer cure peddlers to temp attendees with their magic beans. What followed was quite [read more…]
England has a rather odd piece of legislation prohibiting the advertisement of cancer treatments. It is odd because, on the whole, England is a pretty tolerant place when it comes to allowing people to set themselves up with health businesses. There is a Common Law right to practice. And anyone can treat a sick person, even for money, as long as there is informed consent. There are exceptions. You must [read more…]
According to the Sun and Daily Mail today, celebrity Melanie Sykes has won £50,000 on the TV game show The Cube and will be donating the money to the charity International Pre-Autistic Network (IPAN). In doing so, the reports say she revealed that that her own son was autistic. She wants to raise awareness of autism and hoped the charity, which she is a patron of, would use the money [read more…]
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