I see Paul Henry is in trouble again. This time over suggesting that foreign doctors aren’t as good as those trained in New Zealand. I suspect he makes stupid comments like this deliberately, because he knows they are good for ratings. As a foreign-trained doctor myself, I find it hard to take offense at Henry’s [...]
Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article Following on from my previous post on the futility of government intervention in the case of obesity, the Herald obligingly provides this piece of on-topic spam: Support high for GST trim Political momentum for removing GST from healthy food is increasing with both [...]
The Amphibious One posts a long interview with Paul Drain on how wonderful the Cuban Health System is. This is not the first time I have seen left-wing articles on how wonderful (and cheap) the Cuban Healthcare system is. Such articles are usually full of unflattering comparisons with the US Healthcare system and the somewhat [...]
I confess to a certain amount of snide amusement. The first of the inevitable iPad clones has emerged in Germany. Full marks to the manufacturer for the speed they have managed in putting together a rival. Impressive. Zero marks for any understanding of Apple’s marketing strategy. For a start – “WePad“? What kind of a [...]
In case you were wondering whether the traditional book publishers were as clueless about the digital age as the MSM and the recording industry the answer is YES. AppleInsider reports that the publishers are complaining that they do not get enough profit from e-books. Publishers get roughly half — $13 — of the selling price [...]
Yes, I know it is almost impossible to fathom such depravity, but some pharmaceutical advertisers make unsubstantiated claims in medical journals! (/SARCASM OFF) Such is the conclusion of Ben Goldacre of the Guardian, writing on the Bad Science Blog. Goldacre is writing about a recent research article in the Netherlands Journal of Medicine “Are claims of [...]
Back from South Africa, anyway. Jet lagged out of my gourd as well. After a decade away (15 years since emigrating), South Africa now feels like a foreign land to me. The South African government claims that crime has dropped since the Apartheid years but I doubt very much that that is true. Absolutely everyone [...]
The Auckland DHB say that Labtests has improved significantly over the past few months. The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia had come in to assess areas of concern, the health board itself had instigated intensive monitoring and there had been a “radical reduction” in complaints about the service, both from the public and the [...]
The Herald is running this demented campaign at the moment to change the New Zealand flag. Clearly, anyone with a halfway-decent-functioning brain cell would realise that the best time to design a new flag would be if and when we decide to become a republic. Redesigning a flag at the moment is a meaningless exercise [...]
The Dominion Post writes yesterday about the looming shortage of oncologists. Four cancer doctors have resigned in a very short space of time. The article explores all the usual reasons why doctors leave, particularly the worrying ones of overwork, which can only be fixed by employing more hard-to-get doctors. What struck me, though, was the [...]
