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Talking Points
Fast and deadly spread of C.auris hits SA also
A drug-resistant fungus called Candida auris, which preys on people with weakened immune systems, is quietly spreading across the globe, reports The New York...
Venezuela health system in a state of 'utter collapse’ — Human Rights Watch
The UN is being urged to declare a full-scale humanitarian emergency in Venezuela in the light of the “utter collapse” of its health system...
R197m private healthcare inquiry has been a 'red herring’ — FMF
The government's private health market inquiry was a red herring intended to create a veneer of legitimacy for further regulation, in preparation of introducing its...
Sugar industry shouldn't blame woes on sugar tax — Treasury
It is premature for the sugar industry to claim that the sugary drinks tax is causing job losses, according to the Treasury, writes Health-e News. The South...
Zuma era corruption continues in provincial health
Many of SA's provincial departments of health are still overrun with people appointed with little purpose other than to nod through corrupt deals. Spotlight...
SA's liberal abortion laws thwarted by social stigma
The SA health service offers free, legal abortions. So why, asks Voice of America, are more than half of abortions in the country illegal,...
Top scientists clash over mooted CRISPR moratorium
A group of ethicists and scientists – including some of the inventors of CRISPR – have called for a moratorium on all clinical uses...
SA constitution ‘a basis’ for euthanasia — Human Rights Commission head
Rights to dignity and ‘security in and control over their body’, both entrenched in the Bill of Rights, clearly provide a basis for the...
SA's sugar tax pits jobs against lifestyle diseases
As part of the Health Department's strategy to reduce obesity, SA in 2018 became the first country in Africa to introduce a sugar tax....
Pre-diabetes: A boon for pharma but is it good medicine?
Labelling people as having pre-diabetes could do more harm than good, experts have said, as research reveals that even some of those involved in...
The rights of foreign nationals in accessing SA healthcare
Directives recently issued by the national Health Department and Gauteng Health requiring foreign nationals to pay in full for healthcare at public facilities weren’t only...
Academic medicine must step up with LGBTQ patients
Medical schools have failed to include in their standard medical curricula training on hormone therapy, gender-affirming surgeries, or even the basics of sexual orientation...
Psychotherapist talks about suppression of his ‘politically incorrect' research
Psychotherapist James Caspian attempted to undertake a research project into ‘detransitioning’, where those who have transitioned to another gender come to regret their decision...
Vaccination advocates face vicious campaigns of online abuse
When the naturopath Elias Kass testified before a Washington state senate committee on 20 February with a baby on his chest and a pacifier...
The war over faecal microbiota transplants
Will corporate greed get in the way of patient access to non-profit stool for faecal transplants? The New York Times reports that there are...
Eskom crisis may be dwarfed by the looming NHI disaster
As much as the country is currently focused on the crisis in Eskom, the nation seems to have lost sight of the looming National...
The Lancet Commission on Obesity recommendations 'deeply problematic'
The Lancet Commission on Obesity, three years in the making, has just been released. It is an infringement of personal freedoms and based on...
Ticking boxes instead of actually doing something to save SA's ailing health system
This is an illness we have as a country: we convene summits, appoint task teams, create war rooms, and hold press conferences, but very...
FDA warns against the vampire fad
Unscrupulous parties are touting blood plasma infusion from young donors to fight ageing or serious illnesses. This week the US Food and Drug Administration warned against...
Medical journals slated for ethics failure on Chinese organ donor articles
A world-first study has called for the mass retraction of more than 400 scientific papers on organ transplantation, amid fears the organs were obtained...
Mapping gender inequality in the scientific community
A special issue of The Lancet reports that gender inequality in the scientific community starts right at the beginning of the scientific process –...
Delay in release of private health sector report 'bad news'
The release of a final report about the state of competition in South Africa’s private health sector has been delayed again, writes Wezile Chitha,...
'Urgent need' for antiretroviral pregnancy registry in SA
South Africa has an "appalling record" on pregnancy registries but one is urgently needed to answer questions about the new antiretroviral dolutegravir, which is being...
Gene therapy: A game changer for those with sickle-cell disease
With advances in gene therapy, scientists have begun to talk of a cure for sickle-cell disease, an inherited condition that mainly afflicts people of...
Are the Dutch euthanasia laws a 'slippery slope'?
The idea that we humans have a variety of deaths to choose from is more familiar in the Netherlands than anywhere else. But the...
The 'battle of ideologies' may further delay healthcare legislation
Because 2019 is an election year, legislation arising out of a four-and-a-half year Competition Commission inquiry and the proposed National Health Insurance plan may...
Are doctors turning down rural community service posts being 'picky'?
After turning down placements at rural hospitals, hundreds of newly qualified doctors remain unemployed while the country’s rural state hospitals remain desperately understaffed because...
Vaccine hesitancy — one of the world's top 10 health threats
The World Health Organisation has ranked vaccine hesitancy – growing resistance to widely available lifesaving vaccines – as one of the top 10 health...
The complex reasons behind SA's organ donor shortage
While religious and cultural practices play a role in the acute shortage of organ donations, her extensive research as identified other critical factors, writes...
Caesarean rates are rocketing in SA
About 26% of babies born in South African public hospitals are born by caesarean, the latest available figures show. Bhekisisa looks at the...
A 'myopic focus on weight' drives the popularity of keto diet
This time last year, Google searches for the keto diet outranked those for paleo for the first time. Laura Thomas, registered nutritionist writes in...
Unregulated US fertility industry a haven for controversial services
The US fertility industry remains largely unregulated and draws IVF patients from around the world seeking controversial services – not just sex selection, but...
Bacon-cancer link: Outgoing UN agency head defends its work
The head of the UN agency that provoked a massive outcry and some ridicule when it declared that bacon, red meat and glyphosate weedkiller...
Africans living longer but spend those extra years in poor health
People are now living longer in sub-Saharan Africa than they did two decades ago, writes Charles Shey Wiysonge, director, Cochrane South Africa, in The Conversation. However,...
Russia: The faltering frontline in the HIV/Aids war
In Russia and its former Eastern bloc satellites, Aids deaths have climbed 38% in 10 years – almost as much as they have fallen...
NHI plans are ‘an act of desperation’ — DA
Plans by the Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, to push ahead with the National Health Insurance are ‘an act of desperation ... doomed...
UCT professor warns about Africa's science brain drain
Not only are many science graduates in Africa unemployed but the situation is getting worse, fuelling a brain drain to Europe, the UK and North America, warned...
Overcoming the perceived and real barriers to HIV testing
There was a time when HIV was untreatable, heavily stigmatised, and the benefits of testing weren’t as clear as they are now. But, writes...
Decrease in malaria deaths flatlining
Despite a few bright spots, the recently released World Malaria Report paints a gloomy picture of stagnating progress and increasing concentration of the burden...
FDA's 'deceptive' system allowed implant complaints to escape notice
Because of the way that the US Food and Drug Administration allowed the manufacturers of breast implants to report complaints, thousands of adverse events, including deaths,...