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Talking Points
Profmed CEO: Unethical to make schemes bear brunt of vaccination funding
The government should encourage voluntary donations from medical schemes to fund its vaccination roll-out, rather than “forced donations through regulatory pressure” that will cause...
WHO joins condemnation of latest blunder in EU's vaccine rollout
A European Union panicked by citizen anger over the tardy roll-out of vaccines tried briefly to interdict British supplies of the AstraZeneca vaccine only...
A FIT alternative to colonoscopy comes home in the US
The much-feared colonoscopy is increasingly been replaced in the US by FIT, the faecal immunochemical test, an at-home test that is as reliable as...
Madhi: SA has no vaccination strategy, just an unrealistic goal
South Africa's vaccine "strategy" is not a strategy but a goal. And an unrealistic one at that, writes Prof Shabir Madhi of the University...
Contrary to Western perceptions, Africans don't just live to die
The Western media's reporting on Africa, as exemplified by a recent The New York Times article, tends to towards the simplistic and condescending, according...
Israel delivers the world’s fastest COVID vaccination inoculation drive
Israel is delivering the world's fastest COVID-19 vaccination drive by far, writes MedicalBrief. More Israelis have now been vaccinated than caught the virus.
In the...
Derided theories of two British orthodontists now have a cult following
The Mews, a father-son team of British orthodontists, have a controversial and derided theory about the source of crooked teeth, writes William Brennan for...
The myth that countries led by women have dealt better with COVID-19
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, many have suggested that countries led by women have fared better than those led by men. This...
Coronavirus pandemic holds lessons for SA's universal health care plans
The COVID-19 pandemic is shedding light on how best to go about building National Health Insurance in South Africa – and what to avoid...
China tries to obscure Wuhan origin of COVID-19 pandemic
To push the idea that the virus didn’t come from China, the government has misrepresented experts’ remarks and given dubious theories the veneer of...
'Havana Syndrome' likely caused by directed microwaves — US National Academies of Sciences
Mystery illness suffered by US diplomats in Cuba was most likely caused by directed microwave radiation, concludes a report from the National Academies of...
Big Pharma's bad image gets a vaccine make-over
A vaccine for COVID-19 has the potential to unlock society and save millions of people from death and serious disease, writes The Guardian. The...
Psychoanalysis must join campaign against mass non-adherence to medical advice
The denial evidenced by a mass failure to adhere to medical advice on COVID-19 is unique in modern history, notes an item in The...
Stories from the frontlines of antimicrobial resistance during COVID-19
”I’m sorry, but the treatment’s not working.’ “These are the words that nobody wants to hear. Especially if you are the parent of a...
Coronaviruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2 discovered outside China
Coronaviruses closely related to the COVID-19 pandemic virus have been discovered in Japan and Cambodia, reports Nature. The viruses, both found in bats stored...
Could JFK have survived with today's advanced emergency care?
This week, more than 50 years ago, US President John F Kennedy died in Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, following severe bullet wounds to...
A divided US faces a pandemic entering its deadliest phase
A lame-duck presidency and political gridlock after a bitterly fought election are set to worsen the US’s coronavirus crisis just as the pandemic enters...
143 died but Gauteng Health officials escape with warnings
The Life Esidimeni incident culminated in the death of 143 people under state psychiatric care. The only consequences for two Gauteng Health officials cited...
Apartheid era public sector was better than today's private sector — Letlape
The standard of healthcare in South Africa's public hospitals pre-1994 was better than what is currently experienced in the private sector today, Dr Kgosi...
Death scenarios justifying second UK lockdown 'four times too high'
Prominent UK scientists, including the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, have challenged the death scenarios used by the UK government to justify...
Bara says it cannot provide vital ICU or HCU treatment
Bosasa former chief operating officer Angelo Agrizzi, accused of corruption and bribery, spent a single night in jail before being transferred to a private...
Pandemic fatigue: SA adherence to preventive measures is slipping
The easing of South Africa's lockdown has triggered fears of a new wave of COVID-19 infections. Two separate surveys show growing pandemic fatigue, complacency...
Gauteng Health has learnt nothing from Life Esidimeni
In Gauteng the right of access to healthcare services has been sacrificed on the altar of politics and political factionalism within the ANC, writes...
WHO's bombshell: We do not advocate lock-downs to control COVID-19
Professor David Nabarro, the world’s highest-ranking expert on COVID-19, has said that the World Health Organisation (WHO) does not advocate lockdowns, since their only...
International warning against 'dangerous fallacy' of herd immunity
A second wave of infections has led to renewed interest in ending the COVID pandemic through a herd immunity approach, write 80 prominent scientists...
Eisenhower to Trump: Handling the hospitalisation of a president
President Dwight Eisenhower’s 1955 admission to hospital heart attack was as dramatic for Americans as that of President Donald Trump for COVID-19, write Harvard's...
SA appears to be close to COVID-19 herd immunity
The Western Cape can be assumed to have near 60% immunity, which approaches herd immunity levels. That should also be true for the rest...
Africa's enigma: Why has the pandemic been less severe here?
At the beginning of the pandemic, there were dire predictions of how the African continent would be affected, writes MedicalBrief. For a number of...
Mkhize getting rid of truth tellers 'a sign of weakness' – Peter Bruce
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize looked like the voice of reason during the pandemic, and he works hard. But getting rid of advisers who...
As inquiry reopens, ITV spotlights UK’s 'biggest treatment disaster'
As a UK public inquiry into contaminated blood products in the 1980s that has caused thousands of deaths, a new TV documentary examines what...
Helsinki Airport Covid-19 sniffer dogs start trials
Trained dogs are capable of detecting the presence of the coronavirus within 10 seconds, with the entire process takes less than a minute to...
Stock-outs: A 'shadow epidemic' of psychiatric illness looms in SA
In August, almost half of the most commonly used medications to treat mental illness in South Africa were out of stock, and many have...
German virologist on Europe's new lockdowns: Stop the mass hysteria
Germanyʼs most celebrated virologist has some trenchant advice for countries contemplating a second national lockdown: hold your nerve, and donʼt succumb to the pervasive...
WHO: There are 'lessons to be learnt’ from Sweden's low-key strategy
As much of Europe experiences a second surge Sweden's strategy of minimal intervention in the coronavirus pandemic is currently paying dividends, with only 14...
Union's battle with SAMA is attempt at 'daylight robbery’ — Founding chair
The legal battle between the South African Medical Association (SAMA), a non-profit professional association and the administrator of its union, the South African Medical...
How good is the now trendy Intermittent Fasting diet?
The popular Intermittent Fasting (IF) diet regimen can work well for weight loss, but many other claims about its benefits remain to be proved,...
Pandemic shows why NHI is a fantasy — Financial Mail editor
Some are spinning the yarn that COVID-19 shows that South African can manage immense healthcare projects. It proves the opposite, writes Financial Mail editor...
With each corruption scandal, public distrust of NHI grows
Convincing a corruption-embattled population to trust a centralised and procurement-based National Health Insurance (NHI) system becomes more difficult with each graft scandal, writes Section27’s...
Heywood vs Shisana: Healthcare veterans clash over lockdown 'deceit'
Two veterans of South African healthcare politics and delivery have locked horns over the country’s early, hard COVID-19 lockdown, with the one accusing government...
The future of tobacco – rejecting a prohibitionist anti-smoking movement
The biggest obstacle in America to the creative destruction of the cigarette is, ironically, the proscriptive culture of mainstream tobacco control whose researchers, activists...