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Talking Points
Unpacking the lingering questions over AstraZeneca's vaccine
In response to US government concerns over data used, AstraZeneca released updated information on its COVID-19 clinical trial, showing an effectiveness rate of 76%...
SA's 22,000 pharmacists should be mobilised as vaccinators
South Africa must expand the healthcare workforce that is able to meet the immediate demand for COVID-19 vaccinators, writes the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Velisha...
Eastern Cape Health: Decades of crisis before COVID-19
Long before COVID-19 hit, the Eastern Cape Health system was already in crisis, with warnings over many years from the likes of the Public...
Debate continues over SA's ditching of the AstraZeneca vaccine
Despite a national Health Department statement this week that the on-selling of South Africa's Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine stocks is virtually concluded, debate continues among experts...
Accommodating trans athletes without rejecting the reality of human biology
In the debates about trans athletes, grandiloquent progressives posture as rigorous scientists, even as they demand that sports leagues cast aside the biological reality...
Brazilian butt lift: Behind the world's most dangerous cosmetic surgery
Made famous by Kim Kardashian West, the Brazilian butt lift is, according to a recent survey by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery,...
Jabs for politicians: A counter to vaccine hesitancy or opportunism?
Politicians trying to jump to the front of South Africa's vaccination queue explain that it's to counter vaccine hesitancy. Columnist Ivo Vegter describes it's...
Time that COVID-19 control measures weighed benefit/risk equation
Lockdowns cause substantial collateral health damage through delayed diagnosis and treatment, as well as grave psychological damage, write academics from the universities of Greifswald...
SAHPRA shifts responsibility for Ivermectin use to doctors
In allowing Section 21 applications as part of a controlled compassionate access programme, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) has essentially shifted...
Russia's once-derided vaccine may garner diplomatic dividends
President Vladimir Putin’s announcement in August that Russia had cleared the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine for use before it even completed safety trials sparked...
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...