Holy Shmoly! » Health

Irish girls denied cancer vaccine

Donncha O Caoimh — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:36:27 +0000

I haven’t been listening to the news much of late. I’m not sure when that started but even if the news is on in the background, the droning voice of the newscaster usually goes in one ear and out the other.

Unfortunately for the Irish Government, and Mary Harney in particular, Red Mum is making sure that everyone hears about their disgraceful refusal to administer a vaccine against cervical cancer to every 12 year old girl in the country. More on the Irish Times website:

Minister for Health Mary Harney this evening said the economic situation had “rapidly and seriously” deteriorated since the plan was announced in August. The vaccination against strains of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) would have cost an estimated €9.7 milliion annually.

The decision was immediately criticised by the Opposition and by the Irish Cancer Society, which asked Ms Harney to make a clear commitment to restore the vaccination scheme “at the earliest possible opportunity”.

Gavin has a clip taken from TV3 news featuring John Crown, a cancer specialist denouncing the decision:

So what can you do? Join the Facebook Group or send Mary Harney, the minister for health, pictures of your daughters. Blog about it, contact your TD and tell them you’re very unhappy with the situation. 9.7m Euro is pocket change in the budget of a country, even one in a recession.

While on the topic of vaccines, my wife was told that the area we live in, Blarney, is overrun with cases of childhood measles and mumps. I’m glad my little boy was vaccinated with the MMR.

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404 speed not found

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:58:44 +0000

Just once, slow down on the way home from work this evening. You’ll get caught at traffic lights and that slow driver behind will catch up with you and give you the finger anyway. You’ll get home 60 seconds later, and you won’t be high on adrenaline or a raving lunatic with the stress of driving.

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Baby's first tooth

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:17:33 +0000

On Friday I felt Adam’s first teeth as he bit down on my small finger but they were still under the skin. This morning as he laughed in my arms I saw the tops of two tiny front teeth poking out of his bottom gum! And yes, baby teeth are sharp!

So, from what I can gleam online, we can expect the next teeth to appear in a few weeks time. Teething hurts though. To calm him down, we used the ever useful Calpol as well as two homeopathic products: Nelsons Teetha and Gumeze.

Despite the reservations I might have about homeopathic remedies I can recommend Teetha granules. A screaming crying baby transforms into a happy smiling baby within seconds. The packaging declares that, “each 300mg sachet contains 6c homeopathic potency of Chamomilla”. It also contains Xylitol, lactose and starch. 24 sachets cost €7.25. I’m not sure how that compares to the price of Bonjela and other products.

Gumeze is a liquid gel with a long list of homeopathic ingredients, including Chamomilla. It works, but I feel that Teetha works better.

How narcissistic are you?

Donncha O Caoimh — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:30:08 +0000

nar·cis·sism /ˈnɑrsəˌsɪzɛm/ Pronunciation Key – [nahr-suh-siz-em] – noun

inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.

Psychoanalysis. erotic gratification derived from admiration of one’s own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development.

From dictionary.com: narcissistic

If a person displays five or more of the following traits, they are likely to have narcissistic tendencies:

A grandiose sense of self-importance (eg, exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements)
Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love
Believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique, and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Requires excessive admiration
Has a sense of entitlement, ie, unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
Is interpersonally exploitative, ie, takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognise or identify with the feelings and needs of others
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
Shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes

Does that describe you? Does it describe someone in your life? Taken from The Monster in the Mirror.

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When columnists go bad

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 16:01:11 +0000

It’s a wonder sometimes why some bloggers hold journalists to such high standards. Quite often what appears in our newspapers is ripped entirely from press releases, or is poorly researched. Case in point are the two columns by Jeremy Clarkson and India Knight in last week’s Sunday Times (I’ve been away, catching up on my blogging!)

Jeremy Clarkson may be a funny guy, but is he a little thick? In Biggles, you’re a crashing bore he says,

Then you have to spend more months learning how to use a radio. Why? I know already. You just stab away at various buttons until someone comes over the speaker. Then you tell him what you want.

Oh no you don’t. You have to talk in a stupid code, saying “over” when you’ve finished speaking for the moment and “out” when you’ve finished altogether. Why? When I ring the plumber or the local Indian restaurant, I am able to convey the nature of my request perfectly well using English. So why when I’m in a plane do I have to talk in gibberish?

“Hello, it’s Jeremy. Is it all right to land?” is a much easier way of saying, “Weston Tower, this is Charlie Victor Tango on 8453.113 requesting a westerly approach to runway 27.”

That’s not sarcastic and witty. That’s plain dumb.

On the same page India Knight states that many people suffering from allergies and food intolerances really don’t have allergies at all and are simply rude. Try telling that to me after I’ve had a cheese covered pizza.

Millions of people have imaginary allergies and food intolerances, according to a survey last week. Many of them have diagnosed themselves online; one in 50 says they only noticed their “problem” when a friend had similar symptoms; and 39% of people questioned think it is “trendy” to claim a food allergy. Twelve million people claim to suffer from allergy or intolerance, of which less than a quarter are medically diagnosed.

The mind boggles. I love cheese and milk. I would love nothing better than to drink a cool glass of milk with a spicy curry, or homemade brown bread with a thick slice of cheese on top. It’s not bloody trendy to have a stuffed up nose and phlemmy throat a few hours later. Poor Ms. Knight lives in a very black and white world.

Good to know I’m not the only one to think this way about India Knight’s article. Actually, India Knight was never good so she couldn’t go bad. At least Clarkson’s articles are mildly entertaining!

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The strange tale of the Brita water filter

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 13:11:02 +0000

It was a dark and stormy night. Thunder rolled over the land and lightning shot from the sky incinerating trees, cars and unlucky people caught out in the worst storms since records began. Out of the dark came a hulking shape. It was transparent, and water sloshed from side to side as it moved down the road, but no! Disaster struck, a little pebble made a small crack in the jug and it’s life force, the magical water seeped into the ground and the transparent walls of the Brita jug finally fell silent.
The thunder rolled on …

Well, I had to make a post about water filters exciting in some way eh? Now, here’s what I really wanted to tell you.

We’re on our second water filter at home. The first one was a Brita jug, which worked perfectly fine until a small crack appeared in the bottom. Filters lasted slightly less than a month before it became obvious the water wasn’t as pure.

My litmus test is my bedside glass of water. If it’s still drinkable in the morning then the water filter works! Without a filter, water in Blarney where I live tastes fine out of the tap, but left overnight it has a distinctly metallic taste.

As I said, the Brita jug was fine, but water leaked out of that slowly but surely and it was time to replace the jug. Little did I know how much the Brita was costing us ..

A few days later we were shopping in Tesco and I remembered the water filter. We made our way to the hardware section of the store, and discovered quite an array of shapes and sizes, not only from Brita, but also Tesco’s own brand. I compared prices and the Tesco filters were half the price of the Brita ones, so buying a Tesco branded water filter jug was a no brainer.

Back home, the Tesco jug works great. The filter seems to last longer and my glass of water can still quench my thirst in the morning a month after installing it. If you’re going to buy a water filter, go do yourself a favour and buy the Tesco one. It’s cheaper and works just as well as the Brita one.

If on the other hand you still have a Brita jug, the Tesco filter may fit it if your jug uses the long and round filters. That’ll save you about €3 a month and as they say, “every little helps”

No, I’m not paid by Tesco for this. I think it’s too good a bargain to pass up if you use a water filter at home! Normal WordPress, tech and “popular culture” blogging will resume shortly!

PS. ‘course the Brita filter might have been doing more work because the water was leaking out of it, and thus clogging up the filter more quickly!

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Health food firms told to "Prove it!"

Donncha O Caoimh — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 19:36:25 +0000

It’s about time for this to happen. Food companies have been claiming X, Y and Z about their products for long enough. An article in the Sunday Times goes on to say that, “FOOD companies that make false or unsubstantiated claims about the health benefits of their products will be forced to withdraw them under a new European Union crackdown.”

One of those products listed in a table that accompanies the paper version of the article is the baby food Aptamil. There is very little proof that it helps a baby’s immune system. Looks like Milupa were quick off the mark changing their packaging.

The prominent label, “Supports your baby’s natural immune system” is now missing on the new packaging. Score one for consumers!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, Adam needs annother feed. Typing one handed takes ages!

While on the subject of feeding babies, there is an Islamic Fatwa that says adult men can be breast fed. Strange, but read more here

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Harney forces Cork midwives to resign

Donncha O Caoimh — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 15:46:05 +0000

The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has a lot to answer for. Nurses, midwives, consultants and other staff in the newly opened Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) are stretched to the limit coping with the pressure of expectant mothers and babies from the original three maternity hospitals in the city.

We spent over two hours in a stuffy, crowded and very warm waiting area to be seen by a midwife and a consultant this morning. It was in stark contrast to the empty hallways and calm of the hospital just two weeks ago when we were given a tour of the facilities and offered a glimpse of a gleaming high-tech maternity environment. Pregnant women, partners and children waited in the sweltering heat while staff were run off their feet. The waiting area was unfortunately too small, there weren’t enough seats, and pregnant women had to make do by leaning against the walls of the corridors while waiting to be seen.

Despite the pressure, staff were as nice as always. Midwives were considerate, helpful and professional, but when asked about how things were going I heard that 2 had resigned and 4 had taken sick leave. As well as being short staffed to begin with, the remaining staff are even worse off now. Some workers are pulling 11 hour days.

Did I forget to mention that this 75 million Euro hospital doesn’t have air conditioning? Can you imagine the heat and mood in a small area where the only air comes from 2 slightly ajar windows and from internal corridors? It wasn’t nice. At least the two expensive flat screen LCD screens on the walls kept us occupied with day time TV courtesy of TV3. Oh yeah, that’s what we need.

Thanks to Mary Harney’s bullying tactics last week the hospital opened a week late on Saturday last. She had threatened to find a different use for the building if midwives didn’t accept her terms and move to the new hospital. Midwives and consultants protested that staffing levels weren’t high enough and I bore witness to that shortage this morning. Even the computer system there is broken and not expected to be working until this evening. No appointments could be made so women had to come on a first-come-first-served basis to the morning clinic. One woman we met there had been there since 8.30am. We arrived at 11am. Apparently it was even worse on Monday.

Teething problems with a new hospital? Perhaps, but if Mary Harney wanted the hospital opened a week previously shouldn’t those problems have been sorted out then?

Truly, healthcare is a vocation. I couldn’t do it. The midwives and staff deserve all the support they can get.

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Self diagnose with Google

Donncha O Caoimh — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 11:16:58 +0000

Everybody and anybody who has an illness, a pain in the leg, a hurt somewhere, will use Google to find out what ails them. There is an inherent danger in that, but if you use a search engine that way, and believe the first result, then good luck to you, The Darwin Awards may need another category.

The rest of us go to the doctor, the dentist, or whatever health professional is appropriate. What if your company health plan depended on using Google to diagnose? That’s what Catbert, the evil director of Human Resources did today in this Dilbert cartoon. Arc Welder anyone?

If by chance you do suffer a tooth ache, then a Google Search could pay dividends, at least for short term relief. My toothache post has been insanely popular for a couple of years now and a few people have learned something about dealing with the pain. I found that swishing Vodka around in my mouth helped a lot. It says it on the Internet, it must be true!

I wonder what Britney Spears Googled that told her to shave her hair off? Poor girl.

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Choosing a memory foam mattress

Donncha O Caoimh — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 10:18:49 +0000

Yawn. The mundane things in life are top of my agenda today. We’re looking for a new mattress and considering how much time is spent asleep in bed it’s criminal not to buy the best you can afford.

From research it appears that memory foam mattresses are the best to go for. I would certainly hope a new mattress would help my sore back! Tempura mattresses have been recommended to us but they’re hard to buy in Cork. Casey’s Furniture have them but they’ve always been over priced in their city center location. Another brand I have come across is Visco and it appears to do the same job. According to one salesperson they’re firmer than Tempura mattresses but I need to ring around a few more places before we make up our minds.

If you have one of these mattresses I’d love to hear about how comfortable they are. Try searching for any information on either brand and you’ll only find are online-stores trying to flog you one!

This page is better than most however. Here’s what they say about Visco-elastic mattress, which I presume applies to Tempura too.

Body heat reacts with the foam to soften it.
The mattress then moulds and re-moulds to your body’s contours.
Provides excellent support and enables natural movement during sleep.
Helps to maintain correct posture and align spine horizontally when lying on your side.
Hypo-allergenic with anti-microbial properties.

Off to town shortly and out with the credit card..

January 3rd 2007 – we went into town this afternoon and tried a few places before buying a bed in Swan Beds. It’s a memory foam mattress. A bit pricey but less than Casey’s were looking for. Hopefully it’ll be delivered next Wednesday!

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