Showing posts with label cervical cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cervical cancer. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Easy on the Bangers and Slabs of Flesh over Christmas, girls!
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reports that an Aussie study (probably taken around the Barbie) links high intake of meat to ovarian cancer.Women who ate the most meat and fat were 250% more likely to have ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, if you also ate lots of fruit and vegetables (and still scoffed too many bangers) the likelihood remained high.
How much is enough?
By now most of us are inured to the sight of long articles and multiple websites pointing out the inadequacies, perceived and real, of allopathic ('normal' medicine) treatments.
This is both good - and bad. It's good because it is testament to a healthy scepticism along with the power to probe the meanings behind the hype we hear in the advertising some drug companies foist upon us. It's bad because healthy scepticism, when taken too far, can 'inhabit us' - meaning we turn our backs on some pretty amazing advances just us we want to be right - or righteous.
Here at ION LIFE we've been subject to rapacious and apparently scientific scrutiny from one competitive company over the years and I'm guessing that without the sustained negative campaign this company waged against us, there would be thousands more people in Australia enjoying the health benefits of our ION LIFE water. But on the other hand, perhaps we are all the stronger because we did investigate fully every claim thrown at us and we can still hold our heads high and look our customers in the eye.
So when I read the report in the Australian newspaper about rates of side effects from the cervical cancer vaccine, I decided that it was time to lay to rest any fears I may have had about yet another unproven new cancer modality.
The Australian reported a study in the British Medical Journal that checked 380,000 doses given in 2007 to young girls in South Australia and Victoria. Of those, 35 girls experienced a 'suspected' reaction. Of these, 25 thought it important enough to agree to further testing. Of these THREE had probable allergic hypersensitivity to the vaccine.
Now let's compare this with what is already known about allergic reactions and vaccines. Another study showed that if we were to inject 80% of all girls in the US who were eligible for the cervical cancer vaccine with saline rather than the real thing, we'd still get 3 per 100,000 needing emergency hospital care for asthmatic or allergic reactions.
So 25 allergic reactions out of 380,000 vaccinations seems a very, very small 'price' to pay for cervical cancer protection for a whole generation of kids. Especially when (if my maths are correct) we'd get three times the reaction from a pure saline placebo!
What do you think?
This is both good - and bad. It's good because it is testament to a healthy scepticism along with the power to probe the meanings behind the hype we hear in the advertising some drug companies foist upon us. It's bad because healthy scepticism, when taken too far, can 'inhabit us' - meaning we turn our backs on some pretty amazing advances just us we want to be right - or righteous.
Here at ION LIFE we've been subject to rapacious and apparently scientific scrutiny from one competitive company over the years and I'm guessing that without the sustained negative campaign this company waged against us, there would be thousands more people in Australia enjoying the health benefits of our ION LIFE water. But on the other hand, perhaps we are all the stronger because we did investigate fully every claim thrown at us and we can still hold our heads high and look our customers in the eye.
So when I read the report in the Australian newspaper about rates of side effects from the cervical cancer vaccine, I decided that it was time to lay to rest any fears I may have had about yet another unproven new cancer modality.
The Australian reported a study in the British Medical Journal that checked 380,000 doses given in 2007 to young girls in South Australia and Victoria. Of those, 35 girls experienced a 'suspected' reaction. Of these, 25 thought it important enough to agree to further testing. Of these THREE had probable allergic hypersensitivity to the vaccine.
Now let's compare this with what is already known about allergic reactions and vaccines. Another study showed that if we were to inject 80% of all girls in the US who were eligible for the cervical cancer vaccine with saline rather than the real thing, we'd still get 3 per 100,000 needing emergency hospital care for asthmatic or allergic reactions.
So 25 allergic reactions out of 380,000 vaccinations seems a very, very small 'price' to pay for cervical cancer protection for a whole generation of kids. Especially when (if my maths are correct) we'd get three times the reaction from a pure saline placebo!
What do you think?
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