Dear Editor, I am concerned about the coming introduction of pneumococcal vaccine into the immunisation schedule for healthy children. The current vaccine for persons aged two years upward is Pneumovax II and is not recommended for healthy people. It is a 23 serotype vaccine and has the following adverse effects: Very common injection site reactions [...]
Terence Cosgrave says it’s time to tackle the scourge of smoking at international level to help poor countries It’s January and a time of the year for looking back and forward. Traditionally, this is a time for resolutions, and many people will think about giving up smoking. And a good thing too. According to the [...]
Dear Editor, The Department of Health and Children (DoHC) apparently paid out €80 million to settle legal cases this year, but this figure does not include compensation paid by the Health Service Executive (HSE), which is also believed to run into tens of millions of euro. To be precise, figures released by the DoHC reveal [...]
It’s 2008, a new year, a new day, a new way. A motto, a statement of purpose and, possibly, even a mission statement, but for who or what? The HSE has its own mission statement, but it’s not easy to find it on its website. Do we really need them? I have heard of committees [...]
The automatic phone switchboard can be annoying enough at times, but dealing with the automatic voices used increasingly by supermarkets can be even more irritating, with their orders to “weigh your bananas” and “please take your change”. The extension of disembodied voices into cars in the form of ‘Sat Nav’ leads one to think that [...]
Far from suggesting that there shouldn’t be an ethical basis to research, I was in fact arguing the ethical basis for the continuation of stem cell research (including, if neccessary, embyronic stem cell research). There is a difference of opinion across the world about when human life begins and the fact that it is a [...]
Terence Cosgrave says that the High Court ruling by Mr Justice Kelly last month was a case of justice delayed Doctors will have been shocked last month with the news that Mr Justice Kelly ruled in the High Court that the Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Committee had applied, and the Council itself upheld, the [...]
Dear Editor, We were delighted by the interest shown by Irish Medical Times in the findings of our presentation at the Irish College of Psychiatrists Winter Meeting in November this year. However we were more than a little surprised by your interpretation of our results, as described by in your news article titled “Schizophrenia services [...]
Dear Editor, Terence Cosgrave seems to imply that there should be no ethical or other constraints on research. Prior to the detonation of the first atomic bomb the scientists involved calculated that there was a 3 per cent chance that the chain reaction would be unstoppable and destroy the whole world; nevertheless they thought it [...]
Dear Editor, Terence Cosgrave misrepresents and grossly oversimplifies the debate on stem cell research in a manner which has become commonplace in the mass media, but one which it is disappointing to see in a professional journal (‘Let science do its job’, Irish Medical Times, 30th November, 2007). There are two essential elements to his [...]
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