Medicine

Cold discomfort pharma: what does the science say on whether the drugs work?

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Over-the-counter cold-and-flu remedies are mostly useless, says Consumer NZ. The industry strongly disagrees. Siouxsie Wiles takes a look at the studies. Over the last few days a fight has broken out between Consumer NZ and the New Zealand Self Medication Industry over expensive cold and flu products. Consumer NZ says the products are no more … Read more

How to take the fight to bad science? By singing good science’s praises

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In the face of everything from anecdote posing as evidence to bias peddlers to outright quackery, the best riposte is to champion good science. But how? Dr Jessica Berentson-Shaw offers seven tips. Science and evidence gets a pretty bad rap these days. Some of this bad rap is the science community’s responsibility to fix – … Read more

What a GP: An interview with a general practitioner about kids and colic and parents and Dr. Google

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Spinoff Parents editor Emily Writes sits down with a General Practitioner and asks all of the hard questions, from colic to reflux to tongue ties to bloody amber beads.  This is the second in a series of posts in which I ask health professionals questions about child health, crowd-sourced from you. Today’s interviewee is a lovely … Read more

Calling a vagina a vagina: why cutesy code words are terrible for our sexual health

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New Zealand’s rates of sexually transmitted infections like chlamydia are some of the highest in the Western world. That’s the bad news, says Siouxsie Wiles – the good news is that we can begin fixing the problem just by being more frank about our genitalia and what it does. Lady parts. Bits. Flower. Front bottom. … Read more

In the fight against the superbug apocalypse, don’t fall for the idea that infectious diseases only happen somewhere else

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With antibiotics’ power on the wane, infectious diseases are increasingly hard to combat. And it is much more than just a third world problem, writes Siouxsie Wiles Every week they gather. In church halls and bowling clubs, community centres and rest homes. U3A. Probus. Lions. Rotary. Zonta. Groups of people, often retired, meeting to hear … Read more

An open letter to Maureen Pugh, the new National MP who ‘doesn’t believe in pharmaceutical drugs’

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Maureen Pugh is National’s newest MP, having replaced the new US ambassador, Tim Groser, from the list. Prompted by news that Pugh “doesn’t believe in pharmaceutical drugs”, Siouxsie Wiles drops her a line Dear Maureen Congratulations on becoming the National Party’s newest MP! I’ll have to admit, though, that I’m a little nervous about your … Read more