13 Sep
Influenza is a very common infection that spreads during winter time. In general flu is a lightly disease, but it may complicate the evolution of chronic patients, and even healthy ones. The best answer to stop the propagation is just to wash your hands. But official institutions and private organizations push to introduce influenza vaccine [...]
4 Jun
Health systems are social products, and as such they cannot being invented. They are expression of the final election between “freedom” and “equity”. Freedom means that each person may select and pay for the needed health services. Equity means solidarity, to help those in need even at the cost that are fit. Only the USA [...]
4 Jun
Quaternary prevention is the prevention of harms by medical interventions and as such a foundation block of medicine (primum non nocere). All services have adverse effects, all services might produce damage to health. A few services produce more benefits than harms in specific situations. Unnecessary and inappropriate services mainly produce harms, and few benefits if [...]
8 Jan
There is a debate on vaccines. There is agreement on the advantages of some of them have for the individual and for the population, like the poliomyelitis, and there is great disagreement on others, like the vaccine against the human papilloma virus or the flu. In any case, vaccines should be a voluntary practice because [...]
13 Oct
Influenza vaccines are useless. But every year millions of patients and healthy persons get vaccinated against flu virus. Cochrane reviews are consistent: flu vaccines are useless in healthy persons (elderly, adults and children under two years) and do not stop transmission in between humans. The case of Poland versus the world demonstrated that the vaccine [...]
13 Oct
All health services have adverse effects, all health services might produce damage to health. A few services produce more benefits than harms in specific situations. Unnecessary and inappropriate services mainly produce harms, and few benefits if any. Quaternary prevention is the prevention of unnecessary and/or inappropriate services and the prevention of over-medicalisation. Quaternary prevention refers mainly to personal services, [...]
21 Sep
Year after year we have heard about the need of a new flu vaccine shot because the virus mutations. But this season, 2011-2012, the flu vaccine is exactly the same of the previous one, 2010-2011. Now the reason is that the immunity lasts one year. It is a “terminator” vaccine, as the sterile seeds you [...]
