Vaccines, health and life

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 as any medication they always mix benefits and harms.

 

http://elproyectomatriz.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/vaccines-health-and-life-by-juan-gervas-2012.pdf

Logical graphical representation of medical activity

20 Dec

The health system has four functions: 1/ health protection, 2/ health promotion, 3/ health prevention, and 4/ care of diseases and helping to die. In this text there is a proposal for a graphical representation that helps in understanding the medical activity.

Influence vaccines: miracles, errors and business [updated 13/10/2011]

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 against swine flu (pandemic) was also useless. They promise almost miraculous results with flu vaccines about control of sickness absent and that of mortality. Read more in this paper.

Quaternary prevention: theory and practice

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, to clinical care, but collective services is not out of scope. The topic of the 2011 Seminar of Innovation in Primary Care was quaternary prevention. We included the speakers abstracts and the summary of the face-to-face encounter.

  • Prevención cuaternaria: teoría y práctica en la consulta, la enseñanza y la política sanitaria, y su relación con la equidad y el coste. Gérvas, J. Barcelona, octubre 2011. Descargar resumen aquí.

Flu vaccine 2011-2012, a terminator vaccine. More reason to say a reasonable “no” by professionals and patients

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 must buy for every crop. The text is devoted to this topic.

  • Flu vaccine 2011-2012, a terminator vaccine. More reason to say a reasonable “no” by professionals and patients. Gérvas, J. Madrid (Spain). September 2011. Download English version here

Critical steps in Europe to set up PHC under conditions of resource constraint. The case fo the Mediterranean countries

21 Sep

Primary health care have a different status across countries. This paper is an exploration of the reasons why. Much can be learned by analysing Spain as a benchmark, and comparing it with other Mediterranean countries (Greece, Italy, and Portugal).

  • Critical steps in Europe to set up PHC under conditions of resource constraint. The case fo the Mediterranean countries. Gérvas, J., Durán, A. Oxford Policy Management Ltd (United Kingdom), for the Department of International Development, Georgia Health Sector Reform Programme – CNTR 02 4201, PHC; 2004. Download English version here.

PHC: western European best practices of institutional responsabilities

21 Sep

Primary health care provides services fitted to health needs of the population. To understand the way of working in PHC we need to consider a general framework with focus in the workforce (providers) and the way of payments (and incentives). Considerations around the Duth model helps in this paper to make proposals for improvement.

  • PHC: western European best practices of institutional responsabilities. Gérvas, J., Durán, A. Oxford Policy Management Ltd (United Kingdom), for the Department of International Development, Georgia Health Sector Reform Programme – CNTR 02 4201, PHC; 2004. Download English version here.
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