Nothing makes my blood run cold so much as hearing about a new variety of ‘preventive’ medicine. This alarming notion aims to stop disease in its tracks by treating the patient with a just-in-case remedy while he is still healthy. Yet, medical preemptive strikes don’t have a good track record. They’re usually at the heart ...

It's been said that medicine is the new religion. Drugs and surgery have replaced God in our drive for certainty and control in a world that appears random. For his part, the doctor often dons a white coat as a player in the brave new priesthood, while dispensing prescription sheets to the laity, or patient. As a priest-like figure, the ...

It would be nice to think that he balances and deliberates before making his choice - but there are more dubious pressures at play.  All has been revealed by a drug company salesman who has just retired, and perhaps has a pang of conscience. He writes: "It's my job to figure out what a physician's price is.  For some ...

For such a haven of faceless bureaucrats, NICE has suddenly become the hate figure of the UK.  NICE - or the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence - is the gatekeeper of the National Health Service, and it is the ultimate arbiter of the drugs that are prescribed by doctors. Sometimes drugs are turned down on grounds of cost, ...