They Blog For You

The waning morale-sapped band of Tory bloggers jerked themselves into mildly abusive mode about NHS Direct. It must be party loyalty.

Checking with the company I had today, I found nothing but praise. A surprising number of people have used the service. The frequently repeated adjective was ‘reassuring.’

Several people told of anxiety lifted after a telephone conversation with a professional. One praised the warning that symptoms needed more attention. This was Frank Dobson’s baby when he was the health supremo. It was the most worthwhile NHS initiative in recent years.

Are the Tories becoming accident-prone? I thought their honeymoon would be good for a year. Already I have solid local Tories erupting about the broken election promises. The Equitable Life victims feel cheated out the full compensation promised in the election. More disillusionment is to come. Some even believed that all new cancer drugs would be freely available for all ailments under the Tories. One terminally ill constituent of mine has some bitter comments today.

Welcome to Government.

 Mice wise

A valued friend of mine, the poet Ann Drysdale, sent this poem to my blog this morning. It is based on the blog about dormice. Thanks Ann.

 

The Dormouse Bridge

Nobody knows it’s for dormice,


the catenary over the road,


for although many people deplore mice


It’s erected especially for mice,


albeit not fieldmice and floormice


or even for my mice and your mice 


(the invisible, secretive-spoor mice)


 

No.
Its use is exclusive to dormice 


(the dear little save-up-and-store mice,


the sleep-through-the-winter-and-snore mice,


the tiny, too timid to roar mice).


It’s there to enable the poor mice


to get into contact with more mice


on the opposite side of the road

without 


getting 


squished.

 

 Bad science

Yesterday I turned down the chance to comment on today’s Mail on Sunday front-page story. I feared that one case of compensation for possible serious adverse effects of MMR would be hailed as proof of serious danger.

The case is a sad one of a boy who developed epilepsy after an MMR jab 18 years ago. Tens of millions of other children have had the triple vaccine with no ill effects. One of three people who awarded compensation believed that the child was pre-disposed towards epilepsy and the jab might have triggered it. The other two disagreed. The Mail’s treatment was not as hysterical as I expected. Thankfully cricket dominated today’s headlines and little attention was given to the report.

If the Mail is looking for a worrying real story they could follow two concerns on the Swine Flu vaccine that was not fully trialled. From Australia there are reports of babies having fits and cases of narcolepsy are reported from Switzerland and other parts of Europe.

Nothing has yet been proved. But these concerns reinforce the wisdom of Poland’s decision not to mass vaccinate their population.