George Winter
The ethics of online fundraising for medical treatment
Given growing concerns about medical crowdfunding, has the time come to instate gatekeepers to monitor the area? The subjects of Thomas Grey’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard are “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife”; journalist Douglas Murray has written of The Madness of Crowds (2019); and in a speech given at the University…
Read MoreEvidence-based medicine is not about consensus
The decision by NICE to pause the publication of new guidelines for ME/CFS was misjudged On 17 August the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) “paused” publication of its updated guideline on the diagnosis and management of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Earlier in August, three members of NICE’s 21-person guideline committee…
Read MoreThe dire combination of homelessness and imprisonment
We are more than individuals, but part of a community with shared moral responsibilities In ‘Down and Out in Covent Garden’ – from his collected pieces in The Dog’s Last Walk (2017) – Howard Jacobson asserts: “Sentimentality works by our seeing only what we want to see.” This thought was prompted as Jacobson left the…
Read MoreRemembering we are mortal
People with conditions, such as motor neurone disease, and their carers deserve as much funding for research and quality-of-life enhancement as society can give The double-decker x62 bus that drives daily past our house between Melrose and Edinburgh is wrapped in a bright livery of blue, white, and yellow tartan. Along each side is the…
Read MoreWhen everybody is an expert…
‘Science’ does not refer to one thing, and neither does ‘the public’ In a piece for The Critic (28 May 2020, https://thecritic.co.uk/the-ecstasy-of-sanctimony/), a writer called Seymour Silk defends his neighbour Dominic Cummings (top tip: select ‘safe search’ before Googling those names together) and the excursion the latter undertook with his family from London to Durham.…
Read MoreThe smell of human adventure
Who is brave enough to tackle Everest’s faecal time bomb? In the June 2013 issue of National Geographic, Mark Jenkins wrote of Mount Everest that the two standard routes, the northeast and the southeast ridges, “are not only dangerously crowded, but also disgustingly polluted, with garbage leaking out of the glaciers and pyramids of human…
Read MoreEnvironmentalism is a cry from the soul
Public services, such as healthcare, should understand the impact they have on the environment In May 1982, after Argentina had invaded the Falklands, the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher offered this insight to the Scottish Conservative Party conference: “It is exciting to have a real crisis on your hands, when you have spent half your…
Read MoreIt’s all in the mind
George Winter questions the scientific basis of psychiatry and wonders about the future of the speciality
Read MoreEating meat – what’s the wurst that can happen?
George Winter looks at the evidence linking the consumption of red meat and processed foods to a range of health conditions
Read MoreMore than an endurance test
Running is a great way of keeping fit, but George Winter asks whether marathons are for everyone and if there could be adverse health consequences for ageing athletes
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