Dr Hairy's Podcast

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss articles from the BMJ:

• Will a new NHS structure in England help recovery from the pandemic?, BMJ.n248
• Universal basic income and covid-19 pandemic, BMJ.n193
• Rammya Mathew: Is home working bad for our health?, BMJ.n333
• Lifetime perspective on alcohol and brain health, BMJ.m4691
• Treatment interventions to maintain abstinence from alcohol in primary care,BMJ.m3934
• Puberty blockers do not alleviate negative thoughts in children with gender dysphoria, finds study, BMJ.n356

This is the first in what we hope will be a series of interviews with interesting people involved in medical research.

In this one we talk to Dr Alexander Jarasch, co-founder of CovidGraph (https://covidgraph.org), a non-profit research and communication platform encompassing over 128,000 Covid-related publications (plus 30,000,000 others from biometrical research), case statistics, genes and functions, molecular data and much more. Their aim is to use graph database technology to help researchers quickly and efficiently find their way through these massive COVID-19 datasets. It's mind boggling stuff!

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss articles from the BMJ, Digital Health and elsewhere:

• Could better connecting of data lead to a cure for Covid-19? (https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/09/could-better-connecting-of-data-lead-to-a-cure-for-covid-19)
• Covid 19: a fork in the road for general practice (BMJ m3709)
• Fifteen year quality of life outcomes in men with localised prostate cancer (BMJ m3503)
• Taking a wellbeing years approach to policy choice (BMJ m3853)
• When to release the lockdown? A wellbeing framework for analysing costs and benefits (Centre for Economic Performance, Occasional Paper no 49)

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss articles from The Guardian, Digital Health and the BMJ:

• Where are we on immunity and vaccines? BMJ 2020;370:m3096

• Management of post-acute covid-19 in primary care, BMJ 2020;370:m3026

• Appraisal and revalidation for UK doctors—time to assess the evidence, BMJ 2020;370:m3415

• Prioritising primary care patients with unexpected weight loss for cancer investigation, BMJ 2020;370:m2651

• Breast cancer: study claiming that screening women in their 40s 'found the opposite', say crtics, BMJ 2020;370:m3191

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss articles from The Guardian, Digital Health and the BMJ. To sign the People's Vaccine petition, go to https://actions.oxfam.org/international/covid-19-vaccine/petition/.

• 'The world needs a 'people's vaccine' for coronavirus, not a big-pharma monopoly', The Guardian, 23rd July 2020 (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/23/world-needs-coronavirus-vaccine-big-pharma-monopoly-astrazeneca-patent-pandemic)
• 'Code for Ireland’s Covid Tracker app given to global public health project', Digital Health, 23rd July 2020 (https://www.digitalhealth.net/2020/07/code-for-irelands-covid-tracker-app-given-to-global-public-health-project/)
• 'Covid-19: Timing is critical for antibody tests, finds Cochrane review', BMJ, m2420
• 'Has Sweden's controverial covid-19 strategy been successful?', BMJ, m2376
• 'The healthiness and sustainability of food based dietary guidelines', BMJ, m2417
• 'Food Planet Health: Summary report of the EAT-Lancet Commission' (https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/eat-lancet-commission-summary-report/)

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss articles from the Observer and the BMJ. Subjects under discussion this month, as for the last couple of months, are all connected to the Covid-19 outbreak - what's going to happen now that we're coming out of lockdown? Are we going to get a 'second wave'?

• 'Germany may have more immunological dark matter', The Observer, 31/5/20
• 'All cause mortality/Covid-19 in Nembro, Lombardy', BMJ m1835
• 'Too slow and fundamentally flawed', BMJ m2246
• 'Can the UK emulate S Korea's approach to Covid-19?', BMJ m2084

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss medical articles from the BMJ and the HSJ. Subjects under discussion this month are all connected to the Covid-19 outbreak:

• PPE guidance
• Self-isolation: the one-week rule
• Guidance about Ibuprofen
• Benefits vs adverse consequences of the lockdown
• The German strategy
• Death rates in NHS staff
• Care homes: the new front

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss medical articles from the BMJ and the BJGP. Subjects under discussion this month:

• Crisis in the supply of medicines
• Coronavirus home testing pilot
• The potential of placing a digital health assistant in patients' homes
• Personalised and risk based cancer screening 

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss medical articles from the BMJ and the BJGP. Subjects under discussion this month:

• Coronavirus
• Different models of blood pressure monitoring
• Social prescribing - what the benefits?
• PCNs and the new DESs
• The gender pay gap in primary care

Dr David Hindmarsh and Julian Le Saux discuss medical articles from the BJGP and the BMJ. Subjects under discussion this month: non-attendance for 2-week cancer referral appointments; unscheduled care for people with terminal cancer; a new approach to case discussions; a new definition of quaternary prevention; AI system for interpreting breast scans; air pollution and stroke; CRP testing for COPD exacerbations; and the French government's decision to abandon funding for dementia drugs.