This is the last week to pick up tickets for our conference in Christchurch at the end of July at a discounted price - from the 1st of June, the tickets will go up to their full price. So if you want to come and see the SGU, their entourage, and some engaging and informative local speakers, book now to avoid disappointment!
In the beginning of May, media outlets were reporting some very alarming news: more newborns were dying from bleeding, often internal. The suspected cause, however, wasn't birth trauma, Covid, infection, or a tragic uptick in infanticide. Instead, it was due to Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding (VKDB), formerly haemorrhagic disease of the newborn. Fortunately, it is preventable via an injection of synthetic vitamin K called Phytomenadione (or by its brand name, Konakion). The injection is given soon after birth, or the medication can be administered orally with three staggered doses over three weeks. However parental refusal has been a perennial issue with the vitamin K shot since the 1990s and, for this brief piece, I will do my best to provide an overview of the issue. Rest assured, there is no evidence of an increase in VKDB deaths in New Zealand and, in fact, there may not have been any at all. Still, parental refusal of vitamin K can contribute to declining vaccinations, a trend that was studied a decade ago and is in need of an update.
An Australian woman with a newborn has passed whooping cough onto her daughter, and now wishes she'd taken the vaccine she was offered:
Now that Terri Schiavo has been allowed to die peacefully there is an opportunity to reflect on the matter free from the hysteria and religious arguments advanced as an excuse to maintain her in a vegetative state. When discussing the ethics of the situation with a local surgeon he commented that the main problem was that the feeding tube should never have been inserted in the first place. A feeding tube is surgically inserted into the stomach through a hole in the abdominal wall. Once such medical interventions have been made it is very hard to reverse them. In this case the debate appears to have been hijacked by Catholic pressure groups.
One of the techniques used by quacks is to attack conventional medicine as being a conspiracy against the laiety.