Firing the good doctor

Last updated: Friday, October 24, 2008 Print

This week finally saw justice being done in the long-running, Kafkaesque struggle between Dr Malcolm Naudé and the Mpumalanga health department.

In a typical example of the pseudoscientific madness we saw under previous health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the Mpumalanga department of health fired Dr Naudé in 2001 for providing antiretroviral drugs to rape victims.

Yes, he was fired for providing rape victims with the best available medical treatment.

On Tuesday the Johannesburg labour court ruled that Naude was unfairly dismissed and awarded him R100 000 in damages.

Mark Haywood of the Aids Law Project described the ruling as a "final strong statement in favour of doctors who practise ethical medicine [amid] interference from politicians."

Aids policies cost 330 000 lives
As much as we would like to stop harping on the past, a study released this week put in to sharp focus just what an immense toll Tshabalala-Msimang's controversial health policies took on our society.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health estimate that more than 330 000 lives were lost to HIV/Aids in South Africa from 2000 to 2005 because a feasible and timely antiretroviral treatment programme was not implemented.

Just by doing roughly what some of our neighbouring countries did and not dragging our feet, we could have saved more than a quarter of a million lives. And considering our superior infrastructure and economic development, we would have been able to save many more had the political will been present.

Fortunately, it seems that that political will has finally arrived in the form of new health minister Barbara Hogan, who this week reaffirmed her commitment to step up the fight against HIV/Aids.

Smokers should be vaccinated
This week US federal advisers recommended that smokers, children, and the elderly should be vaccinated against a pneumonia-causing germ. It remains to be seen whether the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention takes the advice on board.

If given the go-ahead, it would be the first vaccine aimed specifically at smokers. And, quite apart from the benefits of the vaccine itself, the mere fact of there being a vaccine specifically for smokers might help make it clearer than ever before that smokers are putting their health in serious jeopardy.

And if you only smoke the occasional cigarette, research out this week suggests that you may nevertheless be doing serious harm to your arteries which may, in the long-term, lead to cardiovascular disease.

New drugs not all that
We also reported this week on a study that found that a new class of drugs known as biologicals (made of living material) can often have serious side effects.

Apparently, about a quarter of these drugs start showing worrying side-effect soon after hitting the market.

If anything, this study is a reminder that, no matter what the marketers say, we shouldn't have too high expectations of new medicines. The sad truth is that a "wonder drug" is a very rare thing, indeed. And even then, there will be some side-effects.

And finally, scientist said this week that they have managed to grow new prostates in mice from single stem cells. Of course, doing this in humans is something very different, but as a proof of concept, the fact that you can start with a stem cell and end up with a prostate is quite amazing.

(Marcus Low, Health24)

Sources include HealthDay, Sapa, EurekAlert and Reuters Health