I see that there has been something of a rethink regarding the advice that we routinely take aspirin to ensure that we don’t succumb to strokes as we grow older.
The use of aspirin to ward off heart attacks and strokes in those who do not have obvious cardiovascular disease should be abandoned, researchers say.
The Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) study says aspirin can cause serious internal bleeding and does not prevent cardiovascular disease deaths.
It says doctors should review all patients currently taking the drug for prevention of heart disease.
Well, ain’t that a surprise. This is a bit like all those other health scares that we have been subjected to over the years – we were all going to die of BSE if we ate beef-burgers. We didn’t. We were all going to die of AIDS. We didn’t. We were all going to get SARS. We didn’t. Salt was going to kill us through high blood pressure, yet this has been thoroughly debunked. When medics started touting the idea that we take drugs “just in case” my bollocks antennae twitched. They were right to do so. I do not, never have and never will, take any medicine “just in case”. If I am ill, I’ll take medication. If not, I won’t. This is why I abandoned my GP’s advice to take beta blockers on a routine basis to combat my migraines. Migraines are a bloody nuisance, to be sure, but to be permanently medicating for them is way over the top.
I am likewise reluctant to take a vaccine for swine flu. Partly because the case for a pandemic has been somewhat overstated and partly because I have had flu on more than one occasion before and lived. I do not have any underlying health problems that will make an otherwise inconvenient illness fatal. Therefore a vaccine for one strain of influenza virus is unnecessary.
It seems that every time there is a health scare, sooner or later it will turn out to be either false or over stated. Consequently, scepticism has become my default position. If medics don’t like it, they have only themselves to blame.