Terry Maguire – Slugger O'Toole

The Cass Report and the misuse of puberty blockers…

Terry Maguire on August 26, 2024, 7:55 am

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background pattern

Northern Ireland will introduce a temporary ban on puberty blockers on 27th August in line with a ban that has been in place in GB since March 2024. A report in April 2024 by paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass ignited an ideological war. Report here (PDF). On one side are those who support and promote the manipulation of natural biological processes in young people so that they can eventually transition and change their biological sex. On the other side are mostly …

A Hybrid Health Service is here whethere we like it or not…

Terry Maguire on August 17, 2024, 7:00 am

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citiscan result hand ok

Thirty-five years-ago our Strabane home was struck by tragedy. In February my 58 year old father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer just as he was about to retire from Dupont. Then in April my youngest sister was involved in a serious car accident putting her in a coma for six weeks and on a long road to recovery. They both received the exceptional care we expected from the Health Service and we are still, today, so grateful for that. …

The UK Covid19 inquiry What is its purpose?

Terry Maguire on November 29, 2023, 7:00 am

| Readers 2033

The UK Covid19 Inquiry, promised by the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the early days of the pandemic, is meeting and pouring over what happened with a view of learning lessons for next time. And yes, there will be a next time. Science and politics are on the stand and both are coming under intense scrutiny. Its terms of reference; “to examine, consider and report on preparations and the response to the pandemic in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern …

Codeine – The Real Opium of the Masses…

Terry Maguire on October 25, 2023, 12:30 pm

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In June 2022 the Department of Health (DoH), invited pharmacies with high sales of codeine containing painkillers to a Zoom meeting. Being on the invitation list itself was a cause of concern I thought as I dialled in. I was unaware DoH had such precise data on our commercial activity but due to its Controlled Drug Reconciliation Programme (CDRP) it tracks all controlled drug purchases and supplies. CDRP is a surveillance system primarily designed to identify egregious and over-zealous supply …

Wegovy: panacea for our obesity epidemic?

Terry Maguire on June 14, 2023, 7:00 am

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a man holding his stomach with his hands

With 66% of population of the UK and Ireland overweight or obese and the national Health Services all too aware while largely ignoring this fact, we are facing into a significant public health crisis that is already with us. Wygovey is a medicine everyone knows, or will know soon enough, and is being promoted as the panacea for our corpulence and being identified as a game changer. Wegovy is the most famous medicine we don’t have. Yet in the absence …

Keir Starmer’s health plans will need to address my sweet tooth…

Terry Maguire on May 27, 2023, 7:00 am

| Readers 732

burger beside fried potatoes with drinking glass

Keir Starmer, preparing for office, is setting out his stall on policy and last week addressed Labour’s plans for the Health Service which essentially means England as Health is devolved. But any policies by a UK government at Westminster will affect us here if only in future Health Service investments and policy direction. The current health service, which for us includes social care, seems insatiable when it comes to funding so throwing money at this problem alone is not going to …

Fat Profits or a Fat Lip for Novo Nordisk?

Terry Maguire on February 6, 2023, 11:01 am

| Readers 624

white round medication pill on yellow surface

Annual continuing professional development (CPD) is a requirement for most professions including pharmacy. Keeping up-to-date with our art and craft is essential to keeping our customers and patients safe. There is considerable freedom for individual pharmacists to choose what subjects they wish to complete in the required 30 hours of CPD in a given year and drug manufacturers have always been a useful and convenient source of lectures and seminars. The Sunday Times (Feb 5th 2023 p11) reports that a …

Whether Jesus or The Expectation Effect, miracles do happen…

Terry Maguire on January 26, 2023, 10:51 am

| Readers 2052

crepuscular rays beyond trees under blue sky

A friend of many years sought my help in 2019 for what seemed, judging by the symptoms, to be uncomplicated heartburn. He worked in hospitality and he worked hard with plenty of stress as he was self-employed and an employer. Initially over-the-counter omeprazole and Gaviscon managed the symptoms but they returned aggressively at which point I insisted he visit his GP as weight-loss was also becoming apparent. The GP immediately referred him to hospital where a progressed lesion in his …

Media’s responsibility in reporting health stories: avoiding public panic…

Terry Maguire on December 10, 2022, 2:00 pm

| Readers 976

person using both laptop and smartphone

The death of a child from an infectious disease is shocking and heartbreaking in equal measure. It’s thankfully so rare nowadays that when it occurs, and the event is local, it understandably causes panic. Over the past week, with the reported tragic death of Stella-Lily McCorkindale following a spike in Strep A infections locally and other child deaths across the UK (there have been an estimated 16 deaths to date), we went straight to panic mode. The pressure on out-of-hours …

Return of the Psychedelics…

Terry Maguire on December 3, 2022, 9:16 am

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entrance signage

When I met Albert Hoffman in Basle in the late 1970s I had no idea who he was. At a pharmacy student conference, he was the main speaker and I was immediately enthralled and captivated as he outlined his work on the discovery of LSD and his interest in the origins of man’s association with psychopharmacology. I have remained enthralled ever since. I read all I could find on the topic in the years following his lecture. Foolishly I wrote …

Vaping: We’re being fooled again….

Terry Maguire on November 26, 2022, 8:07 am

| Readers 3861

grayscale photography of smoking man

Normally coal-mine owners don’t advise on climate change and Mcdonald’s or Mars don’t advise on healthy eating so why all of a sudden is Big Tobacco advising on health? Big Tobacco, which produces a product that has killed countless millions over the last 100 years and will kill countless millions in the coming years, is now positioning itself as a business committed to our health and well-being. You really need to applaud the nerve. There are now more than three …

Good Science, Bad Science. The ups and downs of ivermectin…

Terry Maguire on November 3, 2022, 2:36 pm

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multicolored stairs handrail

I first came face-to-face with Bill Campbell where he stood outside the old stone fish house at the top of the Mall in Ramelton. As he was a newcomer to the Lennon river bank I stopped to ask who Bill was and why he was there. To my shame, I had never heard of him. Since his 2015 Nobel Prize for medicine this 92-year-old son of Co. Donegal has become an international celebrity; the man who discovered ivermectin the drug …

What is behind the spike in excess deaths?

Terry Maguire on October 24, 2022, 10:39 am

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colored pencil lined up on top of white surface

Vaccine season again. Flu is likely to be a problem this winter and it is essential that all those eligible get their flu jab as soon as possible. Vaccination generally is an incredibly effective public health intervention. We were all convinced with the miracle that was the Covid19 vaccine programme but, as we jab patients for the 5th time with a vaccine that has had little modification since introduced in December 2020, perhaps we need a proper critical assessment of …

Heroin Assisted Treatment is coming but will it reduce drug harms?

Terry Maguire on September 5, 2022, 7:47 am

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A person using spoon and syringe in consuming illegal substance

Increasingly it seems, politicians, media columnists and other opinion leaders support further liberalisation of recreational drug use. The Utopia they seek is to rid society of the drug pushers and the cartels. The mess drug use creates in any society is unpleasant to say the least and when things are at their worst it is then, in moral panic, we move; creatively, innovatively with much less resistance towards other ways to address the problem. The War on Drugs was lost …

Rishi Sunak and the Science and politics of Covid19…

Terry Maguire on August 30, 2022, 11:59 am

| Readers 1968

text

The Spectator got great publicity for its interview last week with Rishi Sunak. The Spectator’s lockdown-sceptical editor Fraser Nelson sees his interview with Rishi as a coup being the first, in advance of a public inquiry into Covid19, to suggest that democracy wasn’t working well during Covid19 and that too few unelected scientists were alone in deciding and making policy. Superficially it all sounds as if Rishi was against lockdowns just unable to influence things even though he was the …

The depressing facts about depression treatment…

Terry Maguire on August 25, 2022, 11:59 am

| Readers 1154

Shot made while filming for yesHEis project

Clinical depression is a very serious mental condition bringing untold misery to millions and, being strongly linked to suicide, depression, if not properly managed can be fatal and too often is. Yet we are not good it seems at managing clinical depression and it’s not really anyone’s fault rather it’s a failure in a systems approach that has attempted to standardise treatment, something generally good in itself, but in depression, sadly, maybe making things worse. The paradigm of current management …

With an update vaccine just licensed where are we now with Covid19?

Terry Maguire on August 17, 2022, 12:35 pm

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What now? | Follow on Instagram: @timmossholder

Back in February when England dared to introduce its “living with Covid19” policy – the first of the UK regions to do so – they were accused of risking the lives of thousands, perhaps millions. At that time, supposedly more sensible, less reckless, leaders in the other UK regions, including N. Ireland, said they would not play “covid-roulette” with the lives and wellbeing of their citizens. Most sensible people back then were livid with the English policy and rightly so …

When the NHS is found lacking, think “Vive La France!”

Terry Maguire on August 11, 2022, 11:59 am

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eiffel tower, love, hands

A constant burning pain in my chest woke me from a deep sleep around 5 a.m. I got up and walked to the bathroom, tripping over my suitcase and wakening my sleeping wife. Standing in the bathroom I hoped the pain might lessen but it stubbornly remained. I had had some chest pain and was breathless walking back from the restaurant the evening before. Biarritz has a steep incline up from its roaring surf beaches but the pain had eased …

We need a more holistic and societal view of healthcare and wellbeing…

Terry Maguire on August 8, 2022, 11:59 am

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white house under blue sky

Terry MaguireI am a pharmacist in Belfast.

Turkey Teeth and Harem Hair, Is medical tourism lengthening our waiting lists?

Terry Maguire on June 21, 2022, 12:00 pm

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Galata view from the Golden Horn

I had a short trip back to Istanbul this June. When I last visited in 2016 I had cause for concern. My concern was, it seems, ill-founded and poorly judged and my hopes that things would improve were granted. In 2016 there had been an attempted military coup and since then things generally have gotten worse; an economic crisis in Turkey created by the financial ignorance of its for-life president Tayyip Erdogan, the proximity to a tragic war in Ukraine …