The next series of seminars are due to start at the end of March
2001. They are held on Tuesday afternoons at 4pm (except 19
April, which is on Thursday). All are welcome.
The topics are as follows :
20 March Professor Tony McMichael,
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Climate change and health: can we estimate the
risk?
27 March Dr Thomas Dormandy
Whittington Hospital, London (retired).
The image of an illness: tuberculosis in the
bourgeois century.
This seminar is based on his recent book "The White Death: A
history of tuberculosis", which describes the social, artistic and
human impact of this very prevalent disease, some of which is still
not perhaps widely recognised.
3 April Dr Alan Malcolm,
Chief Executive, Institute of Biology, London.
Manna or mania - some reflections on genetically
modified (GM) products
10 April Professor George Miller, MRC Epidemiology &
Care Unit,
St Bartholomew's & The Royal London School of
Medicine
Clotting factor VII and fat-rich meals
Factor VII plays a key role in the initiation of coagulation and
arterial thrombosis. Therefore its transient activation after fat-rich
meals has been a cause for concern. The mechanism of this
postprandial effect has been elusive, but studies have now provided
new insight.
17 April Professor John Dickinson, Emeritus Professor.
St Bartholomew's & The Royal London School of
Medicine
Why are strokes related to hypertension?
Stroke and hypertension are strongly associated. This review
considers the following questions, none of which at present have a
definitive or generally agreed answer: (i) why does hypertension
predispose to stroke? (ii) why is cerebral infarction closely related
to cerebral haemorrhage? (iii) why does lowering blood pressure
prevent strokes? and (iv) is the stroke-prone spontaneously
hypertensive rat relevant to studies of stroke in man?
19 April Dr Peter MacCallum
Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine
Hormone replacement therapy and cardiovascular
disease.
24 April Dr Paula Williamson
University of Liverpool
The treatment of epilepsy: reviewing the evidence
The focus of the Cochrane Epilepsy Group is on assessing the
outcomes of interventions designed to prevent and manage
childhood and adulthood seizures and epilepsy. In this talk, I shall
discuss the reviews of anti-epileptic drug monotherapies involving
individual patient meta-analyses. Statistical issues highlighted
include outcome definition, misclassification, heterogeneity and the
idea of borrowing strength across analyses of related questions.
1 May Dr Basil Hetzel,
Chairman, International Council for Control of
Iodine Deficiency Disorders, Australia.
The global elimination of brain damage due to
iodine deficiency.
Iodine deficiency is recognised by the WHO as the most common
preventable cause of brain damage. A global program has been
operating since 1990 when the World Summit for Children listed
elimination of iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) as a goal for the
year 2000. The International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency
Disorders (ICCIDD) has been the scientific resource recognised by
the WHO. There are 130 IDD affected countries with a population of
2 billion at risk of which 109 now have programs for the elimination
of IDD. Progress has been remarkable with two thirds of
households in 1999 having access to iodized salt.
Allan Hackshaw
Lecturer in Epidemiology & Medical Statistics
Wolfson Institute of Environmental & Preventive Medicine
St Bartholomew's & The London School of Medicine & Dentistry
Queen Mary, University of London
Charterhouse Square
London EC1M 6BQ
Telephone: (+44) (020) 7982 6283
Fax: (+44) (020) 7982 6270
email: [log in to unmask]
