The Ickabog by JK Rowling: A Review

“What must happen for evil to get a grip on a person, or of a country, and what does it take to defeat it? Why do people choose to believe lies even on scant or non-existent evidence?” This was the foreward to JK Rowling’s account of life in the mythical country of Cornucopia. Our reviewer invites readers to think of any modern day parallels.

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Peer Review:

Peer review is a system used by scientists and clinicians to decide which primary research or secondary (review/commentary) content is worthy of being published. In theory it is a process of cumulative, collective knowledge that through publications is cascaded from experts to readers. But in practice things are not always what they seem!

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Does mother know best?

The cost-benefit decisions that drive NHS spending can be hard to reconcile. On one hand, loving parents face roadblocks from courts and medical experts when seeking life-saving treatments for their children. On the other, vast sums are spent on COVID-19 interventions, raising the question: What is a life truly worth, and who gets to decide? Shouldn’t loving parents have more say when the stakes are so high?

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Why do Monkeypox mRNA vaccines cause the same problems as Covid vaccines?

Here we reproduce a letter written to an MP by a constituent.

The letter raises concerns about the potential risks of approving future mRNA vaccines under a “platform authorisation” model whereby updates are assumed to be safe because the underlying methodology is considered safe – the way seasonal egg based influenza vaccines were regulated. This means the Monkeypox mRNA vaccines and others need not be authorised on a product-specific basis as discussed in a May 2024 MHRA Board meeting, but can piggy back on the claims made about the safety of covid vaccines. What could possibly go wrong?

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