Professor John Robertson OBA

The Scotsman‘s David Bol, today, has a frontpage masterclass in confusion. It seems to be about one NHS nurse claiming she’s had to go private for some unspecified cancer ‘check‘ and who is warning that ‘someone could die‘, presumably from delay in that ‘check‘.

Before you can ask what the cancer in question is, so that we might look at the published figures, Bol charges straight into a piece about the apparent problem of cervical cancer screening uptake not hitting the 80% target.

So, if there are delays in the cancer ‘check‘ this one nurse has ‘had to‘ go private on, it’s because other women are just not turning up for different cancer scans for which there is good access and no apparent long delays but they’re not bothering to attend? Bol’s link is ‘her warning comes as.‘ Lazy, shoddy, meaningless.

When I saw cervical cancer, I remembered something Bol has not told us. This:

An exciting new study from Public Health Scotland (PHS), in collaboration with the Universities of Strathclyde and Edinburgh, shows that no cervical cancer cases have been detected in fully vaccinated women following the human papillomavirus (HPV) immunisation at age 12-13 since the programme started in Scotland in 2008.

https://publichealthscotland.scot/news/2024/january/no-cervical-cancer-cases-detected-in-vaccinated-women-following-hpv-immunisation/

Bol also seems not to be interested in telling us this:

Two new studies describe rates of invasive cervical cancer among women vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV, the causative pathogen) dropping to zero in Scotland with early vaccination but rising in women in low-income US counties. Scotland rolled out its national HPV vaccine program in 2008, with routine immunization of girls aged 12 or 13 and an initial 2-year catch-up for girls aged 14 to 18 years.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/human-papillomavirus-hpv/cervical-cancer-plummets-after-hpv-vaccination-scotland-rising-disease

2008? So 17 years of 12-13 year-olds and 14-18 year-olds have been vaccinated against cervical cancer? Might they (many thousands of them now in their 30s and 40s), fully immune, be choosing not to turn up for pointless screening of 25-64 year-olds?

Finally on cancer, unspecified, checks. Bol doesn’t mention this:

Cancer waiting times – NHS Scotland treats significantly more within target waiting times again

or this:

NHS Scotland treats 98% of urgent skin cancer cases within 31 days compared with only 82% in England but Herald platforms Sandesh Gulhane (Con) to misrepresent the data from a different report