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Health Check: 23/11/2011

23/11/2011

BBC World Service - Health Check, 23/11/2011

What's made a difference in the dramatic drop in the number of new HIV cases?

What's helping the number of new HIV cases to fall in Sub-Saharan Africa, but not in North America? Is unnecessary surgery taking place? And what do annoying tunes in our heads tell us about memory?

DROP IN NEW HIV CASES
The dramatic fall in new HIV infections in many parts of the world has encouraged doctors working to defeat the epidemic. But what is it that’s made the most difference?  And why it is that the HIV epidemic in North America and Western and Central Europe remains stubbornly steady? 
In 2010 alone, more than 700,000 deaths from Aids were averted due to life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.  Susie McClean, a Senior Adviser to the International HIV/Aids Alliance believes that the UNAIDS goal of eradicating HIV Aids might seem ambitious – but could be possible with appropriate interventions. These might include anti-retroviral drugs, male circumcision programmes and needle exchange programmes for drug users. 

UNNECESSARY SURGERY IN GERMANY?
There’s news of the doctors causing a storm in Germany with their claims that surgeons are operating on patients when they don’t need to.  Surgeons there are performing far more operations than in other EU countries, leading a group of experienced doctors to claim that patients are having unnecessary surgery. The surgeons carrying out the operations claim that an ageing population and better diagnosis help to explain the trend. But doctors who believe that unnecessary operations are taking place have set up an online “second opinion” service. 

EARWORMS
That catchy tune in your head – or earworm – might help to uncover some of the workings of memory. Any unwanted melodies stuck in your brain can appear in response to a direct memory or emotion. And Dr Vicky Williamson who lectures on Music, Mind & Brain at Goldsmiths University of London  is studying hundreds of earworms sent in by listeners to the BBC to try to come up with strategies for banishing earworms – and perhaps even more intrusive and troubling memories like those resulting from post-traumatic stress disorder.

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