EDmedblog

Food poisoning is the term for attacks of vomiting and diarrhoea which can happen within 24 hours of eating food contaminated with bacteria, toxins or chemicals.

However, it is also possible for the same disease to pass from person to person or, more commonly, to be spread by infected water.

The outbreak may involve many people or come from a source where many might be affected and prompt notification can lead the inspectors to investigate, find and contain the source before too many are stricken.

In recent years there was an Australia-wide outbreak of gastro-enteritis due to contaminated oysters from the St. George River in NSW and, before that, over 60 cases of typhoid occurred in Victoria from a carrier working in a takeaway food store. And infected salami caused an outbreak and temporarily closed the factory making the salami.

Typhoid and paratyphoid fevers are specific diseases due to specific germs.

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During the ’50s, diethylstilboestrol or DES, a synthetic oestrogen or female hormone, was widely used in treating cases of threatened miscarriage.

It has been shown that the daughters of women exposed to this hormone during pregnancy have an increased rate of developing cancer of the vagina although further research has shown the incidence is not as high as first supposed.

There is, however, a high incidence of genital and urinary abnormalities in the sons and daughters of women exposed to the hormone.

There does not appear to be any reduction of fertility in these individuals, although continuing research is necessary as more enter the reproductive age group.

Unfortunately, proper scientific research may be hindered by the intrusion of claims for damages in the litigation-prone U.S.

Special clinics have now been established at some of the major Australian women’s hospitals to investigate and monitor women exposed to DES.

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Don’t forget that you have the right to refuse to take part in clinical trials. If you do agree, you have the right to withdraw at any stage simply because you don’t want to keep having the randomly allotted treatment—you don’t need any more reason than that. If you refuse from the start or withdraw later, your doctors are obliged to continue to treat you to the best of their ability and without prejudice. If you know or suspect they are not doing this, it would be best to switch to another doctor, if this is possible.

As you know, your informed consent (usually written) is supposedly necessary before you can be treated in any form of research trial. I know that, definitely in Australia, and probably in other countries, some patients are treated in clinical trials without their knowledge or consent. Some doctors randomise their patients and then tell them that they recommend the treatment to which they have in fact already been allotted by chance. The only way you could suspect this is happening is if your doctor is particularly adamant that you follow his or her recommendation (although of course this may simply be a reaction to the fact that your questioning is undermining your doctor’s authority). You should ask directly if you suspect that you are being treated in a research project without your consent.

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