Vaginal mesh; alcohol and the heart
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 10 October 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Vaginal mesh, used for the treatment of prolapse and incontinence, has hit the news recently as women pursue litigation after suffering serious complications. But there have been concerns ever since the first type of vaginal mesh was launched in the mid-nineties, only to be withdrawn a few years later. Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, explains the 'shambolic' regulation of medical devices, Consultant gynaecologist Swati Jha, who has been collecting data on mesh for over a decade, believes media coverage has been muddled. Women speak of living with surgery, while Inside Health's Dr Margaret McCartney calls for a registry to collect effective data.
Plus, new guidance in Scotland challenges the so called 'J-shaped curve' - evidence that moderate drinking is good for the heart. Naveed Sattar, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow and part of the committee that produced the updated guidance, talks to Mark Porter about the changes.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, |
| 0:05.4 | The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's |
| 0:10.6 | Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Ryland, and comedy specials |
| 0:16.2 | from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Rommas Ranganaathan. However, and maybe I'm biased, |
| 0:21.9 | it's really all about the traitors uncloked. So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and |
| 0:26.5 | podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds. Hello, thank you for listening to this edition of |
| 0:31.3 | Inside Health. I hope you enjoy it. Coming up today, alcohol, conventional wisdom has it, |
| 0:36.7 | that drinking in moderation is good for your heart. |
| 0:40.0 | But does the latest science really support this? Is it time for a rethink? |
| 0:44.8 | The latest guidance on offer to the people of Scotland suggests that it is. |
| 0:49.3 | But first, something that's been making the headlines across the UK over the last few months, |
| 0:54.8 | vaginal mesh. Some groups are calling for surgeons to stop using it to treat problems like |
| 1:00.0 | prolapse and incontinence because of complications such as pain, recurrent infections and scarring. |
| 1:06.5 | Doreen Day had mesh inserted 10 years ago and has lived with the consequences ever since. |
| 1:12.5 | I went to the GP because I had something coming out of my vagina. |
| 1:20.3 | It was hanging down. |
| 1:22.2 | And the GP said, you've got a prolapse. |
| 1:26.1 | I'll send you to the consort. I wasn't in pain or anything. |
| 1:30.5 | It wasn't really bad. It was just there, you know, and it wasn't natural. I had the operation |
| 1:37.8 | in 2007 and as soon as I woke up from the operation, there was a problem I knew |
| 1:47.2 | because I was in absolute agony, but I was told that it would be okay. |
| 1:54.5 | The pain would get better as the time went on. |
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