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Inside Health

Yellow cards, virtual autopsies, genetics and cancer

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4575 Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2013

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why the reporting of drug side effects has dropped by a third in a decade - it's the responsibility of GP's and the general public to notifiy through the yellow card system - but it's on the wane - does that mean drug safety is slipping through the net?

Mark Porter finds out how the medical technology that identified why King Richard 111 died could be used to help the rest of us.

And answers a listener's question about so called 'chemo brain'. Does chemotherapy really effect memory and the ability to concentrate? Plus a family history of cancer - is it always as worrying as it sounds?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I am Ed Gamble, host of another BBC

0:04.6

podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like

0:09.9

Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylen,

0:15.0

and comedy specials from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Romesh Ranganathan.

0:19.9

However, and maybe I'm biased, it's really all about the traitors uncoaked.

0:24.3

So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds.

0:29.5

Hello, I'm Dr Mark Porter and thank you for downloading this edition of Inside Health.

0:34.0

I hope you enjoy it.

0:35.8

Hello and welcome to Inside Health coming up today, something old.

0:40.8

We've scanned the skeleton that was dug up in Leicester recently by the archaeology department.

0:47.2

So Richard III has been on the scanner.

0:49.8

And did you find a cause of death?

0:50.8

We did. Yes.

0:51.9

And what was that?

0:52.8

Well, it's fairly obvious. There's a large hole in his skull, so I think that's probably what killed him off. And something new. I meet the team pioneering a high-tech alternative to post-mortem examinations. It may have helped confirm how King Richard died, but what's in it for the rest of us? Also, cancer and your family at what stage does a family

1:12.8

history of cancer start to have serious implications for your health? And so-called chemo brain.

1:18.7

We investigate a listener's concerns about the effects of chemotherapy on memory and intellect.

1:24.9

But first questions about the effectiveness of one of the mainstays of drug safety

1:29.1

in the UK, yellow cards, the scheme, which depends upon healthcare professionals and the public

1:34.4

using the yellow form to report suspected side effects. It's used by the Medicines and Healthcare

1:39.0

Products Regulatory Agency to monitor the safety of medicines and vaccines. But it only works if people make the effort to report their concerns, and the latest statistics

1:47.9

suggest the scheme may be withering on the vine.

...

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