'Nurse entrepreneurs' a case of government rhetoric?

INTRODUCTION: Nursing has come to play a prominent role in government health policy since 1997. Extending the scope of nursing practice into activities previously carried out by doctors can assist a managerialist and 'modernizing' project of increasing National Health Service (NHS) efficiency by removing demarcations between professional groups. METHODS: Drawing on elements of poststructuralist linguistics, this paper presents an analysis of a key government speech in the context of a discussion of overall policy intentions. RESULTS: The speech can be seen as an example of how government has attempted to use rhetoric to make its goals attractive to nurses. CONCLUSION: Policy-makers have to make their policies acceptable to those whom they expect to implement them. In this case, organizational efficiency, chiefly in terms of broader access to NHS services, as well as role substitution, is aligned with government policy promoting social enterprise and 'sold' to the nursing profession as enhancing its status compared with medicine

How the factoid of wind turbines causing \u27vibroacoustic disease\u27 came to be \u27irrefutably demonstrated\u27

Objective: In recent years, claims have proliferated in cyberspace that wind turbines cause a large variety of symptoms and diseases. One of these, vibroacoustic disease (VAD) is frequently mentioned. The aim of this study is to examine the quality of the evidence on how VAD came to be associated with wind turbine exposure by wind farm opponents. Methods: Searches of the web (Google advanced) and major research databases for papers on VAD and wind turbines. Self-citation analysis of research papers on VAD. Results: Google returned 24,700 hits for VAD and wind turbines. Thirty-five research papers on VAD were found, none reporting any association between VAD and wind turbines. Of the 35 papers, 34 had a first author from a single Portuguese research group. Seventy-four per cent of citations to these papers were self-citations by the group. Median self-citation rates in science are around 7%. Two unpublished case reports presented at conferences were found asserting that VAD was irrefutably demonstrated to be caused by wind turbines. The quality of these reports was abject. Conclusions: VAD has received virtually no scientific recognition beyond the group who coined and promoted the concept. There is no evidence of even rudimentary quality that vibroacoustic disease is associated with or caused by wind turbines. Implications: The claim that wind turbines cause VAD is a factoid that has gone \u27viral\u27 in cyberspace and may be contributing to nocebo effects among those living near turbines