You might expect it to be errant teenagers and women with a more chaotic approach to life who are most likely to mismanage their contraception, but it is not necessarily so. A study of affluent, well educated, career oriented women in South Africa who consulted private doctors found this demographic group to be sadly misinformed about the most basic facts related to oral contraception. The findings probably say more about the consultations than about the women themselves (Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care 2005;31: 307-9).

According to a report in New Scientist (22 October 2005), a campaign which started in 1977 to persuade medics to abandon the term Reiter's syndrome in favour of reactive arthritis is finally paying off. Hans Reiter was an enthusiastic Nazi who was implicated in enforced sterilisations and euthanasia and who ran Hitler's Reich Health Office, and a group of doctors deemed it appalling to link the medical condition with such crimes. An analysis of online medical journals from 1998 to 2003 shows that 57% of them were still using the term in 1998, but by 2003 its use had fallen to 34%.

It's debatable whether wealth makes you happy, but it does influence your risk of dying; each …