I looked down at my name badge. Although it said chief executive officer, I felt like an impostor. Across the table sat a suitably intimidating panel. The members of the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) wanted me to justify why we were keeping open a crumbling hospital with poor outcomes, while the community was […]
Category: Columnists
Jim Murray: A surprising development in the case of InterMune vs the EMA
InterMune has withdrawn part of its legal challenge to stop the European Medicines Agency from disclosing certain documents, which relate to the medicine Esbriet (Pirfenidone). The company is still looking for a prohibition on disclosure, but has withdrawn its application for an interim order, which would prevent disclosure before the full hearing of the case. (InterMune […]
David Kerr: Death in America
In the United States, even the grim reaper is not immune from political interference. Around two weeks ago, an episode of mass murder happened a few miles from where I live. On 23 May, 22 year old Elliot Rodger took his own life after killing six students, and wounding 13 others in the area known as […]
Neal Maskrey: Seeing the world through a patient’s eyes
Captain Hawkeye Pierce of the 4077th MASH unit is one of the great fictional doctors. Battered by the US army, and brutalised by death and disfigurement in a war far from home, he made mistakes, he was human, he cared. We laughed, cried, and loved him. Alan Alda and the rest of the cast of […]
Richard Smith: Where is the value in medical care?
We have an old dog we love, and my wife and I have been debating whether to take him to the vet. Will it be worth it, asks my wife. The dog is coming up to 13 (91 in “human years”). He has a large lipoma. Some of his teeth are bad. He may be a […]
Muir Gray: Population health—what’s in a name
Suddenly the word population is everywhere. The Oxford University Department of Public Health is now the Department of Population Health Sciences, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement has added population health to form its triple aim, the American Hospital Association talks about a second wave of hospitals with population health as their theme. Furthermore, Public Health […]
Desmond O’Neill: Some illuminations on caring for older people
Gothenburg is a handsome city with imposing stone and brick buildings, simultaneously sober and ornamented, set among green hills falling to not one but two archipelagos. It was particularly striking during the unseasonably fine weather that greeted the 22nd Nordic Gerontology Congress last week. This leading regional gerontology conference in Europe is biannual, broad in […]
Richard Smith: Rebranding and telling stories about NCD
I was delighted to be asked to organise this series of events on non-communicable diseases, but I had a problem—I had no idea what NCDs are or were. So Kate Hoyland from UCL’s Grand Challenge of Global Health introduced an evening entitled “The NCD Makeover Show.” We who live in the NCD ghetto don’t know […]
Jim Murray: Policy making behind closed doors
Campaigning for transparency on clinical trial results at EU level is getting to be like playing snakes and ladders, and I’ve just spotted three snakes. I’ve been trying to “deconstruct” the EMA’s reply by letter to the Ombudsman’s concerns about the agency’s volte-face on transparency. The results worry me—a lot. The EMA says that the […]
Julian Sheather: Public health and social power
It’s hard not to brood from time to time on some of the intractable public health problems that entangle us. Take obesity. Swimming with my boys over the weekend, I was again struck by how much the food that should sustain us is killing us. It’s hard as well not to wonder where change might […]