Last week I took part in a debate at the Cambridge Union on the motion “This house needs new drugs.” The motion was proposed by the chief executive of AstraZeneca, a global pharmaceutical company that is moving its global headquarters to Cambridge and emphasising science over marketing. The Cambridge Union is designed in part to […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklCategory: Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: Celebrating progress with creating a sustainable NHS
One of the successes of health workers concerned with climate change has been to get climate change framed as a health issue as well as an environmental issue […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklRichard Smith: Spreading innovation in the NHS through social franchising
It is comparatively easy to find funding for the randomised trials that may or may not show the effectiveness of innovations, but much harder to fund scale-up […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklRichard Smith: How medicine is destroying itself
We need to change the course of medicine from a battle that can never be won to a humane enterprise […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklRichard Smith: Time to rethink marriage
At a meeting on the politics of marriage last week at the London School of Economics three protagonists of very different stripe—the founder of the Marriage Foundation, a feminist philosopher, and a gay rights activist—all agreed that marriage was an outdated institution that should be rethought. My wife and I, who went together to the […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklRichard Smith: Doctors and patients heading in opposite directions
Doctors and patients are heading in opposite directions: patients increasingly have multiple conditions, while doctors are specialising not just in organ systems but in parts of organs. What are the consequences of this divergence? We have known for many years now that patients have multiple conditions. As the figure from a Scottish study shows, by […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklRichard Smith: The hypocrisy of medical journals over transparency
Medical journals generally favour transparency, but we’ve recently discovered that when there’s a trade-off between transparency and their financial interest they opt for the money. The International Committee of Medical Journals Editors, the Roman Curia of editors, wants all clinical trials to be registered and data to be shared. The BMJ is so keen on […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklRichard Smith: The corruption of medical language
A young doctor friend sends me a link to a piece he has written in the Guardian newspaper. I praise the simplicity and clarity of the language and suggest that next time he sends a piece to an academic journal he uses the same language. “But will the editors accept it?” he asks me. I’d […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklRichard Smith: A Big Brother future for science publishing?
There have been big changes in science publishing in the 25 years since the appearance of the internet, but at the same time science publishing is still dominated by journals, a 17th century invention. The tipping point when true transformation begins has long been predicted and may now be close. Why do I say this? […]
djfhdkfdkjfhakdjfhkadsfhldksjfajdfkdajfhkdlsfhkdlsfhkdsfhskldfhdkfhdsklRichard Smith: Little global progress in countering non-communicable disease
In 2011 the United Nations held a high level meeting on preventing and controlling non-communicable disease (NCD) and produced a declaration on what countries should do. In 2018 it will hold another meeting to review progress, and unless there is a dramatic acceleration the meeting is likely to conclude that progress has been poor, said […]
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