Everyone’s been missing a trick. The whole debate on sharing clinical study data has focused on transparency, reproducibility, and completing the evidence base for treatments. Yet public health emergencies such as the Ebola and MERS outbreaks provide a vitally important reason for sharing study data, usually before publication or even before submission to a journal, […]
Category: Editors at large
Georg Röggla: Refugees and civil society
The migration crisis has reached Central Europe. About 10 000 migrants arrived in Vienna within a few hours on Saturday, most of them on their way to Germany. The situation is dramatic: Four children, including a baby girl, were among 71 migrants found suffocated in a truck on a highway just outside Vienna last week. […]
David Payne: Can higher education help protect against dementia?
In 2001 Tony Blair’s bid for a second term as UK prime minister included a pledge to make “education, education, education” top priority for the Labour party, with a follow up target to get 50% of students entering higher education. Critics of Labour dismissed the figure as arbitrary and meaningless. But might the policy help protect some people from […]
The BMJ Today: A digital day for The BMJ
• Should all NHS premises provide free access to wi-fi? Yes, argues Victoria Betton in a head to head article published today. Betton, mHabitat programme director at Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, says the advantages of free wi-fi in healthcare settings in an increasingly digitised world make sense, facilitating more patient activation and engagement. […]
The BMJ Today: Drug company payments, compassion, and patient centredness
• Should doctors be forced to disclose payments and hospitality from drug companies? The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry plans to bring in a system where healthcare professionals voluntarily declare payments and hospitality received from drug companies. The issue is the subject of our latest online poll, which, at the time of writing, has […]
The BMJ Today: Chillies and mortality, informed consent, and healthcare for Syrian refugees
• Is chilli good for your health? Jun Lv and colleagues report a large cohort study assessing the associations between the regular consumption of spicy foods and total and cause specific mortality. They found that the habitual consumption of spicy foods was inversely associated with total and certain cause specific mortality (cancer, ischemic heart diseases, and […]
Tom Moberly: Showing patients what they are worth
Printing the cost of drugs on their packaging is one of Jeremy Hunt’s latest ideas for helping the health service save money. Arguing that patients need to use NHS resources responsibly, the health secretary said that ministers “intend to publish the indicative medicine costs to the NHS on the packs of all medicines costing more […]
David Payne: Remembering 7/7 ten years on
Outside BMA House a solitary bunch of purple stocks hangs from the railings, alongside the memorial plaque to victims of the Tavistock Square suicide bomb attack on a London bus 10 years ago. As passers-by stop to read the names of the dead, inside the building survivors of the blast, along with bereaved friends and […]
Juliet Dobson: Cutting support services for new mothers is a false economy
I was sad to hear that support services for new mothers are going to be cut across England. The Guardian reports that breastfeeding classes, home visits from midwives, and “babyfeeding cafes”—where mothers can drop in and talk to feeding advisers as well as other parents—are increasingly being scaled back or cut owing to pressures on […]
The BMJ Today: Sex workers in Bangladesh, welfare advice, and incentives for behavioural change
• Female sex workers in Bangladesh In a feature published on thebmj.com today, Jocalyn Clark provides a moving account of the plight of female sex workers in Bangladesh. With effectively no voice to demand basic rights and entitlements, these women suffer severe social stigma, poor health, and violence. Several non-governmental organisations have stepped in to offer […]