“All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; Second, it is violently opposed; and Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” — Arthur Schopenhauer Last week, the Nigerian senate signed a bill to outlaw homosexual marriage, homosexual association, and support for homosexual people. Same-sex couples who marry face up to 14 years each in […]
Category: Global health
Philippe Chastonnay, Beat Stoll, Bruce Currey: Can donors focus on birth weights after Busan?
The new inclusive “Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation” resulting from the 4th high level forum on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, issued on 1st December does not include children or newborn babies. […]
Ike Anya: Tackling imported malaria in the UK
It is a typical busy, Thursday afternoon in the office in central London, as I recall the mental note I made to myself earlier that day: ring GP practice to arrange anti-malarial prescription. I am going to Nigeria on Monday and have resolved to make sure that I take my malaria prophylaxis rigorously this time. […]
Edward Davies: Cuts, pensions, and perspective
Walking to the NHS Alliance’s annual conference through Manchester this morning, the streets were peppered with small pickets. University staff, civil servants, transport workers, all sorts of folk objecting to public sector cuts in general and in particular to their potentially diminished pensions. One chap thrust a leaflet at me deploring the effect that cuts […]
Richard Smith: The happiness questionnaire
My son, a chef, is part of a “pop up think tank” of people under 35 working on happiness. They are gathering evidence through a questionnaire, and I thought that some BMJ readers might be interested in both the questions and my answers. You might like to try answering the questions yourself. […]
Neil French: A new source of hope for children in Malawi – the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines
Pneumococcal disease causes probably at least half of the pneumonia cases in Malawi. It also causes meningitis, blood poisoning, and otitis, which if it doesn’t kill can leave a child disabled, deaf, and disadvantaged for the rest of their life. Vaccination is one of the most straightforward health interventions we have. The pneumococcal vaccine introduced […]