Reports urging health professionals to listen to patients and use their experience to improve the quality, value, and safety of healthcare have been flowing thick and fast. Last week another swelled their ranks. In his report on how the NHS might achieve the Shangri La of causing “zero harm,” US health guru Don Berwick headlined […]
Category: South Asia
Liz Wager: Show us the data (part 2)
My last blog started with the observation that it’s impossible to investigate research fraud unless you have the raw data. While that may seem obvious, it leads logically onto another, subtly different, point which often seems to be missed: that it’s impossible to spot many types of research fraud unless you have seen the raw […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—12 August 2013
NEJM 8 Aug 2013 Vol 369 507 A phase 1 study of a drug for an arcane cancer gets first place in the NEJM this week, and I think it deserves it, because ibrutinib seems to be a major breakthrough in the treatment of mantle-cell lymphoma. The name for once means something: this drug inhibits […]
Liz Wager: Show us the data
It’s almost impossible to investigate suspected fraud unless you have access to the raw data. That may seem pretty obvious, but it raises the more interesting question of who should be responsible for looking after these data and making sure they are available, if needed. Cases that frustrated journal editors brought to COPE (the Committee […]
Veena Rao: Food security by decree
I wrote a BMJ article about the Food Security Bill in India after it was introduced in parliament in December 2011. On 5 July 2013 the National Food Security Act 2013, (FSA) was promulgated by ordinance, without discussion or debate. This is a somewhat sticky thing to do in a democracy, with parliament scheduled to meet just […]
Regina Keith: How to prevent 804,000 children under 5 dying
As congratulations come in from around the world to the Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge on the safe delivery of their son, all parents would share the hope that at the end of the nine months of waiting and planning, they would have a healthy and happy prince or princess. However, we still live […]
Alejandro Madrazo Lajous: Little Uruguay’s big experiment
All eyes are on the tiny South American nation of Uruguay this week following its historic approval for the world’s first nationally controlled marijuana market. While the plan still needs to pass the Senate, there may be cause for optimism that the country of 3.4 million can make it work. The Uruguayan government, after […]
Readers’ editor: The Liverpool Care Pathway—anyone care outside the UK?
Columnist Charles Moore asked in The Spectator magazine last week if the Liverpool Care Pathway might have inspired more confidence if it had been called, say, the Oxford Care Pathway. Was Moore referring to Oxford as an ancient seat of learning and innovation, or lazily perpetuating the myth that Liverpool is synonomous with riots, poverty, […]
Chandni Maheshwari on volunteering for “Doctors for You” in the Uttarakhand flood affected areas
When television channels started beaming images of the Uttarakhand flash floods the magnitude of nature took me by a surprise. Thousands were displaced, and infrastructure worth millions was damaged. The area was in ruins. As a doctor my predominant concern was for the health of the people in the area. Most of the villages in […]
Jane Parry: Why are we so resistant to calling sugar the enemy?
Sparing developing countries the fate of obesity associated diseases that plague the developed world is currently one of the most pressing global public health issues. Before we export wholesale the “follow the food pyramid, exercise, and eat no more calories than you burn” approach, it may be time to review how effective it actually is. […]