Retracting unreliable publications can cause headaches for journal editors and a recent case illustrates why they can be so tricky. According to reports in the BMJ and Nature, the drug company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has requested the retraction of an article published in Nature Medicine in 2010 describing cell biology experiments funded by the company and […]
Category: South Asia
Helen Macdonald: Do I practise global health?
I was strolling around the poster hall at the WONCA conference in Prague yesterday, when the question occurred to me. I fell into conversation with the presenters of two linked posters. Joane Baumer and her colleagues, who were visiting from Texas, USA. They work for the JPS health network and have a developed a global […]
Tiago Villanueva: Why does Brazil want to recruit doctors from Spain and Portugal?
I recently met up with a Portuguese friend who works as a researcher and doctor in New York. She has an immense passion for Brazil and told me she would love to work there if she gets the opportunity to. Portuguese media have recently been flooded with reports that Brazil is considering recruiting doctors from […]
Readers’ editor: International research
The BMJ wants its research papers to help doctors make better decisions, which is why they are open access and free to view. But to deliver on the pledge our research also needs to be scientifically valid, clinically relevant, widely read and cited, and appeal to international readers. Each year we get more than 3000 […]
Trish Groves: What does Tamiflu do, and how will we know?
Jonathan Nguyen-Van-Tam, virologist and researcher from the University of Nottingham, told a group of triallists and virologists last week “we must remember why we’re here—because of the controversies. The clinical world doesn’t believe that Tamiflu works. We should assess whether the regulatory approval/product insert for Tamiflu is valid.” […]
Trish Groves: Data sharing—making it real
The evidence base for current treatments has been built largely on aggregated results published in journal articles—articles that report trials initiated and sponsored by industry in order to get marketing approval for its products. At last we’re moving towards knowledge based on independent analyses of the original data about real participants in clinical trials, with […]
Mohit Sharma: Do we need tougher drug patent laws?
History has witnessed numerous drug patent wars, but in April 2013, the Indian Supreme Court did something which captured the attention of the international media. It denied a patent to the beta crystalline form of Imatinib mesylate, a life saving anticancer drug, to the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis. The verdict was noteworthy because this drug […]
Soumyadeep Bhaumik’s review of Indian medical papers—18 June 2013
One of the most enthralling articles that caught my attention last month was one entitled “Knowledge and practice of clinical ethics among healthcare providers in a government hospital, Chennai” published in the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. It revealed that 30% of the responders did not give a definition of healthcare ethics (and I am […]
Fran Baum: How can governments globally get “Big Food” to change its addiction to sugar and fat?
Fran Baum is blogging from the 8th World Health Organization Global Health meeting. Read her other blogs here. It was good to hear Pekka Puska present Finland’s health promotion success which has resulted in an 80% reduction in cardiovascular disease over 30 years. He stressed that this has been a long term complex process. The […]
Anita Jain on the Bangladesh factory collapse and corporate responsibility for worker safety
“A mother of two, her left arm amputated, she refuses to ever go near a sewing machine again.” In April this year, the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh collapsed killing over a 1000 people and injuring many more. Among poignant accounts of despair that emerged from the incident, I felt this woman’s situation reflected the […]