At the end of last week I received this email: “Greetings from India, and I hope this finds you well! My name is Anoo. I’m a journalist based in Delhi, at The Wire. I broke the story on 13 December, about Derek Yach’s email-list, targeting health professionals with grant money: “Exclusive: Philip Morris Funded Anti-Smoking […]
The commencement address that nobody asked for These two middling authors have long hoped somebody would ask them to deliver a commencement. The fact that this is unjustified has not stopped them from writing one. The following is based upon “Everyone’s Free (to wear sunscreen)”, attributed to Mary Schmich. We encourage everyone to reflect, to […]
The nature of abortion provision is changing, and professionals must be alert to what any changes might mean for their conscience rights […]
Across the countries with Choosing Wisely campaigns, thousands of recommendations of “Things clinicians and patients should question” have been published. These lists and recommendations, familiar to many practising clinicians, outline tests, treatments, or procedures that evidence suggests are overused, unnecessary and may cause harm to patients. As some have pointed out, implementing these recommendations into practice […]
Richard Lehman reviews the latest research in the top medical journals […]
Since the start of the civil war, 165 000 South Sudanese refugees have fled the violence at home and crossed the border into Sudan’s White Nile state. Lulwa Al-Kilani, a Palestinian project manager with medical humanitarian organisation Medécins sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has been working in the Al Kashafa refugee camp hospital in White […]
Recently, my home state of California made national headlines when it repealed an HIV criminalisation law and reduced penalties for exposing other people to the virus. It was a landmark decision grounded in science and human rights that will go into effect next month. The law that was repealed had violated people’s fundamental human rights […]
During the years spanning the 100th anniversary of the 1914–18 war, The Daily Telegraph has, day by day, been publishing facsimiles of issues of the paper that appeared 100 years ago. This advert appeared in the issue of Friday 7 December 1917. Doan’s Backache Kidney Pills came in boxes of 40 kidney pills and 4 […]
Evidence generated from “real world” data (e.g. administrative claims and electronic health record databases), alongside clinical trials, is highly valuable for regulatory, coverage, and clinical decisions. While randomized clinical trials (RCTs) are considered a gold standard, they are typically conducted in highly restricted populations, limiting their generalizability. Furthermore, the expense of conducting trials limits their […]
Attendances are up again, and, to cope, we need to change our way of working […]