Pamplona 2015—The General Assembly of the International Society of Drug Bulletins (ISDB) At the end of June, the city of Pamplona was getting ready to celebrate the fiestas in honour of San Fermín, the patron saint of Navarra, and the week long challenge of the encierro (running of the bulls). Much ceremony and excitement surrounds […]
The BMJ Today: Organ donation, sharps injuries, patient involvement, and declaring financial interests
• Organ donation—Currently in the UK, 33% of the population are registered donors, and at the end of March 2015 there were 6904 people on the waiting list for a suitable donor, with kidney transplants being the most commonly needed (5465, 79%). In our latest research article, Aubert et al study the long term outcomes of […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—3 August 2015
NEJM 30 July 2015 Vol 373 405 This week’s first paper has an interesting title: Therapeutic Hypothermia in Deceased Organ Donors and Kidney-Graft Function. It’s the first time I’ve seen the word “therapeutic” used to describe something done to a person who is already dead. The hypothermia they refer to here occurs in a newly […]
The BMJ Today: Patient centred outcomes research
• A research paper looks at the association between warfarin treatment and longitudinal outcomes after ischaemic stroke in patients with atrial fibrillation in community practice, using a large registry of patients admitted to US hospitals with acute ischaemic stroke. The study found that new prescription of warfarin in patients with atrial fibrillation after stroke was associated with […]
Anant Bhan: Gender gap in medical education leadership in India
There is a rising welcome trend of women joining medical colleges in India, with female students being comparable in number or even outnumbering male students in many colleges. This trend is much more prominent in neighbouring Pakistan, with estimates that 80-85% of current medical students are women. Women in medicine in India now follow a […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word … Backslang
Back-formation , forming words by shortening other words, should not be confused with backslang, the formation of words, not by breaking them up, but simply by reversing them. A yob is a [backward] unruly boy. Naff, as in “naff off”, may be from fanny, the back or front version, but could just be a variant […]
The BMJ Today: Your summer reading medical thriller is here
The case of nutrition researcher Ranjit Kumar Chandra has attracted a news item and a blog. As Owen Dyer reports, Chandra has lost his bid to win damages from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for a documentary it broadcast in 2006 which claimed that he never conducted a raft of published studies claiming the benefits of baby formula and vitamin […]
David McCoy: Divestment is no grand gesture
According to Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, the Guardian’s “Keep in the Ground” campaign to promote divestment from fossil fuel companies is merely a “grand gesture” that can be made only once. At one level, he is right. The financial impact of the Wellcome Trust selling off its shares in fossil fuel companies […]
Richard Smith: Science and journalism threatened in the high court
I wrote this piece some six weeks ago after giving evidence in a libel case reported by The BMJ and published on 30 July 2015 . I’ve had to wait until the case was over to post the blog. I’ve just finished giving evidence for a day and a half in the high court in […]
The BMJ Today: Taxing sugar doesn’t have to be taxing
Increasing evidence suggests that taxes on soft drinks, sugar, and snacks can change diets and improve health, Sirpa Sarlio-Lähteenkorva argues in The BMJ today. Arguing in favour of a sugar tax, Sarlio-Lähteenkorva says that a tax of about €1 (£0.70; $1.10) on a kilogram of sugar would “substantially reduce demand for sugar and sweets […]