There has been renewed interest in cricket helmets for a few reasons: the Cricket World Cup, the death of Phillip Hughes, and a relatively new British Standard for cricket helmets. This interest comes after a relatively long pause in helmet development. I began watching cricket before helmets and remember the controversy around their introduction in […]
The BMJ Today: Alcohol, NSAIDS, and improving end of life care
• Health campaigners have condemned tax breaks on alcohol announced by the UK government. Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, calls this move “thoroughly shameful,” given the burden of alcohol related harm and hospital attendances the NHS handles each year. […]
Victor Montori: Clinical evidence for the Brave New World of multimorbidity
This blog is part of a series of blogs linked with BMJ Clinical Evidence, a database of systematic overviews of the best available evidence on the effectiveness of commonly used interventions. The most common chronic condition worldwide is, or will soon be, multimorbidity. While it was previously a concern reserved for the very old, multimorbidity […]
A public health commentary on India’s draft National Health Policy 2015
The Indian government’s draft National Health Policy 2015 clearly articulates its goals and principles going forward, which is a laudable departure from previous policy pronouncements. It is very candid in its acceptance of the failures of past health initiatives, but does not identify the reasons for such failure. By failing to do so, the solutions pro-offered for existing problems seem […]
Elizabeth Loder: Has the American Board of Internal Medicine lost its way?
Elizabeth Loder examines the emergence of organized US physician opposition to revalidation requirements. Something remarkable is happening right now in American medicine. A unified physician movement has emerged that cuts across the varied interests of different specialties to focus on a specific cause of dissatisfaction. It has already forced concessions from one powerful organization, and […]
Juliet Dobson: Breast may be best, but it’s also a huge challenge
News of a new study published yesterday in Lancet Global Health, which shows that breast feeding is linked with higher IQ, was music to my ears. I am the mother of an eight month old, whom I am still breast feeding, and it was encouraging for me to hear that the many months of hard […]
The BMJ Today: Are you worried about your cardiovascular risk?
• Sudden cardiac death is the main cause of medical death in athletes. Despite the fact that many cases of sudden cardiac death in athletes aged less than 35 are caused by an underlying genetic heart disorder, our most recent clinical review highlights that in up to half of the cases of sudden cardiac death, […]
Richard Hurley: Multimedia, interaction, gamification: what does tomorrow’s medical journal article look like?
The internet has made it ridiculously easy to access information. Traditional media outlets like The BMJ are having to compete even harder with each other for attention. The internet has also made it ridiculously easy for everyone to share words, pictures, and sounds, and traditional outlets must also vie with citizen publishers for audience interest and […]
Julia Pakpoor: Sir Terry Pratchett’s legacy to the right to die
The literary world is grieving the death of author Sir Terry Pratchett, who was knighted for his services to literature and who has sold more than 65 million books. The Alzheimer’s community is grieving the loss of a patron of Alzheimer’s Research UK and an important public figure in raising awareness of the disease. It is […]
The BMJ Today: Statins in pregnancy, sexual health in Pakistan, and mammography screening
Statins in pregnancy Bateman and co-workers report a well designed epidemiological study on statins in early pregnancy. Their analysis did not find a significant teratogenic effect from maternal use of statins in the first trimester. In a related editorial, Françoise Haramburu and co-workers state that the new safety data are reassuring, but suspension of treatment […]