The disturbing case of a Saudi blogger sentenced to flogging should serve as a reminder that health professionals should never participate in torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Raif Badawi, 31, was sentenced last year to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for insulting Islam after he criticized Saudi clerics on his blog. […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—2 February 2015
NEJM 29 January 2015 Vol 372 407 A Canadian trial tells us a bit more about how to treat raised blood pressure in pregnancy. If women already have elevated BP or acquire it before 34 weeks of gestation without proteinuria, treating to a target diastolic of 100 mm Hg produces the same result as treating […]
The BMJ Today: Will the mitochondrial horse fall at the last hurdle?
Suddenly last week, the Church of England and the Catholic Church weighed into the debate about mitochondrial replacement—the use of the mitochondria from a healthy woman to replace the faulty mitochondria in the egg of a woman wishing to have a baby. The Churches’ message was dramatic: by voting on this issue in the House […]
Richard Smith: Is the NHS being the top issue in the election a sign of a degenerate society?
Some polls suggest that the NHS is the number one issue for voters in Britain’s coming general election. That’s one reason that the Labour Party has put it at the centre of its campaign, the other being “when in doubt retreat to where you are comfortable.” But would a healthy society put the NHS as […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Blogging on
What links blogs to logs (wooden ones)? The Sailor’s Word Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms (1867), compiled by Admiral W[illiam] H[enry] Smyth and revised for publication by Vice Admiral Sir E[dward] Belcher, gives the answer: “LOG-BOARD. Two boards shutting together like a book, and divided into several columns, in which to record, through […]
Stuart Buck: Sharing data from past clinical trials
There was a time when academic and government researchers performed experiments that were clearly unethical—such as letting syphilis go untreated, or asking people to administer severe electric shocks to each other. Ethics review boards sprang up in an important effort to make sure that research on human subjects remained within the bounds of legality and […]
The BMJ Today: Are public health campaigns a waste of money?
As pressure to squeeze costs rises across the whole NHS, the increasing prominence of government funded public health campaigns is coming under greater scrutiny. Chris Mahoney has taken a look at how doctors and the public can know whether public health campaigns work. In a feature on The BMJ this week, he asks whether these campaigns offer good […]
Jocalyn Clark: Are slums creating equality?
When you fly into Mumbai from the east, there is an extraordinary descent passing over mounds of lush green foothills reminiscent of Hawaii. It’s quite mesmerising. And then even more so is what lays at the foot of these foothills: a vast sprawl of tin roofed shanties, which I later learn is a slum of […]
The BMJ Today: How much do you know about mind altering drugs?
Martin Mckee, a prominent public health academic and a prolific writer for The BMJ, is featured this week in the always entertaining BMJ Confidential. As professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, his work has had worldwide impact. He is constantly travelling around the world because of his work, […]
Chris Naylor: Is mental health finally becoming a political priority?
Last week saw announcements on mental health from both the government and the opposition. With the Liberal Democrats pledging to put mental health on the front page of their election manifesto, and Andy Burnham, Shadow Secretary of State for Health, making mental health a core part of his concept of “whole person care,” are we […]