I was delighted to be asked to organise this series of events on non-communicable diseases, but I had a problem—I had no idea what NCDs are or were. So Kate Hoyland from UCL’s Grand Challenge of Global Health introduced an evening entitled “The NCD Makeover Show.” We who live in the NCD ghetto don’t know […]
The BMJ’s readers are used to maintaining scepticism in the face of hype and hyperbole, and two new articles suggest that this is a healthy position to maintain. Rory Watson reports on the growing number of new psychoactive substances, or “legal highs,” recognised by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). The number of […]
On 30 April 2014, I wrote my first reflection on the topic of non-communicable diseases to whet your appetite, and promised seven more. My first reflection, if you recall, was: “Keep the growth of NCDs in perspective by acknowledging the incredible positive changes in life expectancy and economic wellbeing the world over—thanks to development and mechanization.” […]
Campaigning for transparency on clinical trial results at EU level is getting to be like playing snakes and ladders, and I’ve just spotted three snakes. I’ve been trying to “deconstruct” the EMA’s reply by letter to the Ombudsman’s concerns about the agency’s volte-face on transparency. The results worry me—a lot. The EMA says that the […]
NEJM 29 May 2014 Vol 370 2071 This week’s New England Journal is dominated by three papers on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The editorial on them begins “I suspect that many of my patients have picked up on more than a hint of frustration in my voice when I tell them that the cause of their […]
What should we eat? And to what extent can doctors influence the diet of their patients? Last week, NICE recommended that doctors send their overweight patients to Weight Watchers or similar schemes because of their proven effectiveness. But every time I read an article on what we should be eating, I come back to the […]
At first glance, NCDs (non-communicable diseases) and HIV/AIDS seem to have little in common. However, a recent symposium, organised by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and FHI360, showed that there is great scope for those working on these two big issues in global health to learn from each other. HIV/AIDS has caused […]
It all started a few weeks ago in my communicable diseases module at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. During a group brainstorming session we realised how “unclean” keyboards could be. Despite being a public health trainee, I had never thought carefully about how many harmful pathogens could live in a computer keyboard. […]
Recently the media has told us that the Labour Party is considering a long journeyed return: back to the nationalisation of rail services. Some claim that this will offer better long term value, efficiency, and safety. Many would welcome this, but there is a puzzling anomaly: why do we not, instead, start with the NHS? […]
This question was the title of a meeting of the Medical Journalists’ Association last week, and, perhaps surprisingly for an audience made up almost exclusively of medical journalists, the response was a resounding no. So what happened? Medical journals, the main vehicles for publishing clinical trials today, are after all the “gatekeepers of medical evidence”—as they […]