On 17 December last year, UK pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline, made a bold pledge. From 2016, the company said, it will stop paying doctors to speak on its behalf or to attend conferences to end undue influence on prescribers. Not only that, drug reps were no longer going to be paid according to the number of […]
Richard Hurley: Why the food industry doesn’t find a sugar tax so sweet
A flurry of media attention followed England’s Chief Medical Officer Sally Davies’s recent admission that a sugar tax may have to be considered to try to reverse the overweight and obesity that now afflicts a third of UK children. Such a tax might reduce consumption, the theory goes, by reducing demand for energy dense foods […]
Tessa Richards: “All I ask is that you listen”
If healthcare was a patient, the diagnosis would be multimorbidity. There is a near terminal mix of fragmentation of services, failure to listen and respond to patients concerns, lack of compassion, patchy performance on protecting and promoting health, and unsustainably high costs. Simplistic perhaps, but fighting talk galvanises. Maureen Bisognano, president of the Institute of […]
Jen Gunter: The Tamiflu talisman
Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) has been prescribed for my son, Oliver, multiple times. It’s possible he has taken this drug more than anyone. Oliver was born at 26 weeks gestation and was left with significant bronchopulmonary dysplasia. He also has a complex congenital heart disease, now partially repaired, but he is left with moderate pulmonary valve regurgitation […]
The BMJ Today: One way to tackle street drinking
The road in which I live connects a long, shady stretch of green space, with a few benches, and a rather grubby inner London high street that seems to have more than its fair share of 24 hour off licences. When I sit at home looking out of a front window, it is not unusual […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—14 April 2014
NEJM 10 Apr 2014 Vol 370 OL A deadly virus has been conquered. Hepatitis C genotype 1 can be cleared with a simple oral combination treatment, and compared to that, the rest of this week’s medical news seems minor. So I will start by running through the hepatitis C papers which have just appeared on […]
Birte Twisselmann: European Union—live
As a three-times member of the national judging panel for the UK winner, I was invited to attend the awards ceremony for the EU Health Prize for Journalists 2013, at the European Commission in Brussels on 7-8 April 2014. And in the same way as last year, this meant an intense couple of days with […]
The BMJ Today: Staying ahead of getting behind
I live in London, a city where most things are fast paced. Coffees are made to go, walking is more of an Olympic sprint, and our time is valued with the precision and importance usually reserved for world leaders. It seems that this isn’t a phenomenon exclusive to city dwellers. David Loxterkamp describes how GPs […]
Billy Boland: Why criticism can be helpful
When we formed our Self Managed Learning (SML) group at the NHS Leadership Academy, I made it clear to the others that I wanted them to push me and be critical friends. A year can fly by and we’re scheduled to meet only six times. Groups can take a while to settle down, and I […]
The BMJ Today: The Tamiflu trials
Today The BMJ is all about neuraminidase inhibitors and open data. Ten articles on the subject of anti-influenza drugs try to establish what we know. In sum: perhaps not enough to justify the huge expense governments worldwide have incurred in stockpiling these drugs, but perhaps enough in terms of improving transparency and providing researchers with […]