Countries that are strongly Muslim or Roman Catholic find abortion unacceptable, but Bangladesh, a Muslim country, has found a clever way of helping women who might be pregnant and don’t want to be. In Bangladesh induced abortion is illegal unless a woman’s life is threatened. But a woman who has missed a period may in […]
Retracting unreliable publications can cause headaches for journal editors and a recent case illustrates why they can be so tricky. According to reports in the BMJ and Nature, the drug company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has requested the retraction of an article published in Nature Medicine in 2010 describing cell biology experiments funded by the company and […]
JAMA 26 June 2013 Vol 309 2557 Now that I’ve conceded column space to killer flu H7N9, let me put your minds at rest. Lots of people are working hard on an effective vaccine that will stop it killing people; and so far the mean age of victims is 60. But will the vaccine arrive […]
On 20 June the Department of Health announced that: “Expert body given responsibility to look at the benefits medicines bring to wider society.” The terms of reference are not on either the Department of Health’s nor NICE’s websites, but I requested and got a copy. Here is what they say: “ The methods for value […]
I was strolling around the poster hall at the WONCA conference in Prague yesterday, when the question occurred to me. I fell into conversation with the presenters of two linked posters. Joane Baumer and her colleagues, who were visiting from Texas, USA. They work for the JPS health network and have a developed a global […]
This is an anonymised story about how a doctor’s misunderstanding of the law around managing the death of a patient with capacity appears to have caused unnecessary suffering. It is a salutary tale about the need for doctors to understand the subtleties of the law on consent to treatment and, in difficult cases, the need […]
Every three years or so I am lucky enough to attend our webhost HighWire’s spring publisher’s meeting at Stanford University in sunny California. This year was no exception—the meeting was an absolute delight. Some 200 participants shared the products showcase, presentations by publishers, insights from industry, and Highwire’s plans and projects over the two days […]
I recently met up with a Portuguese friend who works as a researcher and doctor in New York. She has an immense passion for Brazil and told me she would love to work there if she gets the opportunity to. Portuguese media have recently been flooded with reports that Brazil is considering recruiting doctors from […]
The BMJ wants its research papers to help doctors make better decisions, which is why they are open access and free to view. But to deliver on the pledge our research also needs to be scientifically valid, clinically relevant, widely read and cited, and appeal to international readers. Each year we get more than 3000 […]
Jonathan Nguyen-Van-Tam, virologist and researcher from the University of Nottingham, told a group of triallists and virologists last week “we must remember why we’re here—because of the controversies. The clinical world doesn’t believe that Tamiflu works. We should assess whether the regulatory approval/product insert for Tamiflu is valid.” […]