I never thought that they would ask me back to help out during the Paralympics. But the call came, and it was for Eton Manor and the wheelchair tennis events. So, I’ll be working at a completely different type of event, in a different venue. But it is still in the Olympic Park—the core of […]
Richard Smith: Of human bubbles
Financial history is full of bubbles, driven by “our innate inclination to veer from euphoria to despondency.” As I read an account of how bubbles happen in Niall Ferguson’s excellent book The Ascent of Money, I was reminded of how medicines are also prone to bubbles. Indeed, I thought of other human bubbles and decided […]
Daniele Dionisio: Overhauling the Global Fund
The Global Fund (GF) is a partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector, and relevant communities as an international financing institution for HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and malaria prevention, and treatment programmes. The GF supports national programmes by distributing funds, provided verifiable results are pledged. Since its inception in 2002, the GF has become the […]
Tracey Koehlmoos: Self plagiarism
In the US there has been a spate of high profile plagiarism incidents. In some cases, the writers have been penalized and in others the adage that the stars are different from us has rung true. However, the most interesting case to me—as a researcher and writer—involved a reporter for the New Yorker who was […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—3 September 2012
NEJM 30 Aug 2012 Vol 367 787 Most medical research is boring and irrelevant. We take that for granted: most clinicians only read research papers if they urgently need to, and then usually fail to discover what they were looking for. The corollary is that most of the effort of medical academia is futile, and […]
Julian Sheather and Vivienne Nathanson: Todd Akin, rape, and “doctors”
According to the historian Tony Judt, the Red Army, after raping and brutalising its way across Europe in the closing stages of the Second World War, left behind, in Germany alone, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 “Russian babies.” These figures, he writes, “make no allowance for untold numbers of abortions, as a result of which […]
Tiago Villanueva: The health benefits of dancing
I am a keen social dancer and take several ballroom and salsa dancing classes a week. I’ve often wondered whether dancing has any physical health benefits. I get the feeling that dancing is considered more of a socialising tool and a form of artistic expression, rather than a serious type of physical activity. A lot […]
Toby Pitts-Tucker: The Paralympic legacy and disability hate crime
At the start of London’s Paralympic Games, ITV’s Don’t Hate Us, broadcast on Thursday 23 August, is a stark reminder of the levels of hate crime against the disabled in this country. The programme explores a shocking statistic: of the 65,000 estimated hate crimes against the disabled last year, only 2,000 were reported and only […]
Vasiliy Vlassov: Psychiatry and political dissent in Russia
On 17 August 2012 the whole of Russian society was taken aback by the harsh court verdict given to three women—the members of the music group “Pussy Riot.” They entered Moscow’s Orthodox cathedral and tried to sing their “Pank Pray,” asking Mary to expel Putin. At the time Putin was on his way to a […]
Pritpal S Tamber: The Red Hand Gang of healthcare?
I think I’ve joined a gang. I’m not sure only because it was first billed as a cabal. I’ve since looked up what cabal means and I suspect it’s too private for what this gang/cabal is wanting to do. Besides, I prefer gang, if only because it makes me think of the Red Hand Gang—inner […]