One in 10 gay and bisexual men aged 18 to 21 became infected with HIV during their first year of enrollment in a cohort study in Bangkok. The rate of new infections slows down a bit after that, in part because those most likely to become infected already are. Fully 1 in 3 of them […]
Richard Smith: Clinicians support a review of mammography
Five weeks ago I wrote about the difficulty I was having in finding somebody to speak in favour of mammography at a conference on controversies in breast cancer. I feared that the establishment was adopting a strategy of non-engagement in the face of what seems to be growing criticism of mammography. Now that the conference […]
David Pencheon: Climate change and health – let’s get professional
I am still proud to be a doctor. This used to be because I looked up to inspirational mentors, tutors, and role models. I still do, although my inspiration is increasingly derived from younger doctors and medical students (a cohort effect). We have a young inspirational medical student working with us currently doing research in his […]
Tony Delamothe: The spoken word
I spent Friday afternoon at three sessions on The Spoken Word at King’s Place, London. The first featured the editor of the New Statesman and a stand in for the editor of the Spectator. (James Forsyth – a star columnist on the Spectator and Mail on Sunday). Both talked about the importance to their publications […]
Peter Lapsley: Misleading media
Surveys regularly show that whereas (approximately) 80% of people who have not used the NHS in the previous five years believe it to be dreadful, 80% of those who have used it praise it highly. The reason for so extraordinary a disparity is clear. Non users believe the popular media’s stories about the NHS, and […]
Bob Roehr: The road to Bangkok
The lot of an ink stained wretch of a journalist, even one who writes for as illustrious a publication as the BMJ, is not filled with travel and expense accounts. Those budgets, once small, have now disappeared as traditional media formats have contracted while online grows. Thankfully a few charities have stepped into the breach. […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review – 12 September 2011
JAMA 7 Sep 2011 Vol 306 952 This is a themed issue on Medical Education, a domain where giant forces compete for the minds of highly selected young people, and science can tell us little about what really matters. I gave my first talk on the subject in 1973, to a largely female student audience […]
Deborah Cohen: The final declaration for the UN summit on NCDs
After months of negotiations, lobbying from industry and NGOs and public health experts, international governments have finally agreed the political declaration that will form the spine of the UN’s summit on non-communicable diseases later this month. The BMJ has seen a copy of the final declaration and for those who have been involved there are […]
Research highlights – 9 September 2011
“Research highlights” is a weekly round-up of research papers appearing in the print BMJ. We start off with this week’s research questions, before providing more detail on some individual research papers and accompanying articles. […]
Julian Sheather: Is prostitution really the answer?
I have recently been enjoying a brief flurry of reviews of Catherine Hakim’s Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital. Hakim’s book has been bounding up the notoriety charts, which is less than surprising given the hyperventilatingly simple premise that has caught the eye of reviewers. Hakim – a senior researcher at the LSE – […]