‘As the holiday season draws to a close, Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll’s festive medical myths are still proving to be a popular choice with our readers. 36,928 people viewed the article over the last 10 days, with 24,284 also choosing to read last year’s festive medical myths by the same authors. A new feature […]
Liz Wager’s vital statistics
One of my best presents this Christmas was a slim book called the Pocket World in Figures, published by The Economist. […]
Richard Smith: Can poetry define health?
Reflecting on the challenge by Alex Jadad and Laura O’Grady to define health, I begin to conclude that it can’t be captured in a few words. Disease is a simple concept compared with health, and diseases can be defined — but with all the paraphernalia of pathophysiology, epidemiology, symptomatology, and the like. Defining health will […]
Tony Waterston on the situation in Gaza
The situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate. We deplore the inadequate response of the Israeli and other world governments to the humanitarian crisis. The bombing of an already severely damaged population, half of which are children with a high prevalence of malnutrition, has already led to many hundreds of deaths and disabilities. The health services […]
Vidhya Alakeson on US health reform
As with his presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s approach to health reform will leave little to chance. His strategy for enacting the first major coverage expansion in more than 40 years is starting to take shape. He is building public support for reform early in the hope that it will be enough to counter the opponents of […]
Jeremy Laurance’s top medical development of 2008
What was the most significant medical development of 2008 and holds the greatest promise for 2009 and beyond? There is no shortage of candidates – polyclinics, Lord Darzi’s “once in a generation” next steps review, the windpipe transplant, the gene therapy trial for blindness – to name only a few. […]
Juliet Walker: What’s new on bmj.com
‘Should the contraceptive pill be available without prescription?’ is the subject of this week’s head to head. Daniel Grossman argues in favour of this policy, whilst Sarah Jarvis argues that it will not be an effective way of reducing unwanted pregnancies. The debate has received extensive media coverage recently following the news that two primary […]
Tauseef Mehrali on casting the safety net
In his brilliant surrealist novel Death at Intervals, José Saramago conjures up a dreamlike, yet all too soon nightmarish, scenario wherein the people of an anonymous landlocked European country simply stop dying. Death, the scythe-wielding skeletal spectre, quite literally goes on strike. She gives up her day job to pursue a romantic, bordering on voyeuristic, […]
Juliet Walker: What’s new on bmj.com
This year’s Christmas BMJ generated lots of UK and international media coverage, particularly the paper that debunked seasonal myths. In Festive medical myths, Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll look at the science behind commonly believed theories and discover that many of them are in fact not true. The good news for the holidays is that […]
Tejshri Shah on the BMJ/MSF appeal
My name is Tejshri Shah and I am the head of the medical unit of Médecins Sans Frontières UK, the Manson Unit. When asked to be a guest blogger for the BMJ and help promote the BMJ Christmas Appeal for MSF, my mind raced back to my first mission and a little boy, who for […]