Early morning and a young lad, hooded, trainers, hugs his bottle as he staggers home. Last night it started early; cider, beer, and tonic wine. Blue bags on a Friday night. Party time in the park as teenage boys and girls huddle drunken in the dusk. Monday morning, at the surgery. Mother fraught and adolescent […]
Tag: alcohol
Richard Smith: Battling over safe alcohol limits
Advice on smoking is simple: don’t smoke. But what should be the advice on alcohol? It can’t be “don’t drink,” nor can it be “drink less.” Doctors and governments think that they need to give guidance to people on alcohol—and mostly they do that by suggesting “safe limits” based on units of alcohol. But is […]
Rebecca Coombes: UN summit in New York – a view from the sidelines
What’s the mood among delegates on the eve of the UN summit on non-communicable diseases as they gather in hotel bars and the confusion of side events in New York City? Well, earlier in the day I went on a hike through Central Park with about 50 others in an event organised by the NCD […]
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 […]
Richard Smith: Are alcohol companies doomed to cause harm?
Tobacco companies clearly cause harm, and we will always need food companies. But what about alcohol companies? Can they produce net benefit? I’ve been pondering this question for three decades, but it’s a live issue for governments who must decide whether to include alcohol companies in programmes to reduce harm from alcohol and also for organisations, like […]
Neil Chanchlani: Conscientious objection
“See one, do one, teach one?” Gone are the days when medical students did what they were told, learnt what was on the syllabus, and spoke when spoken to. “See one, do one, teach one?” Not a chance. Instead, they conscientiously object. […]
Tracey Koehlmoss on being policy makers in our own lives
I am writing to you not from Bangladesh but rather from the Institute of Medicine’s workshop on country-level decision making for control of chronic diseases being held from 19-21 July at the House of Sweden in Washington, DC. On Wednesday I presented on “data availability and gaps in Bangladesh,” which I worked very hard to make […]
Domhnall MacAuley: Public health summer school
Does your research really matter? Most VIP introductions are bland and unchallenging. Not this time. When (Professor Sir) Peter Gregson, vice chancellor at Queen’s University Belfast, introduced the joint summer school of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration’s centres of public health and Health Research Board (Ireland), he pointed out how universities often fail to show the […]
Research highlights – 25 February 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: Oh for a beaker of mirth
Being a self-sacrificing soul I recently enrolled myself in a critical piece of public health research: I gave up alcohol for January. If appetite is the new front-line in health, if our desires are becoming the death of us, then self-restraint must be the new penicillin, and, to squeeze the analogy a little, the Petri-dish […]