Having been sacked from his position as the chief UK government drugs advisor Professor David Nutt may today be reflecting on the precarious position of anyone who seeks to advise politicians on controversial matters. more…

Something has just happened that will almost certainly end the tyranny of impact factors and may well mark another step towards the extinction of most scientific journals. Did you notice it? Probably not, and even if you did you may not have understood what it was or what it may lead to.

It was the appearance of something called rather clunkily “article level metrics.” These are a variety of scores and other bits of information attached to each article in the publications of the Public Library of Science (where I’m on the board). They shift attention from journals to articles, particularly for the academic bean counters anxious to find a convenient and low cost way of ranking academics. more…

Fergie lost it with the referee. The Manchester United manager’s public criticism of the referee’s fitness in their recent match against Sunderland made headlines. Although subsequently making a personal apology he did raise the more general issue of referee’s fitness. Perhaps it was because he knew about the long established referee fitness programme in Scotland pioneered by Stewart Hillis, the recently retired professor of cardiology in Glasgow and doctor to the Scottish Football Association. Dr John McLean continues this cardiovascular screening initiative at the outstanding sports medicine facilities at Hampden Park, and hosted last Friday’s meeting on the benefits of exercise. It is good to be fit- not a new message, even for referees- but there are still many questions for patients and doctors. more…

If the health service takes environmental, social and economic sustainability seriously, it is amazing how many co-benefits there are - for the health of individuals, for the health of the population, and for the cost and quality of the health care system - genuine win-wins - win now, win later. You might think therefore that health systems like the NHS (and the managers, clinicians, and other staff who work within it) would grasp sustainability as a real opportunity to promote quality and contain cost. Well, although there are some outstanding (and even inspiring) examples of action by individuals and organisations in the NHS, we can’t quite say we have a consistent, or systematic or ambitious approach to reaping all the many benefits of making the NHS much more sustainable. more…