Whilst reading the 27 February issue of the South China Morning Post, my eye was caught by an article titled “Mother of girl set on fire vows court action.” This was a detailed story of a teenage girl in Anhui province who had kerosene poured over her and was set alight by a man whose advances she had refused. This happened last year and it would appear that the family had decided not to settle out of court with the assailants family to cover the medical costs of treating the girl.  The family was going to pursue legal action and the mother had turned to the internet last week to seek help with her case. It is obvious the case is causing strong feelings to emerge in the Chinese internet community. An additional point of outrage is the dalliance of the police in preparing an injury report. Whether this is justified is not clear as it will certainly take time in the UK to complete the assessment of the prognosis in a burn victim.  What struck me though was the prominence given to this incident, in terms of column inches (two columns of around ten inches each). Contrast this with a  report in the Indian Express (16 January 2012). In just two column inches was a report of a 17 year old girl who was allegedly abducted, raped, and set on fire by four youths in the Khekhreru area of Uttar Pradesh by four youths. The girl had been admitted to hospital where her condition was critical. I read this whilst in Mumbai waiting for a plane back to Hong Kong. Of note I had been at a wonderful conference of Indian Reconstructive Microsurgeon held in Aurangabad.  My Indian friends in Hong Kong responded in a very matter of fact way when I told them of the article and said that the youths would have just been trying to destroy evidence of the rape. more…

It feels like no time at all since we launched PROSPERO. The year has flown by, buoyed by the worldwide support and enthusiasm for the initiative. It has been a successful year with over 380 reviews being undertaken in 27 different countries registered to date. We have also been delighted by the public support of influential organisations such as the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA) and Guidelines International Network (G-I-N); commissioners such as National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) who have mandated registration; and medical journals and publishers, including BMJ and BMJ Open, who will be looking for protocol registration details in submitted manuscripts. more…

Watching Andrew Lansley at the Nuffield Trust Summit last week was to watch a man surprisingly at ease. The Health Secretary is at the centre of a huge media storm, surrounding an enormously mangled bill, decried by all and sundry in the medical profession and beyond.

But he started his talk with a joke, he hung around for questions (which he answered directly if a little technically), and at the very moment the Lords were figuratively dismembering his offspring, he seemed a man unexpectedly relaxed. more…