Tony Delamothe retires from The BMJ today, after nearly 30 years. His experience and expertise will be greatly missed. Here I am interested in his name. “Ant[h]ony” comes from the Roman […]
Month: June 2016
Marriage is not a solution to problems and doesn’t guarantee a happier life, but staying in school can
Usually when you hear about child marriage, you hear stories of young girls being pressured by their families to marry early for a bride price, or they marry to escape […]
Peter C Gøtzsche: Prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death
Our prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer (1). Based on the best research I could find, I have estimated that psychiatric drugs […]
David Payne: Time to pause Scotland’s “Named Person” policy
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.” Was Philip Larkin right, and if so, are state-funded parenting classes the answer? Or […]
Matthias Wienold: How an online patient group proved its value to me
Around the world patient groups in social networks are growing and even becoming of interest to researchers. So, when I got diagnosed with cluster headache (CH) syndrome I gave it […]
Richard Smith: What will the post journal world look like?
SMACCDUB is the conference of young critical care doctors, with a few mature ones thrown in for the mix, and the most energetic I’ve been to in a long time, […]
Jon Brassey: Threats to traditional systematic reviews
For many years systematic reviews have been placed on a pedestal, relatively free from critical scrutiny. Frequently seen as being at the top of the “evidence pyramid” they have been adopted […]
Richard Lehman: Is gardening good for your health?
At the rear of the grand London buildings which house the BMA and the BMJ offices, there is a tranquil garden, sheltered by tall buildings and lovingly tended by Daniella […]
Nigel Edwards: The NHS workforce crisis may be irreversible
A great deal of the current focus in the NHS is on the financial challenges it faces. These are undoubtedly severe, but I think they may be obscuring a problem […]
William Cayley: Whither the communication of evidence in the social media world?
Notwithstanding the epistemological inconsistency inherent in discussions of “my evidence” vs “your evidence” (after all, if “evidence” is not about an objectively verifiable shared reality, then it’s not evidence”), I […]