Giving birth is one of the most vulnerable moments a woman can experience. It can be anxiety inducing enough in a well equipped hospital in the UK, but the women […]
Month: November 2018
Benjamin Mazer: Are medical errors a huge problem that’s simple to fix?
Progress in patient safety can only come from the slow work of science and the honesty of our limitations […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . The Medicines Act 1968 and the British Pharmacopoeia
As I mentioned last week, the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis, the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia, and the Dublin Pharmacopoeia were eventually combined, in 1864, to form the British Pharmacopoeia (Pharmacopoeia Britannica), as recommended and […]
Richard Smith: A case that illustrates why the NHS appointment system needs to move from the 18th to the 21st century
Today the Royal College of Physicians has concluded that the way the NHS runs outpatient appointments is stuck in the 18th century. Many of the appointments are not necessary, and […]
Peter C Gøtzsche: Cochrane—no longer a Collaboration
Peter C Gøtzsche discusses his expulsion from the Cochrane Collaboration […]
Let’s acknowledge the biggest killer of women (and men)
Mark Woodward, Lizzie Millett, Sanne Peters Men have heart disease at higher rates than women, at all ages, and across the world. However, heart disease is the biggest killer of […]
Kent Buse and Sarah Hawkes: Are health organisations leaders or laggards on gender equality?
Signs suggest that the tide is turning towards greater recognition of the importance of gender-equality in global health […]
Tessa Richards: China to set the bar high for new health technologies
How to reap the benefits of new technologies while keeping a tight rein on healthcare costs is a challenge all countries face, not least China. It spends a relatively modest […]
Unreported clinical trial of the week: prospective outcomes study of wall hernia repair with composite mesh (NCT02341430)
Nick DeVito, Ben Goldacre, Carl Heneghan Background The US FDA Amendments Act (FDAAA 2007) requires certain clinical trials to report their results onto ClinicalTrials.gov within one year of completion. European Union (EU) […]
Frank Gavin: Helping patients understand adverse drug reactions
Adverse drug reactions (ADRs), or side effects, are important to patients. This became very clear to me in the six years when I served as a public member of the […]