To the evident frustration of the Danish Medical Association, Denmark has repealed the world’s first tax on saturated fats. The climb-down came after just over a year, the government citing […]
Julian Sheather
Julian Sheather is specialist adviser (ethics and human rights), policy directorate, BMA.
Julian Sheather: Should parents be compelled to vaccinate their children?
I was recently asked to give a talk on vaccination and potential conflicts between the rights of parents and the interests of their children. A few years back when my […]
Julian Sheather: Medical electives—laying the ghosts of empire?
I was at Brighton Medical School recently, talking ethics to third years, and a lively and engaging bunch they were too. Among the many things we talked about were electives, […]
Julian Sheather: Time to claim kin with the volcanologists?
No, I am not about to declare myself a closet trekkie. I have in mind the decision by Judge Marco Billi to jail six Italian seismologists for giving ‘false assurances’ […]
Julian Sheather: Safeguarding adults—respecting freedom, maximising welfare
I was in Bromley recently at an adult safeguarding conference. It was in some respects a melancholy day. We heard about Brent Martin, a 23 year-old with learning disabilities and […]
Julian Sheather: What’s wrong with moral enhancement?
The question of whether biotechnology should be deployed to improve human beings morally is starting to climb out of the pages of recondite publications and dip a quizzical toe in […]
Julian Sheather and Vivienne Nathanson: Todd Akin, rape, and “doctors”
According to the historian Tony Judt, the Red Army, after raping and brutalising its way across Europe in the closing stages of the Second World War, left behind, in Germany […]
Julian Sheather: Doping in sport—thoughts on another Olympic legacy
Every once in a while I dust off my old road bike and head out onto the North Downs to take in a few hills. Panting up a short sharp […]
Julian Sheather: Anders Breivik and the social uses of psychiatry
I have been gripped by the trial of Anders Breivik and was intrigued to see the BMJ hosting a Maudsley debate this week about, loosely speaking, Breivik’s “sanity.” The debate […]
Julian Sheather: Happy-ology
It is possibly the oldest of all philosophical questions. Although academic specialisation has tended to brush it to the wings—embarrassed perhaps by the sheer indeterminate unwieldiness of it—the question of […]