It’s a mistake for the government to be so opaque about the data they’ll use to guide our exit from lockdown, writes Andy Cowper […]
Columnists
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . N-of-1 studies and adverse drug reactions
Lovastatin is one of the words whose earliest citations in the Oxford English Dictionary are from 1986 (Table 1). Table 1. Biomedical words (n=17) in the OED for which the […]
Andy Cowper: The Budget? Fudge it
“If you can’t budge it, fudge it” could well end up as the motto of Boris Johnson’s government, particularly when it comes to health and social care. The Budget announced […]
Richard Smith: The medical apostate’s tale
The Ministry of Bodies by Seamus O’Mahony is published today by Apollo. It has many acute observations on the practice of medicine in the 21st century, finds Richard Smith In […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Fertile philology
I have now reached 1985 in my survey of words whose first citations listed in the Oxford English Dictionary are from years spanning my 50 years as a physician. Four […]
The UK’s PPE procurement scandal reminds us why we need ways to hold ministers to account
Martin McKee looks at what lessons we can learn from the government’s many failures in procuring PPE during the pandemic […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Medical light sabres
The treatment known as photopheresis, or extracorporeal photopheresis, was first described by RL Edelson in 1984, which explains its appearance in this week’s list of words that are cited in […]
Richard Smith: The benefits of putting health at the centre of the response to the climate crisis
Although it may currently be difficult and uncomfortable to recognise, the covid-19 pandemic is not the world’s major threat to health. The climate crisis is the major threat. The pandemic, […]
Chris Ham: Credible proposals for social care reform are needed if health and social care integration is to work
The government’s white paper on health and social care is a staging post in the development of integrated care. Its core proposals—to establish integrated care systems as statutory bodies, introduce […]
Martin McKee: How can we hold political leaders accountable for failures in pandemics?
Covid-19 has had a huge impact across the world. There is no doubt that political decisions have played a major role, says Martin McKee […]