Growth in spend on healthcare grew faster than growth in the gross domestic product in every OECD country between 2000 and 2008. That’s the main reason why every country, including […]
Columnists
Liz Wager: Does the Wakefield et al case mean we should demand public access to raw data?
The latest chapter in the sad saga of the Wakefield et al paper on the MMR vaccine raises some difficult questions about access to individual patient data. It is possible […]
James Raftery: What does “value based pricing” mean for NICE?
The “value based pricing” consultation paper” makes the following relevant references to the future of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). […]
Richard Smith: Will we follow Easter Islanders into extinction?
What contrary creatures we humans are. I begin the year convinced that our civilisation will collapse soon but at the same time enjoying the continuous Mozart on Radio 3, abandoning […]
James Raftery: Value based pricing – the consultation paper
The publication of the Department of Health’s consultation paper on value based pricing and the ongoing consultation on the Cancer Drugs Fund plus each consultation’s accompanying impact assessment mean that […]
Richard Smith: Medicine’s need for the humanities
I spoke as well at the meeting on valuing the humanities at the London School of Economics (see blog below), and I argued that medicine needs the humanities badly. The […]
Richard Smith: Battling the assault on the humanities
Having decided that higher education is no longer a public good, the coalition government has cut completely the funding for teaching the humanities. This is a desperately short sighted move, […]
Liz Wager: Can we immunise Brazilian science against fraud?
I’m in Sao Jose dos Campos, near Sao Paulo, Brazil, on the last leg of BRISPE 1 – the First Brazilian meeting on Research Integrity, Science & Publication Ethics, which […]
Julian Sheather: On spouses and the right to self-determination
I recently attended a seminar concerned with human rights violations of women forced or coerced into sterilisation, a joint undertaking by the Open Society Institute and the International Federation of […]
Martin McShane: Transition and the operating framework
I have a weekly teleconference with GPs from our emergent consortia. We set this up a while back to try and keep up with events, nix rumours and misconceptions and, […]