David Sweanor, a Canadian lawyer who has many times successfully sued the tobacco industry, believes that those who instinctively react against e-cigarettes on moral grounds are making a bad mistake. […]
Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: How global health can help the NHS
Africa has 25% of the global health burden and 2% of the health workforce. In contrast, North America has 2% of the health burden but 25% of the health workforce. […]
Richard Smith: Memory—the view from the humanities
To a neuroscientist, said Hugo Spiers, a psychologist from UCL chairing a meeting at LSE last week, memory is just a physical and chemical arrangement of synapses. That’s a supremely […]
Richard Smith: If Volkswagen staff can be criminally charged so should fraudulent scientists
A man who steals a milk bottle may face a criminal charge. In contrast, a scientist who invents data, defrauds funders, and publishes fabricated data that may lead to patient […]
Richard Smith: Reading for a long life
At 63 I’m preparing for my capacities and faculties to fall away, and I think about what I hope to preserve. Taking being with those I love as a given, […]
Richard Smith: How well are countries doing in responding to the NCD pandemic?
A pandemic of NCD (non-communicable disease) is sweeping across the world, particularly in poor countries, causing much suffering and premature death and swamping health systems. NCD (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic […]
Richard Smith: Promoting compassion
Edinburgh University’s Global Health Academy has together with Stanford University created a Global Compassion Initiative, and, as I walked last week towards the launch of the initiative in one of […]
Richard Smith: Disciplined for being human
“Doctors need to bring something of themselves to their patients, to make a personal connection, if medicine is to be a healing science,” writes an anonymous obituarist, somewhat portentously, at […]
Richard Smith: The NHS needs existential psychotherapists
Existential psychotherapists help people with the existential, eternal, unsettling, and human problems of meaninglessness, isolation, and the terror of death. These are problems that are causing much suffering in Britain […]
Richard Smith: How to fill the void of evidence for everyday practice?
Some even most (depending on how you measure it) of what doctors do lacks strong evidence. Even when evidence exists it often doesn’t seem to be relevant to doctors—because their patients […]