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, […]
Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: Remembering the early days of AIDS
I started as the BBC Breakfast Time doctor in January 1983, six months after a new disease was given the name AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). When the producers asked […]
Richard Smith: Peer reviewers—time for mass rebellion?
I’ve spent about six hours over the last two days reviewing two scientific papers, and the experience has made me wonder if it is time for peer reviewers to rise […]
Richard Smith: How to stop affluence destroying us
The starting point for John Kenneth Galbraith’s book The Affluent Society is that for most of recorded history most people have been poor, meaning that they struggled to feed, clothe, […]
Richard Smith: Is cancer still the best way to die?
I was asked to write the piece below by George Lundberg, who was the editor of JAMA when I was editor of The BMJ. He has a blog where he […]
Richard Smith: A new important study supports wider use of the polypill
By coincidence on Friday my new polypills arrived together with the results of a major study confirming that use of the polypill containing a statin and four antihypertensives in people […]
Richard Smith: Doctors—beware the curse of optimism
Breakthroughs announced in the media are rarely breakthroughs. Disasters rarely prove as disastrous as when first splashed in the media. I kept both these Kipling-esque thoughts in mind when nearly […]
Richard Smith: Are all lives and deaths equal?
The question of whether all lives and deaths are equal inevitably evokes strong emotions, but it’s a question that lies behind much of our thinking on how to respond to […]
Richard Smith: Population aging is a success and the cause of increases in healthcare costs: two shibboleths we should stop repeating
When I connected to the Forum annual lecture of the Academy of Medical Sciences yesterday I heard the president make two statements that you hear all the time—and might be […]
Richard Smith: Beware the snares of “Conventional Wisdom,” with implications for the pandemic and much else
The most famous part of J K Galbraith’s famous book The Affluent Society, which was published in 1958, is the chapter in which he exposes the constant failure of what […]