In the early 80s I kissed a hand that Hitler had kissed. Once I realised what I’d done I felt like spitting, but I didn’t. This is how my physical […]
Richard Smith
Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004.
Richard Smith: Doctors should think less about drugs and more about food
Doctors, who prescribe drugs, are at the top of the health hierarchy, whereas nutritionists are near the bottom. At medical school students learn a huge amount about drugs, but little […]
Richard Smith: Moving from global heath 3.0 to global health 4.0
Global health 1.0 was called tropical medicine and was primarily concerned with keeping white men alive in the tropics. Global health 2.0 was called international health and comprised clever people […]
Richard Smith: “I’m the minister of health in a poor country”
I’m the minister of health in a poor country. Until last year I was a urologist. I was the president’s urologist and took out his prostate. To be honest, I […]
Richard Smith: Medical journals: “a colossal problem of quality”
We knew that we had “a colossal problem of quality” when we began the peer review congresses in 1989, said Drummond Rennie, creator of the congresses, at the seventh congress […]
Richard Smith: Learning at a meeting on global health
Earlier this week I attended a meeting at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh on global health to beat my drum on the importance of non-communicable disease (NCD). Others […]
Richard Smith: The dangers of a moustache
A kiss without a moustache, the proverb says, is like an egg without salt and, added Jean Paul Sartre, like good without evil. The proverb doesn’t make clear which kisser […]
Richard Smith: Is the pharmaceutical industry like the mafia?
The piece that follows is my foreword to a new and fascinating book by Peter Gøtzsche, the head of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, entitled Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How […]
Richard Smith: Time for science to be about truth rather than careers
Most scientific studies are wrong, and they are wrong because scientists are interested in funding and careers rather than truth. That was the chilling message delivered by the smiling, brilliant, […]
Richard Smith: A gamechanger for the polypill?
It is now some 15 years since the emergence of the idea and supporting evidence that combining antihypertensives and a statin into a single polypill and giving it to people […]