As Saurabh Jha writes, “The likelihood that someone with cerebral aneurysm hit by a bat develops subarachnoid hemorrhage (near certainty) is not the same as the likelihood that someone who […]
The BMJ today
The BMJ Today: The climate change horse has bolted
Eric Chivian urges doctors to help tackle climate change, but shouldn’t the profession’s energies be spent tackling unsafe hospitals and under resourced healthcare systems? […]
The BMJ Today: Is medicine marching towards an era of greater openness?
In the latest Endgames picture quiz, a 41 year old man presents to the emergency department with a two week history of worsening shortness of breath, productive cough, intermittent fever, […]
The BMJ Today: Paying people to live healthier lives and tackling climate change
This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Fifth Assessment Report. The scientists who wrote it warn of the serious impact that climate change—unequivocally influenced by human […]
The BMJ Today: Vitamin D, probiotics, and polio
We have been longing for a final word on whether vitamin D supplements improve health. An umbrella review published today included 107 systematic literature reviews and 74 meta-analyses of observational […]
The BMJ Today: Selective decontamination revisited and healthcare reform in Massachusetts
Richard Price and co-workers published a network meta analysis evaluating the effect on mortality of selective digestive decontamination (SDD), selective oropharyngeal decontamination (SOD), and topical oropharyngeal chlorhexidine in patients in […]
The BMJ Today: Debates about alternative medicine and cancer screening
People love complementary and alternative therapies, and vote with their wallets to spend close to £5 billion a year in the UK alone on treatments such as massage, relaxation, evening […]
The BMJ Today: Einstein’s theory of data, climate change and the “threat to human survival,” and New York facing legal challenge over e-cigs ban
“Information is not knowledge,” was Einstein’s cautionary take on the power (and limitation) of data. In healthcare, the collection of patient feedback and other data is regularly hailed as the […]
The BMJ Today: Farewell to traditional public health services and to our GP columnist
There’s a new vocabulary being used to describe the NHS in England that conjures up images of the American Frontier; of battles over territories, conquests, and survival. GP and former […]
The BMJ Today: From mental asylums to cognitive behavioural therapy
“The mental asylum belongs to a vanished era,” begins the obituary of psychiatrist Henry Rollin in The BMJ. Despite working in asylums until their closure, there is no implication that […]