Spain has been at the forefront of the fight against smoking for many years. Today (25 February) the National Committee to Prevent Smoking (CNPT), the Spanish Medical Colleges Organization (Organización […]
Latest articles
Liz Allen: How Ebola and Zika might help to open up science
The Ebola and Zika epidemics could be the catalyst to open up and speed up the publishing of science. During the Ebola outbreak, there were examples of researchers being unwilling […]
David Zigmond: Can we reduce childhood sepsis by more vigilant management? I doubt it
Recently the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said “I am determined we blaze a trail across the world in developing a truly safe healthcare system with airline levels of safety.” (Economist […]
David Oliver: If you want to explain what’s happening in the NHS, just look at schools and teachers
Imagine you are a teacher or headteacher in a good enough local authority school in an area with its fair share of deprivation and a shrinking funding envelope. The school […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: leave business metaphors to business
Some metaphors have gone beyond cliché to parody, and should never be written in a medical article. They include at the end of the day, level playing field, and moving […]
William Cayley: Single payer healthcare—is it here already?
Despite all the hand wringing and arguments over single payer healthcare in American social debates past and present, what most observers seem to miss (but patients and doctors know very well) […]
Jane Wells: Meningitis B vaccine—still learning to deal with uncertainty
Another vaccine controversy rears its head, this time meningitis B. The parents of a two year old who died of the disease posted pictures of their desperately ill child online, […]
Jennifer Rohn: Should the meningitis B vaccine be offered to children older than 1 year old?
The advent of quantitative approaches to understanding the patterns of disease ushered in a golden era for public health. From the link between smoking and lung cancer to HIV and […]
BMJ Open: Five years old and growing
Five years ago today, BMJ Open appeared on the scene. Conceived as a general medical journal to provide authors a fast, transparent route to publication, BMJ Open could have developed […]
Richard Smith: Qualitative research and The BMJ—hidden motives
I’m much amused by the pious positions taken by researchers and BMJ editors in the spirited dispute over qualitative research. The researchers are upset that The BMJ largely excludes qualitative […]