Cochrane systematic reviews provide perhaps the best evidence available on health, but do they improve the care of patients and shape health policy? This was the question addressed at one […]
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David Payne: Loos in Lagos
In a hot Washington DC two days ago I needed the toilet. I was on Wisconsin Avene in Georgetown. My English reserve suddenly overcame me. I dreaded the thought of […]
Sophie Reshamwalla: Lifebox in the mist—a premier sojourn in Rwanda
Getting to Rwanda takes ages. I don’t know why there isn’t a direct flight to Kigali from the UK but there just isn’t—which meant that my journey there took close […]
Martin McShane: Champions for change
Let me tell you a story. I recently had the opportunity to listen to a woman whose mother developed vascular dementia. This is what I heard. A stroke caused expressive […]
David Payne: The boy who can’t forget
I have a good memory. Actually I’m being modest. I have an amazing memory, according to friends and family. 29 June 1974. A Saturday. I was eight. We went on […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—1 October 2012
Arch Intern Med 24 Sep 2012 Vol 172 Of Exercise I sing, and that benignant sweat Which from six thousand diabetic brows Exudes. My pen, Hygeia, speed! To save That […]
David Kerr: Man of the people
So David Cameron does not know the meaning of the phrase Magna Carta (The Great Charter) or who composed the music to Rule Britannia (Thomas Arne). The prime minister was […]
Richard Smith: Polypill summit hears of slow progress
The idea of combining antihypertensive drugs, a statin, and sometimes aspirin into a polypill to prevent heart attacks and strokes is now a dozen years old, but still no drug […]
Steve Yentis: Infamous names in anaesthesia—part three
My short list of infamous anaesthetists [read part one and part two of this blog series] has developed into a musing about research misconduct—and particularly fraud—in general, prompted by the […]
Leena Menghaney: India’s patent law on trial
This month, two critical legal battles between multinational pharmaceutical companies and the Indian government are taking center stage in an ongoing struggle over India’s medicines patent law. The potential consequences […]