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Talking Points
Gender-affirming healthcare matters in SA
Gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth has sparked intense debate globally. In South Africa, we need to significantly improve accessibility countrywide, ensure services are well-resourced,...
Covid link to aggressive rare cancers, suggest scientists
Increasingly, scientists are suggesting that the proliferation of aggressive cancers – including previously very rare forms of the disease – since the Covid-19 pandemic...
DNA technology may impede MDR-TB progress – SA Health Department
The National Department of Health plans to use DNA technology to test whether the genetic make-up of TB germs has changed in such a...
US National Academies' report underscores severity of long Covid
One of America’s premier medical advisory organisations has weighed in on long Covid with a 265-page report that recognises the seriousness and persistence of...
SA's rollout of HIV prevention jabs stymied by price
Although HIV infections in South Africa have plummeted in 20 years, from highs of more than 500 00 to around 149 000 in 2023, new...
Cass Review slammed by transgender associations
The Cass Review on transgender healthcare will leave young transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people with little opportunity to obtain transgender care, breaching their...
Harsh medical toll of ‘white’ beauty standards
After the 2022 publication of the NIH’s 10-year epidemiological study linking hair-straightening products to uterine cancer, thousands of black women filed lawsuits alleging companies had sold hair...
How systemic racism in medicine may risk black lives
Across the world, medical tests are being adjusted according to patients’ skin colour – with shocking consequences, writes Layal Liverpool, a science writer, who,...
Politics and science a bad mix, says former ombud
Universal health coverage is one of the hottest issues parties are using in their election arsenal in the run-up to voting day, but academic,...
Three reforms to prioritise to turn around SA healthcare
To drum up support as South Africans head to the polls, President Cyril Ramaphosa reportedly vowed to “end the apartheid that remains in healthcare”...
Time to recognise strengths of African-based medical education
The unique strengths of African medical graduates and institutions, where more advanced competencies need to be taught to generalist clinicians, often early in training,...
Ending Aids in Africa is a challenge of equity, not science
The world has come a long way in the fight against HIV, but inequity – particularly for groups that continue to suffer a disproportionate...
Impact of second victim syndrome on surgeons
Nearly 50% of healthcare providers face second victim syndrome (SVS) – the trauma after a medical complication or error – at least once, and...
Resignation of SAMJ editor under the spotlight
The resignation of the editor of the South African Medical Journal – relating to an opinion piece on the war in Gaza – has...
Budget cuts derail efforts to improve healthcare rights
Massive budget cuts in the healthcare sector, still not fully recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, are creating a new funding crisis.
Writing in the Mail...
Dependence on Indian-made drugs puts Africa at risk
Africa’s reliance on Indian pharmaceuticals poses a risk to the continent’s security of access to medicine, and this week’s Belgian presidency of the Council...
How science vanquished 'anti-vaxxer hogwash’ in court
The recent victory of science over anti-vaxxer pseudoscience in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) was a highlight in the fight against the dangerous, life-threatening...
Trans children deserve the truth about puberty-blockers
A study summarising the sparse research on the effects of puberty blockers on transgender children – highlighting solid scientific evidence to suspect that any...
Experts differ on when to declare a patient dead
Debate is simmering over the Uniform Determination of Death Act – a law adopted by most US states in the 1980s saying death can be...
Science, not corporate zeal, must drive search for Alzheimer's drug
Biogen's announcement last week that it would stop both the study and sale of Aduhelm, its FDA-approved monoclonal antibody for the treatment of Alzheimer’s...
High stakes for SA healthcare in 2024
As South Africa barrels towards its most consequential and most competitive national and provincial elections since 1994, expected to take place in May, the...
Cum laude medical graduate sitting at home, unemployed
Despite the glaring shortage of medical professionals in South Africa, hundreds of qualified doctors are sitting at home without jobs, writes Sunhera Sukdeo –...
Tight budgets hamper state employment of new doctors
There is no doubt more health professionals should be employed in South Africa in the public sector, but what will not be done is...
Failure to tackle SA’s food crisis harks back to Aids denialism
This year is likely to be tumultuous in South Africa, with social unrest aggravated by electoral politicking, and rapidly growing food insecurity – and...
Medical brain drain puts SA in dire position
South African medical professionals are highly sought after and valued globally, and many are now leaving the country because of a lack of trust...
Is Covid guilty of 'immunity theft'?
Since 2021, children, globally, have been afflicted with respiratory illnesses earlier and in greater numbers than usual, the surging case numbers fuelling an ongoing...
Is vaccination approaching a dangerous tipping point?
Vaccination is one of the most highly effective public health interventions, responsible for saving millions of lives each year, yet an increasing number of...
The importance of UHC in Nigeria – Wakley Prize winning essay
Thomas Wakley, who founded The Lancet in 1823, would be astounded by medicine today. Progress over the past two centuries has been remarkable. Antiseptics and anaesthetics...
Poor people also have a right to medicine
We must have the courage to stand up to the pharmaceutical industry, because no one – anywhere – should die just because of their...
The quest for pills to thwart long Covid – is it worth it?
Up to one in five people can get long Covid, but a drug called Paxlovid can lower the chance of developing the long-haul version...
Antidepressants link to sexual problems a bigger issue than thought?
It’s long been known that antidepressants can cause sexual problems, with more than half of all people taking the drugs reporting various side effects...
Time for a dedicated NCD fund to tackle diabetes?
Although Africa bears the biggest burden of diabetes, with an estimated 24m people who have the condition, the continent lags behind in access to...
Concern as diabetes deaths double in past decade
Deaths due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are rising in South Africa, the increase being particularly startling because overall, the country has been recording a...
How drug industry payments to doctors affect patient care
Influence of industry payments on physicians’ behaviour is well established, and commonly known, but findings of recent research suggest this influence has the potential...
SA policy uncertainty a major obstacle to organ donation
Despite a desperate need for transplant organs, and some focus on encouraging people to sign up as donors, confusing law and gaps in policy...
Global health-financing mechanism key to UHC
No one questions the value of universal health coverage, writes SA Medical Journal editor Bridget Farham, but what the concept requires – worldwide, especially...
Global South should learn from Big Pharma’s bullying of SA
The extortionate vaccine contracts the South African Government signed during the pandemic demonstrate why achieving pharmaceutical sovereignty should be a priority for all developing...
Why SA men have much higher TB mortality risk than women
In South Africa, men are 70% more likely to develop TB and die from the disease, compared with women, write Mmamapudi Kubjane of Wits...
Rural health congress calls for more clinical associates
South Africa faces chronic healthcare worker shortages, particularly in rural areas, with the Human Resources for Health Strategy 2030 warning of an an impending...
The decades-long struggle to get ineffective decongestant off the shelves
Dr Leslie Hendeles began prodding the US Food and Drug Administration to reject a decongestant in cold medicines decades ago – when Bill Clinton...