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Talking Points
Biosecurity debate reignites
Controversial ongoing experiments on mutant viruses could put human lives in danger by unleashing an accidental pandemic. The Guardian reports that epidemiologists at Harvard...
John Marshall hits headlines
John Marshall is an eminent British eye expert and the professor of ophthalmology at the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology. He has hit...
Ethics of silence
The University of Utah is ‘testing the presumption that IVF clinics deliver babies who are the biological children of their clients’, reports BioEdge. This...
Questions of over-prescription
Following a review at European level, Motilium, also known as domperidone – prescribed to around 2m people for sickness and nausea symptoms, stomach conditions...
Reviews on Tamiflu
The British Medical Journal’s Trish Groves reviews the spec ialised media’s response to the Cochrane reviews on Tamiflu and Relenza, drawing on New Scientist,...
UK standards stump half of foreign doctors
A study by University College London (UCL) has found that half of 88,000 foreign doctors would not be able to practise in the UK...
Studies highlight NHS problems
A number of studies, meanwhile, have highlighted problems in the NHS, which has become ‘stretched to breaking point’, according to an OECD study which...
Renal denervation therapy
Some leading US and European cardiologists are calling for curbs or even a moratorium on using devices meant to lower blood pressure by zapping...
Debate over Tamiflu
See FOCUS section opposite
Listen to the PODCAST from the British Medical Journal of the press conference regarding the Cochrane Collaboration’s findings on Tamiflu's efficacy.
Mathematics of cancer
Dr Robert Gatenby at Tampa’s Moffitt Cancer Centre has assembled mathematicians and oncologists to tame the chaos of cancer. By mathematically modelling cancer, they...
Homeoppathy slated
Homeopathy is no more effective than a placebo, according to an extensive study by a peak science body, reports The Guardian. The draft paper...
Cooked breakfast – with a side order of statins
As the home of cooked breakfasts and pints of beer, it is perhaps no surprise that Britain is the European king of anti-cholesterol drugs...
A super drug — at a super price
Sovaldi, a new drug to treat hepatitis C and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in December, is a big advance, writes...
Govt dietary advice deserves a Health Warning
Consumers have already had ‘a bitter taste of how hopelessly misleading’ nutritional orthodoxy can be, writes nutritionist and author Joanna Blythman in The Observer,...
Calls for ‘sat-fats are good’ paper to be retracted
When a paper published on 17 March questioned whether fats from fish or vegetable oils are healthier than those in meat or butter, it...
Widespread US belief in medical conspiracy theories
Half of Americans subscribe to medical conspiracy theories, with more than one-third of people thinking that the US Food and Drug Administration is deliberately...
The annual check-up
Most US doctors say it’s time to rethink the notion of a yearly physical, a fixture in medicine since the 1940s, reports Medicinenet. Studies...
Thou shalt be healthy
In a bid to curb rising obesity rates and a growing burden of lifestyle diseases and weight problems in children, SA’s Department of Health...
Medical care or medical cruelty?
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu recently pleased for a ‘mind shift’ in the ‘right to die’ debate. MedicalBrief's William Saunderson-Meyer takes up the issue, arguing...
Autism consensus challenged
Though the symptoms of autism frequently become less severe by adulthood, the consensus has always been that its core symptoms remain, writes The New...
UK surgery guidelines slated
Writing in The Independent, Zoë Harcombe, author of The Obesity Epidemic, is scathing of new UK government guidelines that recommend massively expanding bariatric surgery,...
‘Misguided’ war
Would the real purpose of the SA Competition Commission’s inquiry into private healthcare be to divert attention from government failure and legitimise punitive controls...
Therapists’ notes shared
Mental health patients do not have the ready access to office visit notes that, increasingly, other patients enjoy. But reports The New York Times,...
MP: 'Legalise dagga — and mistletoe’
Parliament has had its first debate on the legalisation of dagga for medicinal purposes and the impact of cancer on society, with calls to...
You can’t change an anti-vaxxers mind
Parents who believe falsely that vaccination is dangerous or unnecessary for children present a real public health hazard, reports Mother Jones. That's why researchers,...
Next big fight: Is SPD a real disease?
Sensory processing disorder (SPD) is one of those 'peculiar modern diseases caught in the purgatory between legitimacy and quackery', writes Slate. It’s widely accepted...