Latest headlines from BMJ

Evidence is still not informing policy on obesity, conference hears

Limb, M. — 2012-02-10T07:41:33-08:00

The government is still not making the best use of evidence in efforts to tackle the UK’s grave obesity problem, a conference of experts heard.Julia Neuberger, who chairs the House of Lords Science...

Seize the chance to agree a lasting settlement on how to fund social care, says Dilnot

Limb, M. — 2012-02-10T07:41:33-08:00

Politicians will be “cowardly” if they fail to seize the chance to transform the system of funding social care in England, according to the economist leading the case for change.Andrew Dilnot, who...

Legal action by patient forces trust to make u turn over non-NHS community health services

Dyer, C. — 2012-02-10T07:41:33-08:00

A retired railwayman living in a care home has forced Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust (PCT) to reconsider its plans to hand over community health services to a social enterprise organisation it...

The role of regulation in healthcare

Saltman, R. B. — 2012-02-10T03:42:34-08:00

In November 2011, the healthcare think tank, the King’s Fund, published an assessment of the responsibilities and prospects for the newly redesigned Monitor, the independent regulator of NHS...

Scaling up oral rehydration salts and zinc for the treatment of diarrhoea

Sabot, O., Schroder, K., Yamey, G., Montagu, D. — 2012-02-10T03:42:35-08:00

In the years after the launch of the millennium development goals, the health economist Jeffrey Sachs emphasised investment in malaria control as the “lowest hanging fruit” in the battle to reduce...

Critics attack DSM-5 for overmedicalising normal human behaviour

Watts, G. — 2012-02-10T03:42:35-08:00

Although not due to be published until May 2013, the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is already provoking dissent...

Judges rule that hospitals have a duty to protect voluntary psychiatric patients

Dyer, C. — 2012-02-10T03:42:35-08:00

Public institutions, including NHS hospitals, have a positive duty to safeguard the right to life of voluntary psychiatric patients as well as patients who are formally detained, the UK Supreme Court...

Delirium in intensive care patients

Page, V. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

The scientific evidence is irrefutable—delirium in the intensive care unit is an independent predictor of death and acquired dementia.1 2 The linked study by Van den Boogaard and colleagues...

Development and validation of PRE-DELIRIC (PREdiction of DELIRium in ICu patients) delirium prediction model for intensive care patients: observational multicentre study

2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

Objectives To develop and validate a delirium prediction model for adult intensive care patients and determine its additional value compared with prediction by caregivers.Design Observational...

John Michael Talbot

Blake, H. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

John Michael Talbot was born in Thames Ditton and educated at Kingston Grammar School. He came to living faith in his early teens through a boys’ bible class run by the Crusaders Union. He gained an...

Varicose veins

Nogaro, M.-C., Pournaras, D. J., Prasannan, C., Chaudhuri, A. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

A 55 year old woman presents with a history of tortuous veins on both legs and a related ache towards the end of the day. She finds these veins unsightly and would like to know whether she can have...

J Stephen D Allen

Elliott, P., McBride, W., Bill, M. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

Shortly after qualifying J Stephen D Allen (“Steve”) decided to specialise in anaesthesia, and his intellect and energy were quickly recognised. His subspecialty interests lay in critical care...

Elizabeth Mary Helen Veitch

Watson, A., Ramsay, A. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

Elizabeth Mary Helen Veitch (“Mary”) had recently established herself as a partner in Springfield Medical Practice in Arbroath, but during that short time immersed herself in the practice and...

Russell Cherry

Chudley, S., Parle, J. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

After house jobs and vocational training, Russell Cherry worked in general practice in Hall Green, Birmingham, before joining Jiggins Lane Medical Centre, the practice that became his passion. His...

Jonathan Adekunle Magbadelo

Vogt, S. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

Jonathan Adekunle Magbadelo worked as a doctor in the Grantham and Newark area in accident and emergency medicine and surgery before his enforced retirement because of ill health. He was raised by...

Leslie Naftalin

Naftalin, N. J., Naftalin, A. A. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

After qualifying as a dentist in 1937, Leslie Naftalin followed four of his brothers into medicine. Before the war he was briefly in practice in Birmingham, and after service in the Royal Army...

Pieter Van Boxel

West, A. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

After a year in Durban, Pieter Van Boxel moved to Britain, where he worked as a casualty officer in Bath, and a senior house officer in Guy’s Hospital before obtaining a Geoffrey Knight research...

Appetite suppressant was probably responsible for 1300 deaths, study shows

Benkimoun, P. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

A research study into the drug benfluorex (marketed as Mediator), which was withdrawn from the French market in 2009 because of side effects, shows that its use in France during 1976-2009 was...

Doctors in Syria are being forced to treat patients in secret, charity says

Gulland, A. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

The medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned that the Syrian regime is using doctors and healthcare facilities as “tools of repression” and doctors are being forced to treat patients...

Peers vote to put mental health on equal footing with physical health in the NHS

Kmietowicz, Z. — 2012-02-09T07:44:26-08:00

Peers voted against the government on the Health and Social Care Bill at their first opportunity on 8 February when they backed an amendment to give mental and physical health equal weight in the...

Acute cannabis consumption and motor vehicle collision risk: systematic review of observational studies and meta-analysis

Asbridge, M., Hayden, J. A., Cartwright, J. L. — 2012-02-09T15:33:57-08:00

Objective To determine whether the acute consumption of cannabis (cannabinoids) by drivers increases the risk of a motor vehicle collision.Design Systematic review of observational studies, with...

Driving while under the influence of cannabis

Hall, W. — 2012-02-09T15:33:57-08:00

The findings of the linked paper by Asbridge and colleagues (doi:10.1136/bmj.e536) add weight to the argument that cannabis users should be deterred from driving while intoxicated because of the risk...

Our medical heritage has lessons for the future

Bynum, H. — 2012-02-09T03:45:02-08:00

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Medicine is a coming of age compendium. The call for a new approach to medicine’s past was made in the early 1970s. It aimed to release medical history from the...

"n of 1" trials

Sedgwick, P. — 2012-02-09T03:45:02-08:00

Researchers investigated whether paracetamol was as effective as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in the treatment of pain and disability related to osteoarthritis of the hip or knee. A...

Donald Jeffries

Anderson, J., Ridgway, G. — 2012-02-09T03:45:02-08:00

bmj;344/feb09_1/e922/FIG1F1fig1The clinical virologist Professor Donald James Jeffries was at the forefront of the UK response to HIV and transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). His...

In brief

2012-02-09T03:45:02-08:00

Trusts are given access to PFI bailout fund: Seven hospital trusts in England with debts that are partly caused by private finance initiative repayments are to have access to a £1.5bn (€1.8bn;...

A commitment to protect health and save lives

Godlee, F. — 2012-02-09T03:45:02-08:00

At what age are surgeons safest? In France, according to Antoine Duclos and colleagues, it’s between 35 and 50 years old (doi:10.1136/bmj.d8041). The authors looked prospectively at thyroid...

Charity backtracks on cuts to Planned Parenthood funding

Roehr, B. — 2012-02-09T03:45:02-08:00

In the face of a public outcry, one of the largest cancer charities in the US, Susan G Komen for the Cure, has reversed its decision to stop giving grants for cancer screening of low income women...

Care home resident challenges PCT's right to hive off services to a social enterprise without a proper tendering process

Dyer, C. — 2012-02-09T03:45:03-08:00

A retired railwayman who lives in a care home challenged his local primary care trust’s decision to hive off community care services to a social enterprise company at the High Court in London this...

Faculty of Public Health calls for the health bill to be withdrawn

Limb, M. — 2012-02-09T03:45:03-08:00

The Faculty of Public Health has called for the “complete withdrawal” of the Health and Social Care Bill after members voted overwhelmingly for their leaders to change policy.The faculty surveyed its...

The BMJ on the death of Charles Dickens

2012-02-08T07:53:02-08:00

How true to Nature, even to their most trivial details, almost every character and every incident in the works of the great novelist whose dust has just been laid to rest, really were, is best known...