National drug regulators use evidence from clinical trials to decide whether new cancer drugs will be approved for use. But these studies are often flawed.
Women are catching up to men in rates of alcohol consumption and this has important implications for how we think about our community response to harmful alcohol use.
National dietary guidelines have become an easy target for those looking for a scapegoat for bad diets in rich countries. And a BMJ article about draft US guidelines adds further fuel for the fire.
Research published today has found an association between commonly used antidepressants and birth defects. But pregnant women face greater harms from stopping their medication abruptly.
The shortage of donated organs means that for many in need of a life-saving transplant the only thing to do is wait, sometimes so long that the patient becomes too ill to undergo the operation. But much…
Tobacco smoke contains thousands of compounds, many of them toxic and capable of causing injury throughout the body. Because of this high toxicity of tobacco smoke, many diseases have long been causally…
A study published in the journal of the British Medical Association, BMJ, today says a tax on sugary drinks could cut the number of obese adults in the United Kingdom by 180,000. Similar Australian projections…
Reema Rattan, The Conversation and Isabelle Knight, The Conversation
Editors of journals published by the BMJ Group will no longer consider publishing research that is partly or wholly funded by the tobacco industry, the journals have said in an editorial published this…
An article published recently in the BMJ argues that we have been pursuing the wrong hypothesis on the causes of obesity. Along with substandard science, this wrongheadedness has apparently exacerbated…
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has just published two opposing views on the vexed question of whether antidepressants are being over-prescribed. The issues raised by debate are by no means unique to…
Public health researchers have stepped up their campaign to access clinical trial data about influenza drug Tamiflu, amid concerns about its effectiveness. Professor Peter Gøtzsche, leader of the Nordic…
An article published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) today says a US charity “overstates the benefit of mammography and ignores harms altogether.” The charity’s questionable claim is that early detection…