Medicine and Science from The BMJ

In this week’s podcast Sam Lister, health editor of the Times, explains the political fight that’s emerging around provision of free home health care for elderly people. Duncan Jarvies talks to Iain Chalmers, from the the James Lind Initiative, about the importance of making information about clinical trials available to the public. Sabreena Malik takes us through this week’s news.

Estimates of HIV are just that, estimates – but in order to research the progression of the virus, and the effectiveness of intervention strategies, those estimates have to be as accurate as possible. Professor Prabhat Jha joins us to explain the novel way in which he and his team have collected data in India to provide a more accurate picture about the spread of the virus. Also this week, as spen...

This week’s hot topic is chronic fatigue syndrome. The journal Science published a paper in October 2009, which suggested a possible link between a new virus (xenotrophic murine leukaemia virus-like virus) and the syndrome. Duncan Jarvies is looking at the evidence behind this link, and finding out more about the history and treatment of the condition. Richard Hurley takes us through what caught h...

This week, Duncan Jarvies talks to Stacy Lindau and Natalia Garilova about their new sex life expectancy measure, and what it could mean for patients and public health. Zosia Kmietowicz talks to Douglas Gwatidzo and Rutendo Bonde about the health care system in Zimbabwe, and how the situation there has changed since its nadir in 2008. David Payne takes us through this week’s news.

If you visited Trafalgar Square in central London today you’d see Admiral Nelson gazing down from his column. What you won’t see is a statue to celebrate the work of Edward Jenner – although once there was one. Gareth Williams, a professor of medicine at the University of Bristol, is backing a campaign to have Jenner’s statue reinstated. Mabel Chew talks to him about the life and times of the fath...

This week the BMJ published research into the use of sunbeds. Cancer Research UK surveyed teenagers across the country to find out how often they top up their tan. Duncan Jarvies talks to Catherine Thomson, from Cancer Research UK, and Madeleine Brindley, a journalist who’s often campaigned on the dangers of solariums, about the results. Also this week, recent revelations from a group of stem cell...

This week Duncan Jarvies discusses with London GP Chris Ford how to talk to patients about their cannabis use. Rebecca Coombes talks to Jim Swire, a retired GP whose daughter Flora died in the Lockerbie bombing. Dr Swire has written an article for the BMJ about the role of Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi’s doctors in his early release.

This week Ike Iheanacho investigates the role of herbal remedies in modern medicine. He speaks to Dr Linda Anderson, Principal Pharmaceutical Assessor at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and Michael Mcintyre, chair of the European Herbal Practitioners Association. Sabreena Malik and David Payne take us through the week’s news.

This week’s podcast is based on the BMJ series Competent Novice. Junior doctors play an important part in verifying sudden deaths in hospital and communicating with the family of the deceased. Unexpected, and often premature, deaths can be challenging to manage. In this podcast Mabel Chew talks to Paul Frost, a consultant in intensive care medicine at the University of Wales. Paul gives practical...

A traumatic death can be very difficult for friends and family to deal with. A clinician’s instinct may be to protect them from seeing the extent of the damage to the body. However this may not be best in the long run. Duncan Jarvies talks to Alison Chapple about her research into people’s experiences of viewing a body after a traumatic death. Also this week, the National Patient Safety Agency reg...

This week David Payne talks to Emily Friedman, a health policy and ethics analyst, about Cambodia – a country with a difficult past that is now rebuilding its healthcare system to try to meet some of the particular needs of its population.

In this week’s podcast Duncan Jarvies talks to Theresa Marteau about screening for diabetes; can patients be given too much information? Also Anne Buvé discusses the likelihood of HIV transmission in serodiscordant couples when the infected partner is receiving antiretroviral treatment. Annabel Ferriman takes us through the news.

This week we’ re looking at the legacy of large sports events - with the 2012 Olympic games costing £9bn, and that cost being justified by saying how great an impact the games will have on the health of the nation. We talk to Gerry McCartney about his systematic review of the evidence for those claims. Antibiotic resistance is a major problem, and we increasingly have to turn to second line drugs...

In this week’s podcast we examine the link between toothbrushing and cardiovascular disease – Richard Watts talks about his research in Scotland. Also this week the Department of Health issued a statement that has made some people wonder about the future of NICE. Fiona Godlee discusses the statement with health economist James Raftery. Finally this week, Evan Harris may have recently lost his seat...

What is the association between IQ and attempted suicide? David Batty talks to us about his research in Sweden. Also this week, Steven Kawczak, associate director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Continuing Education, outlines the clinic’s new CME partnership with the BMJ and BMJ Learning. And finally, Richard Budgett, chief medical officer of the London 2012 Olympics, speaks about how scienti...

This week research published on bmj.com looks at the association between the smoking ban and a drop in acute myocardial infarctions. Anna Gilmore, director of the Tobacco Control Centre at the University of Bath, talks to us about her findings. We also hear from the London Health Observatory about how much money the drop has saved the NHS.

Since mobile phones have been around there has been public concern about their safety - fears over radiation exposure causing cancer have been particularly trenchant. This week Paul Elliott and his colleagues published research looking for an increase in the incidence of childhood cancers around mobile phone base stations. Paul joins us in the studio. NCEPOD (the National Confidential Enquiry into...

This week saw the British Medial Association’s Annual Representatives Meeting. Deborah Cohen and Helen Morant tell us what was going on in Brighton. Also this week we have the second part of Sophie Arie’s special report on Haiti.

Later this month sees the 17th International AIDS Conference in Vienna. One of the topics that will be discussed there is harm reduction, and the political will to embrace it. In this podcast, we look at the effects of long term opiate substitution programmes in Muirhouse, Edinburgh. Local GP Roy Robertson discusses the research he conducted there. We also travel to Kiev in Ukraine, where Richard...

The new coalition government’s white paper on health – encompassing the future of the NHS - was published this week. Chris Ham, chief executive of the health policy think-tank the King’s Fund and professor of health policy and management at the University of Birmingham, and Edward Davies, editor of BMJ Careers, discuss their immediate impressions with Ashley McKimm. Also this week a paper on www.b...

This week the print BMJ has a cluster of articles on suicide – one of which talks about the efficacy of physical barriers to prevent suicide from bridges. In the podcast, we’ll hear from Kevin Hines the survivor of such an attempt, and Alys Cole-King, a psychiatrist who wants to break down the stigma of suicide. We’ll also hear from Gordon Smith, one of the authors of a study looking at a link bet...

The new coalition government’s plans for the NHS in England put GPs firmly in the driving seat - how do their secondary care colleagues feel about that? Jacky Davis, co-chair of the NHS Consultants’ Association and a founder member of the “Keep our NHS Public” campaign, shares her views with Duncan Jarvies. Duncan also talks to Professor Julian Le Grand from the London School of Economics about ho...

In June 2010 the drug company Novo Nordisk announced that its only conventional human biphasic insulin, human Mixtard 30, would no longer be available in the UK from January 2011, a decision that affects an estimated 90,000 patients Drug and Theraputics Bulletin (DTB), one of the BMJ’s sister journals, is campaigning against that decision. DTB editor Ike Ihenacho talks about the campaign. Mabel Ch...

In this week’s podcast we discover the link between the weather and the risk of heart attacks - Krishnan Bhaskaran tells us about his research. Also, criticism and response are crucial parts of the scientific process, but how well do authors of research papers respond to critics of their work? Peter Gøtzsche and Tony Delamothe discuss their work looking at that in the BMJ.

Jill Morrison talks about how people on long term incapacity benefit because of mental health problems could be identified by their GPs three years before they stop working. BMJ Deputy editor Trish Groves explains more about the journal’s new policy of asking authors of eligible research articles to pay a publication fee. And, finally, why does the modern eunuch remain invisible?