Albert Einstein’s observation, “two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe,” has been much cited since the emergence of […]
Nick Hopkinson
Nick Hopkinson: “When you are young they assume you know nothing…”
I can clearly remember forming the thought, on my first clinical attachment as a medical student, that I’d never know enough to be a medical registrar. These awesome figures, holding […]
Nick Hopkinson: Covid-19 vaccination—people with asthma deserve basic respect
“Why have asthma sufferers been removed from vaccination priority group six? Are we not at risk of suffering more severe illnesses from covid? Why do we get the flu jab […]
Nick Hopkinson: Man’s 4th Best Hospital—a powerful reminder of the moral hazards that await if we don’t look out for each other
My copy of The House of God, Samuel Shem’s 1978 novel of medical training, disillusion, and resistance, has a quote from Cosmopolitan on the cover; a “bawdy cult classic—Catch-22 with […]
Nick Hopkinson: Tobacco industry collaborators sending equality up in smoke
It is widely believed that the American humourist and mathematician Tom Lehrer abandoned comedy because Henry Kissinger was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for bombing Cambodia. A bold new entry […]
Nick Hopkinson: Castles of cloth and covid-19
Midsummer’s day just past saw the 500th anniversary of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, the opulent tournament where Henry VIII and the French King Francis 1st sought to […]
Nick Hopkinson: Health inequality in the new decade—we need a new strategy
The poorer you are the shorter your life and the shorter your disability free life expectancy. [1] Our common objective in medicine is to improve human health and wellbeing, so […]
Keep out of reach of children—the case for increasing the legal age for tobacco purchase to 21
Increasing the legal age for tobacco purchase should be combined with other measures to reduce smoking rates in young people […]
Nick Hopkinson: American overdose
An addictive product which devastates lives is heavily promoted by an industry that underplays or denies its potential for dependence or risk of harm and buys political influence to oppose […]
Nick Hopkinson: The prominence of e-cigarettes is a symptom of decades of failure to address smoking properly
A real danger is that debate around e-cigarettes drowns out the work needed to implement the full range of tobacco control measures […]