Restoring the collective action that existed at the start of the pandemic is an urgent priority, argues Chris Ham […]
Columnists
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Medicalization
Last week, I reviewed biomedical words whose first written instances are attributed to 1970 in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). This week I have explored 1971 (Table 1). Pharmacology again […]
Scientific divisions on covid-19: not what they might seem
It is not whether we should open up or lock down. Rather, it is how we can break the chain of transmission, argue Martin McKee and David Stuckler […]
Richard Smith: Are all lives and deaths equal?
The question of whether all lives and deaths are equal inevitably evokes strong emotions, but it’s a question that lies behind much of our thinking on how to respond to […]
Billy Boland: What is the point of reaching out, if only to get knocked back by an ineffective system?
There is no doubt that raising awareness about mental health is a good thing. We’ve campaigned to break down stigma, carried out research, and developed policy. We’ve encouraged people to […]
Andy Cowper: Tiers of a clown
New covid-19 restrictions in England may not go far enough and don’t address existing problems with test and trace, says Andy Cowper […]
Richard Smith: Population aging is a success and the cause of increases in healthcare costs: two shibboleths we should stop repeating
When I connected to the Forum annual lecture of the Academy of Medical Sciences yesterday I heard the president make two statements that you hear all the time—and might be […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I Use a Word . . . Fifty years
Writing last week about the impossibility of planning without including elements of flexibility designed to account for unforeseen contingencies, I was reminded of what Nassim Taleb wrote in his book […]
Abraar Karan: Politics and public health in America—taking a stand for what is right
Doctors, scientists, and public health leaders are increasingly stepping into the fray and getting political, writes Abraar Karan […]
Richard Smith: Beware the snares of “Conventional Wisdom,” with implications for the pandemic and much else
The most famous part of J K Galbraith’s famous book The Affluent Society, which was published in 1958, is the chapter in which he exposes the constant failure of what […]