Molnupiravir, a covid-19 antiviral drug bought by the UK government in the amount of 2.23 million doses, is no better than placebo at lowering the risks of death and hospital admission, a pivotal UK trial has found.Preliminary results released from the Panoramic trial of 25 783 p … | Continue reading
Objective To characterise the clinical features of monkeypox infection in humans.Design Descriptive case series.Setting A regional high consequences infectious disease centre with associated primary and secondary care referrals, and affiliated sexual health centres in south Londo … | Continue reading
The authors of a large review say there is no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations, and have questioned the reasons behind high prescribing rates of antidepressants.They say the chemical imbalance theory of depressio … | Continue reading
Patients with long covid are travelling to private clinics in Cyprus, Germany, and Switzerland for blood filtering apheresis and anticoagulation drugs. Experts question whether these invasive treatments should be offered without sufficient evidence. Madlen Davies reportsGitte Bou … | Continue reading
Independent researchers looking to obtain patient level data from the Pfizer and Moderna covid-19 vaccine trials may have to wait longer. In status reports filed recently with the US federal trials registry (clinicaltrials.gov) between February and May, both companies extended th … | Continue reading
There are said to be four types of people when it comes to adopting change and technology: enthusiasts, who adopt innovations straight away; cautious ones, who wait for more data; followers, who adopt something when most others have done so; and Luddites, who simply won’t change … | Continue reading
Objective To assess the association between intake of non-sugar sweeteners (NSS) and important health outcomes in generally healthy or overweight/obese adults and children.Design Systematic review following standard Cochrane review methodology.Data sources Medline (Ovid), Embase, … | Continue reading
People infected with the omicron variant show poor immunity boosting against future covid-19 infection, researchers have found.1This may explain why breakthrough and repeat infections have been a common feature of the omicron wave of the pandemic, even among people who have been … | Continue reading
Objective To establish the effect of statins on muscle symptoms in people who had previously reported muscle symptoms when taking statins.Design Series of randomised, placebo controlled n-of-1 trials.Setting Primary care across 50 sites in the United Kingdom, December 2016 to Apr … | Continue reading
Cases of idiopathic hepatitis in children have been reported around the world. Elisabeth Mahase looks at what we know so farThe World Health Organization has so far reported 169 cases of acute hepatitis of unknown origin from 11 countries in Europe and the US, as of 21 April 2022 … | Continue reading
A trainee surgeon has been struck off the UK medical register after she submitted unfinished research for publication, removing the names of colleagues who had worked on it, then falsely alleged sexual harassment by her supervisors when they complained.Zoe Sun, 37, who qualified … | Continue reading
With little evidence that failing to complete a prescribed antibiotic course contributes to antibiotic resistance, it’s time for policy makers, educators, and doctors to drop this message, argue Martin Llewelyn and colleagues Antibiotics are vital to modern medicine and antibioti … | Continue reading
Evidence based medicine has been corrupted by corporate interests, failed regulation, and commercialisation of academia, argue these authorsThe advent of evidence based medicine was a paradigm shift intended to provide a solid scientific foundation for medicine. The validity of t … | Continue reading
Objective To confirm the rapid onset anti-suicidal benefits of ketamine in the short term and at six weeks, overall and according to diagnostic group.Design Prospective, double blind, superiority, randomised placebo controlled trial.Setting Seven French teaching hospitals between … | Continue reading
Cuban health officials have said that they will apply for World Health Organization approval for one of the country’s homegrown covid-19 vaccines, as they announced that they had secured funding to produce 200 million vaccine doses for low income countries.Cuba’s health regulator … | Continue reading
Objective To characterize the risk of persistent and new clinical sequelae in adults aged ≥65 years after the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection.Design Retrospective cohort study.Setting UnitedHealth Group Clinical Research Database: deidentified administrative claims and outpat … | Continue reading
Objective To investigate whether vitamin D and marine derived long chain omega 3 fatty acids reduce autoimmune disease risk.Design Vitamin D and omega 3 trial (VITAL), a nationwide, randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial with a two-by-two factorial design.Setting Nati … | Continue reading
Data from South Africa’s largest private health insurer suggest that omicron is spreading faster than any previous coronavirus variant and showing signs of immune escape, with both vaccinated and previously infected people more at risk than in previous waves.More than 90% of newl … | Continue reading
Objective To determine whether artificial intelligence (AI) can generate plausible and engaging titles for potential Christmas research articles in The BMJ .Design Observational study.Setting Europe, Australia, and Africa.Participants 1 AI technology (Generative Pre-trained Trans … | Continue reading
Objective To compare cognitive testing scores in neurosurgeons and aerospace engineers to help settle the age old argument of which phrase—“It’s not brain surgery” or “It’s not rocket science”—is most deserved.Design International prospective comparative study.Setting United King … | Continue reading
Dashboards of pandemic statistics have dominated screens and helped to track covid-19, but David Robertson and Peter Doshi explain why they might not be enough to define its end As the year 2021 started, the covid-19 pandemic seemed to be receding. Discussions and predictions abo … | Continue reading
Ruth Hubbard and colleagues examine the personal traits and health behaviours of five of Marvel's superheroes and envisage the challenges this extraordinary cohort might experience during ageingOld age can be a time of great contentment, increased wisdom, and personal growth.1 In … | Continue reading
The SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant, first detected in South Africa on 24 November, has now been found in 57 countries. Elisabeth Mahase looks at what we know about it so far, including how well treatments and vaccines workOmicron’s spike protein has at least 30 amino acid substitutio … | Continue reading
The evidence for preventing covid-19 is lost in translationThe world is finally coming to terms with the realisation that transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is airborne.1 First came the modelling studies, sizing up airborne particles, their trajectories, and viral load; and then came exa … | Continue reading
Objective To review the evidence on the effectiveness of public health measures in reducing the incidence of covid-19, SARS-CoV-2 transmission, and covid-19 mortality.Design Systematic review and meta-analysis.Data sources Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Biosis, Joanna Briggs, Global He … | Continue reading
Vaccination reduces but does not eliminate the risk of covid-19 transmission within households, a study published in Lancet Infectious Diseases has found.1 It showed that one in four vaccinated household contacts of a covid-19 positive case became infected compared with 38% of un … | Continue reading
A previously healthy woman began to hear hallucinatory voices telling her to have a brain scan for a tumour. The prediction was true; she was operated on and had an uneventful recovery.Born in continental Europe in the mid-1940s the patient settled in Britain in the late 1960s. A … | Continue reading
Theresa Marteau and colleagues argue for rapid, radical changes to the infrastructure and pricing systems that currently support unhealthy unsustainable behaviourMany major economies, including the US, EU, and UK, have committed to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to lim … | Continue reading
The US CDC estimates that SARS-CoV-2 has infected more than 100 million Americans, and evidence is mounting that natural immunity is at least as protective as vaccination. Yet public health leadership says everyone needs the vaccine. Jennifer Block investigatesWhen the vaccine ro … | Continue reading
Companies and rich nations are creating a deadly covid-19 vaccine “protection racket”Early in the pandemic, Pfizer announced an intention to profit from its covid-19 vaccine.1 In the first three months of 2021, Pfizer’s vaccine brought in $3.5bn (£2.5bn; €3bn) in revenue and hund … | Continue reading
Objective To examine the accuracy of artificial intelligence (AI) for the detection of breast cancer in mammography screening practice.Design Systematic review of test accuracy studies.Data sources Medline, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews from … | Continue reading
Children born during the pandemic score markedly lower on standard measures of verbal, motor, and overall cognitive ability, US researchers have found.In a longitudinal study of 672 children from Rhode Island that has run since 2011, those born after the pandemic began showed res … | Continue reading
Transparency advocates have criticised the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision not to hold a formal advisory committee meeting to discuss Pfizer’s application for full approval of its covid-19 vaccine.Last year the FDA said it was “committed to use an advisory commit … | Continue reading
US deaths from drugs increase dramatically; longevity fallsThe US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published two related sets of health statistics recently that are deeply disturbing.Firstly, US deaths from drug overdoses rose by almost 30% in 2020, increasing … | Continue reading
The government’s decision to lift all covid restrictions in England on 19 July could lead to “a significant third wave of hospitalisations and deaths,” modellers have projected.Researchers at Imperial College London evaluated the impact of removing non-pharmaceutical intervention … | Continue reading
A string of revelations about vaccine prices has focused attention on a practice considered normal in the drug industry but often frowned on elsewhere: charging different prices to different customers for the same product.South Africa’s government found itself on the defensive th … | Continue reading
At last, grounds for optimism among those seeking a dietary optionMigraine is one of the most common neurological diseases and affects one billion people globally.1 The past several years have seen the introduction of several new acute and preventive treatments for migraine, but … | Continue reading
The theory that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in a lab was considered a debunked conspiracy theory, but some experts are revisiting it amid calls for a new, more thorough investigation. Paul Thacker explains the dramatic U turn and the role of contemporary science journalismFor … | Continue reading
Objective To determine whether supplementation with vitamin D improves resilience to the adverse effects of earthquakes.Design Opportunistic addition to an established randomised double blind placebo controlled trial.Setting Christchurch, New Zealand, where a prolonged series of … | Continue reading
Scientific papers suggesting that smokers are less likely to fall ill with covid-19 are being discredited as links to the tobacco industry are revealed, report Stéphane Horel and Ties Keyzer In the early days of the pandemic, media outlets around the world reported that smokers s … | Continue reading