Medicine and Science from The BMJ

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 step by step advice on dealing with sudden death, illustraded by a case study of a 19 year old stab victim who has died in the accident and emergency department. Also this week, Annabel Ferriman takes us through the news.

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 regularly issue alerts about clinical problems that can be averted. Mabel Chew talks to the NPSA about its latest alert featuring digital tourniquets. Birte Twisselmann takes us through the news.

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 as bacteria become immune. We have just published a systematic review on bmj.com that looks at the link between prescribed antibiotics in primary care and antimicrobial resistance. Coauthor Alastair Hay tells us about his findings. Annabel Ferriman, takes us through the news.

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 in parliament, but one thing that’ll keep him busy is his new job as a columnist for the BMJ. Trevor Jackson talks to him about his first column on Wakefield and MMR.

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 scientists are hoping to beat the cheats. He also discusses a recent BMJ research paper about the limited health and economic benefits that big sporting events have on their host nations. The recent Legacy of the games podcast includes an interview with the lead author of that paper.

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 Patient Outcome and Death) have published a report on parenteral nutrition. Kayte McCann talks to gastroenterologist Jim Stewart about the findings. Finally, bevacizumab (traded as Avastin) has been used for off-label treatment of age related macular degeneration for some time. The BMJ published research looking at the effectiveness of this monoclonal antibody compared with what was formerly the standard NHS treatment. Adnan Tufail, one of the study’s authors, joins us in the studio.