On Thursday, the House Oversight and Reform Committee held a hearing examining the serious issue of maternal mortality, specifically focusing on the racial disparities in
Analysis of more than 95,000 women under 50 suggests link between heavy consumption and the diseaseHeavy consumption of sugary drinks may raise the risk of
The US is now backing plans that could help billions more access vaccines. The UK should follow suit
The rapid emergence of Covid vaccines has been a remarkable yet bittersweet success, pointing to both humanity’s scientific achievements and its social and economic failures. Experts created them at extraordinary speed; yet as the pandemic rages, many of those most vulnerable and at risk still have little prospect of accessing doses. We have created vaccine billionaires, yet cannot vaccinate billions.
An unexpected and very welcome reversal by the United States could change this. Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures, its trade representative, Katherine Tai, said on Wednesday. It is backing a plan to suspend intellectual property (IP) protections for vaccines – to the dismay of the big pharma firms that it has long protected. The head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, rightly described this as a monumental moment in the fight against Covid.
I was just starting my career in paediatrics at Southmead hospital in Bristol in 1963 when Peter Dunn was appointed. He quickly fired everyone’s enthusiasm for neonatology. At the time, junior staff were trying to persuade more senior staff that low-birthweight babies should be fed early, rather than the practice of not feeding for 48 hours or until they seemed hungry. He strongly supported us and we managed to establish early feeding. We founded the Bristol Perinatal Club together, which at the time was unique in allowing obstetricians and neonatologists to meet to discuss mutual problems.