The Latest Breaking News from BMJ

A Medical Paper Called a 37-Year-Old Study Recent, and Nearly 1 in 5 Recent Citations Were at Least a Decade Old

A BMJ analysis of 1,000 papers found 17.7% of references labeled recent were at least 10 years old, and some dated back as far as 37 years.

Medical Daily · Oct 13

Hospital Staff Ate Half a Box of Chocolates in Just Over 90 Minutes While Doctors Secretly Timed Every Piece

UK doctors hid chocolate boxes on hospital wards and timed each piece. The median chocolate lasted 51 minutes, and half a box was gone in 99 minutes.

Medical Daily · Oct 13

James Bond Drank About 53 U.S. Standard Drinks a Week, and Doctors Suspected a Tremor Behind His Shaken Martinis

Doctors tallied every drink in Ian Fleming's Bond novels and found 007 averaged 92 UK units a week, about 53 U.S. drinks, with a shaky martini theory.

Medical Daily · Oct 13

Leeches Dipped in Guinness Turned Erratic, and the Ones Placed on Garlic Died

A 1994 BMJ experiment tried beer, garlic, and sour cream to make medical leeches bite faster. Beer backfired, and garlic proved fatal.

Medical Daily · Oct 12

HPV Vaccination Before First Pregnancy Linked to 15% Lower Odds of Very Preterm Birth in Swedish Registry Data

A BMJ study of 624,713 Swedish births linked HPV vaccination before pregnancy to 15% lower odds of very preterm birth. What families should know.

Medical Daily · Oct 10

A Boy's Bruise-Like Belly Rash Sent Doctors Hunting for a Liver Injury, but the Real Culprit Was His Laptop

Doctors checked a boy's bruise-like belly rash for liver injury. One question about his laptop revealed the real cause: toasted skin syndrome.

Medical Daily · Oct 8

FDA Was Warned Its COVID Vaccine Safety Algorithm Could Miss Signals, BMJ Reports, as Critics Dispute the Framing

A BMJ investigation says U.S. officials were warned a COVID vaccine safety screen could miss signals. Critics dispute its framing. What a signal means.

Medical Daily · Sep 23

338 donated NFL players' brains are giving researchers an unusual window into CTE and chronic brain injury, raising fresh questions about the long-term cost of football

A recent investigation into the brains of deceased former NFL athletes revealed a staggering incidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), found in 93.2% of 338 examined cases. However, the overall prevalence among all players is notably variable, ranging from 18.5% to 98.7% due to the limited number of brain donations.

The Economic Times · Sep 19

Voices in Her Head Sent Her for a Brain Scan, and Surgeons Found a Tumor No Doctor Had Suspected

A 1997 BMJ case of voices that led a woman to a real brain tumor is circulating again as new data question routine MRI after psychosis.

Medical Daily · Sep 11

Why Indians Pay for Full-Body Scans and Skip the Cancer Screening Tests That Actually Work

The Scan That Finds Everything Except What Will Kill YouWalk into any corporate diagnostic centre in Mumbai, Bengaluru, or Delhi and you will find a "Full Body Scan" package priced between ₹8,000 and ₹40,000. It typically includes a whole-body CT or PET-CT, a battery of blood panels, and a chest…

Times Life · Sep 10