Launching the great welfare debate

The Great Iodine Debate

Iodine is critical to human health. It forms the basis of thyroid hormones and plays many other roles in human biochemistry. While the thyroid gland contains the body’s highest concentration of iodine, the salivary glands, brain, cerebrospinal fluid, gastric mucosa, breasts, ovaries and a part of the eye also concentrate iodine. In the brain, iodine is found in the choroid plexus, the area on t...

The great NHS debate.

In recent days The BMJ has been filled with commentary and debate about the future of the NHS. NHS England’s updated delivery plan calls for many changes in the way healthcare is provided and the priority attached to specific services. Without extra money, this is a zero sum game. More resources devoted to integrated care, extended hours for GPs, and improved mental health and cancer services m...

Launching the ARV roll-out debate into the public arena.

We note with great enthusiasm the recent cabinet decision on the roll-out of antiretrovirals (ARVs) in South Africa. According to information from the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) on the cabinet document, ‘Treatment Options to Supplement Comprehensive Care for HIV/AIDS in the Public Health Sector’ presented to MINMEC on 9 May 2003, we note, among other items, that the document may underestim...

EHPnet: The Great Asia Debate

Background: Fluorescence microscopy is widely used to determine the subcellular location of proteins. Efforts to determine location on a proteome-wide basis create a need for automated methods to analyze the resulting images. Over the past ten years, the feasibility of using machine learning methods to recognize all major subcellular location patterns has been convincingly demonstrated, using d...

Cicero Foundation Great Debate