Reporting infectious complications in haematology clinical trials should be improved

Judging journalism: how should the quality of news reporting about clinical interventions be assessed and improved?

Health care receives a lot of attention in the media. Rarely a day goes by without the wonders or horrors of some screening programme, drug, surgical procedure, or clinical service being discussed in the pages of our newspapers and on our television screens. Most of the major newspapers and television channels employ correspondents who specialise in health and medicine. Every day, these corresp...

Should participation in vaccine clinical trials be mandated?

Few would argue with Bill Gates when he describes vaccination as “the most effective and cost effective health tool ever invented” [1]. To date vaccination has saved many lives and has the potential to save millions more, especially if vaccines are developed against the “big three”: malaria, HIV, and TB [2-5]. Vaccine development, however, comes at a price that is not only financial but societa...

Should Clinical Services Provided by Pharmacists be Compensated?

Should Clinical Services Provided by Pharmacists be Compensated?

Should all clinical trials of oral health be registered?

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and their metaanalyses are considered the gold standard to making informed decisions about which treatment is best. In fact, meta-analyses combine the findings of several RCTs and may overcome the limitations of individual trials. However, because of the vast amount of unpublished results of RCTs, the conclusions of a systematic review can be misleading1. Was...