British Medical Journal, The

St. John s wort, like all plants, produces an array of compounds, which can account for its antianxiety and antidepressant effects. These effects are more than anecdotal they are supported by a number of studies. Most of these studies have been carried out in Germany, where doctors frequently prescribe standardized versions of the plant as an antidepressant. They actually write more prescriptions for Johanniskraut, as the plant is known in that neck of the woods, than for Prozac. In hght of a meta-analysis — a study of studies — published in 1996 in the British medical journal The Lancet, the choice of those German doctors seems justified. 

Truth be told, however, heavier alcohol consumption provides other protective benefits against heart disease. Almost grudgingly, a 2005 commentary in the British medical journal The Lancet pointed out that during autopsies, the coronary arteries of alcoholics are frequently relatively clean, indicating a linear level of protection, whether from elevated HDL cholesterol, reduced levels of inflammation, or whatever. 

In all honesty, the drugs appear to be relatively safe as a class. They have been used for two decades and have been prescribed to many millions of men and women around the world. Studies have demonstrated that they can prevent heart attacks and strokes and save lives by dramatically reducing cholesterol. Obviously, there were terrible problems with cerivastatin (Baycol). And the British medical journal The Lancet has asked for a recall of rosuvastatin (Crestor), citing poor research data and potential side effects involving the liver and the kidneys and muscle damage. Consumer advocates in the United States have also called for FDA to reverse its approval. 

An important aside furnished in Hall s book is that the researchers declined to do a biopsy on the cancerous tissue of Frau H., for fear that this nfight cause the cancer to spread. This kind of cautious approach has been seconded by several Harvard professors, as reported in the British medical journal The Lancet, Vol. 357, pp. 1048, 2001. This further citation was furnished on page 22 of the Townsend Letter for Doctors Patients, July 2001.)... 

FAS was first identified in 1973, in two historic papers appearing in the British medical journal The Lancet. The first paper opened as follows8 ... 

Finally, at that time, Sutton found no evidence that this Popeye-iron-spinach story had ever been written down before 1981, when an editorial by Terry J. Hamblin told the cautionary tale in the British Medical Journal. The article contairrs literature references, but it gives no clue as to the origin of the story. Sutton even contacted Hamblin personally, who said that he could not give the somce of the story because of an editorial decision and later forgot what it was. Sutton concluded that Hamblin must have made up the story of thin air. 

Dodds, E.C. (1937a). The chemistry of oestrogenic compounds and methods of assay. British Medical Journal 1937, 398-399. 

Sharpe, R.M. and Irvine, D.S. (2004). How strong is the evidence of a link between environmental chemicals and adverse effects on hnman reproductive health British Medical Journal 328, 447-451. 

Lacasse and Leo s criticism, and the reply to it, were published in JAMA in October 2008. Five months later Leo and Lacasse wrote another commentary on the JAMA article and sent it to the British Medical Journal. They recounted the story of having wondered about the comparison between Lexapro and problemsolving therapy and noted the results of the comparison that had been published in response to their questioning. They also mentioned an apparent conflict of interest involving financial connections between Robert Robinson, the lead author of the study, and Forest Pharmaceuticals, the US manufacturer of Lexapro. Robinson acknowledged the conflict of interest and apologized for not having disclosed it.4... 

Daniels, A. M. and R. Sallie, Headache, Lumbar Puncture, and Expectation , The Lancet 1, no. 8227 (1981) 1003 Davanloo, H., Basic Principles and Techniques in Short-Term Depression, New York S. P. Medical 8C Scientific Books, 1976 Davies, D. L. and Michael Shepherd, Reserpine in the Treatment of Anxious and Depressed Patients , The Lancet 266, no. 6881 (1955) 117-20 Davies, Sharon, Potential Conflicts of Interest More Information from Jama , British Medical Journal (2009) http / / www.bmj.com/cgi/elet-ters / 338 / feb 05 i / b463... 

Jacobson, Irving Kirsch, R. N. Schyner, B. Y. Nam, L. T. Nguyen, M. Park, A. L. Rivers, C. McManus, E. Kokkotou, D. A. Drossman, P. Goldman and A. J. Lembo, Components of the Placebo Effect A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome , British Medical Journal 336 (2008) 998-1003... 

Lawlor, Debbie A. and Stephen W. Hopker, The Effectiveness of Exercise as an Intervention in the Management of Depression Systematic Review and Metaregression Analysis of Randomised Controlled Trials , British Medical Journal 322 (2001) 1-8 Layard, Richard, The Case for Psychological Treatment Centres , British Medical Journal 332 (2006) 1030-32... 

Simpson, Scot H., Dean T. Eurich, Sumit R. Majumdar, Rajdeep S. Padwal, Ross T. Tsuyuki, Janice Varney and Jeffrey A. Johnson, A Meta-Analysis of the Association between Adherence to Drug Therapy and Mortality , British Medical Journal (2006)... 

Kaplan, G. A., Pamuk, E. R., Lynch, J. W., Cohen, R. D. and Balfour, J. L. (1996), Inequality in income and mortality in the Unites States analysis of mortality and potential pathways , British Medical Journal, 312, 999-1003. 

Smith, PC. (1999), Setting budgets for general practice in the new 1AHS , British Medical Journal, 318, 776-9. 

Franco OH, Bonneux L, de Laet C, Peeters A, Steyerberg EW and Mackenbach JP (2004) The Polymeal a more natural, safer, and probably tastier (than the Polypill) strategy to reduce cardiovascular disease by more than 75% . British Medical Journal, 329, 1447-1450. 

Wolf, C.R., Smith, G., and Smith, R.I. 2000. Science, medicine and the future - pharmacogenetics. British Medical Journal 320(7240), 987-990. 

Poland, G.A., Murray, D., and Bonilla-Guerrero, R. 2002. Science, medicine and the future new vaccine development. British Medical Journal 324(7349), 1315-1319. 

Irvine, S., Cawood, E., Richardson, D., MacDonald, E. and Aitken, J. (1996). Evidence of deteriorating semen quality in the United Kingdom birth cohort study in 577 men in Scotland over 11 years. British Medical Journal 312,467—471. 

Doll, R. and Hill, A. B. (1950) Smoking and carcinoma of the lung. Preliminary report. British Medical Journal. 2, 739-748. 

Goodman visited the Library of Congress and other archives in his persistent search. He waded through 100 years of The Journal of the American Medical Association, as well as The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (continued as The New England Journal of Medicine), Lancet and The British Medical Journal. 

Haemophilia B is also known as Christmas disease. It is caused by absence of factor K. It was called Christmas disease because this was the surname of the first patient diagnosed with type B and the case was first published in the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal. 

Strang, J., Darke, S., Hall, W. Farrell, M. AN, R. (1996). Heroin overdose the case for take-home naloxone. British Medical Journal, 312 1435-1436. http //bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/312/7044/1435 (for full text) Darke, S. Hall, W. (1997). The distribution of naloxone to heroin users. Addiction, 92. 1195-1199.http-//www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/ doi/10.1046/j. 1360-0443.1997.929119520.x/abs/ iot abstract)... 

The publication of the 4S study in 1994 transformed the debate. The study demonstrated unequivocally that cholesterol, lowered total as well as cardiovascular mortality with no increased risk of cancer. Cardiologists, who as a group, were previously sceptical of the value of cholesterol lowering, became strong advocates of a change in public health policy. As Professor Oliver wrote in the British Medical Journal in 1995 Lower patient s cholesterol now - trial evidence shows clear benefits from secondary prevention. As noted previously, UK physicians are remarkably conservative, and largely follow the principles of evidence-based medicine. When the evidence is presented to them... 

In September 2001, however, a news item in the British Medical Journal reported that further analyses confirmed the increase in rates of myocardial infarction and questioned whether this was an adverse reaction affecting the whole class of COX 2 drugs. The debate continued for the next 3 years with the main emphasis remaining on GI toxicity. A PEM study that included more than 15 000 patients made no mention of cardiovascular adverse events. However, a second paper compared rofecoxib and meloxicam with respect to thromboembolic events which showed that both, to a variable extent were associated with cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and peripheral venous pathology. A meta-analysis published recently in The Lancet suggests that Merck, the licence holder... 

Copies of the published reports are sent to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the Office of Fair Trading, the British Medical Association, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and the Editors of the BMJ and The Pharmaceutical Journal. Copies of the published reports are also available to anyone on request. 

Caro J., W. Klittich, A. McGuire, and 1. Ford. 1997. The West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study Economic Benefit Analysis of Primary Prevention with Pravastatin. British Medical Journal 315 1577-1582. 

Arya, Neil. Confronting the Small Arms Pandemic Unrestricted Access Should Be Viewed as a Public Health Disaster. British Medical Journal, vol. 324, April 27, 2002, pp. 990ff. Argues that physicians throughout the world have seen the terrible consequences of the use of small arms in... 

Moyniham R., 1. Heath, and D. Henry (2002). Selling sickness The pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering. British Medical Journal 324 886-890. 

Altman DG (1991) Practical Statistics for Medical Research London Chapman Hall Altman DG (1998) Confidence intervals for the number needed to treat British Medical Journal, 317, 1309-1312... 

Ford 1, Norrie J and Ahmedi S (1995) Model inconsistency, illustrated by the Cox Proportional Flazards model Statistics in Medicine, 14, 735-746 Gardner MJ and Altman DG (1989) Estimation rather than hypothesis testing confidence intervals rather than p-values In Statistics with Confidence (eds MJ Gardner and DG Altman), Fondon British Medical Journal, 6-19... 

Storosum JG, van Zwieten BJ, Vermeulen HDB, Wohlfarth T et al (2001) Relapse and recurrence in major depression a critical review of placebo-controUed efficacy studies with special emphasis on methodological issues European Psychiatry, 16, ill- i iS Stutchfield P, Whitaker R and Russell I, on behalf of the Antenatal Steroids for Term Elective Caesarean Section (ASTECS) Research Team (2005) Antenatal betamethasone and incidence of neonatal respiratory distress after elective caesarean section pragmatic randomised trial British Medical Journal, 331, 662-667... 

---