Highlights of 2016

Dear Readers,

Thanks for reading our posts and for following us on twitter. Also thanks to the many guest authors who have blogged for us over the last year. We hope you all have a merry break over Christmas and a very happy new year.

Over the last year, we have posted a diverse range of articles and here is our own selection of the blog’s highlights for this year.

‘Narcos’ and the ‘War on Drugs’ by Simon Carter – Can a popular television series shed any light on the disastrous war on drugs.

2+2 equals 5 by Ewen Speed – When truth and objectivity are sacrificed in favour of policy based evidence, it raises real concerns about the future of representative democracy

Scarred for life by Hannah Bradby – On questions of hope, health needs (met and unmet) and refugee health.

How many Zikas will it take? By Charlie Davison – New understandings of difference between viruses and disease need to be mirrored by changes in how public health approaches and deal with these problems.

Going Private by Judy Green – The rise of fee-for-service general practice may be satisfying a growing demand but why might paying to see a GP be bad for public health?

Domestic Violence in the Archers: Gender, Mental Health and Victim Blame by Lesley Henderson – What do recent Archers storylines tell us about contemporary attitudes to mental health, gender and victim blaming?

Same difference? – From Northwick Park in 2006 to Rennes in 2016 by Shadreck Mwale – The death of a healthy volunteer in a clinical drugs trial raises once more the real human cost of these trials and begs questions about enduring inequalities.

WRAGs to ‘riches’: Closing the disability employment gap by Jen Remnant – Recent UK changes to disability benefit are driven more by questions of economics than any attempt at equality or fairness.

Same old story: between disability and disinterest by Sasha Scambler – The medicalised idea of disabled people as deficient and in need of normalising still needs to be challenged.

‘Corporate Wellness’: blurring the lines Chris Till – Are workplace wellness programs really about helping us to be healthy or are they trying to make us into better workers?

Introducing the new Easyjet NHS by Carl Walker – Plans to ration access to the NHS for people deemed as obese or who smoke are immoral and unjust.

Nasty Bugs and Foreign Threats by Catherine Will – We’re taught that bugs are dangerous, & foreign bugs are more dangerous. But is this helpful?