I hate your guts but you have to trust me: why the greatest triumph in the history of medicine still can’t shake the doubt

Unlucky for us, we live in interesting times. While there are a lot of elements contributing to the current moment being quite so interesting, nowhere are they more clear than in public health. February’s edition of The Lancet contains a front page editorial lambasting Robert F Kennedy’s actions in his first year as US Secretary […]

The Semmelweis effect: you aren’t convincing when you’re angry

This is Ignaz Semmelweis. He was a brilliant man who failed. Now this is a little bit of a long story, but bear with me I think it’s realy interesting. In 1846, the young Hungarian obstetrician began a position on the obstetrics ward at Vienna General Hospital. His ward had a problem: women who came […]

Donating bone marrow – it’s more fun than it sounds (I promise)

I signed up to the bone marrow donation register at a drive at my university. Although I always intended to go through with the donation if I ever matched for somebody, I can’t say I believed that I would hear anything more of it. I actually remember one of my medic friends at the sign […]

So here’s the thing with ‘one bad day’: How factory farming ruined ‘ethical’ meat

Imagine a farm. You probably picture sunny fields; a big green tractor; a ruddy, good humoured farmer; a trusty sheepdog. To most people, this is not an unpalatable scene. It is to this image that people appeal when they say that ‘one bad day’ ain’t so bad for the animal. You wouldn’t feel so hard […]

It’s fine to be vegan, deal with it.

I am vegan, and I think that everyone else should probably be vegan too. This position is a difficult one to reconcile with not being a dick, or considered one. Refusing baked goods someone has brought in at work, being difficult to cook for, just ordering chips when out for a meal, all of it […]

How to program a moral machine

The ‘trolley problem’ has served to torment the friends of amateur philosophers for decades. First articulated in its modern form by Philippa Foot in 1967, the quandary is designed to explore basic moral principals underpinning utilitarian ethics. Imagine yourself in a train yard, standing before a lever which can change the route of oncoming trains. […]

Has the time come for universal basic income?

No penalty on earth will stop people from stealing, if it is their only way of getting food. It would be far more to the point to provide everyone with some means of livelihood’ These words, penned half a millennium ago by Thomas More in Utopia is the first recorded advocation of the concept of […]

So it goes

How to live in interesting times