Medicine and Science from The BMJ

Hands off our data: the need for sovereignty in a connected world

Who actually owns our health data once it is stored in the cloud? And how do we balance the global push for open medical research with the need to protect local populations from data extraction?
Kamran Abbasi sits down with Trudi Lang, Professor of Global Health Research at the University of Oxford and David Strain, Associate Professor of Cardiometabolic Health at the University of Exeter.
Together, they dive into the complex ethical and legal landscape of data sovereignty - unpacking the loopholes that could allow the US government access to NHS data, and how medical research in resource poorer settings can be extractive of data. They set out the case for data sovereignty, and how it could practically work while not stifling essential international research collaboration
Read the related articles on BMJ.com:
The CLOUD Act: NHS data must be safeguarded from US interests by David Strain
A commitment to act on data sharing by Kamran Abbasi
Data sharing must evolve towards data sovereignty by Trudi Lang

750 recommendations, and little change - why the UK keeps having maternity care reviews.

Two NHS maternity reviews have been published over the past few weeks. The biggest ever conducted, involving nearly 2500 families, investigated services at Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust. It was led by senior midwife, Donna Ockenden, and its findings on poor and avoidable harm to babies and mothers have reverberated throughout UK healthcare.
This was followed immediately by publication of an independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services in England, conducted by Valerie Amos, which states that the UK's poor maternity care is "on a scale that shames our society".
We speak to  Kate Duhig, clinical senior lecturer at  Kings College London, and Marian Knight, professor of of maternal and child population health at the University of Oxford, about why we keep having reports saying the same thing, but little action to solve the problem.
As many wealthy nations have stepped back from previous aid promises, a new force has emerged to fill the gaps: private finance. David McCoy is professor of global public health at the United Nations University, and explains why turning to investment banks, wealth funds, and private equity in the pursuit of universal health coverage might cause more problems than it solves.
 
Reading list:
Dangers of finance capital in healthcare
Amos maternity review: Doctors must work differently as units “no longer fit for purpose,” but report is dogged by controversy
Nottingham maternity review: 520 mothers and babies were seriously harmed on “toxic” ward, damning inquiry finds

Children are bypassing the Australian social media ban

Australia has been in the vanguard of legislation to try and reduce the influence of social media on children and young people - their ban for under 16s was introduced on the 10th of December 2025, to great fanfare, and a lot of interest around the world.
But how effective are these bans at keeping children away from social media?
New research just published on BMJ.com has looked at that question of efficacy - finding that children are using the most simple tactics to evade the ban.
To dicuss what that means, we're joined by two of the authors of that research Courtney Barnes and Luke Wolfenden from the University of Newcastle, Australia.
We’re also joined by Amrit Purba, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Louise Holly, from the Digital Transformations for Health Lab, in Geneva, who have written commentaries to go with that research.
 
Reading list
Assessing early effects of Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Act on adolescents’ social media use 
Learning from Australia’s social media age restriction policy  
Early data from Australia indicate that social media companies can’t be relied on to protect children 

The £400 million blackhole for doctor training, drug ads evading regulation, and reining in AI in war

The US military’s Operation “Epic Fury” highlighted the devastating cost of using artificial intelligence for rapid military planning. Thomas Adamkiewicz, associate professor at Morehouse School of Medicine, and Zulfiqar Bhutta, Robert Harding Inaugural Chair in Global Child Health at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, to discuss why international humanitarian law is lagging dangerously behind technology, and why we urgently need a new era of legal frameworks to govern AI use in war.
 
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription medicines is strictly illegal everywhere in the world except for the United States and New Zealand. Deborah Cohen, investigative journalist, joins us to explain how global social media platforms are making borders porous, allowing Hollywood celebrities and high-profile influencers to broadcast drug endorsements directly into the feeds of UK citizens.
 
Finally, Between 2020 and 2023, the UK government allocated £1.7 billion specifically intended for frontline doctor training. However, a deep-dive investigation has revealed that a staggering £400 million of that funding is completely unaccounted for - David Hutchison, paediatrics registrar, and Jonathan De Oliveira, GP trainee, join us to describe what they found.
Reading List
AI warfare demands a new era of humanitarian law
Bad influencers: How social media imported US-style drug advertising to the UK
“Black hole” of medical student funding

Cancer screening: when does testing go too far?

The heated debate on prostate cancer screening boils down to one question: should men be routinely screened?
Two recent position statements from the UK’s national screening committee published in the BMJ show that screening decisions are steeped in complexity. 
The benefits of screening may be easier to grasp, but the harms of overdiagnosis and overtreatment are given less attention. Can we close the divide between the public and academic discourse?
 
Guest: Sian Taylor-Phillips is professor of population health at the University of Warwick and a member of the UK national screening committee.
 
Further Reading:
UK National Screening Committee position statement on surrogate outcomes in cancer screening trials
Prostate cancer screening: Committee rejects calls for mass testing programme despite pressure
More interviews from the BMJ on our Youtube channel.

Child mortality has reduced, but there are worrying trends

New estimates of Global Patterns in Neonatal, Child, and Adolescent Mortality have been published - and while there has been a huge improvement, those gains are in danger - and we’re seeing worrying trends.
 
Kate Strong, a Scientist at the World Health Organization and Lucia Hug, a specialist in statistics and monitoring for UNICEF, join us to explain the data - and why they are worried about our ability to measure this in the future.
 
Helen Sharman is the first British Astronaut to make it to space - this week she was at the Royal College of GPs giving the General Medical Council's annual Marx lecture. She joins us to discuss how research in space might impact healthcare on Earth, and what the NHS can learn from cosmonaut teamwork. 
 
Finally, The government and doctors in England are not getting on well - we’ve had a series of strikes from the resident doctors, GPs are in dispute about the imposition of a new contract, and now consultants are being polled on industrial action.  BMA Consultants Committee co-chairs Shanu Dutta and Helen Neary explain why.
 
Reading list
 
Neonatal, Child, and Adolescent Mortality
Global, regional, and national levels and trends in under 5, infant, and neonatal mortality during 1990-2024 with scenario based projections to 2030
Global, regional, and national levels and trends in older child, adolescent, and youth (5-24 years) all cause mortality from 1990 to 2024: modelling study
Systematic estimates of global causes of neonatal and under 5 mortality in 2000-24: secondary data analysis using bayesian multinomial logistic regression
Estimates of global causes of death for children and adolescents aged 5-19 in 2000-24: secondary data analysis using bayesian multinomial logistic regression
 
Full interview on YouTube:
Why NHS Senior Doctors in England Are Considering Strike Action

How to make healthcare more human

Does healthcare have a moral emergency?
In this episode of the Medicine and Science podcast, Kamran Abbasi sits down with healthcare leaders Maureen Bisognano, president emerita of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and Bob Klaber, director of strategy at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, to discuss why they're calling the lack of humanity in medicine an emergency.
We ask why this dangerous imbalance between the rational (efficiency, data, and metrics) and the relational (human connection, empathy, and listening) has developed in modern medicine. We also learn how simple changes, like asking "What matters to you?" instead of just "What's the matter?, can help us put the humanity back into healthcare.
 
Reading list
Read the BMJ Article: Healthcare's moral emergency: reconnecting healthcare with its mission and purpose
Michael West on workforce kindness
Amy Edmondson on psychological safety
Len Berry on cancer care & kindness
 

What does Wes Streeting's exit mean for the NHS modernisation bill?

It has been a tumultuous time in UK health politics. UK Health Minister ,Wes Streeting, has freshly resigned. What does this mean for his newly introduced NHS Modernization Bill as it heads through Parliament?
Together with Hugh Alderwick, Director of Policy and Research at the Health Foundation, we unpack the bill's sweeping centralization of power, the abolition of NHS England, and the contentious role for US tech firm Palantir in the new NHS.
And, we explore a major milestone for women's healthcare. A condition affecting an estimated 170 million women globally has officially been renamed from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) to Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS). Rachel Morman, Chair of the PMOS charity Verity, joins us to explain why dropping "cysts" from the name is a vital step toward recognizing this as a complex, multi-system condition, and how this co-designed change will fundamentally reshape diagnosis, treatment, and future research.
Further reading:
Health Bill brings NHS management back into government
PMOS: What's in a name? Everything
PCOS name change to PMOS must be managed to avoid confusing patients, says expert

Social media companies are using the tobacco industry playbook to addict children

Twitter was launched 20 years ago, followed quickly by the iPhone and Instagram. Today, nearly 60% of the world’s population uses social media. Medical experts are sounding the alarm on the potential for these platforms to cause systemic harm. This past year has seen large events in the legal and public health battle against tech giants, with millions of dollars awarded in damages to child victims. Why has pinning down these companies proven difficult? And, what are the parallels between the social media industry and the historical tactics of "Big Tobacco"?
Guests:
Matthew Bergman is a practicing attorney and the founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, as well as a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon.
Ilona Kickbusch is an editorial board member of the BMJ and a visiting professor at the Digital Transformations for Health Lab at the University of Geneva, specializing in the commercial determinants of health.
Further reading:
From tobacco to TikTok: what public health litigation history tells us about holding social media accountable
What is the evidence for social media addiction?

Revisiting the Cass Review on gender identity services, and non-invasive brain stimulation for children with autism

The BMA has released their long awaited review of the Cass report. The original report looked at the provision of NHS gender identity services for children and young people, and involved a review of the science underpinning those services. It also set out a plan to improve care for gender diverse young people. 
We talk with David Strain of the BMA’s board of science to discuss their findings, and hear why they were critical of the Secretary of State, Wes Streeting's response to Cass’s review.And, we hear about new research published with The BMJ that aims to help children with autism. The researchers used a non-invasive magnetic stimulation technique to target specific regions of the brain, with the goal of promoting sociality. We discuss the benefits, and how this technique might translate to treatment plans for patients.
Guests:
David Strain is an associate professor in cardio-metabolic health at the University of Exeter and Chair of the BMA’s Board of Science.
Benjamin Becker is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Hong Kong, specializing in brain-based interventions for mental disorders.
Further reading:
Puberty blockers: BMA critique vindicates Cass review but questions government “overreach”
Accelerated non-invasive brain stimulation in childhood autism