Medicine and Science from The BMJ

Measles is surging in 2026. From London to Texas, why are cases hitting a 30-year high?

In this episode, we investigate the alarming resurgence of measles across North America and the UK. While cases are falling across much of Europe and Asia, North America is seeing explosive outbreaks fueled by vaccine hesitancy and political shifts.We break down the 2026 crisis: Why London is the epicenter and how the UK lost its "Measles Elimination Status". An in-depth look at outbreaks in Ontario, Alberta, Texas, and Mexico. How returning travelers—not migrants—are actually driving the spread. The impact of "shared clinical decision-making" and current US health leadership on vaccine access.
Kamran Abbasi is joined by:
Angela Rasmussen - Virologist, University of Saskatchewan.
Azeem Majeed - Professor of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London.

Rethinking Cancer Survivorship and the Autism Gender Gap

In this week’s episode, we challenge long-held medical narratives, starting with how the healthcare system manages life after a cancer diagnosis. While medical advancements mean more people are surviving cancer than ever before, many patients report a "cliff-edge" experience where coordinated care effectively vanishes once primary treatment ends. We are joined by Dr. Rosalind Adam, an Academic GP at the University of Aberdeen, who argues that it is time to stop viewing cancer as a discrete, one-off episode and instead integrate it into routine chronic disease management. 
Next, we dive into a landmark study from Sweden that is overturning the conventional notion of autism as a predominantly male condition. Historically, autism has been cited as having a 4:1 male-to-female ratio, but new data suggests this gap may be a byproduct of timing rather than biology. We speak with Dr. Caroline Fyfe, a medical epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh, and Dr. Natasha Marrus, a child psychiatrist at Washington University in St. Louis. They discuss their analysis of 2.7 million individuals, which revealed a significant female catch-up during adolescence, showing that by age 20, the diagnosis ratio approaches 1:1. The team explores why girls are so often missed in childhood and what this shift means for the future of sex-sensitive diagnostic practices.
Reading List
For more details on the research discussed in this episode, you can access the full papers on bmj.com:
Cancer is a chronic disease: why don’t we treat it as one? Adam R, Hogg DR, Ritchie LD, Nekhlyudov L. BMJ 2026;392:e086624.
Time trends in the male to female ratio for autism incidence: population based, prospectively collected, birth cohort study. Fyfe C, et al. BMJ 2026;392:e084164.
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"We see coercion the other way... People cannot let go of their dying family" - assisted dying around the world

The House of Lord's amendments to England and Wales assisted dying bill might be causing a constitutional crisis. Lords have tabled 1,277 amendments—which is a record for any equivalent bill in history - and over half of those came from just seven peers.
This has led to accusations of "delaying tactics" or "filibustering" to run down the clock deliberately and run this bill off the road. Although some of these amendments have been described as unworkable, repetitious and unnecessary; others reflect serious, legitimate concerns, around the prevention of coercion, how to identify victims of domestic abuse and the broader impact on the disabled community, and whether it’s wise to introduce assisted dying while palliative and social care services are so stretched.
300 territories around the world, allow physician assisted death - so we asked experts from Canada and California to reflect on those objections, and if there is any evidence of this issues arising where they live.
James Downer is Professor and Head of the Division of Palliative Care at the University of Ottawa, and Catherine Forest is clinical associate professor of family medicine at the University of California San Francisco.
 
Reading list:
Scrutiny of the assisted dying bill is vital but obstruction in the House of Lords could mean it never becomes law

How the internet hijacked our health

Deborah Cohen's new book "How the internet hijacked our health" explores the profound impact of the internet on our wellbeing.
In this conversation with BMJ Editor, Kamran Abbasi, they discuss the ways in which online information can both empower and mislead, the role of big tech in shaping our wellbeing and the complex and disturbing ways wellness influencers are becoming more trusted than the NHS.
With insights drawn from extensive research and a deep understanding of the digital landscape, Deborah Cohen sheds light on the critical issues at the intersection of technology and healthcare, and challenges anyone who consumes health information online to think differently about what they're doing.

What access to GPs tells us about the NHS 10 year plan, and online gambling

We’re 18 months into the Labour government, and their changes to the NHS are beginning to be felt. In the 10 year plan that they launched last year, they announced three planned shifts for the health service. 
Firstly, they pledge to move care from hospitals to the community, an increased focus on prevention rather than sickness, and shift from analogue to digital with an improved NHS app where patients can access records, seek advice and control some aspects of their care. However, accessing primary care and getting a GP appointment is still a key area of concern for patients and healthcare staff. 
In a new research paper on bmj.com, a group of researchers have performed a qualitative study asking 70 patients about their experiences of accessing primary care in England. We're joined by Hugh Alderwick and Luisa Petigrew from the Health Foundation to discuss what the findings mean for the 10 year plan.
Also this week, online gambling is a growing problem. The immediacy of access, combined with advertising and push notifications, and a proliferation of new gambling companies, undermines traditional ways of managing a gambling addiction.
A new analysis argues that these new forms of online gambling requires new forms of regulation. Spencer Murch from the University of Calgery offers some ideas on how that could work.
 
Reading list
Experience of access to general practice in England
Policies to increase access to general practice may have unintended consequences
Online gambling requires greater government regulation

How much should doctors be paid? | BMJ Interviews Economist Richard Murphy

This interview is available in video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yNO47EfuEM
​‪@RichardJMurphy‬, political economist and tax campaigner, joins Kamran Abbasi, Editor in Chief of The BMJ.
In the UK an ongoing dispute between resident doctors and the Labour Government saw doctors go on strike in mid-December. With Winter pressure piling on and cost-of-living on the rise, do doctors have a credible case of pay rises? And more broadly, how can the economic situation of the NHS be improved?
00:00 Introduction01:30 Doctor Pay Claims04:33 Inflation Measures07:29 Affordability Crisis09:48 Market Forces Arguments12:52 NHS Affordability15:00 Youth Unemployment19:14 Political Priorities23:10 Neoliberal Capitalism27:35 Mixed Economy Alternative32:32 Prescription for NHS

GLP-1 weight regain and doctors forced out of Gaza

The class of GLP-1 agonist drugs including Ozempic gained a wide reputation for weight loss in 2025. However, it's well established that weight regain is a common result after people stop their doses. We report on new research which aims to quantify what is happening in the here-and-now for patients who stop using these and similar drugs.
Weight regain after cessation of medication for weight management: systematic review and meta-analysis 
 
Also, The BMJ reports on news from Gaza. The Israeli government has issued new directives to strip 37 NGOs of their licences to provide essential aid to the population. This includes Médecins Sans Frontières, the charity directly supporting many of the critically important hospitals in the territory. Gaza is experiencing an especially harsh Winter and MSF warn that this measure could leave Palestinians without lifesaving medical care.
Gaza: Israel moves to ban dozens of aid groups in "cynical and calculated" move Gaza in winter: 29 day old baby dies of hypothermia amid dire conditions
 
The BMJ’s annual appeal is supporting the work of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Around the world, MSF teams are providing maternity care, containing outbreaks, and performing vital surgeries. In areas overwhelmed by conflicts and natural disasters, more lives can be saved when we are in the right place at the right time.
Donate today at https://msf.org.uk/bmj-annual-appeal-2025

Could a Ministry for the Future solve the climate crisis? | Kim Stanley Robinson interview

This episode is available in video form on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1cGrD47eZSk American science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson joins Kamran Abbasi to discuss climate disaster, the need for political imagination, and science fiction's vision for health.
Kim Stanley Robinson is the acclaimed author of a trilogy of novels, exploring the terraforming and settlement of Mars. His most recent novel, 'Ministry for the Future', was published in 2020.
'Ministry for the Future' sets out a vision for real solutions to our climate crisis, covering global finance, the animal kingdom, rising sea levels, energy production and much more. The book imagines a Ministry that begins its work in 2025.
Five years after publication, with 2025 past and gone, The BMJ spoke to Robinson to explore how closely the novel's vision for the future has reflected reality.
01:00 BMJ's New Climate Change Initiative01:21 Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future04:02 The Role of Political Violence in Climate Action10:50 The Concept of the Carbon Coin12:51 The Importance of Global Collaboration27:32 The Role of Medicine in Climate Change32:33 Youth and Climate Activism37:53 Hope and Despair in Climate Action41:29 Conclusion and Future Works
Read more about The BMJ's climate coverage in the latest issue: https://www.bmj.com/content/392/8479

Christmas 2025 - neologisms, longevity and unexpected research

It’s time for 2025’s festive fun!
Practicing medicine can be a very visceral experience - and the English language can’t always adequately capture the sights, sounds, smells. So Matt Morgan, intensivist and BMJ columnist, is creating medical neologisms, and joins us to share a few.
Madhvi Joshi, a GP in London, has written about longevity science, and we hear how the “biohacking” of internet influencers like Bryan Johnson is making its way into the consultation.
Navjoyt Ladher and Tim Feeny take us though this year’s festive research, and are joined by Anupam Bapu Jena from Harvard, who has been looking at self censorship in the time of Trump, and Melanie de Lange, from the university of Bristol, who has been investigating the impact of daylight savings time.
Reading list:
A dictionary for medicine’s unnamed momentshttps://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2476
Science of longevity medicine https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2536 
Changes in diversity language in National Institutes of Health grant awardshttps://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj-2025-087222 
Acute effects of daylight saving time clock changes on mental and physical health in Englandhttps://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj-2025-085962 

The shadow use of Gen AI in the consultation room

In this episode, we hear how Generative AI is making it into the consultation room - but not through NHS endorsed routes - surveys suggest that ⅔ of doctors are using AI, for backoffice tasks - but also increasingly for information and diagnosis.
 
David Navarro, a research fellow in generative AI at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Charlotte Blease, associate professor at the Participatory eHealth and Health Data Research Group at Uppsala University, and Marcus Lewis, GP in London, reflect on what we know about the real way in gen AI is being used - and what “triadic care” (doctor, patient and AI) will mean for the future of the therapeutic relationship.
 
We also hear from Teppo Järvinen, professor of orthopaedic surgery at Helsinki University, about surgical subacromial decompression - a 10 year follow up of a double blinded placebo controlled trial, confirms that surgery is no more effective than standard care. Yet surgical interventions continue - we hear why.
 
Finally, we go to a Cholera clinic in Nigeria, where Médecins Sans Frontières are running cholera treatment centres, which you can help by donating to our Christmas appeal.
 
Links
Generative AI and the clinical encounter
 
The BMJ appeal 2025-26: Inside MSF’s response to cholera in Nigeria: a day in the life of an emergency doctor
 
Arthroscopic subacromial decompression versus placebo surgery for subacromial pain syndrome