July 17, 2025
On April 16, 2025, the United Kingdom (UK) Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of “woman” refers to biological females; the judgment also stated that biological sex is “binary” [1]. Less than ten days later, on April 25, 2025, the BMJ published an editori...
Sayantan Datta
July 17, 2025
This May, the World Health Assembly (WHA) will vote on re-establishing a mandate for the World Health Organization (WHO) to address the health consequences of nuclear weapons and war [1]. Health professionals and their associations should urge their governments to ...
Kamran Abbasi, Parveen Ali, Virginia Barbour, Marion Birch, Inga Blum, Peter Doherty, Andy Haines, Ira Helfand, Richard Horton, Kati Juva, Jose F Lapena Jr,, Robert Mash, Olga Mironova, Arun Mitra, Carlos Monteiro, Elena N Naumova, David Onazi, Tilman Ruff, Peush Sahni, James Tumwine, Carlos Umaña, Paul Yonga, Chris Zielinski
February 06, 2025
We draw attention to the World Medical Association’s (WMA) International Code of Medical Ethics [1] as the benchmark of medical ethics, in the face of inflammatory and discriminatory statements issued by some senior Indian doctors against Bangladeshi patients. Thes...
Sunita Sheel Bandewar, Olinda Timms , Sylvia Karpagam
February 06, 2025
The passing of Sunil K Pandya (SKP) on December 17, 2024, evoked memories of his remarkable life both as an individual and a medical professional in many physicians, patients and colleagues. In her tribute, Lopa Mehta has described him as “Medical Ethics personifie...
Amar Jesani
October 15, 2024
The rape and murder of a trainee doctor in RG Kar Medical College in Kolkata on August 9, 2024 was a brutal crime but had nothing to do with patients or violence by patients or their attendants against health workers. The accused is a civic volunteer who is said to...
Rema Nagarajan
October 15, 2024
A researcher in a Hyderabad-based science institution, Roshni (name changed to preserve anonymity) started identifying as a transgender woman in 2018, and wanted to start her medical transition — the process by which transgender people seek to affirm and express th...
Sayantan Datta
January 12, 2024
The 22nd Law Commission of India (henceforth, the Commission) [1], in its recent 283rd report, offered its recommendation on the question of age of consent (AoC) to sexual activity. Two High Courts which have seen several cases of non-exploitative consensual sex involving adolescent girls, filed ...
Amita Pitre, Sunita Sheel Bandewar
January 12, 2024
Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackled together to preserve health and avoid catastrophe. This overall environmental crisis is now so sev...
Kamran Abbasi, Parveen Ali, Virginia Barbour, Thomas Benfield, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Stephen Hancocks, Richard Horton, Laurie Laybourn-Langton, Robert Mash, Peush Sahni , Wadeia Mohammad Sharief, Paul Yonga, Chris Zielinski
October 09, 2023
Over the last few months, established data systems in India have been the target of heated dispute, chiefly by members of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, ranging from the inflation numbers [1], to the sampling frame for surveys done by the National Sample Survey Organisation ...
Siddharth Joshi , Veena Shatrugna
October 09, 2023
In January, 2023, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 seconds before midnight, reflecting the growing risk of nuclear war [1]. In August, 2022, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world i...
Kamran Abbasi, Parveen Ali, Virginia Barbour, Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Marcel GM Olde Rikkert, Andy Haines, Ira Helfand, Richard Horton, Bob Mash, Arun Mitra, Carlos Monteiro, Elena N Naumova, Eric J Rubin, Tilman Ruff, Peush Sahni, James Tumwine, Paul Yonga, Chris Zielinski
