Elisabeth Mahase

Palestinians continue to be killed and starved amid continued Israeli military action in Gaza, with survivors facing medicine shortages and disease risk, charities warn.More than 1000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 3000 injured since the ceasefire came into effect in October last year,1 said the UK charity Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), while aid supplies into the strip continue to be restricted.Fikr Shalltoot, MAP’s Gaza director, said, “Since October, what we have witnessed cannot in any way be called a ceasefire. As the bombs continued to fall and Gaza remained under a near total siege, global leaders convinced themselves a piece of paper could substitute for accountability, for a lifted blockade, for medicine …

Doctors fear that their knowledge is being “harvested” and could be “sold to the highest bidder” by AI developers, with the ultimate aim of replacing human professionals, representatives at the BMA’s annual conference have warned.Speaking at the union’s annual representatives meeting in Brighton, surgeons raised concerns over routine recordings of their surgeries being shared with AI developers to train models that could then be “sold back to the NHS” and used to replace doctors.To tackle this, doctors passed a motion calling on the BMA to lobby the government to legally …

A controversial motion on international medical graduates (IMGs) at the BMA’s annual conference left some doctors in tears, with some walking out during a bitter and tense vote.The BMA’s annual representatives meeting (ARM) in Brighton took a sour turn last night as doctors discussed how to define the “significant NHS experience” IMGs would require to be considered a priority for specialty training posts.ARM attendees narrowly voted to define this “experience” as an IMG having five years of whole time equivalent experience working as a medical doctor in the NHS or a UK healthcare setting.Debate on the motion—carried by just four votes—took over an hour to conclude. Eventually, 48% (168) of delegates voted in favour of the definition, 47% (164) voted against, and 5% (19) abstained.Some doctors in the hall told The BMJ that the atmosphere felt more like “a Reform party conference” than a debate among medical colleagues, with others going as far as to call it a “shitshow.” Some IMGs have said that they may leave the union over the issue.At last year’s ARM, delegates called for the BMA to prioritise IMGs who were already working in the NHS before 5 March 2025 and who have, or who go on to get, two years’ NHS or health and social care (HSC) experience. …

A seemingly arbitrary rule is preventing women in the UK from accessing specialist care until they’ve had three miscarriages. Campaigners want to change this, Elisabeth Mahase reports.When Lisa Varey, 34, experienced her first miscarriage just after getting married, she sat in the hospital waiting room desperately searching on her phone for answers.“ We went from this high of highs to the depths of the lowest low and didn’t really have time to catch our breath. It was really confusing,” she tells The BMJ .It was while she was searching for answers on Google that she discovered the “three miscarriages rule.” Most women can only access specialist NHS care—and thereby the tests to determine whether there’s a cause or a way to prevent another miscarriage—after their third miscarriage.1“ I just remember thinking it’s so deeply unfair, and it made me so angry for such a long time,” she says. “You’re so hormonal at that point because your hormones are completely crashing from everything that’s going on in your body. And on top of that, you’re being told you have to do this again and then again.”Around one in five pregnancies end in miscarriage in the UK, equating to approximately 250 000 each year.Despite being so common, serious issues with the care provided to those experiencing pregnancy loss have been reported.Charity Miscarriage UK reported in March that there were “significant inconsistencies in care, information, and support.”2 Through a survey of 1000 people who had experienced pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, the charity found that around six in 10 (65%) felt that they had not received adequate follow-up care after miscarriage. Many women reported being sent home with little to no guidance.Vicki Robinson, the charity’s chief executive, said, “Too many women and their partners …

Adults and children aged 10 years or older with polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) should be offered an annual review to manage their symptoms, check medications, and assess their long term risk of health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.1The recommendation forms part of new draft NHS guidance created by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for PMOS.PMOS, formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), was renamed earlier this year to better reflect the hormonal, metabolic, and reproductive effects of the condition.23To improve diagnosis, NICE has also recommended that anyone with irregular or absent …

Adults over 40 with overweight or obesity now have similar blood pressure and cholesterol levels to their normal weight counterparts, researchers have found.They said that the change was likely due to the increased use of medication such as statins.A research team from Imperial College London analysed 110 datasets from across seven countries—England, the US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Finland.1They looked at blood pressure, cholesterol, and use of drugs for hypertension and lipid lowering in almost one million people with normal body mass index (BMI 20-25), overweight (BMI 25 or above), or obesity (BMI 35 or above) between 1990 to 2024.They found that over the past 30 years, the gap in cholesterol and blood pressure levels between those with normal BMI and those who are overweight or obese has decreased across most high income countries, including England and the US.Experts have welcomed the findings as a “public health success story” but warned that they should not be used to suggest that obesity does not harm health or as an argument not to focus on obesity prevention.In England, the prevalence of obesity in adults (BMI of 30 or over) increased from …

The death of a man taking the unapproved next generation GLP-1 weight loss drug retatrutide made headlines in the national press last week.However, the situation may be less clear cut than the articles suggest.The reports were based on data recorded on the UK drug regulator’s adverse events reporting system, the Yellow Card scheme.So far, 77 cases involving retatrutide have been reported to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). As retatrutide is not available to be prescribed in the UK, all cases would theoretically involve patients who have purchased the drug from the black market or been involved in clinical trials.Of the 77 cases, 59 were reports of serious harm, and one concerned the death of a man in his 30s.1 The only details available are that the death was reported by a healthcare professional in 2025 and was related to “drug …

Doctors and health unions have urged the government to halt the development of the highly anticipated NHS workforce plan, warning that it is overly reliant on assumptions that AI will be a “silver bullet.”The concerns have been raised in an open letter to the new health and social care secretary, James Murray, signed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine (RCEM), Royal College of Nursing, BMA, Society for Acute Medicine, …

Jersey is set to become the first of the UK and Channel Island jurisdictions to roll out an assisted dying service, after its proposed law was granted royal assent.With the Assisted Dying (Jersey) Law 2026 given the green light, the service could begin operating late next year, according to the Jersey government, with work already under way to recruit staff for key roles.1Jersey’s minister for health and social services, Tom Binet, said: “There is still a lot of work to do, but I’ve every …

Palestinians have described being raped, beaten, and attacked by dogs at the hands of prison staff in a graphic new report by Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem.1The Israel Prison Service (IPS) has been described as a “network of torture camps,” in which more than 10 000 Palestinians, including 350 children, were being held as of the end of September 2025.At least 84 identified Palestinian detainees and prisoners, including one child, died in Israeli facilities between October 2023 and January 2026, B’Tselem found.“Israel has released only four bodies and continues to hold the remaining 80,” the report said. “As part of its efforts to conceal crimes committed in detention facilities, Israel often blocks reliable autopsies, preventing clarification of the circumstances and …