This week a column from the Guardian, invites doctors and professional journals to ask the right questions – questions about the evidence, and questions about what matters to patients:

Aseem Malhotra, How too much medicine can kill you, The Guardian, Sunday 1 November 2015 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/01/drugs-pharma-doctors-patients

Here a few snippets, with links to resources:

“According to Peter Gøtzsche, professor of research design and analysis at the University of Copenhagen, prescription drugs are the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer. In an analysis published in the BMJ, he estimated that every year psychiatric drugs, including anti–depressants and dementia drugs, are responsible for half-a-million deaths in those aged over 65″

“Earlier this year, the editor of the Lancet, Richard Horton, wrote that possibly half of the published medical literature may simply be untrue and that science had “taken a turn towards darkness”.”

“Dame Sally Davies, called for an inquiry into the safety of medicines to restore the public’s trust”.

“the AllTrials campaign started by Ben Goldacre, which calls for all results of all clinical trials to be made available to doctors, researchers and patients”