How iPS cells changed the world

Tuberculosis control: how the world has changed since 1990.

In 1990 the Commission on Health Research for Development stated that ‘‘The magnitude of the tuberculosis problem is matched only by its relative neglect by the international community.’’ (1) A decade later, in March 2000, ministers of health and finance from the 20 countries that have 80% of the world’s tuberculosis cases met in Amsterdam and issued the Amsterdam Declaration. This stated that ...

How SARS changed the world in less than six months.

The quarter that changed the world

BACKGROUND The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), California Tobacco Control Program (CTCP) is one of the longest-running comprehensive tobacco control programmes in the USA, resulting from a 1988 ballot initiative that added a 25-cent tax on each pack of cigarettes and a proportional tax increase on other tobacco products. This programme used a social norm change approach to reduce...

Reflective Practice: How the World Bank Explored Its Own Biases?

While many international organisations have independent evaluations, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Health organization (WHO), uniquely the World Bank in its 2015 World Development Report sought to ascertain the potential biases that influence how its staff interpret evidence and influence policy. Here, we describe the World Bank’s study design, including experiments ...

The Virus That Changed My World

When I first read this little poem in The Lancet in January 2003 (Heikkinen and Jarvinen 2003), it elicited little more than a bemused chortle. There are few who would deny the paradox that for all the medical advances providing cures for multitudinous diseases afflicting the human condition, there remains a large hole in the understanding of and treatment for the common cold. We know that it i...