Jane Cassidy

UKCAT among the pigeons.

The Medical Schools Council will be called on to abolish its controversial admissions test at the BMA Medical Students Conference next week. Jane Cassidy investigates

American Legislative Exchange Council

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a major US lobbying organisation for big business. It is linked to big tobacco, oil, food, drink, and drug companies. Its board of directors is made up of Republican politicians opposed to public healthcare. They also promote the ideas of those people who deny that climate change is happening. Their slogan is “limited government, free market, federalism.” One ALEC member, John Campbell, a California congressman, said that it was “nuts” of President Barack Obama to seek to emulate the NHS through his healthcare reforms. He attacked the UK health service as “enormously inefficient, wasteful, and costly.”1 It emerged during the recent Liam Fox and Adam Werritty scandal that ALEC funded a charity founded by the former defence secretary and run by his adviser and personal friend. The Atlantic Bridge was set …

The College of Medicine

The College of Medicine, which launched in October last year ( BMJ 2010;341:c6126, doi:10.1136/bmj.c6126), aims to promote holistic medicine in the NHS. Its president is Graeme Catto, former president of the General Medical Council. Its vice president is Ian Kennedy, an expert in medical ethics whose review of children’s health services for the Department of Health for England was published in September ( BMJ 2010;341:c5129, doi:10.1136/bmj.c5129). Some of the college’s senior figures were also involved in the Prince of Wales’s complementary health charity, the Foundation for Integrated Health. The foundation closed last year after police launched a theft, fraud, and money laundering inquiry. George Gray, its finance director, was charged with the theft of £250 000 [€280 000;

Name and shame

405 000] and is currently serving a three year prison term. None of those helping …

Jade, class, and cervical cancer

When health workers raise the alarm about standards of care, they can end up feeling as guilty as the organisations they expose, Jane Cassidy reports

Christian Medical Fellowship

Jade Goody was the reality television star the media loved to hate. Now facing death from cervical cancer, her controversial tabloid persona may be the very thing that touches those women the public health campaigns couldn’t reach

Free for all

The Christian Medical Fellowship was formed in 1949, its mission to unite and equip Christian healthcare professionals. Its members include more than 4000 doctors and around 1000 medical students in the United Kingdom. Abortion, palliative care, and new technologies in medicine are all important topics for the fellowship. Members regularly engage in media debate to promote pro-life and anti-euthanasia arguments. But it is the question of how Christian doctors share their faith with patients that is currently causing the most controversy. A fellowship member, Richard Scott, is challenging a formal warning from the General Medical Council for speaking about religion to a patient. He is taking his case to a full hearing, supported by the Christian Legal Centre. The Kent general practitioner was sent a warning letter by the …

Keep Our NHS Public

The UK government is due to issue guidance on treatment for foreign nationals later this year. But doctors say they should concentrate on giving appropriate health care and not worry about policing the UK borders, as Jane Cassidy reports

Islamic Medical Association

Keep Our NHS Public was founded in 2005 by the NHS Consultants’ Association, the NHS Support Federation, and the pressure group Health Emergency. It is co-chaired by the campaigning obstetrician and gynaecologist Wendy Savage and is committed to fighting the privatisation of the health service (www.keepournhspublic.com/index.php). As the Health and Social Care Bill started to receive its second reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday 11 October, Keep Our NHS Public was urging opponents of the bill to “adopt a peer” and write to or email them with their concerns. A link on the group’s website leads to a Trades Union Congress service that randomly matches individuals with peers. This enabled critics of the bill to lobby for support this week for a demand by the peers …

The Sugar Bureau

The spokesman of the UK Islamic Medical Association, Abdel Majid Katme, admits that it’s a very small organisation with a big voice. The media attention given to his opinions is disproportionate to the size of the association, which no longer has a membership. Its role now is as a health and educational lobby group and to voice Islamic views on medical ethics, says Dr Katme. This includes campaigning with other religious faiths, such as the Roman Catholic church, on common ethical concerns, including abortion. Dr Katme would like to see an Islamic hospital in Britain where Muslims could be treated without worrying about matters such as being examined by a doctor of the opposite sex. Such anxieties keep Muslims at home when they might be in need of urgent medical attention, says the retired psychiatrist, who lives in London. …