The Medical Journalists’ Association
1967-2017 Reflecting 50 years of health and medicine John Illman
50 not out is a worthwhile achievement: an excellent opportunity to look back with pride on the sixes we’ve hit and to look forward to the second half of our innings.
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Introduction Lawrence McGinty, MJA chair • Before the MJA, all practising doctors who wrote articles for the press or who appeared on radio or TV risked being reported to the General Medical Council for ‘advertising’ and being struck off. MJA members led by Dr David Delvin, a former MJA chair and executive committee member for more than 30 years, successfully campaigned for change. David’s courageous stand meant that doctors no longer felt compelled to write under the cloak of anonymity with questionable pseudonyms such as Dr Feelgood and Dr Harley-Wimpole. • Before the MJA, there was an ironcurtain-like barrier between medicine and the media. The MJA helped to break it down, forging links between journalists and doctors in a series of revolutionary meetings of the kind we now take for granted.
Introduction
• Before the MJA, medical journalism training was non-existent. We have run hundreds of invaluable training workshops, meetings and briefings. • Before the MJA, there was little formal recognition of outstanding contributions to medical journalism. Our annual awards are widely acclaimed for highlighting the very best journalism and highly cherished by the winners. For example, BMJ editor Dr Fiona Godlee, winner of our Medical Editor of the Year Award in 2010, said: “I’m thrilled to have won this award. It’s a tribute to my fabulous colleagues in the BMJ team who are courageous, clever, creative, and committed to helping doctors make better decisions.” The MJA is also a village-like community, a forum not only for serious discussion and debate, but also for fun and camaraderie. Our Christmas quiz — always a resounding success — is a notable example. In one way, completely beyond our control, the MJA has been exceptionally lucky in its first half-century. We have been living through a therapeutic revolution. It is difficult to imagine a more exciting era to be in medical journalism than during the past 50 years. There have been more advances in medical scientific knowledge in this time than in the previous 2,000 plus years — since the age of Hippocrates. What of the next 50 years? There is every sign that they will be just as exciting — but very different. Our central challenge will be to help members maximise new technology and new ways of working.
Finally, a few words about this commemorative publication. Fifty years of MJA committee minutes, we decided, were best left in the archives. We opted instead for a whistle-stop tour of medicine and the media, with a few tasty extras thrown in — though we can direct you to the minutes if you prefer.
How it all began On June 30, 1966, 22 journalists representing freelance interests and nine different publications formed a committee to discuss forming a professional association for medical journalism and medical journalists. It agreed to explore five areas — suggesting that in some ways little has changed. • Training of medical journalists • Public relations “with the world at large and between sections of medical journalism itself” • Communication between doctors and lay journalists • Influence of advertisers • Pay and working conditions
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The Medical Journalists Committee - precursor to the MJA James Wilkinson, inaugural committee member in 1966, MJA chair (1974-76) and BBC science correspondent for 25 years, recalls: “The difficulties facing medical journalists in the 1960s are chronicled in Tony Thistlethwaite’s book Independent and Bloody Minded. The Story of the MJA: 1967-97. Information is scarce, facts are hard to come by and background briefings even harder. Doctors are frightened to talk to you in case their names get into the papers and they are reported to the General Medical Council for ‘advertising’ which could lead to them being struck off. It takes months of patient work to win the trust of a few tame doctors you could turn to for advice. “Mind you, some popular newspapers give cause for doctors to worry. At the Daily Express I am furious when sub-editors alter my copy to ‘harden it up’. Such relief to get to the BBC where this sort of interference is not possible by the nature of the beast. “ In the 1960s the newspaper cuttings library, the odd medical reference book and the telephone are the basic ways to get information. Today the demand for words and pictures has increased a hundred-fold to keep broadcasting and the online world fed.”
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Christine Doyle spent 18 years as health editor on the Daily Telegraph after working as medical correspondent on The Observer. She joined the executive committee in 1972 and was chair in 1976-77. She writes: “Being a founder member of the MJA was an honour and, for me, a godsend. I had just started on The Observer, but had no experience of ‘Fleet Street’ and welcomed the introduction to well-established health journalists. “From the start, the focus was on friendship, support and good advice. For example, I learnt how to wangle an interview with a health minister; how to acquire unlisted phone numbers on a Saturday for comments on breaking stories; and, at a BMA summer conference, how to spot where the story lay. I was so grateful to the late, much-lamented Paul Vaughan, who, seeing me struggling when others had filed and were in the bar, said: ‘I think the story is about the blonde.’ The blonde was a female GP who successfully proposed an important amendment. Paul tossed me his copy and I learnt a lifelong lesson about how to spot a story and the importance of the eye-catching intro. “Ten years on from that founding meeting, I found myself the MJA chair. All chairs help the MJA evolve with fresh ideas. I felt we should have more overseas contacts, and amazingly persuaded the Swedish and Canadian governments to pay for members to visit their countries. Wonderful health and sightseeing tours resulted — and some good stories. I would like us again to develop personal friendships with our EU counterparts.”
The
1960s The MJA is founded during the heady days of the “Swinging Sixties,” as symbolised by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, student uprising, the Civil Rights Movement, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Vietnam War movement, women’s liberation, resurgence of satire, the hippie counter-culture and the advent of the contraceptive pill — a driver of sexual revolution. The age of deference is over. Nothing is sacred any more…
1967 The MJA’s inaugural meeting takes place on February 1 in the Cheshire Cheese, off Fleet Street, possibly London’s most famous pub, with its long associations with distinguished writers and journalists, including Samuel Johnson and Charles Dickens. Twenty of the 48 applicants for foundation membership are medically qualified. Annual subscription: two guineas (£2.10).
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784): own chair in The Cheshire Cheese
Charles Dickens (1812-1870): prolific journalist and author
In the news
1873 (1887 copy). Vol. 1 of Old and New London, Illustrated by Walter Thornbury. Original held and digitised by the British Library.
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Professor Christiaan Barnard performs the first human-to-human heart transplant in Cape Town, South Africa. This is perhaps the biggest medical story of the twentieth century, as significant a story as man’s first steps on the moon (in 1969). Many people think that the operation should not or could not be performed. Barnard becomes the most famous name in medicine since Hippocrates.
1960s
More seriously, the operation prompts a new kind of medical reporting, taking in ethical and social issues as well as clinical practice, and ushering in a new style of TV medical debate. Doctors are publicly seen to have conflicting views, a radical shift for a privately critical but publicly silent, profession.
Six nurses deliver part of a ‘pro-choice’ abortion petition to Downing Street on a hospital trolley. The ongoing controversy brings thousands of people onto the streets and divides nations.
Christiaan Barnard: acclaimed and denounced for surgical daring.
Single women gain access to the contraceptive pill. The Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, perhaps their most widely acclaimed album.
The Abortion Act introduced to curb backstreet abortions legalises termination of pregnancies up to 28 weeks by registered medical practitioners.
The Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalises homosexual acts in private between two men in England and Wales. Similar legislation follows in Scotland in 1980 and in Northern Ireland in 1982. First mumps vaccine becomes available after prolific US vaccine researcher Maurice Hilleman isolates the mumps virus from his five-year-old daughter Jeryl Lynn. The vaccine virus strain is named the “Jeryl Lynn strain.”
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1968
Sextuplets mother Sheila Thorns leaving hospital with her husband and the last of her history-making babies
Sheila Thorns from Birmingham gives birth to the UK’s first sextuplets after fertility treatment. Fred West, Britain’s first heart transplant patient. He died 46 days after the operation.
Transplant surgeon Roy (later Sir Roy) Calne: ‘scathing about the press’
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1960s
MJA footnote: In a diary entry dated May 2, Ronnie Bedford, Daily Mirror science editor and former MJA chair, recalled a joint meeting between the MJA and the Association of British Science Writers to discuss heart transplant publicity. Dr Donald Longmore, a member of Britain’s first heart transplant team
The PA’s John Roper: ‘puce’ with rage
“We had Roy Calne (Cambridge transplant surgeon) and Donald Longmore (one of the Fred West heart transplant team) as guests. The buffet supper was, frankly, bloody awful and the more so because I didn’t have any lunch. The meeting turned into a virtual free flight, with Longmore making a bitter attack on the Press and blaming them entirely for the adverse publicity the heart team got. … The worst point came when Calne was scathing about the Press. The reason: Press criticism of transplants had resulted in people being less willing to sign away relatives as potential donors. In all the years I have known John Roper [then PA medical correspondent, later health services correspondent on The Times] I don’t think I have ever seen him so angry as tonight. He was literally puce and at one stage I felt he might get up and clout Calne.”
Ronnie Bedford: Candid diarist
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1969 Neil Armstrong becomes the first human being to walk on a celestial body.
’Tricky Dicky’: Richard Nixon, pictured here with Edward ‘Ted’ Heath, then British Prime Minister, becomes the 37th US President
Daily Sketch front page – 4 a.m Man takes his first step on the Moon
First in vitro fertilisation of a human egg. ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) goes online, connecting four major US universities. Designed for research, education, and government organisations, ARPA is the forerunner of the Internet. Launch of the tabloid Sun, which became Britain’s best selling daily newspaper.
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Michael Foot, Labour leader in waiting, leads a ‘ban-the-bomb’ CND march in Hyde Park
The
1970s Medical journalism in the 1970s evolves from the birth of consumerism and the vision of US President John F. Kennedy in 1962 that citizens have the right to safety, information, choice and the right to be heard. A new brand of self-help encourages the formation of a myriad of support groups, giving millions of patients a collective voice for the first time, setting the stage for the internet revolution 30 years later. Self-help groups generate a rich seam of personal media stories. The MJA campaigns for better communication between medicine and the media, beginning with a symposium, A Meeting of Doctors and Journalists, the first of a series of six such meetings.
1970
1973
Rubella immunisation begins.
The NHS celebrates its 25th anniversary.
1971 Introduction of the kidney donor card. MMR vaccine launch. Researchers carry out the initial tamoxifen breast cancer trial at the Christie Hospital, Manchester. Tamoxifen becomes the first targeted treatment for the disease.
1972 The Sunday Times starts the thalidomide campaign. The team includes the MJA’s Marjorie Wallace who went on to found SANE, the mental health charity.
Aneurin ‘Nye Bevan,’ father of the NHS, predicted its biggest challenge in 1948 with this health warning: “Expectations will always exceed capacity.”
Britain becomes a fully fledged member of the European Economic Community, as the EU is then known. Inventor Dean Kamen patents the first insulin pump. Doughty campaigner Marjorie Wallace
British scientist Geoffrey Hounsfield invents the first commercial CAT scanner which uses X-ray images from different angles to create 3D images. 12 | MJA 50 years
1970s
1974
1976
The contraceptive pill becomes available on the NHS.
Labour Health Secretary Barbara Castle meets fierce medical opposition in her battle to ban ‘pay beds’ (private beds) from NHS hospitals. Ironically this generates a dramatic expansion in private hospitals.
The Ambulance Service is incorporated into the NHS
1975 Britain votes in a referendum by a margin of two-to-one to stay in the European Economic Community. Barbara Castle: red-haired Labour firebrand
Marijuana decriminalised in Holland.
Referendum count in Earls Court, London
César Milstein and Georges Köhler invent monoclonal antibodies at Cambridge. MJA 50 years | 13
1977
1978
Knighthood for artificial hip pioneer Mr John Charnley.
Louise Brown, the world’s first ‘test tube’ baby, is born after 12 years of research by Cambridge physiologist Professor Robert Edwards and Oldham gynaecologist Mr. Patrick Steptoe.
First vaccine for pneumonia. First coronary angioplasty.
Louise Brown: first test-tube baby
British biochemist Dr Frederick Sanger, seen here with his family, invents a method for ‘reading’ the genetic code
IVF pioneers Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe
Dr Raymond V. Damadian patents a MRI technique to distinguish between normal and cancerous tissue. 14 | MJA 50 years
1970s
1978 continued...
MJA footnote
First vaccine for meningitis.
Doctors writing under their own name for newspapers or magazines risk being struck off by the General Medical Council. This discourages many aspiring writers, but not our own Dr David Delvin who believes that doctors should not be compelled to write under the cloak of pseudonyms. Nonetheless, he is alarmed when the GMC inform him, in 1974, that a complaint has been laid against him, alleging selfadvertisement by writing under his own name. His career is on the line.
After seeing his father’s struggle with deafness in Australia, Professor Graeme Clark develops the world’s first successful, multi-channel cochlear implant. Daily Star launches.
The infamous ‘winter of discontent’: operations are cancelled, ambulances reduced to dealing with emergency calls and mountain of rubbish pile up in the streets as the dispute between the Labour Government and the unions becomes increasingly bitter
1979 First child bone marrow transplant.
Widely supported by medical colleagues, medical journalists and a wide range of newspapers and journals, especially World Medicine and GP, where he is medical editor, David replies to the GMC that he has done nothing wrong. The ‘offending’ articles include a series commended in the MJA Ortho Awards for medical journalism. In Independent and Bloody Minded: the story of the MJA: 1967-97, Tony Thistlethwaite reported: “Fifty days after Dr Delvin received formal notice of the complaint…the charge was dropped. The only apparent reason was that the GMC had shown common sense. It had been seven weeks of hell for Dr Delvin; but the outcome was the right one.” Every doctor writing today in public forums in the UK should feel deeply indebted to David who later became a member of the GMC. David also spent more than 30 years on the MJA executive committee. One of Britain’s best known ‘sex doctors,’ he was the author of more than 30 books and appeared on more than 900 TV programmes.
Britain’s first woman prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, takes office
David died in March, 2018, aged 79. MJA 50 years | 15
“The MJA was the catalyst that openedup all things medical in ways that could be understood by everybody. The MJA enabled and supported doctors to do for medicine what Tyndale’s translation of the Bible did for Christians. Tyndale was put to death because of it. Doctors could be struck off the medical register for talking in public about it - the social equivalent of professional death. Thank you MJA.” Dr Mike Smith, broadcaster, author and formerly NHS director of public health and chief medical officer at the Family Planning Association. 16 | MJA 50 years
The
1980s Every decade is unique, this one chillingly so. If we could have been Satan for a day we could not have created a more horrific spectre than HIV/AIDS – a virus spread during the most intimate human contact. Widely described as a ‘gay plague,’ HIV/AIDS fuelled prejudice against homosexuals but its consequences had profound effects on patients’ rights. The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) in the early 1980s was possibly the most significant direct-action campaign in the US since the anti-Vietnam War movement in the 1960s — and the single most important development in patients’ rights in the twentieth century. It became the template for thousands of advocacy groups for patients all over the world with diseases ranging from depression to breast cancer.
1980
1981
The World Health Organisation announces the eradication of smallpox.
First HIV/AIDs cases identified in the US.
Smallpox vaccination clinic: vaccination is reported to have saved more lives in the past 50 years than any other single medical product or procedure
Beatle John Lennon is shot dead in New York.
The wedding of the century
An estimated 750 million people tune in to see Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer marry.
Post-it notes go on sale. CNN goes on air — the first 24/7 TV news station.
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali, pictured with popular British fighter Henry Cooper, retires after 20 years in the ring
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Rupert Murdoch’s News International buys The Times and The Sunday Times.
1980s
1982 Hansard reporter Terry Higgins is one of the first Britons to be diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, leading to the formation of the Terrence Higgins Trust. Launch of the Mail on Sunday, the first new Sunday paper for 21 years. Pure Rule Britannia, its first splash, ‘Mission Accomplished,’ followed the RAF bombing of Port Stanley airport in preparation for the Falklands War. Dr William DeVries implants the Jarvik-7 artificial heart into Barney Clark. He lives for 112 days Philips and Sony introduce the first compact discs.
British soldier Simon Weston, (now CBE) a name and face that becomes synonymous with physical, spiritual and mental recovery after his injuries - 46 per cent burns - in the Falklands War
1983 A team led by Dr Luc Montagnier of the Pasteur Institute, Paris, isolates the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Motorola launch the first commercially available mobile phone. The BBC air Britain’s first breakfast time TV news programme. Microsoft launches Word.
HMS Conquerer, part of the Falklands fleet, becomes the first nuclear submarine to sink an enemy battleship, the Belgrano
US biochemist Kary Mullis develops a technique that can produce a billion copies of DNA from, say, a drop of blood or a single human hair, in just a few hours. MJA 50 years | 19
1984
1985
British miners’ strike — the ‘most bitter industrial dispute in British history’.
Alec Jeffreys develops DNA fingerprinting at Leicester University. US President Ronald Reagan condemns a series of arson attacks against abortion clinics. Karen Ann Quinlan, a comatose patient in a historic, right-to-die court controversy dies in New Jersey aged 31.
Police ‘holding the line’ in the heat of the strike
1986 First stent is inserted in a human coronary artery in Toulouse, France. Davina Thompson becomes the world’s first triple transplant patient (liver, heart and lungs) in a seven hour operation at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge. Launch of The Independent and Today, Britain’s first colour newspaper,
Characterised by confrontations between pickets and police the strike was led by union boss Arthur Scargill — ‘the enemy within’ according to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
First induction of Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame honours Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Everley Brothers and Elvis Presley.
GCSEs replace O-levels. Launch of TED talks (Technology, Entertainment and Design).
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Chart topping Everly Brothers
1980s
1986 continued... Journalist John McCarthy is kidnapped in the war-torn capital of Lebanon, Beruit.
1988 270 people die in Lockerbie, Scotland, when a terrorist bomb destroys the New Yorkbound Pan Am Flight 103.
The devastation of Lockerbie Girlfriend Jill Morrell campaigning for John McCarthy’s freedom
‘Big Bang Day’: the London Stock Exchange is computerised and open to foreign companies.
1989 Tim Berners Lee invents the World Wide Web.
1987 US approves AZT, the first HIV/AIDS antiretroviral drug. Pictures of Princess Diana holding the hand of a patient with HIV/AIDS are broadcast around the world. Margaret Thatcher secures her third term in office. NHS prescription charges rise from £2.20 to £2.40. The London Daily News comes and goes — all within six months.
Tim (later Sir Tim) Berners Lee launching the World Wide Web Foundation in 2008
The first synthetic blood, Fluosol DA, is approved for human use. (Withdrawn 1994.) University of Westminster launches Europe’s first BA in medical journalism course for medical students. Rupert Murdoch’s ‘revolution in choice,’ Sky Television, takes to the air with 400 staff. MJA 50 years | 21
The great egg controversy Edwina Currie triggered a political storm in 1988 claiming that most of Britain’s egg production was ‘sadly’ infected with salmonella bacteria.This forced her resignation as health minister — with regret among journalists over the loss of her outspoken opinions. She says: “The problem of illness caused by salmonella in eggs was brought to my attention, during the summer of 1988.
Edwina Currie: No egg on her face
“About 500 cases of severe illness a week traceable to eggs were being identified, around 30,000 that year. Kidney dialysis machines were in constant use, causing problems for kidney patients. Over 60 people had salmonella as a prime or secondary course of death recorded.
consumers. I decided to warn, and chose to do so on live television where the warning could not be edited.
“It was also the case (and still is) that over half the samples of chicken meat on sale tested positive for contamination causing severe food poisoning. That was the source of my ‘most’ rather than ‘some’ remark. “The responsibility for dealing with the problem, however, lay with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which unfortunately had a laissez-faire approach to safety in food production, and appeared to side with unscrupulous producers. “This should have been splendid hunting ground for investigative journalists, but only Derek Cooper of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme was onto it. His reports led to increased questioning to ministers. While MAFF ministers continued to deny there was a problem, I faced alarm from 22 | MJA 50 years
“Much of the hostility and personal criticism, I feel sure, was generated by tobacco producers as DoH had been engaged in a very successful campaign to link smoking in the public mind with cancer and heart disease. As prevention was in my brief as a Minister, I led this high profile campaign. “It was not until after I resigned that the press generally turned in the opposite direction, when the Agriculture Select Committee interviewed me, and later in 1989 published a much-derided report. “But it was to be more than 10 years before the number of human cases began to fall, as a result of mighty efforts by the producers. Today I am proud that British egg producers have a product free of contamination, such that is recommended even for patients who are immune suppressed and pregnant women. And MAFF is no more.”
The
1990s At the beginning of the decade, the media is still recognised as the gatekeeper between medicine and the wider public, but not for much longer. Patients, doctors, healthcare companies, charities and patient groups begin to bypass the media to reach global audiences with the click of a computer mouse. No other single development has had such an impact on journalism.
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1991
1993
Operation Desert Storm marks the start of the first Gulf War.
Guardian media group acquires The Observer. Bookmakers cut their odds on the monarchy being abolished by the year 2000 from 100 to one to 50 to one.
Preparing for war in the sand
The Provisional IRA mortar bomb Downing Street, blowing in all of the Cabinet Room windows. No one is hurt.
1992 The UK’s oldest satirical magazine, Punch (launched in 1841) is “discontinued because of massive losses”. MI5 names Stella Rimington as its first female director. First vaccine for hepatitis A.
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Cancer patient Robert Campbell Aird is fitted with the world’s first bionic arm, courtesy of a team of five bioengineers at the Margaret Rose Hospital, Edinburgh.
1990s
1994
1995
BRCA1 becomes the first breast cancer gene to be discovered.
The US FDA approves the first HIV/AIDS combination therapy - HAART, (highly active antiretroviral therapy).
Creation of the National Organ Donor Register Church of England ordains first women priests.
Barings, banker to the Queen and Britain’s oldest commercial bank, collapses after rogue trader Nick Leeson gambles away £287 million.
Speaking about the Barings ethos, Nick Leeson declares: “We were all driven to make profits, profits, and more profits ... I was the rising star”
Nelson Mandela elected President of South Africa
The Queen Mother, 95, has hip replacement surgery, one of the oldest such patients.
The Channel Tunnel opens – Europe’s answer to Japan’s bullet train — and Japanese tourists are among the first passengers
Daily Telegraph launches Britain’s first national newspaper website.
Business as usual: the Queen Mother leaving hospital with her signature regal wave
Today newspaper folds.
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1996
1997 continued... Princess Diana dies in a Paris car crash.
The first genetically modified food products go on sale in the UK.
Dolly the sheep becomes the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell (Dies in 2003)
1997
Part of the floral tribute to Princess Diana
Launch of Channel 5. Publication of Independent and Bloody Minded: The Story of The Medical Journalists’ Association: 1967-1997 by Tony Thistlethwaite.
Tony and Cherie Blair celebrate New Labour’s ascent to power Tony Thistlewaite by ‘Snip’. MJA News 26 | MJA 50 years
1998
1999
The first oral therapy for erectile dysfunction.
The little blue pill: Viagra hits the market
SmithKline Beecham introduces the first Lyme disease vaccine.
James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, respectively, isolate human embryonic stem cells and grow them in the laboratory.
The Euro becomes the first European currency — another excuse for a new issue of chocolate money
The launch of the Euro has been the dream of the EU since the 1960s. Launch of the first Blackberry mobile.
Apple launches the desktop iMac computer; Microsoft, the Windows 98 operating system.
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“The MJA has been a fantastic organisation for networking with other health specialists and sharing information and tips. Journalism nowadays can be a lonely trade but with the MJA you feel like part of a community — one whose work matters daily to the public. Its events are always a highlight.” Shaun Lintern, award winning correspondent, Health Service Journal
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The
Noughties The optimistic ‘Big Bang that kick-starts the new millennium ends in the turmoil of the Stock Market crash and severe recession. 9/11 brings a horrendous new dimension to terror. Newspaper advertising revenues and circulations fall as the blogosphere and a series of major social media launches transform the online world and the way we communicate with readers, viewers, listeners and with one another. It is hard to imagine so many revolutionary developments emerging in just ten years. They include: • 2001: Wikipedia • 2002: LinkedIn • 2003: Myspace and Skype • 2004: Facebook and Flickr • 2005: Youtube • 2006: Twitter • 2007: iPhone and Tumblr • 2008: Kindle and Spotify • 2010: Instagram
2000
2001
The highly controversial Millennium Dome (should it have been built or not?) opens its doors to the public on January 1 – and closes them on December 31 — before assuming a new identity as the 02.
9:11.Terrorists fly hijacked planes into New York’s World Trade Centre twin towers and the Pentagon.
Former GP Harold Shipman is jailed for life. He is believed to have killed at least 250 people, making him Britain’s most prolific serial killer.
Glivec, the first tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is licensed to target BCR-ABL, an abnormal fusion gene. It transforms chronic myeloid leukaemia from a fatal into a manageable, chronic condition. The ability to attack specific genetic abnormalities opens up a revolutionary era in cancer treatment. Foot and mouth crisis begins. The Netherlands becomes the first country to fully legalise same sex marriage. Shipman later takes his own life
The Freedom of Information Act creates a public ‘right of access’ to information held by public authorities. Tate Modern opens in the former Bankside power station, becoming one of Britain’s top three tourist attractions, with an estimated £100 million in economic benefits to London Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire becomes the fastest-selling book ever. 30 | MJA 50 years
2002 The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) approves Herceptin prescribing on the NHS for treatment of advanced HER2 positive breast cancer.
The noughties
2002 continued...
2003 continued...
German anatomist Gunter von Hagens performs a public autospy — the first in London for a 170 years — to a sell-out audience of 500 people.
Margaret Hodge becomes the first Minister for Children
Gunter von Hagens with bodies preserved by his plastination technique for his highly controversial Body Worlds exhibition
2003 Completion of the $3-billion, 13-year Human Genome project enables scientists to read the genetic blueprint for building a person.
2004 The Indian Ocean tsunami, one of the deadliest natural disasters in history, kills an estimated 200,000 people. Statins become available over-the-counter in pharmacies. The Times and The Independent go tabloid or ‘compact’ as they call it… The Daily Mirror sack editor Piers Morgan for publishing fake pictures of Iraqi prisoner abuse. Paul Staines becomes a powerful political force by launching the ‘Guido Fawkes Blog of plots, rumours and conspiracy’.
Concorde’s last commercial flight after 27 years in the air
MJA 50 years | 31
2005 Frenchman Laurent Lantieri performs the world’s first partial face transplant. Angela Merkel becomes Germany’s first woman Chancellor. In the worst single terrorist atrocity on British soil, suicide bombers kill 52 people and injure more than 700 on London’s buses and tubes
2005 continued... Arianna Huffington et al launch the political blog, The Huffington Post, attracting about 25 million visitors a month. The introduction of Tim Montgomerie’s Conservative Home, which champions the interests of grassroot Tories, further highlights the power of political blogging. The News of the World prints a story about Prince William’s knee, injury prompting royal complaints to the police about probable phone hacking — and the biggest ever scandal to engulf the UK newspaper industry.
2006 Two Newcastle University scientists develop a liver grown from stem cells.
Carnage: bus bomb.
The annual number of MRSA related deaths in England and Wales peaks at 1,652, compared to 51 in 1993.
Civil partnerships give same-sex couples equal rights.
Scotland becomes the first UK country to ban smoking in workplaces.
The Guardian switches to the Berliner format — another variation on that tabloid theme. (It finally goes truly tabloid in January, 2018.)
The world’s first webcam goes live at Cambridge University.
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Buzzfeed is launched as a viral lab tracking viral content. It grows into a global media and technology company.
The noughties
2007
2009
British doctors pioneer a robotic arm in heart surgery.
Launch of cervical cancer vaccine.
Sally Clark, who spent four years in prison before the High Court cleared her of killing her two infant sons (cot deaths), dies aged 42.
Multiple sclerosis sufferer Debby Purdy makes legal history, winning her campaign to have the law on assisted suicide clarified after Law Lords rule in her favour.
Smoking is banned in all enclosed public places in England.
2008 Debbie Purdy and her husband Omar after 20 years of assisted suicide campaigning
The Evening Standard becomes a free newspaper in central London. The Bank of England cuts interest rates to 1.5% — the lowest since it opened in 1694.
Boris Johnson becomes Mayor of London
ITV cuts 600 jobs after losses of £2.6 billion in 2008.
Barak Obama wins the US Presidential election. After more than a century, St Hilda’s, Oxford, admits first male undergraduates.
MJA 50 years | 33
The IVF story Professor Simon Fishel, one of the world’s leading fertility pioneers, was part of the team managing the birth of the world’s first IVF baby in 1978. Today as founder and president of CARE Fertility Group, he continues to innovate.
Professor Simon Fishel
He says: “My personal view is that the media has been enormously helpful in developing public understanding of IVF — if at times extremely deleterious! Bob (Nobel Prize winner Professor Robert Edwards) was particularly concerned about the media being anti IVF — there was huge controversy from the start — but I believed people wanted to understand what we were doing. I remember endless discussions over the word embryo — for example, should we use pre-embryo — it was important to get the science right. “Even when it came to the scandals and debates over ethics, I was optimistically naive enough to want bad and unacceptable practice to be exposed so we could do better. Between the efforts of the media and increasingly good practice over the past two and a half decades IVF treatment is now more successful than ever. “There has been too much arrogance within the profession and the growth of specialist journalists has probably helped challenge this. If the standard of reporting is good and fair, whether in newspapers, broadcasting or the internet, it brings enormous benefits. Paradoxically, pioneers in science can be labelled maverick as they face a choice between waiting for evidence or trying to produce it. We can be highly criticised or applauded for the effort. But balanced journalism gives an opportunity for the public to question us as medical scientists. We don’t have all the answers and if we thought we did, we’d be just making time and never make progress.”
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The
2010s This decade will shape the UK’s destiny for many years to come. We don’t yet know how, but It may be remembered as a time of great uncertainty and social division. The Brexit referendum revealed a split country – to the apparent surprise of the government.
2010
2011
The Independent launches i — a concise paper for just 20p.
Papworth Hospital patient Matthew Green, 40, becomes the UK’s first artificial heart recipient.
Voters awake to a new-Conservative led coalition with the Liberal Democrats.
A spinal injury patient becomes the first person to receive a medical treatment derived from human embryonic stem cells in a trial by Geron of Menlo Park, California. The 168-year-old News of the World closes — brought down by the hacking furore, a scandal every bit as sensational as many it had itself exposed.
David Cameron and Nick Clegg: all smiles — for now
HIV infection is removed from the US list of ‘communicable diseases of public health significance’. Professor Robert Edwards receives the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for developing IVF.
36 | MJA 50 years
2010s
2011 continued...
2012
NHS dancing nurses provide one of the highlights of Danny Boyle’s spectacular Olympics opening ceremony
Former NoW editor Andy Coulson leaving Lewisham police station after being questioned about phone hacking
Former pub landlord Mark Cahill, serving a drink to his wife after becoming the first UK hand transplant recipient
A typewriter, reportedly the last made in the UK, is produced in Wales. Computers began replacing typewriters in newsrooms in the 1980s. The clatter of typewriter keys in newsrooms was as distinctive a sound of the old Fleet Street as the deafening roar of the presses. MJA 50 years | 37
2013
2014 continued...
First in vitro kidney grown in US.
Prime Minister David Cameron proposes a referendum on whether or not the UK should leave the EU.
The art installation, Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red: 888,246 ceramic poppies at the Tower of London commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War One. Each poppy represents a fallen soldier.
2014 is the UK’s hottest year on record.
2014
2015 The Conservative Party win an outright majority in the General Election with 331 seats, securing David Cameron’s second term in office. Circle Holdings, the first private company to run an NHS hospital, announce plans to withdraw from its Hinchingbrooke Hospital contract, complaining that the franchise is “no longer viable under current terms”.
Launching the first Invictus Games, Prince Harry praises wounded warriors from around the globe for stories that “move, inspire and humble” (Invictus: Latin, unconquered.)
Bedfordshire Police obtain the first female genital mutilation protection order, preventing two young girls thought to be at risk from travelling to Africa. Jeremy Corbyn is elected Labour Party leader.
38 | MJA 50 years
A law banning smoking in vehicles carrying children is introduced in England and Wales.
2010s
2016
Here today — gone tomorrow
Trinity Mirror closes its experimental New Day newspaper after just two months.
Most of the NHS political masters and mistresses of the past 50 years have one thing in common — short terms in office. At the time of writing, Jeremy Hunt, with more than 2,000 days in office, has just become the longest serving health secretary. He took office on September 4, 2012.
2017
Former Times journalist Norman Fowler (Conservative), now leader of the House of Lords, also showed great stamina (September 14, 1981 to June 13, 1987)
The Brexit referendum: a shock result. The Independent ceases as a print edition.
Grenfell – the abiding image of the year. Prime Minister Theresa May admits to shedding a ‘little tear’ after failing to win an overall majority in the June 8 snap General Election. Following trials producing remission rates of 95% or more, the US approves CAR-T cell therapy for children with relapsed B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Dr Martin Pule, of the University College London Cancer Institute, says: “There are very few examples in modern medicine where you have a treatment, perhaps once in every 20 years or so, where you see this kind of sustained response rate in cancer treatment.”
Staying power: Jeremy Hunt and Norman Fowler
MJA 50 years | 39
Of the 20 ministers below, half (names in red) were out of the job within about two years. Minister of Health
Term Party
Kenneth Robinson
1964-68
Labour
1968-70
Labour
Secretary of State, Health & Social Services Richard Crossman Sir Keith Josephs
1970-74
Conservative
Barbara Castle
1974-76
Labour
David Ennals
1976-79
Labour
Patrick Jenkin
1979-81
Conservative
Norman Fowler
1981-87
Conservative
John Moore
1987-88
Conservative
Kenneth Clarke
1988-90
Conservative
William Waldegrave
1990-92
Conservative
Virginia Bottomley
1992-95
Conservative
Stephen Dorrell
1995-97
Conservative
Frank Dobson
1997-99
Labour
Alan Milburn
1999-03
Labour
2003-05
Labour
Patricia Hewitt
2005-07
Labour
Alan Johnson
2007-09
Labour
Andy Burnham
2009-11
Labour
Andrew Lansley
2010-12
Conservative
Jeremy Hunt
2012-
Conservative
Secretary of State for Health
John Reid
40 | MJA 50 years
National Statistics
National newspapers: goodbye to all that? In 1966, as plans to form the MJA are underway, the UK national newspaper industry is enjoying a golden age. In the same year, communications guru Marshall Mcluhan (‘The medium is the message’ and ‘The global village’) predicts the Internet. His forecast does not stop the champagne corks from popping in Fleet Street. Print seems invincible. No one seems to realise that print newspapers are an endangered species despite the TV-led circulation decline starting in the 1950s.
Circulation figures (average) 1966
1997
2017
1, 238.000
3, 877.097
1,666.715
Daily Mirror
5,123.000
2, 442.078
Daily Mail
2, 238.000
2, 344.183
1,511.357
Daily Express
3, 978.000
1, 241.336
392.526
Daily Telegraph
1, 353.000
1, 129.777
472.258
The Times
282.000
821.000
451.261
Daily Star
–
729. 991
443.252
Daily Record
N/A
703.090
155.772
The Guardian
281,000
428.000
156.756
152.000
326.516
188.924
The Sun
Financial Times The Independent
–
288.182
724.888
–
* The Sun, originally a broadsheet, was relaunched in 1969 as a tabloid by Rupert Murdoch. Source: Audit Bureau of Circulation.
MJA 50 years | 41
“Patients have never been better informed, or more able to make decisions about their health and healthcare — and in large part that is due to the work of MJA. Just as healthcare has changed out of sight in the past 50 years, and so too, has medical journalism. Today, as we face new challenges and embrace new opportunities, the MJA continues to provide professional advice and support, championing issues such as rates, and ensuring the bar for professional standards in medical journalism is always set high. I’ve found the MJA a valuable and worthwhile professional organisation to be a part of, and for its networking events, raising my profile through entering its awards, and attending its educational talks and training sessions.” Lilian Anekwe, Deputy editor, Chemist+Druggist (C+D) 42 | MJA 50 years
The MJA: the next 50 years In 50 years time we hope our successors will publish a report to celebrate the MJA’s centenary. How will they reflect the next 50 years? Predicting the future is notoriously hard. It is also perhaps the MJA’s biggest challenge. The more we can forecast the future, the better able we will be to provide for our members. We are confident that the next 50 years will be as exciting as the first, but future members may be more familiar with coding than with shorthand. Finally, we want to acknowledge the invaluable support of our many sponsors — sometimes in the face of opposition from members who argued that the MJA should not receive sponsorship from pharmaceutical companies. Tony Thistlethwaite allocated an entire chapter to the controversy in his book Independent and Bloody Minded: The Story of the Medical Journalists’ Association 1967-97. Tony noted that sponsors had ‘never sought to influence the MJA in any way’. This is still the case today. The MJA is still independent and bloody minded — ironically because of its sponsors. Without them there would be no awards and few meetings, if any.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Jenny Hope for her contributions about Edwina Currie and Professor Simon Fishel; Rachel Swanston and staff in the Associated Newspapers picture library for help with research; Associated Newspapers for access to its picture library; Jane Symons, of the MJA executive committee, for text editing and suggestions and encouragement; and the Healthcare Communications Association for their support. Picture credits The Cheshire Cheese. Walter Thornbury. Sir Joshua Reynolds Doctor Samuel Johnson ?1772 Tate Purchased 1871 Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND Charles Dickens. Unknown. Professor Christiaan Barnard. Associated Newspapers. Nurses in Downing Street deputation. Associated Newspapers. Hippies at Stonehenge. Associated Newspapers. Fred West. Daily Mail. Sextuplets mother Sheila Toms. Steve Copley. Associated Newspapers. Dr. (later Professor) Sir Roy Calne. Keith Waldegrave. Associated Newspapers. Dr (later Professor) Donald Longmore. Derek Cattini. Associated Newspapers. John Roper Medical Journalists’ Association. Daily Sketch: Associated Newspapers. Richard Nixon with Harold Wilson. Roger Bamber. Associated Newspapers. Michael Foot leads CND march. Keith Waldegrave. Associated Newspapers. Marjorie Wallace. Sane. Aneurin Bevan. Daily Mail Ambulances. Barry Greenwood. Associated Newspapers. Common Market Referendum count. Jimmy James. Associated Newspapers. Labour Health Secretary Barbara Castle. Clifford Ling. Associated Newspapers. Frederick Sanger. Associated Newspapers. Louise Brown. Brian Bould. Associated Newspapers. IVF pioneers Dr Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe. John Sherbourne. Daily Mail ‘Winter of Discontent’. Michael Sullivan. Associated Newspapers. Margaret Thatcher. Associated Newspapers. Dr David Delvin. Unknown. Smallpox vaccination clinic. Associated Newspapers.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana wedding. Mike Hollist. Daily Mail Muhammad Ali and British boxer Henry Cooper. Associated Newspapers. Death of the Belgrano. Daily Mail. Simon Weston. Bill Lovelace. Associated Newspapers. The miners’ strike. Pete Lomas. Associated Newspapers. Everly Brothers Associated Newspapers. Journalist John McCarthy and Jill Morrell. Clive Limpkin. Daily Mail. Lockerbie. John Sherbourne. Associated Newspapers. Pan Am Flight 103. Pete Lomas. Associated Newspapers. Tim Berners Lee. Scott Henrichsen. Image: Knight Foundation. Creative Commons. Edwina Currie. Dave Kendall. Associated Newspapers. Operation Desert Storm. Steve Back. Associated Newspapers. Nelson Mandela. Bill Cross. Daily Mail. Channel Tunnel. John Minihan. Associated Newspapers. Nick Leeson. Mark Large. Daily Mail. The Queen Mother. Murray Sanders. Daily Mail. Dolly the Sheep. Daily Mail . Tony and Cherie Blair. Murray Sanders. Daily Mail Floral tribute to Princess Diana. Nick Skinner. Daily Mail. Tony Thistlethwaite. Snip, MJA News, June-July 2001. Viagra. Mike Forster Daily Mail. Euro chocolate. Jeremy Selwyn, Evening Standard. Gunter von Hagens. Jeremy Selwyn. Evening Standard Concorde. Alex Lenati. Evening Standard. Margaret Hodge. Denis Jones. Evening Standard. London bomb blast. Daily Mail. Boris Johnson. Jamie Wiseman. Daily Mail. Debby Purdy. Cavan Pawson. Evening Standard. Professor Simon Fishel. CARE Fertility. David Cameron and Nick Clegg. James Wiseman. Daily Mail. Robert Edwards. John Sherborne. Daily Mail. News of the World (NoW) Stephanie Schaerer. Daily Mail. Andy Coulson: former News of the World editor. Arnold Slater. Daily Mail. Murray Sanders. Daily Mail. Dancing nurses: 2012 Olympics. Bruce Adams, Daily Mail. Mark Cahill. Bruce Adams. Daily Mail. Prince Harry. David Parker Daily Mail. Ceramic poppies. George Gillard. Daily Mail. Jeremy Hunt. Bruce Adams. Daily Mail Norman Fowler. Darryn Lyons. Associated Newspapers. MJA 50 years | 43
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