The Guardian headline reads: “New heart treatment is biggest breakthrough since statins” and the article goes on to claim that “cancer deaths were also halved”. Sounds impressive. So how should we decide whether to fund this drug? The New England Journal of Medicine published the findings of a randomised controlled trial into this new treatment just two days ago. The study was well constructed, with an impressive sounding 10,061 participants.

The New Zealand Ministry of Health has recently published its 2017 pandemic action plan. Flicking through it I noted that it tends to cite other governmental publications rather than academic sources. Of course, many of the publications cited may well cite the academic literature themselves, but I decided to take a quick independent look at what has been published since the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

The moot at a recent Oxford Union debate reads, “This house believes that fake news is a serious threat to democracy and truth.” the fact is, it’s far worse than that. Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to catastrophically transform the information ecosystem and in the process destroy all semblance of truth, fact, knowledge and our ability to act freely and autonomously.

Artificial intelligence has arrived, is here to stay, and is likely to transform our work-lives, personal lives and social structures. Exactly how no one is entirely sure. The potential of AI was very apparent from discussions at the IBM Watson Summit in Auckland on August 16, 2017, and the New Zealand AI Forum ‘Connect’ event that followed.

Safe and effective healthcare is frustrated by failures in communication. We know that double checking drug names and doses and using checklists are huge boons to patient safety. Effective communication is important too. Repeating back important information (read back) enhances the effectiveness of communication across many industries. However, formal communication protocols are uncommon in healthcare teams.

Catheter ablation (CA) for atrial fibrillation (AF) is a procedure with high up-front costs but is superior to pharmacologic treatments for reducing symptoms ¹ and hospital presentations ² . In patients with mild symptoms or few hospitalisations the cost of CA may not be justified.

There will almost certainly be future pandemic diseases that pose a grave threat to human lives. Pandemic influenza, novel emerging infectious agents and possible synthetic bioweapons all pose serious risks. It seems biologically plausible that a new infectious agent might have the transmission characteristics of influenza and the death rate of Ebola.