Global Health Week to bring leading public health figures to Queen Mary

Professor Allyson Pollock

The event has been organised by Queen Mary’s Professor Allyson Pollock and will feature a series of lectures, debates, international link-ups and films to explore the over-arching theme – the influence and power of the corporation over public health. 

Professor John Frank, Director of the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy will open the week, on a day which also features a live video link with Makere University in Uganda to discuss the challenges that patients and doctors face in accessing medicines, drawing on joint work with Queen Mary on the AMASA project funded by the EC.

Tuesday will include a panel discussion on the future of the NHS, with speakers including Andy Burnham MP, Dr Clare Gerada, Chair of the Royal College of GPs and Dr Kailash Chand, Deputy Chair of the BMA. They will be joined by founders of the NHA party NHS consultants Clive Peedell and Jacky Davis, as well as local GP Jonathon Tomlinson.

Other lectures throughout the week will include blogger, journalist, author and GP Margaret McCartney discussing, 'Why sexed up screening is bad for your health', while Professor David Healy will provide an account of ‘disease mongering’ drawn from his new book on the pharmaceutical industry and mental illness. Journalist and author of 'Not on the Label', Felicity Lawrence will join Geof Rayner to examine food policy and public health.

Award-winning journalist Clare Sambrook and consultant paediatrician Nick Lessof will talk about their work to help refugees, asylum seekers and children held in detention centres, while GP Dr Louise Irvine will provide an overview of the new disability benefits system.

The final afternoon of the event will feature editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton, before Professor Lesley Regan from Imperial College London brings proceedings to a close with a lecture on challenges in women's health and the importance of maternal health.

Global Health Week is an integral part of the curriculum for fourth year medical students at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. In addition it is open to all staff and students of the medical school and students from other London-based medical schools. Further information is available at http://globalhealthweek.eventbrite.co.uk/