Johnson and Johnson has been ordered to pay more than four billion dollars in damages to 22 women who say that their products gave them cancer. Professor Paul Pharoah, who’s a cancer epidemiologist from the University of Cambridge and has acted as a paid expert to one of the law firms representing Johnson and Johnson, says he doesn’t believe th ...…

The NHS in Britain is 70 years old and in a special programme, Health Check looks at how it has influenced other health systems around the world. Claudia Hammond is joined in the studio by Dina Balabonova, Associate Professor of Health Systems and Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. On the 5 July 1948 healthcare in Bri ...…

The Royal Society Summer Exhibition in London showcases the latest medical research. Broken bones often fix themselves without any help. But big breaks can need a bone graft. Scientists at the University of Glasgow are combining 3-D printing of plastic or gels with stem cells - to grow replacement “bones” in the lab. So far it’s been tried in a ...…

The average flight attendant might well spend the equivalent of 120 working days in the sky each year, or in some countries even longer. Now new research confirms that this much flying time could be a risk to health, with flight attendants having an increased chance of getting several different types of cancer. Dr Irina Mordukhovich, who is a R ...…

The first ever heart transplant took place in Cape Town in South Africa fifty years ago this week. That patient died after just 18 days – but today around five thousand people have heart transplants every year. A shortage of donor hearts means there is often a wait – and an artificial pump called an L-VAD can buy time. We hear from doctors and ...…

Millions of people wear electronic step-counting bracelets or use apps on their phones – aiming for ten thousand steps a day. Claudia Hammond asks whether this routine motivates her – or if it’s actually setting her up for failure. Some experts applaud the bar charts and graphs which track progress as proof of healthy activity. But can the cons ...…

Thousands of people around the world take a statin pill every day – to lower their cholesterol levels and help reduce their risk of stroke and heart attacks. In some people they cause side-effects – but they might also have a hidden benefit - helping older people fight the serious respiratory infection pneumonia. A British researcher describes ...…

“When your brain wakes up but your body doesn’t” is how a sleep expert describes the phenomenon of sleep paralysis. Around 1 in 20 people will experience vivid hallucinations while falling asleep or waking up whilst being completely unable to move. Sleeping on your back can help to reduce the risk of an attack. Even less well understood is 'Exp ...…

Four out five patients with Hepatitis C do not know they are infected – and the virus can cause cancer or cirrhosis of the liver, leading to 1.3 million deaths every year. The World Health Organisation wants to eliminate hepatitis by 2030 – but only a handful of countries like Egypt and Australia are on track. The World Hepatitis Summit has bee ...…

Around a quarter of survivors of the Ebola outbreak that started back in 2014 in West Africa have developed eye problems, including uveitis and cataracts. Dr Jessica Shantha and Dr Steven Yeh, both assistant professors of ophthalmology at Emory University in Atlanta US talked to Claudia Hammond about how they’ve been studying and treating the c ...…

Heart FailureThis serious condition – where the heart can no longer pump sufficient blood around the body - affects 26 million people around the world. Symptoms can include breathlessness, fluid retention and tiredness - enough to have a severe impact on the quality of life. A heart failure diagnosis can be frightening and stressful but there i ...…

When you visit the doctor how much do you understand what’s being said? Communicating complex medical information – especially to sick children – can be a challenge for medical staff. Now a game called Dr Jargon has been created to encourage doctors to use simple language to explain common complaints to patients.The scientist who’s designed a w ...…

As we dream of sending humans to Mars, the psychological problems of such a mission loom large. Claudia Hammond ponders the most important qualities required from those who’d like to colonise Mars. Surviving a cramped nine-month journey and the pod-like homes on the red planet requires a mix of resilience, curiosity and the ability to get on wi ...…

Around the world more than 3 billion people cook and heat their homes using fuel like wood and charcoal on open fires or traditional stoves. This inefficient method produces lots of smoke – creating indoor air pollution. The World Health Organisation says indoor pollution kills more than 4 million people every year. Our reporter Sammy Darko has ...…