Jane Symons

Last updated

Jane Symons (born 1959) is an Australian media consultant, journalist and author based in London. She has written for a wide range of newspapers and magazines, and she is a vice chair of the Medical Journalists' Association and the public-patient information lead for the Covidence-UK longitudinal study. Her book, How to Have a Baby and Still Live in the Real World, has been published in countries including the UK, USA and Russia.

Contents

Career

Symons edited the health pages of The Sun [1] from 2004 to 2009, during which time she led a successful campaign for the breast cancer drug trastuzumab (sold as Herceptin) to be made available on Britain's National Health Service for women in early stages of the HER2 form of the disease. By highlighting delays in the implementation of Britain's national bowel cancer screening, she also forced the British government to meet its own deadlines on the tests. [2]

Symons was praised in the British Medical Journal, where Professor David Colquhoun of the Department of Pharmacology, at University College London wrote that "It isn’t often that a Murdoch tabloid produces a better account of a medical problem than anything the Department of Health’s chief scientific advisor can muster." [3]

A frequent critic of unproven therapies she has debunked homeopathy. In 2005, she was instrumental in exposing Mrs Gillian McKeith's lack of credible medical qualifications in an article headlined "Dr? No' which prompted a claim for damages which Mrs McKeith subsequently withdrew. [4] Symons has also been mentioned in Parliament in relation to her efforts to expose serious problems within the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority [5] and to raise awareness of hepatitis C. [6]

Symons set up her own consultancy in 2009. She provides media training, advice and strategy to clients in the health, pharmaceutical and PR sector and is often invited to speak on health and the media or contribute to expert panels. [7] [8] She has also worked with a number of charities and edited the MS Lottery of Care report to mark the 60th anniversary of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. [9]

Symons is also a co-investigator of the Covidence-UK longitudinal study investigating the lifestyle factors which might influence the risk of contracting Covid-19, disease severity and vaccine efficacy. [10]

She continues to write on health issues and has contributed to many of Britain's national newspapers, including The Times , Daily Mail , the Daily Mirror , the Daily Express and Sunday Express . Previous roles include health editor of Woman's Own magazine and chief sub-editor of The Daily Telegraph Saturday magazine.[ citation needed ]

She is vice chair and website editor of the Medical Journalists' Association [11] and a member of the Guild of Health Writers.

Personal life

Awards

Symons received Cancer Research UK's "National Communicator" Flame of Hope Award in 2007.

She was short-listed for Health Editor of the Year in the Medical Journalists' Association's Awards in 2009. [12] [ self-published source? ]

Books

Symons' work has been translated into Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Spanish, Swedish and Russian. [13]

Family

Symons is the younger sister of Australian TV personality and musician Red Symons.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Lansley</span> British Conservative politician

Andrew David Lansley, Baron Lansley, is a British Conservative politician who previously served as Secretary of State for Health and Leader of the House of Commons. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for South Cambridgeshire from 1997 to 2015.

<i>The BMJ</i> British peer-reviewed medical journal

The BMJ is a weekly peer-reviewed medical journal, published by BMJ Group, which in turn is wholly-owned by the British Medical Association (BMA). The BMJ has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Previously called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988, and then changed to The BMJ in 2014. The journal is published by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, a subsidiary of the British Medical Association (BMA). The current editor-in-chief of The BMJ is Kamran Abbasi, who was appointed in January 2022.

Richard Smith CBE FMedSci is a British medical doctor, editor, and businessman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Buckingham</span> Private university in Buckinghamshire, UK

The University of Buckingham (UB) is a non-profit private university in Buckingham, England and the oldest of the country's six private universities. It was founded as the University College at Buckingham (UCB) in 1973, admitting its first students in 1976. It was granted university status by royal charter in 1983.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Deer</span> British investigative journalist

Brian Deer is a British investigative journalist, best known for inquiries into the drug industry, medicine, and social issues for The Sunday Times. Deer's investigative nonfiction book The Doctor Who Fooled the World, an exposé on disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield and the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, was published in September 2020 by Johns Hopkins University Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ben Goldacre</span> British physician, academic and science writer (born 1974)

Ben Michael Goldacre is a British physician, academic and science writer. He is the first Bennett Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine and director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford. He is a founder of the AllTrials campaign and OpenTrials, aiming to require open science practices in clinical trials.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret of Mar, 31st Countess of Mar</span> British peer (born 1940)

Margaret Alison of Mar, 31st Countess of Mar, is a Scottish hereditary peer and politician. She was a crossbench member of the House of Lords from 1975 to 2020 and was one of 92 hereditary peers elected to remain in the Lords in 1999. She is the holder of the original earldom of Mar, the oldest peerage title in the United Kingdom. She is the only suo jure countess and was the only female hereditary peer in the House of Lords from 2014 to 2020. She is also a farmer and former specialist goats cheesemaker in Great Witley, Worcestershire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maureen Colquhoun</span> British politician (1928–2021)

Maureen Morfydd Colquhoun was a British economist and Labour politician. She was Britain's first openly lesbian member of Parliament (MP).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Health Service (England)</span> Publicly-funded healthcare system in England

The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).

Dame Valerie Beral AC DBE FRS FRCOG FMedSci was an Australian-born British epidemiologist, academic and a preeminent specialist in breast cancer epidemiology. She was Professor of Epidemiology, a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford and was the Head of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford and Cancer Research UK from 1989.

The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health (FIH) was a charity run by King Charles III founded in 1993. The foundation promoted complementary and alternative medicine, preferring to use the term "integrated health", and lobbied for its inclusion in the National Health Service. The charity closed in 2010 after allegations of fraud and money laundering led to the arrest of a former official.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona Godlee</span> First female editor of The British Medical Journal

Fiona Godlee was editor in chief of The British Medical Journal from March 2005 until 31 December 2021; she was the first female editor appointed in the journal's history. She was also editorial director of the other journals in BMJ's portfolio.

Karol Sikora is a British physician specialising in oncology, who has been described as a leading world authority on cancer. He was a founder and medical director of Rutherford Health, a company that provided proton therapy services, and is Director of Medical Oncology at the Bahamas Cancer Centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2013 British Columbia general election</span> Provincial election in Canada

The 2013 British Columbia general election took place on May 14, 2013, to elect the 85 members of the 40th Parliament of British Columbia to the Legislative Assembly in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The British Columbia Liberal Party formed the government during the 39th Parliament prior to this general election, initially under the leadership of Premier Gordon Campbell then after his resignation, Christy Clark. The British Columbia New Democratic Party under the leadership of Carole James, and then Adrian Dix, formed the Official Opposition. The BC Green Party under the leadership of Jane Sterk and the BC Conservative Party under John Cummins were also included in polling, although neither party had representation at the end of the 39th Parliament.

Max Pemberton is a British medical doctor, journalist and author. He works full-time as a psychiatrist in the National Health Service (NHS). He is a weekly columnist for the Daily Mail, writing comment on news events concerning culture, social and ethical issues, the politics of health care and the NHS. Before his move to the Daily Mail, he was a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He also writes a monthly column for Reader’s Digest and is a regular contributor to The Spectator. He is the editor of Spectator Health, a quarterly supplement from The Spectator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neena Modi</span> President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health

Neena Modi is a British physician and Professor of Neonatal medicine at Imperial College London. She is the current president of the UK Medical Women’s Federation, and past president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, serving in this role from April 2015 to April 2018. She is one of only four women to ever hold this position.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loretta Marron</span> Australian public health advocate (born 1951)

Loretta Josephine Marron, OAM is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Friends of Science in Medicine organization. Popularly known as the "Jelly Bean Lady", she has promoted an evidence-based approach to medicine since being diagnosed with cancer herself in 2003. In the media, she has presented exposés of unproven treatments, some of which have resulted in successful legal prosecutions. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her service to health, and she has been "Skeptic of the Year" three times.

The Lancet MMR autism fraud centered on the publication in February 1998 of a fraudulent research paper titled "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children" in The Lancet. The paper, authored by now discredited and deregistered Andrew Wakefield, and twelve coauthors, falsely claimed causative links between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and colitis and between colitis and autism. The fraud involved data selection, data manipulation, and two undisclosed conflicts of interest. It was exposed in a lengthy Sunday Times investigation by reporter Brian Deer, resulting in the paper's retraction in February 2010 and Wakefield being struck off the UK medical register three months later. Wakefield reportedly stood to earn up to US$43 million per year selling diagnostic kits for a non-existent syndrome he claimed to have discovered. He also held a patent to a rival vaccine at the time, and he had been employed by a lawyer representing parents in lawsuits against vaccine producers.

Exercise Cygnus was a three-day simulation exercise carried out by the UK Government in October 2016 to estimate the impact of a hypothetical H2N2 influenza pandemic on the United Kingdom. It aimed to identify strengths and weaknesses within the United Kingdom health system and emergency response chain by putting it under significant strain, providing insight on the country's resilience and any future ameliorations required. It was conducted by Public Health England representing the Department of Health and Social Care, as part of a project led by the "Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Partnership Group". Twelve government departments across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as local resilience forums (LRFs) participated. More than 950 workers from those organisations, prisons and local or central government were involved during the three-day simulation, and their ability to cope under situations of high medical stress was tested.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thara Rangaswamy</span> Indian psychiatrist and schizophreniz researcher

Thara Rangaswamy is a psychiatrist in India, the co-founder of an NGO called SCARF based in Chennai, India. She is a researcher in schizophrenia and community mental health. In 2020, she received the SIRS Outstanding Clinical and Community Research Award of SIRS, an apex body for work on schizophrenia in Florence, Italy.

References

  1. ↑ http://janesymonsmedia.com/%5B%5D%5B%5D
  2. ↑ http://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk/screening.html%7B%7Bfull%7Cdate%3DSeptember . Retrieved 9 March 2007.{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)[ dead link ]
  3. ↑ Colquhoun, D (2009). "Secret remedies: 100 years on". BMJ. 339: b5432. doi:10.1136/bmj.b5432. PMID   20008972. S2CID   5429199.
  4. ↑ http://www.5rb.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/McKeith-v-NGN-QBD-14-Jun-2005.pdf%5B%5D
  5. ↑ Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Commons, Westminster (12 January 2010). "House of Commons Hansard Debates for 12 Jan 2010 (pt 0003)". Publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 29 September 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  6. ↑ Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Commons, Westminster. "House of Commons Hansard Debates for 11 Jul 2005 (pt 38)". Publications.parliament.uk. Retrieved 29 September 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ↑ Gemma O'Reilly (7 July 2009). "increased communication with consumers needed to dispel food myths". Prweek.com. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
  8. ↑ "HCA Conference - The Future of Healthcare Communications". PMLive. Archived from the original on 7 September 2012. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
  9. ↑ http://mslottery.mssociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Scotland-ms-lottery.pdf%5B%5D%5B%5D
  10. ↑ Holt, Hayley; et al. (2021). "Risk factors for developing COVID-19: A population-based longitudinal study (COVIDENCE UK)". Thorax. 77 (9): 900–912. doi:10.1136/thoraxjnl-2021-217487. PMC   8646971 . PMID   34848555. S2CID   244731977.
  11. ↑ "Executive Committee".
  12. ↑ "Powered by Google Docs". Archived from the original on 28 April 2016. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
  13. ↑ "Perseus Books Home". Perseusbooks.com. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.