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Letters Poll on BMA opposition to assisted dying

Doctors’ polls on assisted dying are irrelevant

BMJ 2020; 371 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m4310 (Published 10 November 2020) Cite this as: BMJ 2020;371:m4310
  1. Sam Shuster, emeritus professor of dermatology
  1. Woodbridge IP12 1FE, UK
  1. sshuster{at}btinternet.com

We’ve had a Royal College of Physicians poll, a Royal College of General Practitioners poll, and now the BMA poll on assisted dying.1 That’s a full hand of polls, but it’s a dead hand, because the response rates were too low—29%, 15%, and 19%, respectively.

Such trivial responses relate to only small subgroups; they augment bias, as the RCP figures showed, and provide no evidence whatsoever of the …

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