Advocacy on behalf of the common weal must remain a primary function of any national professional association and its official journal. The last issue of the CMJ amply reflects its allegiance to the cause of public welfare.
The two leading articles set the tone. Their titles are both explicit and direct: "The polymerase chain reaction - Sri Lanka needs it" and "Time we increased folic acid consumption in Sri Lanka:. In the former, Jayantha Welihinda (pp 155-158) bemoans the fact that use of PCR technology is uncommon in Sri Lanka, and recommends that "The well informed clinician should play an active role in stimulating our laboratories to adopt PCR technology on a wider scale:. In the latter, a group of academics and clinicians from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Kelaniya (pp159-163) cogently sum up the arguments for increasing folic acid consumption on a national scale and urge health professionals to lead the campaign: "It is time that the medical profession, particularly organisations sucha s the Sri Lanka Medical Association, played and avocacy role in recommending to government the compulsory fortification with folic acid of a suitable food stape such as wheat floor".
A paper on page 173 by a paediatrician examines EPI vaccine storage, a matter of continuing discussion in two letters on pages 201 and 203. The harrowing tale of female victims of sexual assault is retold, and the difficulties experienced by doctors by doctors in examining them are addressed in a letter by two obstetricians on page 204.A professorial surgical unit offers an investigative letter (pages 205-206) on the serious hazards to pedal cyclists by a combination of the victims' carefree carelessness, awful road surfaces, chaotic traffic management, motorists' disregard for basic traffic rules and Police inaction.
With so many important matters to take up with the appropriate authorities,
will the SLMA be able to find the time in its busy calendar?
For readers whose penchant is for the esoteric we have a rich illustrated fare: early amnion rupture sequence (page 181), neuroacanthocytosis (page 184), POEMS syndrome (page 190) and (a brief pause for air) leiomyomatosis perionealis disseminata (page 196). And for quite reflection, we have an evocative obtituary of one of the leading lights of our profession, Nandadasa Kodagoda, by one of his myriads of devotees, Hemamal Jayawardena, on page 209.
