
Iain Chalmers
Sir Iain Chalmers
Editor, James Lind Library
After qualifying in medicine in the mid 1960s, Iain Chalmers practised as a clinician for seven years in the UK and the Gaza Strip. In the mid 1970s, after further training at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics, he became a full time health services researcher, with a particular interest in assessing the effects of health care. He directed the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit between 1978 and 1992, and the UK Cochrane Centre between 1992 and 2002. His main current interests are the history of the development of methods to test the effects of medical treatments, and in promoting public understanding of these methods. He is Editor of The James Lind Library (www.jameslindlibrary.org), which documents the evolution of fair tests of medical treatments.