Controlled medicines are essential in paediatric care yet children everywhere—and especially in low- and middle-income countries—face challenges in accessing controlled medicines for their medical needs and to alleviate serious health-related suffering.

In this episode, Belén Tarrafeta and Hazel Gutiérrez join Josefine Gibson to discuss misconceptions that have led to children’s access being overlooked in research and policy efforts. Together, they highlight the imperative of generating child-specific evidence on access, safety, and use, and they explore what it will take to move from global resolutions to real change for children's equitable access to controlled medicines.

Click here to read the full articles:

Review: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00374-8/fulltext

Health Policy: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00375-X/fulltext

Those working in clinical trials will recall that in 2025 updates were published for the SPIRIT standard clinical trial protocol items and the CONSORT guideline for reporting randomised clinical trials.

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health will be co-publishing the first child and adolescent extensions to the SPIRIT and CONSORT reporting guidelines, along with the BMJ and JAMA Paediatrics. In this conversation with the SPIRIT and CONSORT child and adolescent project leads, Ami Baba and Martin Offringa, we discuss the need for child and adolescent specific reporting standards, the importance and value of engaging caregivers and young people in the process of developing the standards, and the potential for the SPIRIT-C and CONSORT-C reporting standards to positively impact the quality and inclusivity of paediatric clinical trials across all disciplines caring for neonates, infants, children, and adolescents.

CONSORT-C https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(26)00004-0/fulltext

SPIRIT-C https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(26)00005-2/fulltext

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In this episode, co-hosted by our Senior Editor Amy Slogrove and our Lancet Child & Adolescent Health Youth Advisory Panel member, Matea Canizares, we discuss adolescent digital intimate partner violence. *Intimate partner violence might be a difficult topic for some, please take care if this is so for you, and do step away from this episode if you feel the need.* Amy and Matea are in conversation with Dr Thao Ha, Associate Professor of psychology and director of the HEART (Healthy Experiences Across Relationships and Transitions) Lab, from Arizona State University. Dr Ha along with her co-author Dr Taren McGray, have shone a spotlight on the complexity of adolescent relationships in digital and AI-influenced spaces in a Comment titled “No safe place: ending adolescent digital intimate partner violence”. We discuss what digital intimate partner violence is and the nuances in adolescent relationships, the co-occurrence with offline intimate partner violence, the sometimes shifting relationship between victims and victimizers, the central importance of young peoples perspectives in understanding these dynamics and supporting healthy intimate relationships, and the opportunities for us all to contribute and advocate for a world where technology does good instead of harm in supporting healthy relationships. Links for the Comment and associated content in our journal: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00372-4/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00311-6/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00343-8/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(24)00145-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(24)00329-8/fulltext

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Dr Jason Nagata discusses his Review on muscle dysmorphia, a pathological preoccupation with being insufficiently muscular, and how paediatricians can help young people navigate body image concerns.

Click here to read the full review: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00283-4/fulltext

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Ableism is a type of discriminatory bias, like racism and sexism for example, that speaks particularly to the idea that there is one standard human norm that exists and any ways of being human that don't meet this standard are considered inferior. In this episode with neonatologist and developmental paediatrician Dr Paige Church we discuss the presence of ableism in paediatrics, and child and adolescent health at large. We consider how, despite the best intentions of paediatricians and other practitioners, we quickly assign value judgements and assume an inherently less meaningful life for children with disabilities or differences that do not meet normative standards or expected developmental milestones.

Dr Church share's her own journey of reckoning with the invisible bias of ableism in her clinical practice in counselling parents in the NICU, shares tangible examples of how ableism plays out in neonatal and paediatric clinical care, and we discuss how children and families with disability often face multiple intersecting discriminatory biases-along race, gender, socioeconomic, neuro-normative and other lines-leading to a concentration of marginalisation and othering. Dr Church shares practical individual mindset and language shifts we can all make, that are of no cost to the healthcare system, to start to overcome ableist biases and support children, young people and their families to reach their unique optimal developmental potential.

Click here to read the full article: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00222-6/fulltext

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Dr Rachel Reid-McCann (University of Oxford, Oxford, UK) speaks with Acting Editor-in-Chief Ali Landman about her recent paper "Longitudinal association between dysmenorrhoea in adolescence and chronic pain in adulthood: a UK population-based study".

Read the full article:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00213-5/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_October_25_lanchi

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Dr Zulfiqar Bhutta, Georgia Dominguez, and Naeha Sharma join acting Editor-in-Chief Ali Landman to discuss their Health Policy paper "Who protects the children and women of Sudan?", analysing the scale and severity of the grave violations of war against children and women in Sudan and proposing immediate and long-term strategic actions to respond to the humanitarian crisis and ensure long-term recovery and accountability.

Read the Health Policy paper:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00237-8/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_September_25_lanchi

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Paediatric-onset multiple sclerosis before the age of 18 years, although uncommon, is associated with a higher disease burden than adult onset MS, early and progressive motor and cognitive disability, and high levels of depression and fatigue. In this episode Ann Yeh, Professor of Paediatrics and neurologist in Toronto, Canada, highlights the global considerations in preventing MS disease progression in young people with MS, including achieving global equity in access to diagnostics, specialist services, and highly-effective disease modifying therapies for adolescents and young adults with MS.

Read the Review in this month's issue here:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(25)00133-6/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_August_25_lanchi

Disease-modifying therapies in managing disability worsening in paediatric-onset multiple sclerosis: a longitudinal analysis of global and national registries https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(24)00047-6/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_August_25_lanchi

Real-life benefits of high-efficacy therapies for children with multiple sclerosis https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(24)00074-9/fulltext?dgcid=buzzsprout_icw_podcast_August_25_lanchi

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