This issue opens with Ramón and Ballester in speaker’s corner discussing the adverse neurological effects of mercury exposure through fish consumption, the main source of human exposure to methylmercury in developed countries. The authors highlight the potential health impacts of such exposure, especially during pregnancy, focussing on reproductive outcomes. (page 378) In an editorial Espinoza and Barten comment on the latest version of a proposal for health reform in El Salvador. They claim that it is no longer possible to delay the revival of the comprehensive primary healthcare principles stated in the Alma Ata Declaration, which was aborted or sidestepped because of the crisis of the 1980s, the rise of neoliberalism and the perceived threat to political control posed by strengthened social organisation and greater community participation. (page 380)

In public health past and present, Vallgårda’s article looks at health checks for pregnant women and children in Denmark and Sweden introduced in the 1930s and 1940s. In recent decades …