BMJ writers win MJA journalism awards

On September 24, 2026, The BMJ published a short news item announcing that its own staff had won four separate categories at the 2026 Medical Journalists' Association (MJA) Awards^[1]. The wins covered reporting on tirzepatide access under the Mounjaro brand, gynecological care judges described as shaped by "medical misogyny," and two pieces examining US President Donald Trump's health-related policy moves. The ceremony itself was held two days earlier, on September 22, 2026^[3].

Four wins for one newsroom

Elisabeth Mahase won the News Story (Specialist Audience) category for "Mounjaro: Less than half of England has NHS access to jab months after roll-out, distressing patients and GPs." Adele Waters won Feature (Specialist Audience) for "Medical misogyny and 'harrowing' experiences: what are doctors doing to improve outpatient gynaecological procedures?" Mun Keat Looi won the Editor award for a body of work that included "Trump's second term and the weaponisation of health policy: a 2025 timeline." Tom Moberly won Mental Health Story for "Donald Trump's mental health: are health professionals' media speculations ethical or dangerous?"^[2]

The MJA Awards run across seventeen categories in total, judged from entries submitted by outlets and freelancers across UK health and science journalism^[2]. The BMJ won four of those seventeen categories; the other thirteen went to The New Statesman, the Financial Times, New Scientist, several broadcasters, and other outlets. Individual categories carry their own sponsor. Mahase's News Story win sits in the Specialist Audience category sponsored by Medicines UK, and Looi's Editor award is sponsored by the ABPI, the trade association for prescription medicine companies operating in the UK^[2]. The MJA says independent judges review hundreds of entries each year before the shortlist and winners are announced^[3].

The Mounjaro win: an NHS access gap, not a drug story

In the UK, tirzepatide is a prescription-only medicine, and NHS access for weight management rolls out region by region through local integrated care boards, so it does not open to every eligible patient nationwide at once. Mahase's award-winning article, as the title states, found that fewer than half of those boards in England had implemented full Mounjaro access months into the national rollout, leaving patients and GPs without a consistent answer on who could actually get a prescription^[2]. The story is about administrative and funding gaps in how a licensed medicine reaches patients. It does not report new findings on the drug's safety or effectiveness.

Mahase's was not the only Mounjaro-focused entry that year. Emily Warner won the Newcomer category for The Pharmacist with "Revealed: How ICBs are taking their own approaches to Mounjaro prescribing," a separate investigation into the same regional variation in tirzepatide access^[2]. Two different outlets, working independently, converged on the same story: NHS rollout of a single licensed medicine is producing inconsistent access depending on where a patient lives.

The medical misogyny award: gynecological care, not politics

Waters's winning entry has no connection to Mounjaro or to the Trump-related pieces beyond sharing a newsroom. Its own headline, as listed by the MJA, frames it as an examination of what doctors are doing to improve outpatient gynecological procedures that many patients found harrowing, and of a wider pattern the judges' category description labels medical misogyny in how those procedures are performed and explained to patients. PeptideMethods could not access the underlying article text directly, so this summary relies on the headline and the MJA's own category description, not the full reporting.

Waters is not a first-time MJA winner. The association's own profile of past winners credits her with a 2025 win in the same Feature category and a separate 2025 win for best mental health story^[4]. The 2026 win extends a run of recognition for the same reporter; it is not a one-off breakthrough.

The Trump pieces: policy tracking and an ethics question, not an endorsement

Both Trump-related winners are framed, by their own headlines, as journalism about health policy and professional ethics rather than commentary for or against the president. Looi's recognized work includes a timeline tracking specific health-policy actions taken during Trump's second term^[2]. Moberly's piece poses a direct question in its own title: whether it is ethical or dangerous for health professionals to speculate publicly about a sitting president's mental health without having examined him. Neither headline makes a diagnostic claim about Trump, and PeptideMethods was not able to access either full article to verify the body text beyond the titles and category descriptions the MJA published.

Why this matters

Four independently judged categories share one newsroom, not one storyline. The headline pairs Trump, Mounjaro, and gynecological care because those stories happened to win the same year, in the same building. For readers researching tirzepatide access, the useful part is the Mounjaro finding itself: an independent journalism body verified a specific gap in NHS rollout of a licensed medicine.