As I write this, the strongest hurricane ever detected in the Western Hemisphere is approaching the coast of Mexico, where my son lives. It may have nothing to do with […]
Month: October 2015
Diclectin data: Testing Canada’s new pharmaceutical transparency law
Earlier this month Canadian news sources, including the CBC and the Toronto Star, reported on Dr Navindra Persaud’s success in securing unpublished data from Health Canada about the safety and […]
Neville Goodman’s Metaphor Watch: The magic bullet
The expression magic bullet is due to the German medical scientist Paul Ehrlich, who was seeking a cure for syphilis. He wanted to find chemical substances with specific affinity for […]
Saurabh Jha: Saving Normal
The iconoclastic psychiatrist Thomas Szasz said that mental illness was metaphorical, not real, because mental diseases lacked biological substrates. The absence of a substrate predisposes psychiatry to overdiagnosis and avoiding overdiagnosis is […]
William Cayley: Neither complementary nor conventional
I appreciate Timothy Caulfield’s exploration of the “straw men” set up in many a discussion over integrative, complementary, or alternative medicines (CAM for short). However, I think we need to […]
Richard Lehman’s journal review—26 October 2015
NEJM 22 October 2015 Vol 373 Neatest knee trial 1597 “Whatever next. A patient centred, surgical RCT on a common operation with a thoughtful, patient centred editorial in the NEJM,” […]
Mosaraf Hossain on improving health outcomes in Goalpokher-I
The Islampur sub-division of the Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal (a state in India) is the most underperforming area of the state in terms of health and other human […]
Ajith J: How school based health services can improve child health in India
School children constitute over 25% of India’s population of 1.21 billion people. School health in India is limited to sporadic screening in public schools. Private schools, where 30 million urban […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . All gall
The Old English dictionary called the Epinal glossary, glossed the Latin word “bile”, a form of bilis, as “átr”, later spelt atter, meaning gall or bitterness. However, “atter” and “bile” […]
Richard Lehman on prescribing spironolactone
The liveliest e-mail streams I have ever encountered are the ones which are currently coming out of the Overdiagnosis Group, set up by Margaret McCartney last year. The group is […]