In popular culture, to have white skin and gray hair is to be old (unemployable and unattractive) or menopausal (unproductive and unsexual). An attempt to retain their hair color (natural or chosen) is, for certain women, an attempt to retain a currency of employability, utility and desirability. Read more
Category Archives: Health & Medicine
Obama supports Wyden-Brown bill
On the PBS Newshour last night, Judy Woodruff interviewed first Kathleen Sibelius and then Orrin Hatch on the issue (Sibelius being the Secretary of Health And Human Services (HHS) and Hatch the conservative Republican senator from Utah). Woodruff repeatedly tried to confront Hatch’s opposition to the proposal. She would cite a state governor who wanted the flexibility of the 2014 waiver option — for example, someone who thought his state could do better than the federal plan if it offered a single-payer system – only to have Hatch repeat, over and over, that the states can’t afford to implement health care reform, so there’s no point in talking about it. It’s all “bull corn.” Read more
Imagine a future without cosmetic surgery
A less pithy title – and what I really mean – would be “Imagine a future where aesthetic cosmetic surgery wasn’t motivated by the images of celebrities/advertising/porn and by the dissatisfaction with normal bodies that these images create.”
In the concluding chapter of her new book, American Plastic: Boob Jobs, Credit Cards, and the Quest for Perfection
Links: Birthing your own grandchild/Welch’s Overdiagnosis/Al Qaeda/Cats/Polar bears
61-year-old woman gives birth to her own grandchild, and so what? (Practical Ethics)
The news is that it’s not news. Euthanasia, divorce, same sex marriage, in vitro fertilization — the common perception of these practices has changed radically in the last 30 years. Comments from Italian bioethicist.
Creeping sickness: Our epidemic of diagnosis (New Scientist)
Review of H. Gilbert Welch’s new book, Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health
Decisions about CPR
Thaddeus Pope quotes this sentence from a 1988 letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
“It seems we have lost sight of the difference between patients who die because their hearts stop and patients whose hearts stop because they are dying.”
Today we no longer stop to make that distinction. Read more
The unavoidable and burdensome responsibility to be happy
Kristina describes Victoria as “Possibly the most annoyingly loud, optimistic, cheerful person you will ever encounter. With an incredibly high-pitched, overly exaggerated Southern accent and a specialty in church music, she is the poster child for America.” Fortunately, I missed the episode of American Idol on which Victoria appeared and was eliminated. Read more
Sex, lies, and pharmaceuticals
Most people experience times when as much as it’s blindingly obvious a problem is not theirs alone, it’s up to them alone to fix it – and a pill is often the quickest or only means.
That’s exactly what Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan wanted us to believe. “There’s no such thing as society.” Unfortunately, many medical distorders do have social, not biological causes. Like poverty.
Read more
Out of Practice: The demise of the primary care practitioner
[T]he government and private insurers had begun a concerted effort to contain the escalating cost of health care by fiat. The kindly family doctor was diminished, downgraded, and de-professionalized to a “provider,” a bland descriptor on a clerk’s requisition form. Even worse, New York State’s Medicaid, insuring the indigent, classified me as a “vendor,” a term which sent me into orbit then, and which today still rankles. Hemmed in by profession-specific price controls, reams of restrictive regulations, heavy-handed threats of federal penalties and expulsion from Medicare participation for suspected infractions, I became disheartened. Read more
Links: History of modesty/Hygiene hypothesis/Men into boys/Koch brothers/Obese pets
History of Modesty, Part 2 (Patient Modesty & Privacy Concerns)
Part two of my post on the history of patient modesty is up as a guest post on the Patient Modesty blog. I discuss how, in the 19th century, doctors got patients to accept a much more invasive physical exam than what they were used to.
Greater Germ Exposure Cuts Asthma Risk (WSJ)
Another example of the hygiene hypothesis. Children living on farms have a lower risk of asthma than children who don’t because they are surrounded by a greater variety of germs. Key is exposure to diversity of germs, not just more of them. “You have to have microbes that educate the immune system. But you have to have the right ones.”
Read more
Reluctant patients: The mental health of doctors
I once walked out of a surgical residency because I didn’t like the way they bullied and yelled at me but not everyone would do that. Students are exposed to brutal violence in ER rooms, are underpaid, and basically end up suffering from PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]. But no one comes to talk to you and you’re left on your own.
Dr. Ores decided against a career in surgery and now treats low-income patients in New York City. “I feel I can actually help people. So much is out of your control in the ER room or operating theatre.” Read more
Links: Cerrie Burnell/Widow’s Lament/Drug shortages/Insurance profits/Cholesterol & women/Kochs
TV presenter Cerrie Burnell: ‘I don’t care if you are offended’ (Guardian)
Born without a right forearm, Burnell now sings, dances, and presents on children’s show. Some parents objected (it frightened their kids). Others suggested long sleeves. “Ultimately, I don’t care if you’re offended.”
Joyce Carol Oates’s Widow’s Lament (NYT)
“A Widow’s Story: A Memoir.” She “has assembled a book more painfully self-revelatory than anything Oates the fiction writer or critic has ever dared to produce.” Touches on the power balance between artist and spouse. Read more
Feeling sorry for plastic surgeons
They meant to be reconstructive surgeons, they meant to fix people after horrific accidents or cancer, and they started doing some boob jobs on the side and it started to eat up more and more of their practice because it was so lucrative. They want to send their kids to nice schools, they have mortgages, they have family, and you could see that they felt a little bit helpless as well. It wasn’t what they meant to do. They seemed just as much products of the system as the middle-aged women going in for a facelift or boob job. They were hoping for a better future.
Read more
Links: Sociable robots/MSG/”Fresh”/Male pregnancy/Pubic hair fashions/Climate change
A Soft Spot for Circuitry (NYT)
Paro the seal, a sociable robot, accomplishes its lifelike interaction through hidden sensors that monitor sound, light, temperature and touch. Sociable robots now used as therapy for the elderly. “We as a species have to learn how to deal with this new range of synthetic emotions that we’re experiencing — synthetic in the sense that they’re emanating from a manufactured object.”
If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn’t everyone in Asia have a headache? (Guardian)
History of Japanese discovery of the fifth taste, ‘umami’ (translated ‘savoury,’ ‘deliciousness’) and the manufacture of MSG. How MSG got a bad reputation in the US and how the food industry fought back. Fascinating.
Read more
Love and marriage in China
Because China has never had a humanist revolution, sex and marriage have always been relatively divorced. That is why many Asian cultures have an immensely commercialised and categorised [sex industry]. … [I]f a husband is a man of means, and has a significant income, then he can take on a second wife without violating his obligation to his first wife. … This does not mean that the Chinese are incapable of love, it means that romantic love competes with that transactional element in a society where people are insecure because their individual interests are not institutionally protected. Read more
Links: Planned Parenthood/Sleep/Internet empathy/Tobacco in China/Doctors who tweet
House votes to defund Planned Parenthood, national health-care law (WaPost)
In votes on amendments to federal spending bill, House Republicans block federal funding of Planned Parenthood and cut off funds to implement health care law. Republican congresswoman took the floor to relate her abortion.
The Fact-Free Far Right: Laura Ingraham’s Lies are Dangerous to Our Health (RH Reality Check)
Fox: Planned Parenthood makes most of its money from abortions. Fact: It’s 15% and not federally funded. PP’s main services: contraceptive delivery, testing/treatment of sexually transmitted diseases, screening for cervical and breast cancer
Read more
Links: Superbugs on meat/Insomnia/Longevity gene/Severe weather & climate change/Baby animals
FDA Report: Alarming Amounts of “Superbugs” in Supermarkets (Bnet)
Superbugs (bacteria resistant to antibiotics) in meat is a much more common and widespread problem than anyone would like to admit, according to federal government report. Chicken breasts, ground turkey, ground beef and pork chops tested.
Superbugs in Canadian chicken? Yes, and US too (Wired)
15% of bacteria on chicken breasts and ground turkey are resistant to 4 or more classes of antibiotics. Drug-resistant bacteria in food won’t diminish until we reduce the amount of drugs that food animals receive while they are raised. Read more
Links: Patient modesty history/Value of life/Human clones for body parts/UK health inequalities
History of Patient Modesty – Part 1: How Bodily Exposure Went from Unacceptable to Required (Patient Modesty & Privacy Concerns)
I have a guest post today on the #1 medical privacy blog. Part one describes what medicine used to be like before modern, anatomically-based theories of disease. Well into the 19th century, doctors did not expect patients to remove their clothes.
U.S. Raises Value of a Life, and Businesses Fear Impact (NYT)
How much should the government spend to prevent a single death? Environmental, consumer, and worker protection standards have been going up, despite protests from business. Read more
Links: Hygiene hypothesis/Grief/Computers vs. humans/ Tobacco for the poor/Genetics via Lady Gaga
Why Keeping Little Girls Squeaky Clean Could Make Them Sick (NPR)
The hygiene hypothesis: children exposed to lots of germs early in life less likely to develop allergies, asthma, autoimmune disorders. Women have higher rates of these disorders. Is that because girls are held to higher standards of cleanliness?
Grief, Unedited (NYT)
Memoirs on the loss of a spouse, such as the latest from Joyce Carol Oates
Links: Cosmetic surgery as investment/DSD/Never let me go/Losing a spouse/Kissing
When cosmetic surgery is a marker of ambition (Guardian)
Why aren’t people more concerned about medical risks of cosmetic surgery? We’re increasingly socialised to believe we must invest in ourselves to improve our life chances and opportunities, whether it’s paying for higher education, looks or both.
The Tale of Tea with Jim the Third (Bioethics Forum)
Alice Dreger on the story of a man with disorder of sex development (formerly known as intersex). The biggest issue is not surgery, hormonal treatments, or lack of psychological support for families. It’s shame and how no one deals with it.
Read more
Chocolate has antioxidants but is that a good thing?
First, studies piled up showing that taking antioxidants—even such common and seemingly innocuous ones as beta carotene and vitamins C and E—as supplements was not beneficial to health and might even be dangerous, though the reason for the danger wasn’t clear. (One always pays attention when a study concludes with a phrase like “seems to increase overall mortality.”) Now the research is challenging an even more fundamental tenet of the antioxidant craze. Many of the free radicals that are neutralized by antioxidants perform valuable functions in the body. The most important: fighting toxins (white blood cells churn out free radicals by the battalion to fight bacterial infection) and fighting cancer. Read more
Links: Handedness/Spare parts baby/Thinspiration/Vaccine/Ripeness/Sore muscles
Here’s why you’re right-handed or left-handed (MSNBC)
It depends on eye dominance. In recent U.S. history, the majority of presidents have been left-handed (Ford, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, Obama), but scientists haven’t yet found a link between hand preference and an individual’s abilities. Study based on eye and foot preferences of parrots (see left-footed parrot, right).
France’s first genetically-engineered baby born (M&C)
Headline misleading. First “savior sibling,” “spare parts baby” (think “My sister’s keeper”) in France. Embryo screened for disease and sibling match. Genetic engineering implies something was changed, not just selected.
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The states’ rights argument against health care: An ugly tradition
“Opponents of health care reform are not really seeking to vindicate the power of states to regulate health care. Rather, they are counting on the fact that if they succeed with this legal gambit, the powerful interests arrayed against health care reform—the insurance industry, doctors, and drug companies—will easily overwhelm any efforts at meaningful reform in most states. Unless the Supreme Court is willing to rewrite hundreds of years of jurisprudence, however, they will not succeed.” Read more
Links: Veggies & skin color/Individual mandate/Diet soda/Healthy eggs?/DTC ads
How vegetables can give you that golden glow (Guardian)
Carotenoids, stored in fat under the skin and found in tomatoes, peppers, plums and carrots, can give Caucasian skin a healthy-looking golden glow – a look equated with attractiveness.
Is Health Care Reform Unconstitutional? (NY Review)
One of the best discussions I’ve read on the subject. Constitutionality won’t be an issue. Health care opponents simply looking for a way to prevent government from imposing a collective solution to a social problem. Read more
The ethics of a neuroenhanced future
Pharmaceuticals … are now being consumed at high rates as off-label “cognitive enhancers” to boost mood, memory, and alertness. … What will happen to the fabric of society and the character of our interactions with one another? Are these altered states a genuine reflection of a new and improved “me” or “we”, or some transient drug-induced condition that thoroughly confounds what we inherently value? Will we be coerced into conforming to a wave of drug intervention in the ever expanding, do-it-yourself, self-help world? Read more
Links: Awake cosmetic surgery/Dentist demographics/more
Nipped, tucked and wide awake? (MSNBC)
Awake cosmetic surgery can be performed by doctors with two days of training and no hospital privileges. “This is just a gimmick by people who can’t operate their way out of a wet paper bag.”
Awake Cosmetic Surgery–The Pros and Cons (EmpowHer)
Growing trend alarms doctors. Presented to patient as a benefit. No side effects (or cost) of anesthesia, but requires near toxic levels of lidocaine. Selecting a cup size during surgery is like “making a decision while drunk.”
Read more
Constitutional law will trump politics on health care reform
“Since the New Deal, the court has consistently held that Congress has broad constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. This includes authority over not just goods moving across state lines, but also the economic choices of individuals within states that have significant effects on interstate markets. By that standard, this law’s constitutionality is open and shut. Does anyone doubt that the multitrillion-dollar health insurance industry is an interstate market that Congress has the power to regulate?” Read more
Links: Female infanticide/Goodbye Darvon/End-of-life talks/more
The tyranny of tradition (Lancet)
Review of film written by two doctors: “Riwayat” (traditions). Indian practice of killing baby girls. 10 million girls aborted in last 20 years, even though prenatal sex determination outlawed in 1994.
Physicians Say Good Riddance to ‘Worst Drug in History’ (Medscape Today)
Pain reliever propoxyphene (Darvon, Darvocet): “No single drug has ever caused so many deaths.” Small benefits, big risks, addictive. Banned in UK 5 years ago due to suicide risk. Read more
Misc Links 2/6/11
Hit Send, Take a Bow (WSJ)
Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together
Who’s the Boss, You or Your Gadget? (NYT)
All of this amped-up productivity comes with a growing sense of unease. Too often, people find themselves with little time to concentrate and reflect on their work. Or to be truly present with their friends and family. “Nobody seems to actually pay full attention; everybody is doing a worse job because they are doing more things.” Read more
Guest post: A fat lot of good
This delightful person, who signed off with “Yours fatly,” is a woman after my own heart. Her wise words took me back to a holiday in France, where the supermarkets were filled with full, fat, soft, unpasteurized cheeses, divine pastries, calorie and fat-laden crème fraiche and whole aisles of wine. I looked for low fat products and found one tiny, slender end-of-aisle display, where a small coterie of non-Europeans searched for fat-free yogurt and pre-packaged egg whites. Read more
Misc Links 2/5/11
Dog cloning is not as cuddly as it looks (New Scientist)
Review of Dog, Inc.: The Uncanny Inside Story of Cloning Man’s Best Friend
Role of Age, Sex, and Race on Cardiac and Total Mortality Associated With Super Bowl Wins and Losses (Clinical Cardiology)
A Super Bowl loss for individual’s favored team triggered increased deaths in both men and women, especially in older patients. A Super Bowl win reduced deaths more in people age 65+ and women. Read more