Modern Myths

This post continues a series of Bruce Willis unintended consequences posts, of which there will be two more.  There is a degree of truth in all of them. As outlined in last week's Osama Saves Millions, Yusuf Hamied stepped in at a critical point in the unfolding global AIDS story and in offering Triple Therapy at a dollar a day decisively shifted the storyline. His company, … [Read more...] about Obama kills millions of patients

Editorial Note: Think of this as a Bruce Willis set of posts. I'm no BW fan.  Nor a fan of the nuclear bomb. Chances are neither were the makers of the movie Armageddon.  But someone probably got a thrill out of forcing a bunch of people who hate BW and were members of CND cheering Bruce on when he set off with the atom bomb to destroy the asteroid threatening earth.  Ditto … [Read more...] about Osama bin Laden saves millions of lives

Editorial: One of my regular readers dropped me an email after the last post saying that the Montelukast Withdrawal Syndrome post on RxISK was wonderful but Something Happened on the same day was incomprehensible.  The title was a give-away.  Something Happened but it doesn't seem to me that anyone knows quite what.  Here's another take on Something Happened and a currently … [Read more...] about Something happened to Science

In March 2015, the cover of National Geographic featured a picture of the moon-landing with a title The War on Science and a strapline: climate change does not exist; evolution never happened; the moon landing was fake; vaccination can lead to autism; genetically modified food is evil.  See Here. Even before elections in Europe and America in 2016 gave us Fake News, a … [Read more...] about Something Happened – to Science and to Us

Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants  Peter Kramer 2016 This book was very difficult to review. In Ordinarily Well, Dr. Peter Kramer makes two arguments that I agree with. One is that clinical observation—the interaction by which a medical professional learns about a patient—counts for something. The other is that clinical trials, or evidence-based medicine more … [Read more...] about Ordinarily Well: Storm in a D Cup

Editorial Note:  Kramer v Kramer had been a hit movie a decade earlier.  Listening to Prozac offered a chance to have a review called Kramer v Kramer but the journal - Psychological Medicine - was not amused and ditched the title. Here'e the review written at the same time as the Porter and others. In a later post I will try to explain what puzzles me about the Porter and other … [Read more...] about Kramer v Kramer

In the early to mid 1990s something happened.  The view that many social commentators and academics offer is that neo-liberalism swept into town, dissolved society and turned us all into individuals.  This is a non-explanation in that no-one can spell out what neo-liberalism is - so the explanation boils down to something happened. The something is caught in a review of … [Read more...] about What Happened?

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTqei5hZ3g   Editorial Note: Aberystwyth on the West Coast of Wales is one of the best places in the world to see starlings murmurate.  Clive King from the Computer Science Department there also organises TedX talks and  on November 24 convened a panel of speakers to talk about murmurating swallows, ambivalent motherhood and … [Read more...] about Making Medicines Safer for All of US

Before Google the Bible could be pretty confusing. Peter seemed to be a bedrock, a fixed point in the New Testament narrative.  Your name will be Peter which means Rock. This of course means that he had another name before being renamed.  Looks like it was Simon.  So at various points we have references to a Simon Peter. All a touch confusing, especially when a Simon Magus … [Read more...] about Simony

This post is a break in the usual coverage but the contents are just so good they demand to be shared. Uninvited Guests is a brief video produced by Superflux.  Superflux have worked and work closely with many of the people that readers of this post are likely to be wary of if not downright hostile to including the United Arab Emirates, the Cabinet Office in the UK, Innovate … [Read more...] about Uninvited Guests