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Venus is the black dot in the upper right quadrant of the sun.  The plan was to finish the I Can't Breathe series with Magic is from Venus but then the word Nurture popped onto my radar.  There is a Venus Rising to come. The word autonomy starts appearing in medicine and in bioethics sometime in the 1950s, give or take a few years, linked to the emergence of Informed … [Read more...] about The Transit of Venus: Autonomy or Nurture?

This post follows on Being Black, I can’t breathe and I can’t breathe II and will be followed by Drawing Breath (I and maybe II).  Patsy Stephenson has managed to wriggle her way in again, see comments on I can't breathe II.  Whether she managed to stage this photo or not, as a red-head Patsy has had to live with a terrible stigma - although perhaps not as bad for a … [Read more...] about I can’t breathe III

This post continues a sequence that began with Being Black and I can't breathe. and will be continued with I can't breathe III and Drawing Breath.  The picture features Patsy Stephenson, one of a well-heeled group of women, including Kate Middleton - likely there for the photo-op - protesting the death of Sarah Everard in London, killed for walking down a suburban street at … [Read more...] about I can’t breathe II

You're a black man walking down a street with a friend.  A cop car pulls up and two cops get out and spread-eagle you and your friend up against the car or a wall. They rough you up while they search you.  You ask why have they stopped you and they say they don't need to tell you. [There are moves toward having police wear bodycams that record exactly what happens but you … [Read more...] about Being Black

Policy Options, a Canadian forum, published the piece below by Jocelyn Downie, David Wright and Mona Gupta, all of whom I know, as a contribution to a wider debate on the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation currently under review in Canada, and especially the question of where does mental illness fit into this mix.  The Downie and colleagues published piece is … [Read more...] about Medically Assisted Death in Canada

See accompanying MAiD in Canada and TRD. Illustration: Lost in Medication © created by Billiam James Canada put Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation in place in June 2016. This allowed for medical assistance in dying in cases where death was reasonably foreseeable. In 2019, in Truchon v Attorney General of Canada, the Superior Court of Québec declared the … [Read more...] about MAiD in Canada: Enduring Sexual Dysfunctions

The University of British Columbia in Vancouver hosts The Therapeutics Initiative an independent group who evaluate all medicines for effectiveness, harms and value in a regular series of Drugs Bulletins dealing with new drugs or emerging problems with older drugs. They were set up in 1994 just when evaluations of this type and Drugs Bulletins were falling out of favour.  … [Read more...] about Sex and Evidence Based Medicine

See Sex, Drugs and Bureaucrats for the start of this correspondence. You will need both posts to understand next weeks Suicide, Drugs and Bureaucrats. February 26 Rasi to Healy Thank you for your letter of 31st January 2020 regarding SSRIs and PRACs latest recommendation on the risk of persistent sexual dysfunction after treatment with serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake … [Read more...] about Sex, Drugs and a Leap Year Proposal

This post accompanies a Health Canada Warns post on RxISK. The Health Canada statement is classic bureaucratise.  They "could not confirm, nor rule out, a causal link between stopping SSRI or SNRI treatment and persistent sexual dysfunction" because "the available studies were not designed to assess this effect" Exactly - deliberately designed not to detect.  So the … [Read more...] about Sex, Drugs and Bureaucrats

Before 1980 Roughly through to 1980, vaccines were public goods.  They were mostly made by national bodies who were publicly funded, although pharmaceutical companies were dipping their toes in the water. They were used for diseases that a national community thought were serious and worth getting vaccinated against – like polio. Few national communities would have … [Read more...] about Shifting Vaccine Confidence