Two blogs ago, I mentioned the current interest in cupping among celebrities such as Olympic athletes and actors. There are surely easier and safer ways to obtain a placebo effect. The mechanistic theory that originally underpinned therapies in Western medicine, such as cupping, blistering, bloodletting, emesis, and purging, was that of the four humours, which […]
Category: Columnists
William Cayley: Where is our faith?
One of my favorite radio pundits is EJ Dionne, so I was intrigued to read in my morning paper his opinion piece, asking “where are our faith leaders?” In short, he argues that in today’s society discussions about religion have mainly been subsumed under political discussion of issues about which religious people care (or are about which they […]
Nick Hopkinson: The burden of asthma—how to frame it and what needs to be done?
A study this week from the Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research at the University of Edinburgh, widely reported in the media, estimates that asthma costs the UK £1.1 billion/year in direct healthcare and disability allowance payments. News reports focused on the scale of these costs and the suggestion that 1100 people are dying “needlessly” each […]
Richard Smith: Making workplace health work after 40 years of failure
What is it that makes a company successful? Could it be strategy, leadership, funding, great products, luck, or something else? All of those things are secondary to the “essence” that make for a successful company—which is the habits of the employees—argued Andrew Sykes, an actuary who is the founder of a company called Habits at […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Junior
The President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh has asked Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state for health (the SoSH), in a letter that also dealt with other more important matters, to find a less pejorative term to describe “junior” or “trainee” doctors, since “they are highly skilled, dedicated professionals and should be […]
Richard Smith: In search of scandal in Scotland
I’m on my way to Dumfries to investigate the state of the NHS in that region, and the thought of the town is making me remember when I travelled there in 1974, 42 years ago, to investigate what I and a friend believed to be a scandal, a scandal of those times. I was a […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Cupping
Many celebrities, including Olympic athletes, such as US swimmer Michael Phelps, and actors, such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston, are fashionably subjecting themselves to cupping. So, is “the silliest celebrity health fad ever” effective for treating anything? Well, despite all the attendant gobbledegook, or more likely reflected by it, the answer is clear: no. Today […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . Narcissism
In Metamorphoses Ovid tells us about Echo and Narcissus. He seems to have invented the tale, although the legends from which he weaves it were already parts of Greek mythology. The story starts with a dispute between Jupiter, king of the gods, and his wife Juno. Jupiter claims that women get more pleasure from sex […]
Richard Smith: Preparing to be demented
My mother who is 86 has had no short term memory for nine years. She’s been in a nursing home for three years. My grandmother was also demented and died in a nursing home. My mother was 22 when I was born, so perhaps my dementia is close. I need to prepare myself. My mother […]
Jeffrey Aronson: When I use a word . . . “The pharmaceutical industry”—the definite article
A colleague recently asked me to point him to “an authoritative definition of ‘pharmaceutical industry’.” The term is one that few have tried to define, perhaps thinking that there is no need. I have searched the many books on my shelves that deal with the iniquities of drug companies, and the few that praise them […]