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Archive for August, 2016

scathing indictments…

( OPINION )

In spite of an undergraduate mathematics degree and statistical training in a subsequent academic fellowship, I think I had retained a relatively naive yes/no way of thinking rather than seeing various shades of maybe. My brother-in-law is a social psychologist who taught statistics and for a time studied the factors involved in voting patterns. It […]

so during the halftime…

( OPINION )

… of Sunday’s Olympic final basketball game, lightning hit our cabin and fried all things electronic to a crisp [emphasis on all]. Back in a few days.

rio·2016…

( OPINION )

Living in England in 1972, we got to spend two weeks at the Munich Olympic games. And in spite of the craziness of the terrorist attack, those days remain a peak experience in my memory theater. Then in 1996, the games came to our house [Atlanta]. But even in all those years where they only […]

shrinking…

( OPINION )

Population Of US Practicing Psychiatrists Declined, 2003–13, Which May Help Explain Poor Access To Mental Health Care by Tara F. Bishop, Joanna K. Seirup, Harold Alan Pincus, andJoseph S. Ros Health Affairs. 2016 35[7]:1271-1277. A large proportion of the US population suffers from mental illness. Limited access to psychiatrists may be a contributor to the […]

the best predictor…

( OPINION )

I don’t know anything about Ketamine except what I read. It is an FDA Approved off-patent anesthetic by day, and a club drug by night [Special K]. We began to hear about it as an antidepressant around the time that it became apparent that PHARMA was abandoning CNS drug development in 2012. It’s given iv […]

and then there was one…

( OPINION )

I’ve gotten email along the way asking me [or chiding me] about my being preoccupied with clinical trials that are more than a decade old, I guess implying that it’s even too boring for the likes of me. I’d like to respond, because I think there’s something very important in the answer. These trials are […]

ignor·ance…

( OPINION )

Ignorance is a state of being uninformed [lack of knowledge]. The word ignorant is an adjective describing a person in the state of being unaware and is often used to describe individuals who deliberately ignore or disregard important information or facts. ig·nore (ïg-nôr′) verb       To refuse to pay attention to; disregard. It’s telling that the […]

it didn’t work…

( OPINION )

Well, I couldn’t do it. I thought I could just log the last post and keep my mouth shut, but it didn’t work. I made the mistake of reading this article again. So with apologies, I have some more things to say: Toward Fairness in Data Sharing by The International Consortium of Investigators for Fairness […]

no neutrality…

( OPINION )

In 1980, Arnold Relman, then editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, gave us a dire warning. He saw what was coming and laid it out for all to see: The New Medical-Industrial Complex by Arnold S. Relman, M.D. New England Journal of Medicine1980; 303:963-970. October 23, 1980 While he underestimated the involvement of […]

the wrong tree…

( OPINION )

On my trip, I was thinking about the years of the abuse of the clinical trial system – wondering what could be done to put a stop to it? What creative reform would finally save the day? There have been so many attempts, and yet it goes on and on, at least with the psychiatric […]