1 Boring Old Man

I know when I run into a blog post like this one that references no less than five articles without summaries, I frown because the author is implying that I should read all five of them. And that is what I’m implying. I’ve listed them chronologically as they’ve appeared, but you might do better to read Dr. Poses’ commentary on Healthcare Renewal first, before digging in to the four in the New England Journal of Medicine. When I read the first one, I found myself writing about the origins of Academe in ancient Greece [a contrarian frame of mind…]. I was looking back and forth at the Nizkor site [logical fallacies] the whole time. I decided not to write about Dr. Rosenbaum’s series until they were all published, because I wanted to use it as a lesson in fallacious arguments. And lo and behold, Dr. Poses beat me to it! But I’m glad he did because he found some I had missed, and he’s at his best when he’s in this mode. I’m going to leave that part to him, as a resident expert in that kind of analysis. You might as well go ahead and read them all. Everyone else is. And when you find yourself saying, "What is this doing in the New England Journal of Medicine?" Be comforted that you’re in a community of comrades who are asking the same question. And when you find yourself looking around for Dr. Rosenbaum’s COI declaration, all you’ll find is that she "is employed as a national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine.":

I’ll defer to Dr. Poses’ review of Rosenbaum’s logic. Earlier, I said that I couldn’t read Dr. Drazen’s editorial without having a contrarian inner voice constantly arguing with what I was reading [a contrarian frame of mind…]. And in spite of my attempts at reading what she had to say with an open mind, with each of Dr. Rosenbaum’s installments, that inner voice got louder and louder. She basically was proposing that the "moral outrage" at Conflicts of Interest was ingenuous, and reduced down to some kind of misguided politically correct anti-industry bias – a false and naive adherence to a utopian [but meaningless] standard. I was reminded of those Ayn Rand books like Atlas Shrugged where the brilliant movers and shakers are being held back by the self-righteous and mediocre masses. I’ve put the links up and it’s all on-line. I’m going to let it age for a day and reread it in the morning to see if it still looks like it does right now [which is pretty shameful]. And by the way, "What is this doing in the New England Journal of Medicine?"