What are you worth? Do you answer this in terms of your monetary value? Does it make you contemplate the value of what you can do? Do you answer in terms of selling your body? The first question has many answers and all of these depend on assumptions you make, consciously or unconsciously.
All over the world people are thinking about what this new year will bring to their lives. Will the world be different? Can they (or will they) make changes in their habits this year? Will life be better? Is this the year that Homo sapiens will snuff it?
There is continual pressure from law enforcement authorities to be given increased powers. Such powers would typically involve increasing restriction of citizens’ rights. This may involve: longer periods of arrest without charge; an increased number of offences; a broader definition of offences. There is also an increase in the number of offences for which the onus of proof has effectively shifted from the state (the prosecution) to the defendant (the person charged).
As I pointed out in an earlier post, no practising doctor has the time to keep up with the amount of material published in medical journals. It is thus very difficult for doctors to keep up with the latest research. Couple with this the suggestion made by many that much of the research is skewed to obtaining the results which the pharmaceutical industry wants, and that pharmaceutical drugs are tested for statistical results, and it is little wonder that individually tailored treatment is difficult.
Tell me The Truth: conversations with my patients about life and death
Author: Ranjana Srivastava
Publisher: Penguin/Viking, 2010
ISBN: 9780670074402
320pp
RRP $32.95
This is a rare book and the author is a rare physician. Ranjana Srivastava is an oncologist working in Melbourne. She questions what she does and how she does it and strives to relate to her patients and their families with honesty and compassion. The title of the book reflects what many patients ask of her.
There is a misuse of placebos in trials of pharmaceutical drugs. The placebo is supposed to be something that has no pharmacological effect, but in many trials this is not the case. There was a trial to examine the efficacy of a ‘natural’ remedy (an antioxidant). The trial concluded that it was no better than the placebo. What wasn’t made clear was that the ‘placebo’ used was vitamin C, known to have a beneficial effect in all manner of conditions, partly through its anti-oxidant properties. In researching one ‘natural’ remedy, the researchers assumed that another ‘natural’ remedy would have no effect and could therefore be used as a placebo. In another trial, looking at the effect of sugar on the behaviour of children, the ‘placebo’ used was chocolate biscuits!
We live in complex societies. We elect various levels of government and we pay taxes for the services those governments provide. We buy services from any number of providers.
Not the Last Goodbye: on life, death, healing and cancer
David Servan-Schreiber
Scribe Publishing 2011
ISBN: 9781921844447
$24.95
144 pp
As it turns out, this book is the last goodbye from author David Servan-Schreiber. He wrote it during his tussle with brain cancer which had returned after many years. Servan-Schreiber was author of the book Anticancer: a new way of life (Viking, 2009) and was spokesperson for the Anticancer program; this played an important role in his approach to dealing with his illness.
Every time I flash my loyalty card at the supermarket, the details of my purchases are added to a database, connected to whatever the company knows about me. In return, I am allocated a point for every dollar over $30 I spend. Each point represents about one tenth of one percent of that over-$30 expenditure.
Cynicism is not my usual state of mind, but I’m finding it hard to resist its tendrils winding themselves around my neurons and threatening to take over. How can it be otherwise?