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When you prick me do I not cry?
A fascinating study in the Lancet this week has suggested that a very commonly used and simple analgesic in newborn infants may not actually be preventing them from experiencing pain. The study’s authors suggest that this medicine should no longer be used routinely in newborn infants. A headline in the Guardian reads “Newborn babies should…
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Enhancement – Keep the Game, Change the Basis
Paradoxically, elite sports is largely about seeking for inequality, but simultaneously trying to level the playing field in order to equalize the opponents. So, how is it possible to cultivate inequality through equality? Anti-doping activists argue that enhancing substances falsify the individual and naturally given capability to perform in a competition. As a result, there…
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A law that should not be
In New York state last week legislators passed an extraordinary bill that, effectively, indicts the practice of New York doctors. That the bill was thought necessary, and, even more so, that it was opposed by the Medical Society of New York is a sad reflection of medical practice in that part of the world.
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Broken hearts and obsession, why giving up on your ex mate is so hard as overcoming drug addiction
A study recently published on the Journal of Neurophysiology investigated a group of 15 people recently abandoned by their partners to understand the process of unreciprocated love and romantic rejection. The researchers “used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study 10 women and 5 men who had recently been rejected by a partner but reported they…
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Should doctors come clean? Religion makes a difference to end-of-life decisions
In a paper released today in the Journal of Medical Ethics, a large survey of UK doctors found that doctors’ religion influenced their views and practice of end-of-life care. Why does this matter? A number of headlines highlighted that atheist or agnostic doctors were more likely to report having participated in “ethically contentious end-of life…
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Ethics and Economics
The failing of economics have been widely discussed in the last few years, and now Professors Kim and Yoon have suggested in the Financial Times that ‘an eminent philosopher…should be appointed to take charge of economics’ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/32c10a50-a8c3-11df-86dd-00144feabdc0.html. Don’t all rush at once. I doubt they really mean it. And even if they do, we mustn’t…
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Cosmetic Surgery – What is the Matter with Dr Salesman?
Written by Roman Gaehwiler Reconstructive plastic surgery to correct ravages of disease and injuries as well as gross physical abnormalities constitutes a core medical practice. Reconstructive procedures, however, lie along a continuum, without any clear boundary between therapeutic reconstructive surgery for diagnosable problem and purely cosmetic surgery.[1]
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The NHS Should Make and Sell its own Homeopathic Remedies and Homeopaths Should be Paid the Minimum Wage
In March this year I blogged on the topic of NHS funding for homeopathic remedies. Even though I agreed with the critics of homeopathy, that there is no credible evidence for the efficacy of homeopathic remedies and that it is irrational to use these in preference to medical treatments that have actually been proven to…
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Numeracy vs feel-good
Most people would agree that increasing energy efficiency is a sensible thing to do, both as a cost-saving measure, to conserve limited fossil fuels and to lower climate impacts. But being willing to save energy does not mean one is efficient in doing so: a new study shows that people are bad at estimating how…
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Is it criminal not to breastfeed?
by Rebecca Roache The Brazilian model Gisele Bundchen recently—and controversially—claimed that mothers should be required by law to breastfeed their babies for the first six months of their lives. A few days later, she partially retracted the claim on her blog, insisting that her talk of a breastfeeding law should not be taken literally. It was…