The New York Times has it’s knickers in a knot because the Vatican is going to do an “investigation” of the convents in the US.
Such visitations are fairly routine: The Vatican just finished one on the seminaries, and is scheduled to do one on a church group whose founder was found to be swinging both […]

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Ah yes, it’s tick season again, and my husband Lolo is busy removing the nasty creatures from our watch dogs.
For the dogs, the ticks are mainly a nuisance: but in some areas of the world, the risk of Lyme disease makes mothers hysterical if they find a tick on their kid.
The big question is if […]

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The public is rarely surprised when another Hollywood celebrity dies of what is suspected to be an overdose or reaction to drug abuse.
Is the abuse because celebrities have those around them who help them get drugs (what is called “co-enablers”)?
Is it because wealth enables them to do whatever they want, without anyone saying “no, wait […]

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As the mother of two adopted boys, I am for adoption, but now we are seeing couples like Sarah JessicaParker andMatthew Broderick “renting” a womb to obtain their newest child.
What’s wrong with this picture? After all, they give money, and a woman is paid a lot of money to carry their (genetically related) baby to […]

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I’ve always been an anti-union guy, mainly because unionization all but eliminates individual incentives to achieve. The concept of providing the biggest raises and bonuses based on performance is a basic (and necessary) concept for any business that wants to be successful — this makes unionization a formula for failure.
I know that back when unions […]

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From the desk of Charlie Churchill’s Parrot 
“Perhaps the most visible sign of the need for health care reform is the 46 million Americans currently without health insurance. CEA projections suggest that this number will rise to about 72 million in 2040 in the absence of reform.”
           - The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), […]

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All Indian Nations have a story of the conquest. For many Western Tribes, like the Apache and the Sioux, the story includes tenacious resistance to European advances and a bitter defeat. For some Eastern tribes, like those historically known, controversially, as the Five Civilized Tribes - the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole - […]

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The New York Times has an article on the obstacles to safe childbirth in Tanzania.
I worked in two other African countries thirty years ago, and it doesn’t look like much has changed in these isolated and poor rural areas.
… Only 20 percent of women in the area give birth at the hospital, and many do […]

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The reports now coming out of foreign press sources are eerily similar to John McCain’s accounts of his P.O.W. treatment at the Hanoi Hilton. The Telegraph, a British media outlet, last week released photos  of Guantanamo abuses that President Obama had just announced would be kept confidential. And the government of Spain revealed that despite the president’s […]

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In Africa alone, 800,000 children die of malaria each year.
The death rate was actually once lower, but then economic problems, and the banning of DDT caused a rebound of disease carrying mosquitoes, and a resurgence in these diseases.
But it’s not only malaria: Southeast Asia has had a rebound in Dengue fever in the last few […]

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Well, like many Americans on Friday night, I sat down and watched the NBC special about 70’s icon Farrah Fawcett and her battle with cancer. It was a 2 hour long documentary that included watching Farrah go through some of the hardest times in her battle with anal cancer. Plus, the support of Alana Stewart […]

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A disturbing case of parental neglect (or perhaps parental rights) has arisen in Minnesota; the report is in the Digital Journal
Daniel Hauser is 13 years old, he is now in 5th grade (three years behind) but he cannot recognize the simplest written word — Daniel is illiterate. Daniel also as cancer! Daniel was diagnosed […]

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At a recent meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a paper was presented that shows a strong correlation between the rate of Cesarean sections and the problem of lawsuits.
“States classified as having a medical liability crisis or crisis brewing by ACOG [the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists] have significantly higher rates […]

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One gets the impression from many news stories that the so called “Swine Flu” is going to wipe out humanity.
Calm down and take a deep breath.
One reason that “swine flu” has such an ominous echo is because the last time it threatened, back when Gerald Ford was president, it was believed that swine flu was […]

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I am aghast that the so called “catholic Democrats” are dismissing Professor Glendon as a conservative.
Actually, she is not a conservative. Even the New York Times noted that she is considered one of the founders of the Communitarian movement, a group that has long been associated with the Democratic party.
So, what is a communitarian?
Well, in […]

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The LATimes has an article about outsourcing medical transcription to Manila.
I have no problem with that. Waiting three days for the notes to get on the chart usually means you have to not only dictate everything but write it all out in longhand too, since you need the information right away..
But the part of the […]

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Abortion is apparently a right that supersedes all other rights, including the right of health care providers (physicians, nurses, and pharmacists) to follow the ancient Hippocratic ethic of “do no harm” and never to kill.
Yet who dares to say that abortion is often done because the sexual revolution has destroyed the idea that […]

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Shingles is when the long latent chickenpox virus sitting around in a nerve root decides to break out again.
Often we see these people for “pain”, and can’t find much on the examination, until two days later they complain of a rash. Then, lo and behold, you see the flat red rash with tiny waterblisters. The […]

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Every once in awhile, the headlines will report another human death from bird flu.
This week, a small child in Egypt is being treated in hospital, making her the 58th case in that country since 2005.
Birdflu, of course, is a smouldering time bomb: so far, only isolated cases of animal to human infections, but so far […]

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It says a lot about the poor state of medical ethics that the University of Pennsylvania has accepted Frances Kissling as a scholar in bioethics.
Why? Because Kissling, (to use her own words) has been
a public voice and made a modest contribution to a better world. Twenty-five years giving the Vatican and the U.S. bishops […]

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Physicians are supposed to have a moral foundation to make judgements so that they do not harm patients. That is why isolated felonies such as drug abuse, consensual sex with patients or making a mistake will get you a reprimand and counseling, but repeat offenses–or serious crimes–will make you lose your license.
But the NYTimes has […]

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The Obama administration is planning to have the VA (Veteran’s Administration hospital/clinic system) bill private insurance for treatment of veteran’s war related injuries.
From the WashingtonPost:
The president was sympathetic to the needs of veterans, Gorman (executive director of Disabled American Veterans) said, but insisted that the insurance companies are getting away with not paying for […]

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“Quality affordable healthcare for every American.” We once had it. Here’s a review of the journey that stole it.
Gee, Wally, medical care has come so far since the early ’60’s. It was just too gosh-darn simple then. People got sick, went to the doctor, got a checkup. The doc harrumphed, made a diagnosis, wrote a […]

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Lasts month I wrote the dirty little secret on dieting: That for adults, what works is a lower calorie diet, but that for most people, dieting only results in moderate weight loss of 10-15pounds.
Luckily for adults, even a modest weight loss, combined with healthy eating habits and moderate exercize, helps lower the risk of disease. […]

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I am so flippin angry right now I don’t know where to begin. Vincent Li.  That freakish barbaric attack in Winnipeg, has resulted in a hospital stay as punishment for the lunatic guilty of the crime. Vincent Li. Can you believe that? No I mean really, seriously. He is not going to spend one day […]

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Luckily for me, I retired from medicine just in time.
If the Obama administration has it’s way, I would be fired for not giving out abortion pills.
Because quietly, the adminstration has released a proposal to remove HHS regulations recently added by the Bush administration that reinforced the 1964 Civil Rights act that said companies could not […]

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While he may not be quite as well known as The Marlboro Man, Wnston had their own secret weapon, Alan Landers. Alan personified the Winston brand for many years. Although he did nor reach the stature of The Marlboro Man, he toiled endlessly as a pitchman for Winston.
It would be great to write that he […]

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The Ebola-Reston virus outbreak in Philippine pigs is now costing farmers a lot of money, but so far no humans have died, thank the Lord.
Last month, when some pigs that probably died of other viruses were found to have been infected with a type of Ebola virus only found previously in monkeys, no one here […]

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There is a lot of stuff out there about a recent study comparing a regular low calorie diet with the low carbohydrate diet.
The conclusion?
Both work…it’s the amount of calories you eat that count.
But there are  lot of other interesting facts in the study.
I am using the original journal article, which alas is limited to those […]

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Now and then newspapers and the broadcast media treat us to an occurrence so gross and so horrific it is difficult to put it out of our minds. The recent chimpanzee attack on 55-year-old Charla Nash in Connecticut is one such story.
Last week, Nash went to the home of a friend, Sandra Herold, whose pet […]

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