On Medicine and Absolution

… or Reflections on Yom Kippur

“My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.” -- A patient’s prayer, Psalm 102

[None of the anecdotes in this post are descriptions of any specific patient. They are amalgams of many patients. Specific details have been distorted or invented to preserve anonymity.] I diagnose and treat medical problems. I love doing it. Sometimes I make a big difference in someone’s life. More often, I just reassur...
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Ninth Hantavirus Case Linked to Yosemite

In 1993 in the Four Corners region of the US Southwest a woman developed a cough and progressive shortness of breath and died shortly thereafter. A few days later, her fiancée, a young physically fit man developed similar symptoms was rushed to a hospital and also died. A series of laboratory tests failed to identify any known infectious agent. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Special Pathogens Branch was notified. Further testing revealed a previously unknown strain of han...
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Still No Evidence that Organic Food is Healthier

“It’s not what you don’t know that hurts you, it’s what you know that isn't so.” -- attributed variously to Mark Twain and to Will Rogers

Many popular ideas are popular not because they're right but because of a widespread failure of skepticism. For example, in the 1970s the idea that wide lapels really make you look great was widely adopted without rigorous testing. Organic food has grown to a $26 billion industry in the last couple of decades largely on publ...
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