Sometimes the most accurate answer is “maybe.”
Sometimes if there is a lot of scientific data about something, and someone wants to know what is real and what is not real, what is dangerous and what is not dangerous, you can look at all of the data and come up with something complex .
Perhaps something is dangerous in some situations, not in others — watch this and not that.
This is science for adults, not Beakman’s World — as much as I love his show. I admit, I’m out there shouting “I love science” at the top of my lungs right along with Dr. Beakman.
But this is more serious. It is also not politics, not a love-have question. Not a “get every atom of this compound out of here” plea, nor a “it is safe and just fine so let’s stop worrying” answer, either.
The compound I’m talking about is Bisphenol A, known as BPA. Depending on who you believe, it was first synthesized in either the late 19th or early 20th century, from acetone and phenol. This makes the basis of a “thermoplastic,” one of the easy-to-work-with plastics that is used for containers you see everywhere. Read more on Pass The Bottle — But Be Careful!…
Filed under Research by on Apr 15th, 2011. Comment. 
Although I had been offered some academic scholarships after a pretty distinguished high school career, my parents had a great ritual. After formally declining them, I had to save and overlap (and trim) all of the letters and put them in a frame for the living room wall.
The idea of actually accepting one of them — they were all pretty far from the greater Boston area where we lived — never even came up. As a precocious over-achiever, I had skipped a couple of grades and was only 15. They told me I was too young to even think about such fantasies as going to a university.
I’m glad that I had parents that loved me so much and worried about my well-being. But gee whiz – I don’t think Doogie Houser had over-protective parents.
Anyway, it was two against one, and I was still a minor and financially dependent upon them. There was a non-negligible scholarship, a work study program, and numerous considerations from one of Boston’s fine local universities. My mother dropped me off at classes and picked me up, since student parking was both expensive and difficult to get.
Of course I never really “felt” like a freshman. I managed, with some difficulty, to convince my mother to either drop me off early or pick me up late. I needed to meet colleagues. All I really cared about academically were the necessary prerequisites for medical school, in terms of courses or grades, but I knew I was in the middle of a rich, seething subculture of the youthful.
There were some activities I would never be a part of, like dating the football team or being a member of a sorority. Types like me did not do those things. But I was so fascinated by large number of people whose age was somewhere near mine. I walked up to them and shook hands and said “hello,” whether they sat on the stoop in front of the chemistry building or in the television lounge at the Student Union. Read more on Student Stresses Are Mental As Well As Financial…
Filed under Stress by on Apr 14th, 2011. Comment.
It takes a while, when you have something new, to know how bad it is going to end up being.
Marie Curie not only discovered radium – she discovered radiation poisoning. The very work that earned her a Nobel prize killed her.
At that time, it had never happened before, so nobody knew what it was. That was a long time before Chernobyl. And a longer time still before whatever happened in Japan.
I mean whatever happened. We still don’t know exactly how much leaked out, and what it can cause to go wrong. The Japanese have issued a kind apology. They have even come up with a cute animated film to explain what is going on — although there is no doubt in my mind that these are not the same people as those who issued the apology.
You can watch the video on the continuation page.
Filed under News by on Apr 11th, 2011. 1 Comment.
I was commissioned a captain in the United States Army in a northern Midwest city. The physician who examined me before I took the oath was senior and experienced and as avuncular as they come.
He said the most interesting people (and far and away the smartest) he got to meet in his life were commissioned women. The one he had seen before me was a woman who had been a professional musician, a clarinetist I think, and was going straight to Wahington, D.C. to play in a dance band at the White House. He told me about women rocket scientists and others. Me, I figured I was only a doctor, a half-trained neurosurgeon. As a generalist he felt somehow he needed to show me enough respect. He really didn’t want to do a physical, so he did a cursory and discrete one, and I asked him about being a civilian physician attached to the military. In particular, I asked him about neurological and psychiatric screening. Although he told me he knew how to do a pretty detailed neurological examination, he said he never had to do one. Anyone with that kind of illness would, he thought, be likely to be screened out long before. After all, these were generally healthy young men. Basically, the most important part of the examination was checking them for hernias. Read more on Military Mental Health — A Contradiction?…
Filed under News by on Apr 6th, 2011. Comment.
It took me a while at first to realize that everyplace I saw a green cross, it was going to be a medical marijuana facility. After all, the green cross is some kind of an international symbol for a “druggist,” for someone who sells prescription drugs (primarily) as prescribed. In France, as well as in Canada, I remember following such signs to get a prescription filled.
This one substance, this marijuana, is unique in a couple of ways. First, it is the only prescription drug that has never been required to be tested for safety or efficacy. Second – there is no government oversight as to quality or purity.
Marijuana seems to be something that people want first, then figure out a reason for later. The results are not exactly what I consider beneficial. Read more on Medical Marijuana Can Become Big Business…
Filed under Substance Abuse by on Apr 4th, 2011. Comment.
Beware the rare tree octopus, for he/she is in reality possessed of a frightening power. For this animal can show us how the internet has rendered us gullible.
This was an internet hoax, apparently created by Lyle Zapato in 1998. It not only persists, but grows.
I had suspected that people believed anything if it appeared on a television screen, but this way far beyond adolescents believing Hannah Montana lives and has a double life as a plain, ordinary high school girl. This research seems to have been picked up by — would you believe — the British Daily Mail, people who speak the same language we do although with quite a bit of “panache.” Read more on Chasing The Tree Octopus…
Filed under Research by on Mar 31st, 2011. 2 Comments.
When a woman becomes a surgeon, she doesn’t necessarily have to give up her femininity – but she often has to make sacrifices.
I enjoy nail polish, but that’s not the reason I switched specialties from neurosurgery to psychiatry. The upside is that I can now indulge myself and my nails.
At first, when I was still in residency, I would sometimes sit on and hide my nails when I was around someone who had a good a professional salon nail-do. Now I do not much care, as I am more mature and more self-confident. My nails are polished with some generic enamel from a discount store in a single color, and I apply the lacquer myself. If you inspect them at any random time, you will probably find them plenty chipped. If someone ever noticed — and critical women patients occasionally do — I remind them that those nails were attached to the hands that wrote the prescriptions, so they were good enough for now. The answers didn’t matter. Mostly there is none. Sometimes a woman would say, as this one did, “You are nice looking for a doctor, so I thought I should remind you…” “Feh,” I thought but did not say. I refocused on the job at hand. Nails are more important to some other people. Sometimes more important than health. Read more on Since When Is Sugar A Vitamin?…
Filed under News by on Mar 31st, 2011. Comment.
My psychopharmacology preceptor told me a long time ago that the best and most efficient way to know what is happening in pharmacology is to check out the business news. He was right.
I want to applaud the FDA for doing something perhaps a bit audacious, surely without precedent, but something I consider correct and appropriate.
They declined acceptance of Contrave, a pill for obesity, and requested a longer term and larger study.Bravo. It’s rare that I give the FDA a “standing O.” The folks at Orexigen pharmaceuticals concocted Contrave — an amalgam of 400mg. of Wellbutrin sustained release and a couple of different doses of naltrexone, 48 and 16 mg. Here is the clinical trials record if you are interested. Read more on Prescription Diet Drug Makes Food Taste Horrible…
Filed under News, prescription drugs, weight by on Mar 29th, 2011. Comment.
Here are some phrases that you might not expect to hear sweet, friendly Dr. G use very often:
“No, there is no way in hell I am going to renew that prescription as written.”
“Read my lips. No more oxycodone. We gotta get you into a rehab, sweetie.”
“Sure, you can see another doctor. I don’t know how long it will take to get an appointment. If I am your doctor, you go on a tapering schedule. Today.”
“If I did what you want, I could kiss my license goodbye. I am not prescribing outside my specialty and certainly not this crap. Yes it is crap. I am sorry you don’t like how I talk, but it is crap. I can start getting you off it.”
These are all things I have actually said. Usually loud, yelling over the patient. Read more on Pill Mills Are Death Traps — Marginally Legal…
Filed under Addictions, prescription drugs by on Mar 28th, 2011. Comment.
If this is the first time you’re reading my blog – Welcome!
If not, you know that I’m … ummm … mature and that I’ve been restless enough to study many branches of medicine.
My current credential is in psychiatry, and like Rodney Dangerfield, we shrinks “Don’t get no respect.” Read more on Researchers Are Short-Sighted When Looking At Data…
Filed under depression, Diagnosis, Research by on Mar 25th, 2011. Comment.