Armchair Musings

Note: this post involves a very small amount of self-disclosure.  That is a bit unusual. My father is also a psychiatrist.  He told me once about his education in psychopharmacology.  A guy got up to lecture, identified himself as the "drug doctor," and gave a lecture on psychopharmacology.  In fact, he gave a series of lectures...about five, total.   That was in the early to mid 1950's.  What did we have back then?  Basically two things: uppers and downers.   By the mid 1980's things had changed.  We knew about neurotransmitters and receptors.  I distinctly recall a lecture in which the…
There is a whole field of href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology">evolutionary psychology.  Let me get this out of the way: I remain skeptical of the entire endeavor, even though there is now a href="http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/">Center for Evolutionary Psychology. But when it makes it into the mass media, it deserves some comment.  The LA Times reported a few days ago on how the formulation of psychiatric disorders is changing, in part because of evolutionary theory.  href="http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-evpsych12feb12,0,3649492.story…
I won't rehash the distinction between faith-based and reality-based reasoning, figuring that most blog readers -- at least the progressive ones -- know the meaning and context. However, I would like to make one point.  Reasoning that is not reality-based can come in different flavors; not all are linking specifically to faith.  Some are linked to ideology.  This is an insidious kind of cognitive error to which we all are susceptible.   Here's an example from a recent Washington Post article: href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701334.html">…
This is a nice little study that deserve a brief comment.  It's from Am J Psychiatry this month.  What is shows is that participation in psychotherapy can alter the rate of reported adverse effects from medication, and decrease the rate at which patients stop their medication because of adverse effects. Note that this study was done with patients with panic disorder.  It may not be generalizable to other patient populations. Usage note: I always use the term "adverse effects" rather than "side effects," because it is more precise.  Some side effects are good, some bad, some neutral.  So if…
Yesterday, both href="http://scienceblogs.com/terrasig/2007/02/lavender_and_tea_tree_oils_may.php">Abel and I posted about the unexpected effects of lavender and tea-tree oils: they've been implicated as causing gynecomastia in boys.  href="http://www.blogpulse.com/search?query=gynecomastia&image22.x=20&image22.y=18">Blogpulse indicates that the Blogosphere has reacted quite a bit to this: the blog at href="http://blog.wired.com/biotech/2007/02/lavender_oils_f.html">Wired News picked it up, as did href="http://skepchick.org/blog/?p=377">Skepchick, href="http://…
Two different news organizations chose two different photos to illustrate the same event: href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_carter" rel="tag">Jimmy Carter speaking at href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandeis_University" rel="tag">Brandeis University, in response to criticism of his boook: href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Peace_Not_Apartheid" rel="tag">Palestine Peace Not Apartheid. The top photo is from the New York Times, href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/24/us/24carter.html">At Brandeis, Carter Responds to Critics.  The bottom is from Fox…
You might think that developing a system for EMR would be fairly straightforward.  After all, some of the things that computers are really good for, are the storing, retrieval, and display of information.  But somehow, developing a system that actually works AND is easy to use in a hospital environment, has proven to be rather challenging.   Reading a post on the blog, href="http://infoisfree.blogspot.com/2006/12/it-in-hospital-main-hospital-i-work-at.html">Information is Free (so help yourself.) I was reminded of a few thoughts I've been meaning to disseminate.  This is on the topic of…
I have a confession to make.  I once voted for a Republican Presidential candidate.  That candidate was Gerald Ford.   Why?  Several reasons.  For one, it was my first time voting, so I was not very good at it yet.  Two, even though I was upset about the pardon of Nixon, and unimpressed by his handling of the economy, I thought he was sincere and honest.  Three, I thought he had been chosen deliberately to be a noncontroversial "placeholder" president; not someone who was interested in a power grab.   One of the areas where some liberals and some conservatives agree is this: concentration…
Ambidextrous More Likely To Be Bisexual; Why Do We Care, Anyway?   A new study coming from the href="http://www.uoguelph.ca/" rel="tag">University of Guelph.   href="http://www.psychology.uoguelph.ca/d_faculty/peters.html">Dr. Michael Peters, a neuropsychologist, analyzed a survey of about 255,000 people, and come up with some interesting findings about human sexuality.  Among them, is the observation that bisexuality was  significantly more common in ambidextrous persons: href="http://www.uoguelph.ca/atguelph/06-12-06/featureshand.shtml">On the Other HandStudy refutes…
The big news on the USA culture front: Rupert Murdoch has personally intervened, and href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/us/21simp.html?ex=1321765200&en=8a7b71ce038300ee&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">canned the OJ Simpson deal.  He actually href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nora-ephron/say-it-aint-so-rupe_b_34547.html">apologized.  So, maybe we have found the outer limit of decency. In other news, a court rejected the argument of a person who sued a city over its logo.  He argued that the logo, which depicts crosses, was an unconstitutional governmental…
href="http://www.beliefnet.com/story/204/story_20419_1.html">Philanthropy Expert: Conservatives Are More Generous By Frank Brieaddy Religion News Service SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America -- and it's making him nervous. The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income. In the book, he…
The Blogosphere has had a bit of a twitter over the issue of the impeachment of President Bush.  The most assertive progressive href="http://alterx.blogspot.com/2006/11/nancy-its-your-duty-to-impeach-bush.html"> are upset that the issue is " href="http://www.democrats.com/Why-Conyers-Changed-Tune-On-Impeachment">off the table," in the words of Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers.  Conservatives are href="http://slagblog.blogspot.com/2006/11/yes-mama-sheehan-back-in-saddle.html">skeptical, imagining that the Democratic leadership is just as vicious as the Republicans leadership.   Cindy…
First there was Alternative Medicine, then there was Complimentary and Alternative Medicine, and now there is Integrative, Complimentary and Alternative Medicine.   I guess the natural cynic in me becomes suspicious when I see acronyms undergoing hypertrophy.   So is this growing collection of concepts worthwhile?  Do we really need to create a terminology?  Or does the acronym creep indicate that the concepts are to vague, too ill-defined, to merit the creation of a term? href="http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/11/the_future_of_american_medicine_woo_1.php">Orac, href="http://…
A good site to sample world media outlets, and to see what they have to say about the USA, is href="http://www.watchingamerica.com/index.shtml">Watching America. href="http://www.watchingamerica.com/diewelt000010.shtml"> src="http://blogster.com/host/images/65751436601.jpg" alt="" align="top" border="0" height="219" hspace="0" vspace="0" width="279"> Die Welt, GermanyRight-Wing Extremist Viciousness Punished I actually don't agree with the anaylsis published in Die Welt (The World).   They think that the fall of the Republican Party began with the Terri Schaivo matter.  That…
It's discouraging seeing so many people go so wrong all at once. It makes you question the idea that each of us has unlimited potential for good. Who said that?  And what was the subject?   The quote comes from an editorial by href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrison_Keillor" rel="tag">Garrison Keillor, host of " href="http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/" rel="tag">A Prairie Home Companion."  He was brought up a member of the Plymouth Brethren, but went through a Lutheran phase, and now is an Episcopalian.  None of that is pertinent, at the moment, but I thought it was…
Nature News reports on a preliminary study href="http://www.chestnet.org/about/press/chest2006/briefing.php">presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.  The study indicates that the cholesterol-lowering drugs in the statin family may protect against lung damage caused by cigarette smoking. The study, presented by Walid G. Younis, MD, consisted of data analysis of results from a survey done on 485 smokers and ex-smokers.  They found that those who took statins had much less lung damage. They compared medical tests of the patients' lung health with those…
Here are two headlines about the same subject: href="http://psychcentral.com/news/2006/10/17/meds-help-preschoolers-with-adhd/">Meds Help Preschoolers with ADHD Psych Central News Editor Tuesday, Oct, 17, 2006 href="http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/nation/15805876.htm">Study warns of risks of preschool Ritalin Associated Press Posted on Fri, Oct. 20, 2006 Both articles were written about the same journal article, an NIMH-sponsored study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Both headlines are accurate.  The study found…
I ran across a press release ( href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-10/uoa-ltf100606.php">1 href="http://www.brightsurf.com/news/headlines/26739/LSD_treatment_for_alcoholism_gets_new_look.html">2) pertaining to a journal article (‘Hitting Highs at Rock Bottom’: LSD Treatment for Alcoholism, 1950–1970) on the use of LSD for treatment of alcoholism.  When I saw it, I thought I'd blog about it.  As it happens, several people beat me to it. Anyway, the topic is sufficiently compelling that I am going to post it anyway, and try to add a little to what has already been said.…
Funny how sometimes things fall into place.  Yesterday, I wrote a post about DeVos' promotion of the teaching of Intelligent Design/Creationism.  I also heard that href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060922/wr_nm/chavez_dc_1">Hugo Chavez' mention of Noam Chomsky's book, href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?pwb=1&ean=9780805076882">Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance, resulted in instant promotion of the book to bestseller status.  That brought to mind the recent href="http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/09/…
If you decry the practice of "legislating from the bench," then why is it OK to legislate from the corporate boardroom?