Top 5 Neuron Culture Posts for October
Category: Swine flu
A bit early yet, but as I'm traveling the rest of the month, here's my top 5 over the last month. Swine flu everywhere you look.
Posted by David Dobbs at 2:03 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Neuron Culture
David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
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I write on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications. (Find clips here.)
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years. Oliver Sacks found Reef Madness "brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant." Check it out.
If you'd like, you can subscribe to Neuron Culture by email. You might also want to see more of my work at my main website or check out my Tumblr log.
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Recent Posts
- Fallows on the Fort Hood shootings: "Don't mean nothing."
- Gorgeous thing of the day: Sky's-eye view of the Maldives & other islands
- "The male approaches with his thumbs (like the Fonz) and mounts the female (like the Fonz.)"
- Quick dip: Healthcare reform, conflicted profs, and the vaccine shortage
- "No pity party, no macho man." Psychologist Dave Grossman on surviving killing
- Still hope for writers everywhere: Robots take over sports desk - but need writer to write lede.
- The importance of stupidity in scientific research (and in writing), by Randy Burgess
- Top 5 Neuron Culture Posts for October
- Why is the swine flu vaccine so late? Who are you to ask such a question?
- "The right to infect": SophiaZoe tells us what she really thinks about health workers & flu shots
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- G. Arnoult on The importance of stupidity in scientific research (and in writing), by Randy Burgess
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- Mike Olson on "No pity party, no macho man." Psychologist Dave Grossman on surviving killing
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- Irene Delse on "No pity party, no macho man." Psychologist Dave Grossman on surviving killing
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Medicine:
Why is the swine flu vaccine so late? Who are you to ask such a question?
Category: Healthcare policy
I like industrial secrets as much as the next person. But it would seem that when tens of millions of doses of vaccine are weeks late, we might get something more specific than that one company was overoptimistic and another had trouble filling syringes.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:43 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
The flu, Donald Fagan, Dana Blankenhorn, and the fellow in the brite nightgown
Category: Medicine
W.C. Fields (above) famously called death the “fellow in the brite nightgown.” A few years ago Donald Fagan turned this into a catchy song. To those unconcerned about H1N1 feel free to hum it on your way out the door, when said fellow gives you the victory hug.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
If Vermont is #1 in health care, this country's in big trouble
Category: Healthcare policy
The steps we've taken, while half-measures to be sure, reflect the state's essential decency and civility. Yet Vermont's distinction is not in curing the healthcare problem. We're just stanching the bleeding a bit better than other states.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:37 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Charlie Houston, mountaineer, doctor, scientist, ends a great life at 96
Category: Culture of science
He walked away from it cold, and went on to live a rich, fulfilling life. He and Moyers talk about something else for a bit. And then Moyers returns to the climb, "I know you did so much else, but I want want to return to that K2 climb again...," says Moyer. And Houston says, "The best thing I ever did."
Posted by David Dobbs at 7:20 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Our screwed-up malpractice system. Whose fault is that? Let's try 'nobody'.
Category: Healthcare policy
A few years ago, a friend of mine had a baby. A few weeks into the child's life, it became apparent she was suffering from cerebral palsy. It was quite a blow.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:34 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Swine flu vaccine 'nightmare' -- and neither flu nor vaccine is even here yet
Category: Healthcare policy
Tell me again why we don't just have vaccination clinics at school?
Posted by David Dobbs at 5:14 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Neuron Culture's Top Ten from September
Category: Brains and minds
That post reported the news (via FiercePharma) that Pfizer had tucked away in its financial disclosure forms a $2.3 billion charge to end the federal investigation into allegations of off-label promotions of its Cox-2 painkillers, including Bextra. ... Because my post was was one of the few things already on the interwebz before Justice held its news conference, the Google rush shot it toward the top of the search results.
Posted by David Dobbs at 3:19 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Flu roundup cont'd
Category: Healthcare policy
Here's my short list for the day: Helen Branswell reports that WHO is unpersuaded by the unpublished paper showing seasonal flu vaccine may raise chance of getting swine flu. ... The gist: The possibility that the seasonal flu vaccine could increase risk of contracting swine flu, says Laden, "concerns me quite a bit, as my wife is 8 months pregnant, flu is a very serious risk for pregnant women and their babies , she teaches in a high school, and got her seasonal flu shot last week.." One can hope, fervently, that the swine-flu vaccines, which start getting punched into people in the U.S. today , find their way very rapidly to a flu clinic near Laden's better half.
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:38 AM • 0 Comments •
The Weird History of Vaccine Adjuvants
Category: Culture of science
There were a myriad of choices (for animals; in the US and Canada there's only one adjuvant, alum, that's licensed for humans), and they all mostly worked, and sometimes one worked better and sometimes another worked better, or differently; but there was no understanding of how, or why. ... While a few new adjuvants are coming online (most notably MF59 , the adjuvant used in seasonal flu vaccines in the EU, as well as in many of the swine-flu vaccines now being made), the most common adjuvant for human vaccines remains alum, and alum is, at this point, the only adjuvant approved for use in the U.S.
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:17 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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