Reality is always more complicated than you think.
Profile
Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.
Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.
Jake is joined periodically by two wonderful guest bloggers: Kara Contreary and Kate Seip. See the About Page.
DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own or those of my co-bloggers. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments we currently attend.
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Drugs:
There was a very sad article in the NYTimes about the regular practice in some long-term care facilities of treating demented patients with anti-psychotic medications like Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa: The use of antipsychotic drugs to tamp down the agitation,...
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Posted on June 25, 2008 11:57 AM • 10 Comments •
One of the more common questions I get is why they haven't found any drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease. (But they have, haven't they? What about cholinesterase inhibitors like Aricept? Ed. Those drugs mask the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, but...
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Posted on May 27, 2008 2:43 PM • 0 Comments •
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. (Exodus 3:2) Moses was high when...
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Posted on March 5, 2008 1:45 PM • 5 Comments •
The results from Heath Ledger's autopsy came out today. Though the doses of the drugs have not been released, it appears that he died from combining drugs with similar effects rather than an overdose of a single drug: Among the...
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Posted on February 7, 2008 10:42 AM • 9 Comments •
An investigative report in the Cleveland Plain Dealer looks at the FDA Fast Track. For those who don't know, the FDA Fast Track was created to accelerate the drug approval process for drugs targeted at under-treated diseases. Yet there is...
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Posted on December 14, 2007 12:12 PM • 2 Comments •
Are you shocked? I'm not: Drinking malt liquor -- the cheap, high-alcohol beverage often marketed to teens -- may put young adults at increased risk for alcohol problems and use of illicit drugs, particularly marijuana, according to a new study...
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Posted on July 30, 2007 12:56 PM • 4 Comments •
A healthy debate rages as to whether Restless Legs Syndrome is actually a disease, or whether it was something contrived by drug companies in order to sell drugs. Nicholas Wade reports in the NY Times that two separate studies have...
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Posted on July 30, 2007 12:27 PM • 2 Comments •
Giancola and Corman wanted to know why drunks are more aggressive. The prevailing model to explain this effect is what is called the attentional allocation model wherein the alcohol inhibits an individual's ability to focus on a broad range of...
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Posted on July 18, 2007 11:57 AM • 7 Comments •
Ronald Bailey at Reason has an article about the costs of the FDA black box warning on antidepressants: Excessive caution is risky, too. Back in 1992, Congress, worried about the slow rate of approvals, passed legislation imposing FDA user fees...
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Posted on July 17, 2007 9:30 AM • 1 Comments •
In 2004, the FDA assigned a "black box" warning on prescription of antidepressants to patients under 25. This was because of a flurry of anecdotal evidence linking the beginning of treatment with SSRIs to increases in suicide risk and because...
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Posted on July 2, 2007 12:29 PM • 6 Comments •
We all know that inhaled anesthesia is over the short-term impairs neurological function; that is sort of the point using it for surgery. However, a debate exists about whether inhaled anesthetics have long-term neurological consequences as well. In light of...
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Posted on March 9, 2007 11:30 AM • 2 Comments •
Dr. Henry Miller, writing in TCS, argues that the FDA has over-reacted to problems with drug safety by excessive regulation: In spite of increasingly more powerful and precise technologies for drug discovery, purification and production, during the past twenty years...
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Posted on February 16, 2007 9:24 AM • 4 Comments •
The Eli Lilly leaked documents story has exploded. Just to recap, on Dec. 17th last year the NYTimes reported on documents leaked from Eli Lilly that show that the company tried to play down the side effects of Zyprexa, a...
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Posted on January 19, 2007 10:53 AM • 3 Comments •
Yet again, a drug company is playing damage control for failing to come clean about a drug's side effects. It makes me so mad when companies do stuff like this because it is such a preventable problem. In this case,...
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Posted on December 18, 2006 10:11 AM • 3 Comments •
Benjamin Zycher, fellow at the Manhattan Institute, questions of the wisdom of allowing Medicare to negotiate prices with drug companies. Actually what I don't like about this debate is that is called "negotiating" drug prices. There is no negotiation that...
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Posted on November 29, 2006 3:44 PM • 4 Comments •
Walmart is cutting prices on generic drugs in Florida as a test program: - Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, said on Thursday it would cut the prices of nearly 300 generic drugs to $4 per prescription starting in...
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Posted on September 22, 2006 10:09 AM • 4 Comments •
Are we dividing drugs into illegal and legal based on a rational classification system based on risk? A British government committee says no: The committee's report recommends that drugs be ordered on "a more scientific scale, to give the public...
Posted on July 31, 2006 11:49 PM • 6 Comments •
What is the deal with the stories showing brain lesions that end addiction? First, there was this one. Then, today in Nature there was another one: Strokes often change a person's character, depending on where the damage hits. Some may...
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Posted on July 12, 2006 8:59 PM • 1 Comments •
PLoS Medicine is reporting a paper that compares the declining suicide rate in the US to the increasing number of prozac prescriptions since the drug's introduction in 1988. They find that the two are very well correlated:...
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Posted on June 19, 2006 11:37 PM • 4 Comments •
Researchers report that drinking coffee cuts the risk of cirrhosis of the liver from alcohol -- by 22 percent per cup each day -- but they stopped short of saying doctors should prescribe coffee for that reason. The report from...
Posted on June 13, 2006 9:28 PM • 0 Comments •
Here is a interesting idea about how to treat pain without addicting people to pain killers. There is some back story to this business that you should know before we discuss why this is a cool idea, though. Opioid drugs...
Posted on June 9, 2006 4:18 PM • 3 Comments •
