Words about science and hiking
Until the end of the 19th century, nearly all science was done by amateurs. The first modern research university was Johns Hopkins, founded in 1876. Up until that time, universities were vehicles for transmitting established knowledge – divinely revealed wisdom at first, the humanistic classics later. They were not seen as engines for creating and Read More …
To anyone trained in medicine or biology, this question seems laughably naive. One’s impulse is to brush it off with a quick and curt answer. But it is a very good and important question because it distinguishes modern from ancient disease concepts. The notion that specific agents cause specific diseases—something that now seems blindingly obvious— Read More …
I love genetics. Among the many disciplines of biology, it is perhaps the most elegant – that is, it explains much with just a few simple principles. The genetics class I took at UCSC so entranced me that I gave up all ambition to study psychology or be a writer, and became a molecular biologist Read More …
The FDA today cleared a new drug for treating influenza, the first in 20 years. Xofluza (baloxovir) appears to have about the same efficacy as oseltamivir in reducing symptoms of patients with uncomplicated influenza infections. Maybe a little better: From Baloxavir Marboxil for Uncomplicated Influenza in Adults and Adolescents Baloxavir attacks a different target (RNA replication) Read More …
Published on Forbes and Apple News There’s little question that we have been suckered into taking far more medicine than we actually require. But let’s face it – we want to be suckered. We ask for it, we demand it, and we get it. Pharma companies are enablers, but they are not all-powerful overlords forcing us to Read More …
It is a generally accepted precept that corporations are obligated to maximize shareholder returns. Resources thus should be directed only to efforts that have the highest expected return. Diseases of poverty, like TB and malaria, by definition afflict those least able to pay, and thus are least likely to generate satisfactory returns on investment for pharmas. Read More …
Yeah, I know that European history – unless depicted as oppressive domination of people who were just minding their own business (right?) – is old and busted. And the usual answers to this sort of question focus on exciting and violent events: wars, revolutions and the like. Events that lend themselves to narrative storytelling, with Read More …
It’s germ theory. Since the advent of agriculture and the rise of cites (and thus civilization), infectious diseases were far and away the leading cause of death and disability. A reasonable guess would be that 75% of all deaths were due to infection, and these deaths were concentrated among the very young. Infectious diseases today, Read More …
Published on Forbes and Mental Floss For the most part, they didn’t. At the dawn of the age of scientific medicine (the mid-19th century) there were only a handful of remedies that we would recognize today as safe and effective. But why? Our ancestors were not dummies, and did not require scientific methods to create Read More …
A lot of important medicines entered clinical use within a couple of years of their initial discovery: Anti-sera for diphtheria, developed 1890, implemented 1892 [1] Salvarsan for syphilis, discovered 1909, introduced 1910 [2] Blood types discovered 1900, first successful transfusions 1907 [3] Insulin discovered 1921, diabetics treated 1922 [4] HIV confirmed to be the cause of AIDS 1984, Read More …