From where I sit, it seems to me that the entire landscape of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has changed, and changed quite significantly. The litany of announcements from pharmaceutical companies big and small revealing the unfortunate news that yet another promising agent for the treatment of AD has failed to meet its objectives in a […]
This particular bit of news leaves your friend Doc Gumshoe shaking his head in puzzlement. To wit, in the US it is expected that there will be a substantial shortage of physicians in the upcoming years. The American Association of Medical Colleges predicts that this shortage may reach about 122,000 physicians by the year […]
When we’re trying to fight against an adversary that is as strong and full of tricks as cancer, what we need to do is look for points of vulnerability – Achilles heels. We all remember, of course, that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Styx when he was a tiny boy, […]
The publicity material for M. D. Anderson in Houston, Texas, which is perhaps the leading cancer treatment center in the United States, frequently includes a statement to the effect that they are committed to “ending cancer.” That statement puts me in mind of maps dating from the first century AD, in which large unexplored areas […]
One would think that it would take a person of normal intelligence about half a minute to conclude that lures such as the ones below could not possibly be on the up and up. Here’s one. It starts out with a note from Christine O’Brien. “The Sovereign Investor Daily A brand new, ‘Alzheimer’s vaccine’ […]
Doc Gumshoe is not in the habit of contradicting the conclusions, backed by research, that are stated in papers published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, commonly referred to as JAMA. JAMA is, after all, one of a handful of the most prestigious medical journals on the planet, along with the New […]
Way back in April 2018, the World Health Organization issued its Thirteenth General Programme of Work, which attracted a certain amount of notice at the time, but was certainly not treated as front-page news. The GPW 13, as WHO called it, was centered on three ambitious targets – worthy, but in the view of […]
“For such a beastly month as February, 28 days as a rule are plenty,” said the Pirate King. But you would be surprised at the number of interesting snippets of news in the health-care realm that landed in my inbox during this short month. I’ll lead off with one that gave me a particular kick. […]
What set me off on this rant was the very first comment on the piece that posted on January 31st, “Looking Backward – And a Peek in the Other Direction.” Here’s the comment: “Thanks, Doc. Hope you will comment on the news out of Israel this week: https://www.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/A-cure-for-cancer-Israeli-scientists-say-they-think-they-found-one-578939” Naturally, I looked, and what I found […]
Chances are not many of us observed New Year’s Eve with celebratory toasts to the glorious year gone by. Rather, we bid goodbye to 2018 and hoped 2019 would be a better year – for ourselves, our near and dear, our country, and our planet. However, as I wade through the volumes of healthcare-related stuff […]
I’ll grant that my headline is meant to be catchy and induce you to read this epistle. Some of you will ask what is ketamine anyway, and most of you will know from the get-go that ketamine, whatever the heck it is, will turn out to be neither a menace nor a miracle, but something […]
Let’s lead off with a news item that Doc Gumshoe, despite his widely-acknowledged acumen, could not manage to figure out in the least. It took an Op Ed in the N Y Times to sweep the cobwebs out of his noggin. The news item was this: children born in the month of August […]
I’m not going to keep you in suspense. The two proposed miracle cures are L-carnitine (an amino acid) and “Delta 8,” which in a previous Doc Gumshoe disquisition was unmasked as Delta 8 tetrahydrocannabinol, or Delta 8 THC (Δ8 THC), which is one of perhaps a hundred cannabinoids found in the cannabis plant, as […]
Most of the attention in the media is now focused on the several forms of cancer treatment grouped under the flattering term “Precision Medicine.” I find that the term raises my skepticism index just a bit; it’s like eating establishments labeling themselves “Gourmet Restaurants,” the implication being that joints not so identified are just […]
The plan was for Doc Gumshoe to fix his gaze on the hype around Delta 8 as the ultimate banned cancer cure, which he will definitely get around to. But the volume of comments and queries that “Cancer: The Lay of the Land in 2018” was such that I have little choice but to […]
Putting the name of this imperious disease in the title of my homily places a weighty responsibility on me. Who am I to attempt to put forth relevant information and sensible opinions on this topic, the mere mention of which makes most normal folk distinctly uneasy? But I probably pay more attention to […]
For those of us who live in this part of the country and spend any time messing around outdoors in the grass and weeds, this is the time to be careful about Lyme disease. I had a bout of Lyme 16 years ago, and it descended on me when we were on vacation, driving through […]
Is this going to be good news, or bad news, or somewhere in between? On balance, I would say good news, simply because the research and investigation is going on at an intense pace. Currently there are 1,903 clinical trials underway at some stage, in the US and all over the world. When I first […]
When I last took a look at what was happening in the treatment of migraines, I took careful pains to elucidate the differences between migraines and a plain old bad headache – the fact that migraines affect only one side of the head, and a detailed disquisition on the symptoms that many migraineurs (that’s the […]
The last time osteoporosis came up in the gospel according to Doc Gumshoe it was in the context of “not good news.” Starting in the year 2002, there had been a steady decline in the number of hip fractures sustained by women on Medicare over the age of 65, from 931 per 100,000 in 2002 […]