Mostly in these Doc Gumshoe pieces I try to keep my focus on what the physicians and researchers and pharmaceutical outfits are doing to try to treat, or at least manage, all these diseases, ailments, and conditions that affect our lives. But other issues keep thrusting themselves into the picture, especially the cost factor. […]
Author Bio
I have been a medical writer for about 25 years; before that I was a documentary film maker, and some of my films were about medical subjects. I am not a physician, but I have a pretty good scientific background. I wouldn’t dream of recommending any kind of treatment to anyone, and I cannot give medical advice. However, I understand the medical literature and the data and evidence behind it, and I have an inquiring and skeptical turn of mind.
I scrutinize and question and, sometimes, challenge the positions of some of the established health-care organizations as well as the marketers of health information. Eternal vigilance is a small price to pay for health. — Michael Jorrin (aka DocGumshoe)
Michael Jorrin is a paid contributor to Stock Gumshoe, he has agreed to our trading restrictions but he chooses his own topics and his words and opinions are his own.
Author Archives
June 11, 2020
Mostly Non-COVID-19 Related Miscellany
It’s not as though the pandemic has cleared the decks of all other health-related issues. I’m sorry to report that people still have heart attacks, strokes, and cancer as well as all the plethora of other ailments, diseases, and conditions that affect our species. For example, I was thinking of putting in a […]
May 19, 2020
Doc Gumshoe – COVID-19 Miscellany, May 2020
I decided to add the year to my title in the event that this thing goes on for another full year, and I have to do an update in May 2021. I pray fervently that such an eventuality will not come to pass, but it’s certainly possible. Having said that, your obedient servant […]
May 6, 2020
What’s “The One-Hour Fix for Memory Loss?”
How could I resist this tease? I’m the guy, after all, who needs to stir his little grey cells to recall the name of that beautiful shrub growing at the northeast corner of our house. Eureka, I’ve got it! – it’s called viburnum. I’ve always attributed my lapses in memory to the […]
April 20, 2020
COVID 19 Update and Other Brief Bits
It’s hard to stay away from the coronavirus pandemic, even though Doc Gumshoe basically has no information that’s any different from what’s flooding into your inboxes or TV screens or, for those of us who are still members of the ancient fellowship of newspaper readers, the pages of our daily newspapers. But a few […]
April 1, 2020
About Parkinson’s
The last time I wrote about Parkinson’s I had not yet become Doc Gumshoe. It was quite a few years ago, and I was working on a continuing medical education project in support of donepezil (Aricept, from Eisai/Pfizer). Aricept, as you may know, is one of a very few drugs approved for the […]
March 3, 2020
Brief Bulletins of Interest
Having just devoted an entire Doc Gumshoe piece to the notorious coronavirus (COVID 19), I’m going to make those coronavirus updates brief – it looks to me as though the news media is devoting a major part of its capacity to covering most aspects of this pandemic – and, yes, it now certainly looks like […]
February 19, 2020
Coronavirus Update – February 2020
Don’t look to Doc Gumshoe to keep you up to the minute on the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. The figures I’m quoting below are as of mid-day today, February 18th. These will have changed by the time you see this piece, and they may be unreliable in the first place. But, […]
January 30, 2020
Warm Bits for a Cold Month
Please indulge Doc Gumshoe while he presents his musings on what’s going on in general in the health-care arena, and in particular, which new drugs are getting the FDA blessing and why, as well as which ones are getting the short straw. My impressions and conclusions are in some cases only loosely based on […]
The answer to that foolish question is certainly going to be “both.” But the finger pointing at the guilty party has wobbled around a good deal in the past few years, and just before Christmas, the American Heart Association came out with a set of dietary recommendations once again apparently putting at least some blame […]
December 19, 2019
Update on Antibiotic Resistance: December 2019
The headline that snagged my attention was this: ‘Thirty-five Thousand Americans Die of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections Each Year” This was based on the Centers for Disease Control’s Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2019, which led off with the statement that more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the US every year, and more […]
December 5, 2019
A Look at the Promise of Gene Editing
“CRISPR” is the word in the headline that signals that the piece is going to be about gene editing. Doc Gumshoe did not want to put that word – actually, it’s not really a word, but an acronym – in the title of this piece because gene editing is a whole lot more than […]
October 23, 2019
Recent Comments: Responses and Reflections
The many welcome comments to the Alzheimer’s piece that posted a couple of weeks ago prompt me to supply answers (if I am able to do that), but also set my mind to wandering on the fringes of a number of issues that may be of interest to the Gumshoe constituency. Anavex 2-73 At the […]
October 2, 2019
Alzheimer’s Disease: 2019 Refresher and Updates
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 […]
September 2, 2019
Doc Gumshoe – Short & Easy Bits
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 […]
August 14, 2019
Combating Cancer: The Current Battle Plan
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, […]
August 6, 2019
Cancer: the Changing Landscape in 2019
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 […]
June 12, 2019
Why We Take the Bait
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’ […]
May 15, 2019
In Defense of the Egg
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 […]
Recent Author Comments
Posted on July 10, 2020
Posted on July 7, 2020
Sorry, Questcap, but I refrain from commenting on stocks from the investment/speculation point of view.[...]
Posted on July 7, 2020
I had both knees replaced - one in 2015 and the second in 2017. You might check the Doc Gumshoe piece describing the whole experience in detail, including the rehab, which posted on May 4, 2015. I strongly agree with Stan that the rehab , including ben[...]
Posted on June 13, 2020
With regard to flu vaccines, as you surely know, the vaccine formulation is cooked up well in advance of the onset of the flu season. What they do is try to predict which strains of the flu virus will be most prevalent in the coming season. The "50% ef[...]
Posted on June 13, 2020
Consider me tempted! Thanks & best![...]
Posted on June 12, 2020
EDITAS has a lot of promise - a lot! But it's only a cure for one very rare form of blindness, as I think I pointed out. The entire CRISPR area is seething with promising prospects. But a surge like that ... I don't know.[...]
Posted on June 8, 2020
I spray my roses once a week with a fungicide whose active ingredient is copper. It works pretty well, although the black spot comes back. But making hospital door knobs and bathroom fixtures out of copper would likely not work. Copper tarnishes sup[...]
Posted on May 21, 2020
I was surprised and somewhat overwhelmed by the volume of comments about the Doc Gumshoe “COVID 19 Miscellany” post. I’m taking the liberty (for which I hope you will forgive me) of addressing several points in a single response. Re the comment st[...]
Posted on May 19, 2020
At this time, it’s not known whether the particular corona virus that causes COVID 19 mutates frequently or only occasionally or not at all. Even if it were to mutate, a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 would likely decrease the harmful effects of the diseas[...]
Posted on May 11, 2020
I've had my eye on Actinogen for some time, but I missed that release from the company. I'll give it another look - thanks very much.[...]
Posted on May 7, 2020
Thanks very much for the suggestion that I repeat my conclusions at the end in bullet form.! I'll try to remember that, even without the assistance of curcumin.[...]
Posted on May 6, 2020
I didn't exactly recommend Theracurmin - I just said that, in contrast with Brain Booster Plus, it deserved consideration. If I decided to try it myself, I would report back to you in 18 months or so. Sorry if my piece was overlong - I wanted to let t[...]
Posted on May 6, 2020
The legitimate research that I could find supports Theracurmin, but not Brain Booster Plus. I mentioned that in my article. Whichever you pick, best of luck. And please keep us posted regarding the outcome![...]
Posted on April 28, 2020
Tebipenem will likely get the FDA nod, but it's far from being the most powerful antibiotic ever. It's a carbapenem and there are several others in the market that are being used regularly. The 2009 approval in Japan was for pediatric use only. Spero[...]
Posted on April 24, 2020
Could be - current estimates are that 21% of New York City residents may have been infected. Can't say whether that would translate to 85 times greater infection rate overall. Different states come up with their figures in different ways - some track c[...]
Posted on April 23, 2020
And by the way, today the American Journal of Medicine had this to say about the hydroxychloroquine and the HCZ/azithromycin combo: “The NIH convened an expert medical panel that recommended against using a drug combination of the antibiotic azithromyc[...]
Posted on April 21, 2020
Yes, ivermectin prevented the coronavirus from replicating in vitro, but the concentrations needed to achieve that goal were the equivalent of doses 50 to 100 times greater than the FDA-approved doses. This was reported in the paper describing the Austr[...]
Posted on April 21, 2020
HCQ is indeed used for systemic lupus erythematosus and has been shown to help control not just skin symptoms but systemic complications of lupus such as kidney diseases (lupus nephritis). Good luck with your lupus & stay well.[...]
Posted on April 20, 2020
COVID 19 is not flu. The influenza virus is distinct and has been well sequenced in its various mutations. Some coronaviruses cause ordinary colds - upper respiratory infections. This particular one is related to the two coronaviruses that caused the[...]
Posted on April 20, 2020
The coronavirus - SARS CoV-2 = has been mapped thoroughly, including it's dozen surface proteins and major sections of its 30,000 base pair RNA sequence. It's not cellular debris. Sorry.[...]
I'm pretty sure that I never said or implied that smoking saves costs to the health-care system. On the contrary, it costs a great deal of money. Smokers don't just die peacefully. They are subject to many costly terminal diseases. The individuals [...]