Author Archive
Need A New Kidney? Print It.
Posted by: | CommentsIn a few years time, this will be our daily reality.
A New Face For the Pharmaceutical Industry
Posted by: | CommentsA changing environment puts pressure on the pharmaceutical industry to reshape its business model.
NY Times Drug Firms Face Billions in Losses as 2011 Patents end.
The Business of Defining Mental Illness
Posted by: | CommentsHow do you define mental illness? Can you define it in the first place? On what basis (symptoms, or ‘something’ else)? How to assess illness in the absence of observable matter?
The question is not simply rhetorical. Beyond the issue of diagnosing and giving a name to an illness in the absence of physical proof of it, billions of dollars are spent every year based on whether symptoms have officially been defined as disease, or not. And the bible of mental illness is what is commonly known as the DSM, American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The DSM averages $6.5 million in sales each year. And not only that. “The book is the basis of psychiatrists’ authority to pronounce upon our mental health, to command health care dollars from insurance companies for treatment and from government agencies for research. It is as important to psychiatrists as the Constitution is to the US government or the Bible is to Christians. Outside the profession, too, the DSM rules, serving as the authoritative text for psychologists, social workers, and other mental health workers; it is invoked by lawyers in arguing over the culpability of criminal defendants and by parents seeking school services for their children”. Read More→
Nicholas Christakis on Social Networks — Transcript
Posted by: | CommentsTHis is the transcript of Nicholas Christakis’ Ted Talks video on how social networks shape our lives.
You can see the interactive transcript on the Ted webpage.
For me, this story begins about 15 years ago, when I was a hospice doctor at the University of Chicago. And I was taking care of people who were dying, and their families, in the South Side of Chicago. And I was observing what happened to people and their families over the course of their terminal illness. And in my lab, I was studying the widower effect, which is a very old idea in the social sciences, going back 150 years, known as “dying of a broken heart.” So, when I die, my wife’s risk of death can double, for instance, in the first year. And I had gone to take care of one particular patient, a woman who was dying of dementia. And, in this case, unlike this couple, she was being cared for by her daughter. And the daughter was exhausted from caring for her mother. And the daughter’s husband, he also was sick from his wife’s exhaustion. And I was driving home one day, and I get a phone call from the husband’s friend, calling me because he was depressed about what was happening to his friend. So here I get this call from this random guy that’s having an experience that’s being influenced by people at some social distance.
Your Friends Friends Friends Can Make You Fat
Posted by: | CommentsNicholas Christakis studies the subtle influence of large social networks on our lives. He came up with astonishing discoveries.
One surprising example is obesity.
Looking at the spread of obesity in large social networks, he found that there are clear clusters of obesity. In short, if your friends are fat, you are more likely to be fat. So far so good, this is understandable: you tend to go out with your friends, eat in the same places, share the same activities etc…
But what is unexpected is that the cluster extend to 3 degrees of separation! In short, your friends’ friends’ friends can make you fat!
Watch the Ted Talks video below for more.
