21 August 2013
Autoimmune Disease Should Not Be a Trap
What makes us think that autoimmunity is something new? Like “inattentional blindness’ contradicted by Dr. Michael T. Peterson to in the August 20, 2013 Wall Street Journal, just because we have recognized a condition and given it a name doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist before. In fact, the first autoimmune disease was identified in 1904, and the possibility that human genetic disorders made certain illnesses more likely to occur in persons who suffered from them was proposed over 200 years before that (cf. N Engl J Med 2001; 344:694-695, March 1, 2001).
Owing to the ever accelerating rate of medical progress, we Americans have come to believe that sickness and debility are not natural states of existence. The opposite is true. The body’s immune system is just one of its features that sooner or later go haywire. Meghan O’Rourke’s article in the August 26, 2013, New Yorker, “What’s Wrong With Me?,” comes to the reasonable conclusion that it’s best not to turn one’s life over to a chronic illness, like an autoimmune disease. The better path is to live with it, take whatever amelioration that modern medicine makes available, and be thankful that we have a life to live at all.
What makes us think that autoimmunity is something new? Like “inattentional blindness’ contradicted by Dr. Michael T. Peterson to in the August 20, 2013 Wall Street Journal, just because we have recognized a condition and given it a name doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist before. In fact, the first autoimmune disease was identified in 1904, and the possibility that human genetic disorders made certain illnesses more likely to occur in persons who suffered from them was proposed over 200 years before that (cf. N Engl J Med 2001; 344:694-695, March 1, 2001).
Owing to the ever accelerating rate of medical progress, we Americans have come to believe that sickness and debility are not natural states of existence. The opposite is true. The body’s immune system is just one of its features that sooner or later go haywire. Meghan O’Rourke’s article in the August 26, 2013, New Yorker, “What’s Wrong With Me?,” comes to the reasonable conclusion that it’s best not to turn one’s life over to a chronic illness, like an autoimmune disease. The better path is to live with it, take whatever amelioration that modern medicine makes available, and be thankful that we have a life to live at all.
17 August 2013
Democracy Can Be a Foil
Charles Krupchank’s Op –Ed in the 17 August 2013 NYT presents good reasons why many Middle East societies do not have the background for our version of democracy. However, democracy has often been little more than a disguise for a certain political order that is favored by the most powerful segments of society. Corporate funding is necessary to finance the careers of America’s elected officials just as the support of Islamic mullahs is needed to permit the majority of Iran’s voters to cast their ballots for their government’s leaders.
As long as the military remains the most powerful element of Egyptian society, and the U.S. is dependent on a stable friend in the Arab world, we must acquiesce in its crackdown on the insurgent Islamic movement there. The U.S. has more important goals in the region than spreading an incidental feature of democracy like free elections. These include access to its hydrocarbon resources and protection of Israel’s future.
Charles Krupchank’s Op –Ed in the 17 August 2013 NYT presents good reasons why many Middle East societies do not have the background for our version of democracy. However, democracy has often been little more than a disguise for a certain political order that is favored by the most powerful segments of society. Corporate funding is necessary to finance the careers of America’s elected officials just as the support of Islamic mullahs is needed to permit the majority of Iran’s voters to cast their ballots for their government’s leaders.
As long as the military remains the most powerful element of Egyptian society, and the U.S. is dependent on a stable friend in the Arab world, we must acquiesce in its crackdown on the insurgent Islamic movement there. The U.S. has more important goals in the region than spreading an incidental feature of democracy like free elections. These include access to its hydrocarbon resources and protection of Israel’s future.
