A Spoonful of Sugar...

Just finished reading The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, by Dr. Marcia Angell (2005). She is a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, and packs a stringent attack against the pharmaceutical industry. After reading this and How Doctors Think (Dr. Jerome Groopman), I've decided the best method is to stay as healthy as possible. If you can avoid going to doctors and hospitals, do so. (Coincidentally, I've remembered to take my vitamins again).

Readers may have various responses to the above books--the negative reviews I've found come from The Wall Street Journal and National Review, and are decidedly predictable in their judgement. How uncreative we become when we fall into our biases and political preferences (all of us, not just those with predilections to the right).

Politics sometimes seem to fall away when things hit us individually, and so despite our political leanings, here are some questions Dr. Angell encourages patients to ask their doctors when they recieve a new prescription:

"What is the evidence that this drug is better than an alternative or some other approach to treatment? Has the evidence been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal? Or are you relying on info from drug company reps? If needed, ask for a specific reference to a journal or textbook.

Is this drug better only because it is given at a higher dose? Would a cheaper drug be just as effective if it were given at an equivalent does?

Are the benefits worth the side effects, the expense, and the risk of interactions with other drugs I take?

Is this a free sample? If so, is there a generic drug or an equivalent drug I can use that is cheaper with the free samples run out?

Do you have financial ties with the company that makes this drug? For example, do you consult for the company? Other than free samples, do you receive gifts from drug companies? Are you being paid to put me on this drug and enroll me in a drug company study? Do you make time for visits from drug company reps?"

If the answer doesn't seem right, your doctor probably isn't right for you either.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall...

An interesting piece on the border wall by NPR. While the Rio is not the most beautiful river in the world (only a bit more than a brown trickle when it passes through Brownsville), it is more than a bit absurd to wall it up. Perhaps if we just keep poisoning it more illegal aliens will avoid this path. From what I can tell, its somewhat swift construction is due to the fact that the government can reach consensus on the matter, a somewhat frightening prospect when you realize the extent of the illogical decisions made by these same persons in the past. If they can ALL agree on this matter, the river isn't the only thing that smells fishy.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11118125

Road Trippin'

Dog Daze

Taking two dogs to the Grand Canyon is a bit like when my little sister visited Niagra Falls as a toddler. "Rachel, look at the waterfall," we urged, but her round blue eyes were fixated on the sky, fingers pointing upward towards the seagulls screeching above. "Ooh ooh!" she cried--christening our family name for those swacking nusiances.

Indie and Walter, the newest addition, are thusly distracted by the ooh ooh birds at the ocean. And at the Grand Canyon, they are all about people, scat, and shade. Walter, who at one year is enthusiastically all puppy, threatens once or twice to leap off the edge. Crisis is averted for the time being, but the summer has only just begun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DffcDoNabTM

Gross

T decides she is not going to research "Why do girls get their periods?" because it is too gross. Friend and ICU nurse E vows to find pamphlets to give to her.

Later in the day, O comes in announcing that she had lettuce for lunch. It's part of her weight loss plan. Not only has she started running, but she has started eating less as well, thinking that it is the only way to lose weight. I run to the chalkboard to give her a quick summary of how the body uses calories. Yes, you CAN still eat chocolate.

Vow of Silence

L comes into 1st period and shoves a $5 bill in my face. He flutters his hand.

"What?" I ask.

He continues motioning, pointing to his mouth and back to the bill. He wants to buy chips [they are bane of my life, by the way]. His friend walks in and informs me that he has taken a vow of silence, and also lets me know L wants Hot Cheetos.

A few minutes later L grabs my chalk and writes "gay rights" on the board. "I can't break the vow," he writes.

L has posted two questions on the board: "Are the products that hair stylists use harmful?" and "Are gay people born unique, or do they chose to be that way?"

Earlier this year, L submited a story about his first kiss with a boy. He almost didn't turn it in, afraid of my judgement about him. For once, the uncanny sense that I'm only beginning to develop as a teacher told me what it was about even before I read it. "It's okay," I reassured him. "I can probably handle whatever you're writing about."

After school, L stopped by my room to say hello, as he does nearly every day. The vow of silence had lasted until 7th period.

Yes, L. Unique. We must choose it every day.

Research, Day 3

During the fluster of state testing, I decide to teach my students how to evaluate sources. Three of the computers are down, so they scrunch around the remaining ones, trying to balance a mouse, a screen, and two pieces of paper. They are the antithesis of my internet-savvy yearbookers who can always track down a proxy so that they can post on MySpace during class. These students have never googled their name. Some of them don't know about wikipedia.

By second period I realize they need a little more. I run through the difference between searching for David Ramirez and "David Ramirez". They do not know what credentials are. I give them the run down on B.A., M.A., PhD. I remind myself I couldn't keep the degrees straight until I was in college.

I set them loose. And forget to remind the stinkers that yes, I do see them trying to minimize the email and IM window when I walk by.

As of yet, day 1 has been the most entertaining. All their heads perk up when I mention that we will be reading a chapter titled "Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Mom's?" (from Freakonomics). The purpose is to show them how research begins with a question; they are tickled that I even mention the subject and swear in class while I'm reading a section aloud. Of course, few of them get that that's exactly how I'm hooking them into this little stinker of a project they'll be doing.

When I think they've gotten the point of asking questions, I ask them to write down a researchable question of their own. "It's got to be something you don't know the answer to," I tell them, dreading the "what is the capital of Texas?"-type questions I might see up on my very non-me bulletin board (I inherited it with the classroom). So I walk around to make sure they're asking good questions--yes, there is such a thing as a stupid question, I tell them--and come across T-'s question: "Why do girls get their period?" I stop with a smirk on my face, asking "You're sure you don't know the answer to that one?" and she tells me "yes" in all seriousness. She is a junior.

G-, also a junior, presses me on the assignment. "We can ask ANY question?"

"Yes," I answer.

"Well, I've got this question I asked my coach, and he never told us," G- replies. I decide to check it out before posting it up: "Why do we have pubic hair?"

English is so done, guys. Sex ed, here we come.