Supreme Court Takes First Step

As amazing as this sounds, it took the U.S. Supreme Court 217 years to appoint their first female special master.  Kristin Lindsey Miles of San Francisco was appointed by the court as special master in the case of South Carolina v. North Carolina.  

Special Masters are appointed by courts to perform fact finding.   This case is one of the few types of suits where the 
Supreme Court is the first to hear the case (original 
jurisdiction).

I find it amazing that it took this long to appoint a female. This is the same court who "broke" the color barrier in Brown v. Board of Ed and has made numerous rulings on gender based cases and laws.

Pharma Ads

I know it's been a while since I posted.  I've been focussing more on my blog over at my professional mediation website, Sanns Mediation.  

This morning, I saw a report of a study done by the University of Chicago.
The report indicated that nearly half of doctors in the US prescribe placebos to their patients.  Placebos are treatments that have no physical reason to work (such as a sugar pill), but that they patient thinks will work (and sometimes does as a result).  One of the primary placebos given are anti-biotics given to people with a cold or flu.  Anti-biotics work only on bacteria and not the viruses which cause cold and bacteria.  This is one way in which anti-biotics have created treatment resistant bacteria like MRSA.

Why do doctors do this?  Basically to shut patients up who want the doctor to prescribe something to help them.  It is my contention that once the FDA allowed pharmaceutical companies to advertise their products directly to consumers, it created a "pill society" whereby any ill can be cured by taking a pill.  Just look at any tv commericial for a drug...it looks like it could cure all of your ills while side effects (diarrhea, flatulence, high blood pressure, death) are all glossed over in a soft announcer's voice (or placed in 6 point font on the bottom the screen).

Sometimes a cold just needs to be toughed out.  Instead, we've created a society whose unintended consequence is the creation of bugs we cannot kill or treat.

Patients have the right to make informed decisions.  That is simply not happening in the current set-up of medical treatment.

We need to stop drug ads directly to consumers.  That is why you have a doctor, to help you make the right decisions for your treatment and not to simply act as a prescription scrivener.