One of the first things one learns in a college-level history or sociology course is that the ways we define and think about various human attributes and qualities—sexual orientation, mental illness, gender, race, virginity—are never static. They vary geographically and temporally, and even though it may seem that the way we currently conceptualize a particular …
Tag Archive: medicine
Dec 12 2012
Who Is To Blame For A Suicide?
Yesterday I was driving around in my hometown and listening to the radio. The DJs did a segment on the suicide of Jacintha Saldanha, a nurse in a hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated, who was pranked by some radio DJs and tricked into giving out Middleton’s medical information. The DJs on my hometown …
Nov 02 2012
Save the People, Not the Boobies: The Ethics of Breast Cancer Awareness
Few ad campaigns make me as misanthropic as the breast cancer awareness ones I’ve been seeing at an especially high volume for the past month: There’s also this video (NSFW). I hate these campaigns for many reasons. First of all, they make breast cancer all about boobs. Yes, it has “breast” in the name, but reducing …
Aug 02 2012
Abortion and Suicide: A Spurious Link
In South Dakota, it is now legal to require doctors to tell women seeking abortions that they are putting themselves at risk for suicide. This move is brilliant from a PR standpoint. Unlike banning certain types of abortions entirely or, say, forcing women to undergo invasive screenings that are medically unnecessary, this seems completely apolitical …
Apr 06 2012
A Sacrifice They're Willing to Make: Mississippi's War on Abortion
The last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi is perilously close to shutting down thanks to a new proposed law, Mississippi House Bill 1390. The law would require that all doctors performing abortions be board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology (reasonable), and that they also have admitting privileges at a local hospital (not so reasonable). The reason that’s …
Dec 11 2011
Obama the Patriarch
I usually stay away from commenting on Obama’s presidency because, to be honest, I was just a kid during all the previous presidencies I’ve lived through and really have no comparison to make. However, a recent statement by Obama has caused me to come out of my apolitical cave and rage. After the FDA made …
Nov 24 2011
Antidepressants and Strength of Character
Spoiler alert: They have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. There are different levels of stigma surrounding mental illness. There’s the stigma of having a disorder in itself, the stigma of being in treatment for a disorder, and, perhaps most of all, the stigma of that treatment being pharmacological. People love to hate psychopharmacology, …
Jan 26 2011
Preventing Depression
I love it when people who actually know what they’re talking about confirm something I’ve believed for ages. In this case, a study at the Feinberg School of Medicine (that’s Northwestern’s med school) showed that one out of every four or five college students who come to their school’s health center may be suffering from …
Jun 27 2010
Middle Class Sexuality
I saw this interesting op-ed at the New York Times’ website today. It talks about the “Viagra for women” (flibanserin) that was recently rejected by the FDA and how the sexual problem for American women isn’t medical but societal, because the “white upper middle class” has essentially become uptight and frigid. I agree with the …








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