The dangerous allure of self-medication

Before a new drug is approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration in the US, say for cancer treatment, it has to go through quite a stringent process of at least three phases of clinical trials, with each phase having a different purpose.

  • Phase I trials test if a new treatment is safe and look for the best way to give the treatment. Doctors also look for signs that cancer responds to the new treatment.
  • Phase II trials test if one type of cancer responds to the new treatment.
  • Phase III trials test if a new treatment is better than a standard treatment.
  • Phase IV trials find more information about long-term benefits and side effects.

The Phase I trial stage is where a new treatment can get shut down quickly if it shows signs of causing harm. Phase II is meant to show that the treatment does work in the way advertised. Phase III can be a difficult bar to reach because you need to show that the new treatment is better than what is already available.

Nowadays most people think of these measures as reasonable precautions to prevent people from being harmed by untested drugs and other treatments. But as Dhruv Khullar writes, the idea that the government should be able to decide what people can put into their bodies has been, at least in the US, a controversial issue, and at one time there was nothing to stop people from doing whatever they liked.
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Vance gets smacked down by Catholic bishops

Whatever one’s views are about the Catholic Church, there is no question that it takes its doctrines seriously, devoting enormous amounts of time to research and develop its theology, even if the final product sometimes has the aim of justifying its often horrendous history of violence and abuse and misogyny.

The question of when it is justifiable to use force and violence is one that transcends religion and is problematic for everyone. This is one of those areas that the church has studied quite deeply and it has arrived at the so-called ‘just war theory’, of under what circumstances going to war is defensible. The originator of this theory was St. Augustine of Hippo in the 4th century, and it was developed further by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. Pope Leo is a member of the Augustinian order, the first person from that order to become a pope and is currently visiting the site of Hippo, where Augustine was bishop for 34 years in order to pay homage to founder of his order.
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The shadowy world of gambling on world events

In most gambling, as in the casinos or in betting on the outcome of sporting events where there is no doubt as to what the result is, there is usually a clear way of deciding whether you won or lost the bet. But the new betting markets like Kalshi and Polymarket allow you to bet on events where the outcome may not be that clear-cut. Hence there has to be some standard associated with the bet that tells you how the outcome is to be judged.

So, for example, take the bet that the US and Iran will agree to a permanent peace deal by a specific date, where the options for dates are April 22, April 30, May 31, and June 30. How would one judge that? The rules state it as follows.
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Well, that didn’t take long

When I posted about pope Leo criticizing warmongering leaders, I added that that it was only a matter of time before Trump attacked him, calling him a ‘low IQ person’ and the like. Trump’s repeated use of this description that he clearly sees as an insult, and his boasting of passing easy cognitive tests, is a sign of how insecure he is about his own intelligence, since no one who thinks of themselves as having even ordinary intelligence ever talks about it.

But the retaliation came quicker and even harsher than I expected.

Trump delivered an extraordinary broadside against Leo on Sunday night, saying he didn’t think the U.S.-born global leader of the Catholic Church is “doing a very good job” and that “he’s a very liberal person,” while also suggesting the pontiff should “stop catering to the Radical Left.”
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“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” the president wrote in his post, adding, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
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The president wrote, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States.” That was a reference to the Trump administration having ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January.

“I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do,” Trump added, referencing his 2024 election victory.

He then went on to suggest that the entire conclave that elects the pope was engaged in a conspiracy against him.
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At last some good news – Orbán loses in Hungary

Despite using all the levers of power to tilt the election in his favor, MAGA favorite Victor Orbán has been kicked out as prime minister after being in power for 16 years, with his Fidesz party getting roundly defeated.

With 98.74% of the vote counted, [Péter] Magyar’s Tisza party was projected to have won 138 of the 199 seats in the country’s parliament, giving them a super-majority capable of amending the constitution and key laws, suggesting they would be able to reverse some of the changes made by Orbán and Fidesz, and potentially unlock EU funds.

Fidesz won 55 seats, while the extreme-right Mi Hazánk party won six.
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The election was being closely watched around the world as a test of the resilience of the Maga movement and the global far right, many of whom have long looked to Orbán as an inspiration and sought to follow his playbook.

Days before the election, JD Vance had travelled to Budapest, with the US vice-president saying that he had come to “help” Orbán. Donald Trump had also repeatedly endorsed Orbán, most recently on Friday when he vowed to bring US “economic might” to the country if Orbán was re-elected.
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In recent months, Orbán, 62, had also been endorsed by rightwing and far-right leaders ranging from France’s Marine Le Pen to Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Pope Leo seems to have had it with Trump

Although he did not mention any leaders by name, it is pretty clear who was the main intended recipient of his message and that he is fed up with the bogus and self-serving religiosity of Trump and Hegseth.

Pope Leo XIV stepped into the international political arena at evening prayers in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City on Saturday, saying prayer for peace is “a bulwark against that delusion of omnipotence that surrounds us and is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.”

The first US-born pope said: “Even the holy Name of God, the God of life, is being dragged into discourses of death.”

Addressing world leaders who decide to go to war, Leo said: “To them we cry out: stop! It is time for peace! Sit at the table of dialogue and mediation – not at the table where rearmament is planned and deadly actions are decided.”

“Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war! True strength is shown in serving life,” he added.

While the pope did not explicitly mention the US-Israeli war with Iran, or name any single country or president, his words will be read as his strongest condemnation yet of a conflict the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has cast as a sacred struggle. The pope’s remarks came during face-to-face negotiations between US and Iranian delegations in Pakistan to shore up a fragile truce and put a permanent end to hostilities.

Meanwhile, the archbishop of Washington, a close ally of the pope, has condemned what he called an “immoral war” and called on Catholics to take action to stop it.

As citizens and believers in this democracy that we cherish so deeply, we must advocate for peace with our representatives and leaders.

It is not enough to say we have prayed. We must also act. For it is very possible that the negotiations will fail because of recalcitrance on both sides, and the president will move to re-enter this immoral war.

At that critical juncture, as disciples of Jesus Christ called to be peacemakers in the world, we must answer vocally and in unison: ‘No. Not in our name. Not at this moment. Not with our country.’

We can start the countdown to Trump issuing an angry social media post accusing the pope of being low IQ and sufferer of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

This may be Melania’s other shoe dropping

Amid all the speculation about why Melania Trump made her extraordinary statement to the press on Thursday, one seems to have more substance than the rest, and that is that it was a preemptive attempt to get ahead of a damaging story that would come out soon. And now we have a plausible candidate for that theory. (Thanks to anat and jenorafeuer in the comments to yesterday’s post for sending me down this rabbit hole!)

It concerns a Brazilian model named Amanda Ungaro who had been friends with Melania for over two decades, and a man named Paolo Zampolli, a close friend of the Trumps who was appointed by him as an ambassador and who claims that he was the one who introduced the Trumps to each other,

Ungaro, meanwhile, told the Times that she was a 17-year-old model when she arrived in New York in 2002 after flying on Epstein’s plane from Paris with her French agent. She never saw Epstein again but met Zampolli later that year and began a two-decade romantic relationship with him beginning when she was 19, Zampolli told the Times.

In 2023, after Zampolli made headlines for explicit text messages he allegedly sent to a sex worker, Ungaro ended the relationship, moved to Florida and married a doctor from Brazil. The former couple then became mired in a custody battle for their 15-year-old son before Ungaro and her husband were arrested in June.

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Melania springs a surprise

Melania Trump is, to be frank, a boring person. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I myself am a boring person and can recognize my kind. But there is something almost robotic in the way she looks and moves and talks, like an animated mannequin, that makes you think that she is so tightly controlled that she will never do anything spontaneous or unexpected.

So it took observers by surprise when in an extraordinary development yesterday, Melania made a statement to White House reporters where she denied allegations and innuendos linking her to Jeffrey Epstein, and said that these were the products of mean-spirited liars trying to tarnish her good name. She also said that the emails exchanged by her with Ghislaine Maxwell were just casual correspondence. She also issued a plea for Congress to take public testimony from Epstein’s victims, which some of the victims and Democrats on the appropriate committees have seized upon.

The first lady also called on Congress to take sworn testimony in a public hearing from Epstein victims. Several victims did meet with the House oversight committee in a closed session last fall.

“We agree with First Lady Melania Trump’s call for a public hearing with the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein,” said Robert Garcia of California, ranking member of the House committee on oversight. “We encourage Chairman Comer to respond to the First Lady’s request and schedule a public hearing immediately.”

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Netanyahu is a monster

It should be obvious to anyone by now that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a monster. His ongoing genocide in Gaza, his brutal suppression of Palestinians in the West Bank and condoning of settler violence, his attacks on Iranian civilians, and now his indiscriminate and widespread bombing of Lebanon that have killed a huge number of civilians and left many others homeless and otherwise destitute reveals a man who has absolutely no conscience.

Israel’s devastating bombardment of Lebanon in the hours after a US-Iranian ceasefire was announced has been widely condemned amid global efforts to salvage the truce.

More than 200 people were killed by Israeli bombing, including strikes with heavy munitions on densely populated areas, which drew outrage from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international humanitarian organisations.

In Trump, he has finally found a US president who was willing to remove even the mildest restraints that former presidents placed on Israel and so his murderous impulses are now unchecked and revealed for all the world to see.

That he is a war criminal goes without saying. The amount of blood he has on his hands would give a normal person nightmares.
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How Netanyahu pushed Trump into attacking Iran

And so Trump has backed off from his deranged genocidal threats against Iran that would and should surely constitute war crimes that alarmed even some of his supporters. He, as usual, claims success that he got a ceasefire but it is not at all clear what he got. Iran has issued a 10-point plan for a ceasefire not only contains many things that the US had rejected previously, but demands new ones.

Danny Citrinowicz, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, has offered a sobering assessment of the outcome of America’s five week war, saying the conflict was launched with “sweeping promises: regime change in Iran, the dismantling of its missile and nuclear programs, and preventing it from threatening the Strait of Hormuz.”
“And where are we now?” he asks.
The regime is still firmly in power.
Its missile capabilities are damaged still intact
It still holds roughly 440 kg of uranium enriched to 60%.
And in return?
A ‘controlled’ reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, something that wasn’t even truly closed to begin with.
Let’s be honest: this is not a strategic victory.”

Observers are suggesting that Trump was desperate for an exit ramp after his blustering painted him into a corner and so seized on this as a way out, until the next time he feels like issuing an apocalyptic threat.

So how and why did Trump blunder into this war. The New York Times had a long article detailing how Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed Trump into attacking Iran during a meeting at the White House on February 11, assuring him that it would be easy to topple the Iranian leadership and replace it with one friendly to the US,
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