Dear Editor,
I was shocked and sorry that you published a biased article on how we need to irradiate food. This is another failing industry that has lived on government subsidies since its inception, looking for an outlet for their business. Common sense defies the use of radiation in our food supply. We have enough contamination in our food supply as it is. The author states that the AMA and World Health Organization supports irradiation. This in itself should be enough evidence to keep us from irradiating our foods.

William J. Rea, MD
Dallas, TX

The Hippocratic Oath — Is it relevant today or does it belong in the scrap heap of history’s discarded relics?

I submit it is relevant today. I submit it is a touchstone that offers a moral compass — an ethical framework — for navigation through these times of crisis. In short, it is the soul of medicine.

Canadian Health Care

While Canadian physicians have been going on strike protesting the deterioration of medical care which continues to be rationed for Canadian citizens --- Canada's defense department confirmed on Sept. 2 that the military has agreed to pay for sex-change operations.

Twelve health care practitioners with a commitment to private practice were interviewed to determine common factors in attitude and motivation. Interviewed were 8 physicians, two psychologists, one dentist, and one psychiatric social worker. All were from New York except for one each from Virginia and California. Seven of the professionals studied received less than 50 percent of their practice income from managed care and five had no managed care contracts.

Psychological characteristics present included:

Jan Malcolm, Vice President of Public Affairs for the Allina Health System, Minnesota's largest HMO, was appointed on January 19 as Minnesota's new Commissioner of Health. We question whether Commissioner Malcolm, a top-ranking HMO executive, can effectively deal with the problem of managed care.

Monkey Medicine and Clinical Pathways

Well, it's official. Physicians who practice medicine in hospitals that have implemented "Clinical Pathways" no longer have to think. All they have to do is "follow the yellow brick road." Patients will be issued a pair of ruby slippers on admission and taught to recite "there's no place like home" so as to insure that they don't overstay their welcome (i.e., allotted DRG time).

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (DDP)

Dr. John Sonne's article, "The Health Care System as a Dysfunctional Family" (Medical Sentinel, Vol. 4, No. 1), was right on target. Among the many cogent ideas he expressed was the importance of recognizing the misuse of words, and the subtle alteration in thinking which results therefrom. I would like to bring attention to additional examples of the misuse of words serving to alter people's perceptions of themselves and their relationships with others.

Dear Dr. Faria,
I obtained your address from directory assistance so that I could write to you and express my appreciation for your letter of July 23, 1999 to The Wall Street Journal.

I, too, have long believed that the best way out of the current mess is to make either all or none of health care expenses tax deductible, and to end the fiction that health insurance is a free "benefit" from employers, rather than representing compensation that might be much more wisely spent if the employee were in charge of it.

An eminent medical scientist, Prof. Emil J. Freireich of the University of Texas Cancer Center of the M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas, tossed off casually over lunch a few months ago the comment, "Of course we are immortal. All we have to do is eliminate all the causes of death."

Vaccines --- Kill or Cure?

As the controversial debate over mandatory vaccine policy heats up igniting passions, it is perhaps appropriate we summarize what is known about the manifest benefits of modern vaccines, not forgetting the tremendously salutary impact on health and longevity wrought about by better living conditions, hygiene and sanitation, in general, and the introduction and subsequent widespread use of antibiotics, in particular.

Physician, psychiatrist, theologian, and author of the bestseller, The Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck, M.D., gives us an in-depth look at the current euthanasia movement and its origins in the inability of physicians to "pull the plug." Peck states that although Dr. Kevorkian gives him the shivers, he must credit him more than any other individual for the genesis of this book. Almost single-handedly over the past five years, Kevorkian has turned the debate over euthanasia into a national issue within the United States.

The Politics of Psychiatry in Revolutionary Cuba by Charles J. Brown and Armando M. Lago,(1) the subject of this issue's Editor's Corner, only came to my attention because its documentation value was mentioned in two special issues of The New American magazine chronicling the Elián González saga,(2,3) the story of the six-year-old Cuban boy who had been a point of contention between the Cuban-American community in Miami who wanted him to stay in American freedom, on the one hand, and the U.S.

Dear Wall Street Journal Editor,
Restoring the erosion of the public's confidence in the practice of medicine must be the foremost priority of the new editor of The New England Journal of Medicine in light of questions about the objectivity of recently published articles ("NEJM Appoints Drazen as Editor in Chief," 5/11/00).

Introduction

To insure the future of our Peoria County Medical Society, we keep our current members and recruit new members. To this end, we can look at what has recently transpired.

We have finally been able to give our membership the choice of national medical society membership. They can now choose to be a member of the American Medical Association (AMA) or the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), as well as their specialty organizations to represent them at the national level.

Big Brother is Watching You

"Render the following in B-movie, staccato-style German and see if it reminds you of anything:

'Your vehicle was seen traveling on southbound I-95 near I-195 on Wednesday, Sept. 27. Please provide the following information:

'Where were you going? Who was with you? What was the purpose of your trip?'

Dear Editor,

I enjoyed the article by Vin Suprynowicz entitled, "Ritalin -- Pharmaceutical Blackmail." The economic, political and moral dimensions are most interesting and rather disturbing. What is happening when state agencies overrule family care of children except in the most extreme situations?

Nothing is so invigorating to the American consciousness as freedom. It is the lifeblood of our nation, as in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address --- "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." It is of great importance, then, that the public pay close attention to how they handle the promise of the Internet, the engine that is driving our long economic boom.

In response to one of my columns on health care, a reader wrote and called me an "old geezer" ranting in opposition to universal health care. I confess to having a healthy discontent for the way things are, but I have to draw the line at being called an "old geezer." Having just turned the corner on 66 got me to thinking about ageism --- an ignorant practice of judging people on the basis of age rather than the ability to perform.

Putting This in Perspective

The For Dummies® computer book series is written for frustrated computer users who know they aren't dumb, but find the PC and its vocabulary make them feel helpless. This compact volume helps sort out the extensive healthcare sites.

The Wolinskys caution you in using the web: never use it for emergencies. However, to better equip you to prepare for emergencies, it directs you to the American College of Emergency Physicians' site at http://www.acep.org.