And, does “Mendelian Randomization” help answer this question? It is not uncommon for press reports of newly published studies in medicine, the social sciences, or economics, to describe a finding of a correlation between two variables as causative, that is, one variable causes the other. Often, the authors of the…
Read morePublished as a Letter to the Editor in The Suburban, 2022-11-30 Robert Libman, in his excellent opinion piece (Suburban 2022-11-23, p A13) alludes, among other issues, to the health and safety concerns posed to CSL residents living near the CP rail yard. In addition to the illness-promoting effects of noise…
Read moreLet’s remove card readers from one route as a pilot
Read moreThese cute little animals are prairie voles. Don’t they look happy, cuddled up to each other, sharing a warm nest and some yummy food? Now here’s a montane vole. This is a separate species, but closely related to the prairie vole. Cousins, you might say! Sort of hard to tell…
Read moreNot long ago, while watching the Netflix miniseries, “Inventing Anna” I was struck by how one of the characters, journalist Vivian, interpreted the “suicide attempt” by Anna Delvey. Vivian took it to mean that Anna was a person with real feelings, including hurt and pain, and possibly emotionally damaged as…
Read moreIntroduction As a geriatric psychiatrist, now mostly retired, I’ve been sceptical throughout my entire career about the existence of the entity labeled “schizophrenia”. And for many years, when the subject came up, I might tell bits and pieces of my relationship to this disorder. But the idea of putting this…
Read moreMistletoe, a parasitic plant, is commonly used in Europe as a complementary treatment in cancer patients, improving quality of life and possibly prolonging survival. Although there are several mechanisms that may be responsible for its beneficial effects, the relatively recent discovery of microRNA (miRNA) as a biological regulator suggests another…
Read moreWhen I began my training to become a psychiatrist in 1981, my view of the world and the people in it underwent a radical transformation. I became aware of how power is exercised within relationships. When one person is an employee and the other a boss, it’s generally pretty clear.…
Read moreSleep deprivation, especially REM sleep deprivation, not only treats depression rapidly and effectively, but it may even induce mania. This provides the basis for the theory that insufficient sleep, again primarily insufficient REM sleep, is an important cause of mania. Accordingly, to treat an acute manic episode, we need to…
Read moreHenry Olders, P.Eng, MD, FRCPC Affiliate Member, Dept of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Abstract For many, the current COVID-19 pandemic creates fear and anxiety, to some extent because we lack control. The virus is invisible, even people we are close to could infect us, apparently healthy people may get…
Read moreBig pharma has been taken to task on multiple occasions for selectively publishing studies showing benefits for their products and “burying” research with negative outcomes. So it’s surprising that there is now a trend to publish studies showing negative or null results. In fact, a journal specifically devoted to publishing…
Read moreThe following was published as an opinion piece in the Montreal Gazette, on 2017-11-14: I am excited by Valérie Plante and Projet Montréal’s election promise to improve public transportation in Montreal, and am sure that it will generate many excellent proposals. Here’s one that deserves attention: free public transportation. Let’s…
Read moreI’ve been reading a most interesting book, titled “Deadly medicines and organized crime: how big pharma has corrupted healthcare,” by Dr. Peter Gøtzsche. Dr. Gøtzsche, a specialist in internal medicine and professor at the University of Copenhagen, co-founded the Cochrane Collaboration in 1993 and established the Nordic Cochrane Centre. The…
Read moreThis essay was written while taking a fourth year Bioethics course as a medical student at McGill University. Henry Olders 7717465 27 April 1981 It seems that a large part of the energy being expended on the subject of biomedical ethics has to do with making decisions in situations where…
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