medicine 
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SOURCE: Boston Review
2/14/2022
Selling Hope
by Wendy A. Woloson
After a cancer diagnosis, the author still couldn't escape a world of consumerism that relentlessly commodifies even the worst experiences.
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SOURCE: New York Times
12/6/2020
How Black People Learned Not to Trust Public Health
Times Columnist Charles M. Blow looks to scholars including historian Jim Downs to examine mistrust among Black Americans of a potential COVID vaccine; medical authorities have abused the trust and violated the consent of Black patients too often in the past for those fears to be dismissed out of hand.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
10/8/2020
The New England Journal of Medicine Avoided Politics for 208 Years. Now it’s Urging Voters to Oust Trump
The administration's incompetent response to the COVID-19 pandemic spurred the otherwise non-political medical journal to endorse a vote against Donald Trump.
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9/27/2020
The Troubling History of a Black Man's Heart
by Chip Jones
What Virginia doctors saw as a triumphant achievement was a devastating indictment of medical racism and institutional disregard for the dignity of a Black man and his family.
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SOURCE: New York Post
4/18/2020
Miracle ‘Coronavirus Cures’ Haven’t Changed in 700 Years
by Jennifer Wright
The many bizarre "cures" for the coronavirus circulating online are nothing new. Rather, they have a lineage that stretches back to the bubonic plague.
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SOURCE: New York Times
4/15/2020
This Is Not the Time to Let the Market Decide
by Jamie Martin
When it comes to crucial medical supplies, cooperation, not competition, will save lives. History shows that it works.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
4/8/2020
Doctors Have Been Whistleblowers Throughout History. They’ve Also Been Silenced
Dr Li Wenliang tried to sound the alarm about the coronavirus outbreak. For centuries, doctors have been doing the same – leading to backlash and even death.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
3/23/2020
Our Medical Professionals Are Lions. Too Many Political Leaders Are Donkeys.
by Max Boot
Today, the lions are the medical professionals risking their lives to fight the worst pandemic in a century. They are being betrayed by many of their political leaders.
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SOURCE: History.com
11/3/19
The Tortuous History of Trying to Measure Pain
Early researchers used horse hairs and burning machines to try to quantify people’s physical suffering.
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SOURCE: Nursing Clio
9/10/19
Why Don't We Consider Cannabis Part of the American Herbal Renaissance
by Nick Johnson
From pill bottles to produce sections, modern medicine and agriculture have effectively distanced our relationship to the plants that matter most to us.
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SOURCE: Eurasia Review
7/1/2019
Measuring Biological Toll On Brain Function Of Holocaust Survivors
Survivors showed a significantly decreased volume of grey matter in the brain compared with controls of a similar age who had not been directly exposed via personal or family history to the Holocaust.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
4/10/19
Anti-vaxxers are comparing themselves to Holocaust victims — who relied on vaccines to survive
by Helene Sinnreich
The comparison is offensive. It’s also historically wrong.
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
9-6-18
Victorian-Era Orgasms and the Crisis of Peer Review
A favorite anecdote about the origins of the vibrator is probably a myth.
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6/3/18
Why Medicine Needs the Humanities (And No, It’s Not Just About Empathy)
by Sari Altschuler
It’s to train health professionals in narrative, attention, observation, historical perspective, ethics, judgment, performance, and creativity.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
4-17-17
Medieval medical books could hold the recipe for new antibiotics
A team of medievalists and scientists look back to history – including a 1,000-year-old eyesalve recipe – for clues to new antibiotics.
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SOURCE: Forbes
12-13-16
Historians Question Medieval C-Section 'Breakthrough' Trumpeted by the New York Times
by Kristina Killgrove
The Times claimed a new study reflects the consensus view of medical historians. This is far from the case.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
2-16-16
Story of the Week: The man who developed a vaccination for smallpox
by Andrew George
Was his smallpox experiment really unethical?
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8-23-15
Worried About Big Insurance Company Mergers? You Should Be.
by Christy Ford Chapin
What history tells us is that the system is broken.
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SOURCE: NYT
6-1-15
Medicine’s Hidden Roots in an Ancient Manuscript
A language scholar sets out to find the missing pages of an ancient, influential medical text by Galen of Pergamon.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
2-6-15
The Puritans Were America's First Anti-Vaxxers
by Peter Manseau
The anti-vaccine movement today is not solely a religious in character, but much of its rhetoric is identical to theological arguments made against inoculation more than three hundred years ago.