When people come to my office as a primary care doctor, one of the first things I assess is what we call their BMI—basically the ratio of their height and weight. There are many different ways to quantify body weight. One is just to look at oneself in the mirror. What I …

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Medical Assistance in Dying is MAID

Many years ago, I was seeing a patient on weekend hospital call for another doctor. She had advanced lung cancer and was being discharged home. As we discussed her discharge plan, she asked me if I could help her by having drugs administered in the hospital to kill her. This was a startling question, and after a brief …

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The Coming Reproductive Collapse

“The Population Bomb” was written in 1968 by Paul Ehrlich. I was just starting college, and the predictions were ominous. Amazon notes describe it thusly: “Ehrlich’s book warned of a future where the world’s population would outstrip available resources, leading to widespread famine and societal collapse.”

In that year, th…

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Few issues are more divisive and passionately discussed than abortion.

The Supreme Court is currently hearing the “Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine vs the FDA.” The issue to be determined is the legality of the FDA having removed the safety standards that previously…

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Every week or so, someone tells me the story of a person who just “died suddenly,” without any warning or significant past medical history. The other day, it was a middle-aged person, in good physical condition, who died suddenly while doing a swimming workout. Today, the news is that a 33-year-old healthy Canadian man, who had advocated putting unvaxed…

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Skunks in Carpinteria

Several years ago, I watched a show, featuring a mother telling the tragic story of her son’s suicide. He had been a straight-A high school student, had gone off to college in Colorado. This state had, some years earlier, made it easy for people to get recreational marijuana. The young man had rep…

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Have you ever heard of “Edison Disease”? Likely not, as it is a term I coined myself. You won’t find it in any textbook of medicine. When patients come for a visit, I routinely check their blood level of vitamin D3. Many have lower than desirable levels. When I review the lab results with them…

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In early 2020, we began hearing reports of people sick and dying all over the world.  Soon, we were being told to stay at home, to self-isolate for “Two weeks to stop the spread.” We were admonished to do what we could to help the soon to be overwhelmed medical profession manage the tsunami of impending death and destruction. People…

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