Monthly Archives: October 2019
Prostate Cancer Screening Recommendations Change Yet Again
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th October 2019The US Preventive Services Task Force is as fickle an organization as can be found in medicine. Consider their position about prostate cancer it seems to change more often than an infant’s diaper. Their latest pronunciamento on the subject is summarized below. Their full statement is at the end of this piece. Part of the…
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Manon in HD 2019
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 26th October 2019In 1731, Antoine François Prévost published his novel L’Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. It served as the model for every fallen woman story, play, ballet, or opera that succeeded it. Two of the operas based on the novel are in the standard operatic repertory. Massenet’s Manon was up for its second at bat…
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Anginal Anarchy
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 19th October 2019An article in a medical newsletter I regularly receive Not so Fast: How to Avoid Bias Toward Stents in Managing SIHD describes the unnecessary revascularization of coronary arteries in patients with many patients with SIHD (stable ischemic heart disease). The author of the piece is, of all things, an interventional cardiologist. She quotes several studies….
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You Cannot See My Face
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 18th October 2019The Universe is not only stranger than you think; it’s stranger than you can imagine. Richard Feynman The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. WB Yeats And he (Moses) said: “Show me, now, Your glory!” He (God) said: “I will let all…
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Turandot in HD 2019
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th October 2019The Met seems to have only a couple of dozen operas in its standard repertory, so when it not staging something that will likely never return (eg, Philip Glass’ Akhnaten) it must repeat itself. Such repetition is especially noticeable on its HD telecasts. Today Franco Zeffirelli’s literal recreation of ancient Peking was the first of…
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Dog Ownership and Survival
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 11th October 2019The title of this piece is that of an article in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. The findings below are taken from that article. WHAT IS KNOWN Dog ownership has been associated with decreased cardiovascular risk. A series of studies has suggested associations of dog ownership with lower blood pressure…
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Groucho’s Gender Dysphoria
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th October 2019A little more than six years ago I wrote about my yellow-naped amazon parrot Groucho. In passing, I mentioned that after more than 30 years of thinking Groucho a boy, it turned out that he was a girl. I explained that this species was sexually monomorphic to human eyes, but not to those of parrots…
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Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 4th October 2019Unprocessed Red Meat and Processed Meat Consumption: Dietary Guideline Recommendations From the Nutritional Recommendations Consortium is an article published this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It examines the potential benefits and harms of eating red meat and processed meats. Like most dietary recommendations both in the popular and medical press opinions about meat…
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