Those Unintended Consequences By Leonard Zwelling Another week and another set of problems are unearthed related to our favorite law, the Affordable Care Act. In a hearing before Congress, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Director Doug Elmendorf agreed with both the Republican and Democratic positions that bashed and extolled the virtues of the ACA …
Gas the Quad-February 13, 1969 By Leonard Zwelling Forty-five years ago today I walked up the hill from the Biological Sciences Building past the Duke Chapel onto main quad to see a large assembly of my fellow students milling about in front of the Allen Building. While not as frozen as it is today …
Collaboration: An Essential Part of Art AND Science (The Sting/Paul Simon Concert of February 8) By Leonard Zwelling Go on chron.com and read the review of the concert at the Toyota Center that I attended on February 8. For the first time ever, Sting and Paul Simon presented a joint concert and we in …
The Other Armstrong With Foot in Mouth Disease—Maybe By Leonard Zwelling One of the lead stories today, Monday, February 10 now that both Beatlemania, gay footballers, and the Super Bowl have passed to make way in the public’s collective ADHD, is the report of the CEO of AOL and his retreat from changing the …
50 Years Ago Today-2/9/2014 By Leonard Zwelling Perhaps the most fortunate piece of luck that has ever befallen me was to be born at the right time for music. Most baby boomers first became aware of popular music at the tail end of the 1950’s when Elvis’ upper torso only shimmied into the …
The Silence of the Docs By Leonard Zwelling It has been a fascinating transition to go from the largest and most prestigious academic cancer center in the nation to one of the foremost federally-qualified health clinics in Texas. The fascination stems not from the differences, but from the similarities. First, you would think …
Many Faces, One Shadow By Leonard Zwelling I have a friend named Stephen Levine. Stephen was a major figure in spiritual teaching, and in the death and dying movement after Kubler-Ross’s writings made it acceptable to die. Stephen has taught me a great deal over the years. I have even been able to …
Fewer Traffic Lanes and Smoking; Both Bad: We Knew That Already By Leonard Zwelling The Christie controversy deepens, but seems to be hanging on nuance which is always dangerous in political matters. My experience with politicians has always been that they live in a pretty nuance-free zone. Politics is not rocket surgery and subtlety …
Cookies, Cookie-Cutters, Cancer and The Ask By Leonard Zwelling On January 31, Dr. DePinho published an op-ed piece in the Houston Chronicle entitled “It’s time to renew our efforts in the battle against cancer”. The title alone was shocking. I thought that fighting cancer and making it history was what was already going on …
FOB: Follow-on Biologics or Full of Baloney? By Leonard Zwelling The two links below do a good job outlining the problem. It will come as no shock to the oncologists out there that biologic agents like proteins and antibodies extracted from living systems like cells in culture are valuable agents in the treatment …
