Friday, May 23, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Homeopathy can kill
Yesterday, in Italy, Florence, one 16 years old girl has died because of homeopathy.
She has been diagnosed diabetes, so to have a normal life she had to take insulin regularly.
Her parents were sad, ofcourse, about her illness, and they hoped to be able to cure her completely. This is of course not yet possible, although there have been many steps toward the cure. The parents have then been disappointed to hear from the doctors that their child couldn't be cured and, as so many people does, they blamed the Medicine of their misfortune. This is a very common behavior that leads people to seek for new cures, more effective cures, outside science. This is what these partents did. They went to a homeopathic "doctor" who claimed that insuline will never be helpful for diabetes, and she should have rather taken some vitamines. The parents, may because of their ignorance, hopefully, or maybe just because of the resentment for the traditional medicine, they decided to follow this advice, and take out the insuline to the girl. Of course, after few days the girl went into a bad coma, and after few hours died.
Now the italian newspapers are protecting these parents, saying that they have been deceived by this doctor, who wasn't a real doctor (obviously, no?) and who was not even subscribed to the homeopathy register.
First, I didn't even know there was a homeopathy register. So I checked. Well, it's not a real register, is more a list of people who followed a school (in Italy at least) detached from the University and the faculty of Medicine, but that is recognised from the FNOMCeO (the Italian Federation of Physician and Surgeons). So, this doctor didn't followed the school of Homeopathy, where they teach you properly how much water to put in a substance. And, I guess, they also teach you when the time for jokes is over, and you have to send the person to the real hospital. Well, this guy didn't recognised the moment. But of course, the mistake is easily understood, as the Italian Association of Doctors recognise the homeopathy, so why we shouldn't trust it?
Well, some reasons not to trust it exist. For example, the fact that claims for efficacy of homeopathic treatment beyond the placebo effect are unsupported by scientific and clinical studies.Homeopathy is scientifically implausible and claims for pharmacological effect at many common homeopathic dilutions violate fundamental principles of mainstream science: for instance, above about 12C or 24X potencies, the level of dilution is greater than the number of molecules present in the original tincture. Claims that these could still have a pharmacological effect greater than placebo violate, among other things, the Law of Mass Action, a fundamental principle of chemistry. This is globally accepted. Most of the homeopaths claim that their methods go beyond science. Of course, apart from few exceptions, homeopathy is harmless, as it's mainly restricted to drink water. Nevertheless, cases like this, of lack of cure, can be very dangerous. I think that the society shouldn't react accusing a single homeopath for what has happen, but should point out to the community the danger of refusing a scientific cure. Then, if people wants to die, I believe it's their choice. But if our society is fighting so hard for the euthanasia, and the will of interrupt therapeutic persistence, they should also be considering this problem.
I have the impression that most of the people believe that our body doesn't follow the normal scientific rules, but behaves more "on the feeling". Well, we should have learn by now that this is not true. I strongly believe that the duty of our society, in particular the Association of Doctors, should start a very strong informational campaign to tell the people what is science, what is not, why some things work and why some things don't. After this, people is free to do whatever they want (not on a minor, anyway, only on themselves) but at least the doctors should take a clear position over it.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
's-Gravenhage: het grootste dorp van Europa
In the last post (of mine) I was showing the weird way the Dutch had in defining their Capital (even if I discovered that many Capitals, not least Rome, for long time have had not constitutional status of being a Capital. But still you'd agree that putting the Government, the Queen's house or at least the Court of Justice in the Capital city would have helped in identifying it).But I discovered something more about the "non capital" of The Netherlands.
This is 's-Gravenhage (literally: the Count's Hedge), nicknamed Den Haag with grateful permissiveness.
In the last post I was showing that the old capital of the richest province of Holland had to give up the title of Capital of The Netherlands, in favor of Amsterdam, because of concerns and envy from the other province's capitals.
But this was not the only curse of this city.
In fact: Den Haag is not and never was a city!
I know this can sound silly, so let me explain.
Den Haag originated around 1230 when Floris IV, Count of Holland, chose that spot to make it his personal hunting residence.
Later the counts of Holland used Den Haag as their administrative center and residence and when the Dukes of Burgundy gained control over the counties of Holland and Zeeland they appointed a stadtholder to rule for them the States of Holland.
And so on and so on...
The problem was that at the beginning the other cities in Holland were afraid that Den Haag (the pet's teacher: the favorite of the Counts) would have gain too much power and take over the "district governing board" and rule them all.
So how could they set Den Haag apart of the council of cities?
Easy: not giving it the city right!
So for centuries (until 1798 when the city rights quit existing in the Lower Countries) Den Haag had a lot of civic privileges (such as having citizens, an urban governing board, a city guard and an annual fair) but never had the right to be called a city.
That's why it's still today called the largest village in Europe: het grootste dorp van Europa.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
The New Italian Government
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Well, well, well... Berlusconi is a non-stop surprise! He is so cool, that has been the fasted prime minister in the history of Italy to form the government... and what government!!
The lady in the picture you can see here, is for example one of the new mininster of Italy. But don't be mistaken by the appearence, she is a home-and-church girl, she was indeed candidate to become the minister of the family. As you can see, she can probably feed several babies, so she knows what she's talking about. She had a very strong program for that: “Le mie priorità sono chiarissime: difesa del diritto alla vita. Difesa del ruolo della famiglia, delle tradizioni. Attenzione ai problemi delle giovani donne. Aiuto alle categorie in difficoltà: per esempio, le ragazze madri”. (Her priority are very clear - of course, you just need to see the picture - protect the right to life - in "italian" is another way to say she's against the abortion - protect the rule of the family - in italian is another way to say she's against gay people - Protect the traditions - in italian is another way to say she's agains muslims - Pay attention to the problems of young girls - probably she wants to distribute free diet bars to everybody - Help to the category who has difficulties: for example the young single mothers - again, another way to say she's against the abortion, in this case even for girls <18)
But then, you know, life is hard, so she had to renounce to the ministry of the family, but she got a different one... the ministry of the "same opportunity", that is a ministry to defend people from any kind of discrimination, first of which the sexual discrimination.
That is really driving me crazy... In the country in which women have less leading positions, in which some women had even gave up to look for a job, because they have to pay the fee for the kindergarden but even working they would earn less then the fee, in which anyway there are not enough kindergarden, in the country where there are more violence on women within the home walls, we have now a prime minister that says "Yeah, but right-wing women are hotter then left-wing women" and just to prove it, here we have the new minister. And she should take care that the Italian women have their rights? That italian women could become the leader of a company without sleeping with somebody? The idea of the italian macho that thinks about women only for sex, and has any kind of respect, intellectual or professional, will be surely fighted by this whore.
Well, my friends, I think I will stay glued to The Netherland (or, actually any other country that is NOT Italy) for a loooooong loooong time....
You wanted them... you got them.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Amsterdam: Hoofdstad van Nederland
Koninginnedag is gone and I'm starting to recollect "bits of my body and mind". Few days ago, when I was still struggling with my pieces a question came to my mind: what makes of Amsterdam the capital of The Netherlands?
(Well, you know I'm a geographical-geek, so it's pretty normal for me to think this kind of things when I'm dizzy.)
In normal Countries (which this is of course not the case) the capital city is the place where the Parliament and the President/King stay, but here they both reside in Den Haag. Nevertheless if you ask a dutch guy which is his Capital he would say "of course Amsterdam!" even without knowing why.
So the answer is obvious: let's have a look in the constitution! And indeed there you can find (art. 32)
Nadat de Koning de uitoefening van het koninklijk gezag heeft aangevangen, wordt hij zodra mogelijk beëdigd en ingehuldigd in de hoofdstad Amsterdam in een openbare verenigde vergadering van de Staten-Generaal.meaning that the king is sworn in Amsterdam, meant as the Capital.
The funny thing is that this article dates back only at the 1983. Before that year no mention at all was to be found in the Constitution, even if every Dutchman knew for sure Amsterdam was the Capital.
So what happened? Even if Amsterdam has been since the XVI century the most populous and economically important city in the Low Countries, Den Haag was always the historical Capital of the richest province (County at first) of Holland (where actually also Amsterdam was included) within the confederation of the United Provinces. But during the Napoleonic Era his son Luis Napoleon Bonaparte "King of Holland" decided to move the Capital and the Seat of the Government to Amsterdam "because I like so".
Once in 1813 this area gained back independence and became The Kingdom of The Netherlands the Seat of the Government was moved back to Den Haag but Amsterdam was kept as Capital (probably because the other Provinces didn't want to be officially ruled by Holland and its Capital, Den Haag).
So between 1814 and 1815 the Constitution was stating that the King has to be sworn in Amsterdam, as the Capital. Unfortunately when they modified the Constitution in 1815 (and then again in 1848 and 1917) the part "as the Capital" was taken off and the status of the Capital of The Netherlands was constitutionally not clear until (as we saw) 1983 with article 32.
But they are Dutch so this was normal...
(and this is why I like them)
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