Donald Trump, May 19, 2020: “Couple weeks ago I started taking [hydroxychloroquine]. Cause I think it is good. I have heard a lot of good stories. And if it is not good, I will tell you, all right, I am not going to get hurt by it.” Let’s rewind from the present: May 26: Due […]
Medicine
Posted inLetters + Opinion
A Reasonable Ask
I place another log in the wood stove, sit down at my dining table, mug of hot coffee at my fingertips. The fire puts out a steady warmth. Windows fill three of the four walls of this great room and I wonder if the light leaking out from my lamp bothers the neighbors. I always […]
Posted inNews
The Whistleblower
Here’s a story that might help you understand Dr. Kim Ervin. Years before she would arrive in Humboldt County to start a decades-long career providing women with healthcare and delivering babies, she was working in a medical clinic at Frances E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She was nine months pregnant but still […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Living with Cancer
“It may be tough to convince patients, even those with an incurable disease, that the best approach is not to kill as many cancer cells as possible but as few as necessary.” — James DeGregori and Robert Gatenby, Scientific American, August, 2019 When his wife, Nancy, was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, veteran science reporter George […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Cancer, Part 2: Turtles, Birds and Rabbits
Last week, we looked at some of the many reasons why the diagnosis and treatment of cancer are so difficult and controversial. A common way of illustrating the problem is the “turtle-bird-rabbit” analogy. Although it can equally well apply to breast cancer (the most common cancer in women), here I’ll discuss it in relation to […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The 4/20 That Wasn’t
Did you hear the crickets on Sunday? Downtown Arcata was slightly more populated with skunky tourists, and one lonely celebrator traversed H Street, tinny whoops and slides of electronic music belching from his waist-clipped radio. But overall, it was a doobie-day downer. Redwood Park was all but empty, reported HumRights executive director (and NCJ Media […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Cancer: Evolution While-You-Wait
Every second, some 4 million cells in each of our bodies clone themselves by copying their DNA into two new cells, each virtually identical to its parent. The process isn’t perfect, and occasionally a mutation occurs — if the process were perfect, we’d never have gotten beyond the original cell that kick-started life on Earth. […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The High Court
You could argue that nine grown-ups who sit around all day in silky black robes always look ridiculous, but the U.S. Supreme Court looked especially foolish last week when it decided not to hear an appeal of the federal government’s classification of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug — that is, a substance with no […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Ganja Capitalism
The pharmacy bottles pictured above are part of a collection of old cannabis-industry flotsam that belongs to “an unofficial historian in Mendocino County.” A slideshow of the collection recently appeared on High Times online, and the post should prove enlightening to anyone who considers medical marijuana a recent invention. One photo shows tall, green tins […]