In Medicine, New Isn’t Always Improved

nytimes

IT is an American impulse to covet the new and improved — whether it's a faster computer, a smarter cellphone or a more fuel-efficient car. And in medicine, too, new drugs, devices and procedures have advanced patient care.

But the promise of innovation can also prove a trap, a situation now playing out with dire consequences for possibly tens of thousands of people who received artificial hips intended to let them remain active.

The implants, known as metal-on-metal hips, were regarded by device makers and surgeons as a major advance over previous designs that used both metal and plastic. Now federal regulators and medical researchers are scrambling to determine how many implant recipients have been injured by the devices, which can shed dangerous metallic debris through wear.  [....]

Australian school's sex abuse secret probed

Australian    Age

POLICE are trying to breach a wall of secrecy at a private boys school in St Kilda East over allegations of sex crimes by a former teacher who is now in jail in the United States.

David Kramer fled Australia in the early 1990s after accusations from parents that he had sexually abused boys at Yeshivah College, an Orthodox Jewish school. The school did not report the complaints to police.

Former students, who have spoken to The Age on condition of anonymity, said the allegations were covered up by the school. ''Parents were threatened they would be thrown out of the school if they told police,'' one said.

However, several alleged victims have come forward after Kramer, 50, was jailed for seven years in the US for molesting a 12-year-old boy while conducting a youth program at a synagogue in St Louis in 2007 [...]

"walking quadriplegic’’ completes Ironman triathalon

nytimes


Finishing an Ironman triathlon, which consists of a a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a marathon, is a remarkable feat for any athlete. But 30-year-old John Carson, who will retire from the sport after this weekend's Ironman in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, is no ordinary athlete.

Two years ago, Mr. Carson was training on his bicycle near his home on Long Island, N.Y., when a sport utility vehicle smashed into him from behind. He remembers fading in and out of consciousness and waking up in the intensive care unit as a quadriplegic.

"When I was a younger guy, to me the thought of being paralyzed, I was the first person to say I'd rather be dead,'' Mr. Carson said. "I remember waking up in the I.C..U., my wife being there, my mom and my family, and being so thankful for being alive.''

Texting on Saturdays seen as increasingly common ‘addiction.’

jewish week

At a recent campgrounds Shabbaton sponsored by a local Modern Orthodox high school, the teenage participants broke into small groups after the meals, as is usual, to talk with their friends.

On their cell phones.

Of the 17 students who attended the weekend program, said 17-year-old Julia, a junior at the day school, most sent text messages on Shabbat – a violation of the halachic ban on using electricity in non-emergency situations.

"Only three [of the 17 students] didn't text on Shabbos," Julia says. Most did it "out in the open," sitting at picnic tables. "They weren't hiding it."

The students at the Shabbaton were not the exception for their age group. According to interviews with several students and administrators at Modern Orthodox day schools, the practice of texting on Shabbat is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially, but not exclusively, among Modern Orthodox teens.

It's a literally hot-button issue that teachers and principals at yeshiva day schools, whose academic year ends this week, acknowledge and deal with it in both tacit and oblique ways. For the most part, they extol the virtues of keeping Shabbat rather than chastising those who violate it. [....]

Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz - Speaking to your children about personal safety

Speaking To Your Kids About Personal Safety from Yakov Horowitz on Vimeo.

The Silver Segulah ring advertised in Mishpacha - is not validated by Rav Sternbuch

The following notice appeared in this week's Mishpacha magazine
regarding a two page ad that was printed in the previous edition. The ad
asserted that the ring helps many serious problems and that it was
endorsed by Rav Moshe Sternbuch and other rabbis. This is the response
provided by Rav Sternbuch.

Dueling ad on fish worms - Please explain this contradictory two part Yated ad

On June 7, 2011 the Hamodia published two ads concerning fish worms - one by those who prohibit fish because of the worms and  one by those who don't. Yated published only the ad that prohibited. However a closer look at the ad which appeared on page 41 - from those who prohibit fish with worms - seems to indicate that it is not one ad but rather it reflects two  disparate views . Furthermore the  two parts of the same ad in fact contradict each other.

I would appreciate feedback as to how these ads are to be understood The statement at the top of the page, with Rav Eliashiv shlita's, signature, seems to saying that the fish are forbidden. But the bottom part says only that some fish are only of concern. Furthermore I have also been told by experts in the field that the list in the second part is based on very haphazard and subjective data and that in fact no systematic scientific study has been done. (For example they didn't examine 100 cans of salmon and determine the frequency with which worms appeared.) I would greatly appreciate clarification of exactly what means were used to determined whether a particular type of fish is infected or is clean. I would also like to know how the two parts of the ad can be reconciled. Are they saying the fish are definitely prohibited (part 1) or is the prohibition because of a sofek (part 2)?

The Doctor Who Performed on Rav Elyashiv

5tjt

He is one of America’s top doctors and was voted so in 2007 by a group of peers.  Dr. Daniel Clair is Chairman of the Department of Vascular Surgery and a Vascular Surgeon practicing at Cleveland Clinic's main campus.  He is also the surgeon who successfully operated on the Gadol HaDor Rav Sholom Moshe Elyashiv this past Sunday.

Dr. Clair specializes in carotid artery surgery and thoraco-abdominal aortic repair and reconstruction. This was a surgery that he had performed on Rav Elyashiv seven years ago, and one that he required once again.  Both times Dr. Clair flew to Eretz Yisroel, himself, his team and his equipment.  Prior to this surgery which took place at Hadassa Hospital in Jerusalem (at 1:30 PM New York City time), Dr. Clair had asked for a blessing from Rav Elyashiv for a successful surgery.  Rav Ekyashiv gave a bracha that he should be a successful shliach. [....]

Simcha Safety: Olomeinu's summer safety points for kids regarding protecting their bodies

Bracha Goetz provides safety advice against molesters for kids in a
mainstream Chareidi publication

Stoning a dog: False slow-news libel reaches ends of the earth

Rotter.net

  תמונות: עלילת הדם של בחדרי חרדים עושה גלים בכל העולם 
 
    הסיפור השקרי לחלוטין על בית דין שהורה לסקול כלב שהתחיל באתר בחדרי חרדים ועבר ל-Ynet באנגלית - עושה גלים בעולם הערבי, בעולם המערבי ואפילו בהודו. הסיפור הופץ מ-Ynet לניוזויירים הגדולים בעולם - AP ו-AFP ומשם ל-BBC ולשבועון TIME הנחשב. התגובות רובן ככולן אנטישמיות מובהקות.

I’m O.K., You’re a Psychopath

NYTimes

[...] If you aren't sure whether you are a psychopath, Ronson can help. He lists all the items on the standard diagnostic checklist, developed by the psychologist Robert Hare. You can score yourself on traits like "glibness/superficial charm," "lack of remorse or guilt," "promiscuous sexual behavior" and 17 other traits. As one psychologist tells Ronson, if you are bothered at the thought of scoring high, then don't worry. You're not a psychopath.

One of the traits on the checklist is "callous/lack of empathy." This is the focus of another new book, The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty (Basic Books, $25.99), by Simon Baron-Cohen, a Cambridge psychologist best known for his research on autism. Baron-Cohen begins by telling how, at the age of 7, he learned that the Nazis turned Jews into lampshades and bars of soap, and he goes on to provide other examples of human savagery. To explain such atrocities, he offers an ambitious theory grounded in the concept of empathy, which he defines as "our ability to identify what someone else is thinking or feeling and to respond to their thoughts and feelings with an appropriate emotion." For Baron-Cohen, evil is nothing more than "empathy erosion." [....]

I think there's a better approach, one that involves breaking empathy into two parts, understanding and feeling, as Baron-Cohen himself does elsewhere in his book. Individuals with autism are unable to understand the mental lives of other people. Psychopaths, by contrast, get into others' heads just fine; they are seducers, manipulators, con men . . . and often worse. (Ronson tells how one psychopath — "good-looking, neatly dressed," with "a bit of a twinkle in his eye" — encountered a troubled teenager and decided to provoke the kid into attacking his family with a baseball bat, killing one person.) The problem with psychopaths lies in their lack of compassion, their willingness to destroy lives out of self-interest, malice or even boredom. [....]

Chareidi women's response to wife abuse

Kikar Shabbat

יותר ויותר נשים חרדיות המתמודדות עם אלימות קשה, בוחרות לעשות לה סוף. שושי הלר יצאה בעקבות הנשים האמיצות והארגונים שמעניקים להן בית-חם. האם אפשר לזהות כבר במפגשי השידוכים נטייה לאלימות? מהן התכונות שחשוב לברר על הבחור, בנוסף למה שבודקים בדרך כלל? מיהם הגורמים שאליהם תפנה אישה חרדית הנתונה תחת אלימות?

Sexual identity: Gay advocate suddenly discovers he is straight

NYTimes

[....] It was a good question. Had part of me come to “save” my old friend from the clutches of the Christian right? Though I don’t doubt that sexual attraction can evolve, I was skeptical of Michael’s claim of heterosexuality — and I rejected his argument that “homosexuality prevents us from finding our true self within.” Besides, I had a hard time believing that Michael’s “true self” was a fundamentalist Christian who writes derogatorily about being gay. But whatever aspirations I had about persuading Michael to join the ranks of ex-ex-gays, they were no match for his eagerness to save me.

“God loves you more than any dude will ever love you,” he told me at the cafe. “Don’t put your faith in some man, some flesh. That’s what we do when we’re stuck in the gay identity, when we’re stuck in that cave. We go from guy to guy, looking for someone to love us and make us feel O.K., but God is so much better than all the other masters out there.”

Michael, who is 36, now often refers to gay life as a kind of cave — or cage. In an open letter to Ricky Martin, published on WorldNetDaily after Martin came out, he wrote, “Homosexuality is a cage in which you are trapped in an endless cycle of constantly wanting more — sexually — that you can never actually receive, constantly full of emptiness, trying to justify your twisted actions by politics and ‘feel good’ language.”

Had Michael been secretly unhappy as a gay man, and was he now projecting that onto all gay-identified people? I broached the question later that night at his small off-campus apartment, where we sat in his barren kitchen eating Oreo cookies. “Well, you can’t see how dark it is in a cave when you’re in it,” he said. “But, no, at the time I didn’t consider myself unhappy.” [....]

Gentle chinuch - with horses

NYTimes

When the soulful cowboy philosopher Buck Brannaman talks, people — and horses — listen. The aw-shucks star and one of the two-legged attractions in the documentary “Buck,” Mr. Brannaman is a former trick rope performer who, after a childhood of pain, became something of a shaman and an inspiration for the novel and movie “The Horse Whisperer.” He doesn’t just talk to the animals; he also transforms snorting, bucking horses into companions who follow his lead without a tether and even join him in a graceful meadow duet. [....]

If there’s nothing essentially remarkable about Buck Brannaman’s bad childhood, there is something exceptional about how he transcended it. After knocking around in his early 20s, he had his mind blown while watching a clinic with Ray Hunt and his teacher, Tom Dorrance, modern pioneers in a gentle training method — a philosophy, really — that’s called, perhaps paradoxically (as PETA might insist), natural horsemanship. Smitten by what he saw, Mr. Brannaman embraced these methods, became a disciple of the men and of Mr. Dorrance’s brother, Bill, and went on to spread the word. It’s a measure of the passion this approach inspires that in the book “The Greatest Horse Stories Ever Told,” one observer rhapsodizes: “Tom Dorrance is Yoda, Ray Hunt is Obi-Wan Kenobi and Buck Brannaman is Luke Skywalker!”