Statins-Harvard-Roosevelt

News Updates: Time Magazine

The New York Times Headline:Harvard Medical School in Ethics Quandary
By DUFF WILSON, March 2, 2009
“In a first-year pharmacology class at Harvard Medical School, Matt Zerden grew wary as the professor promoted the benefits of cholesterol drugs and seemed to belittle a student who asked about side effects.”

Very brave student indeed. And it did not stop him from finding out more:

“Mr. Zerden later discovered something by searching online that he began sharing with his classmates. The professor was not only a full-time member of the Harvard Medical faculty, but a paid consultant to 10 drug companies, including five makers of cholesterol treatments.”

Did he have anything to do with our Statin Police as featured in NHS Blog Doctor?

“I felt really violated,” Mr. Zerden, now a fourth-year student, recently recalled. “Here we have 160 open minds trying to learn the basics in a protected space, and the information he was giving wasn’t as pure as I think it should be.”

He is lucky he is still there!

“Mr. Zerden’s minor stir four years ago has lately grown into a full-blown movement by more than 200 Harvard Medical School students and sympathetic faculty, intent on exposing and curtailing the industry influence in their classrooms and laboratories, as well as in Harvard’s 17 affiliated teaching hospitals and institutes.
They say they are concerned that the same money that helped build the school’s world-class status may in fact be hurting its reputation and affecting its teaching.”

The NY Times article continues:

“Among them: Some 1,600 of 8,900 professors and lecturers have disclosed financial ties under the school’s disclosure rules.”
“There were 149 with ties to Pfizer and 130 with ties to Merck. The school’s dean, Jeffrey Flier, previously received a $500,000 research grant from Bristol-Myers Squibb and consulted for three Cambridge, Mass., biotech companies, though he told NYT those relationships were over. The prior dean sat on the board of Baxter International for half of the decade he led the school, earning up to $197,000 a year from the company.”

There is more:

“Harvard should be embarrassed by the F grade it recently received from the American Medical Student Association, a national group that rates how well medical schools monitor and control drug industry money.

Harvard Medical School’s peers received much higher grades, ranging from the A for the University of Pennsylvania, to B’s received by Stanford, Columbia and New York University, to the C for Yale.”

“To educate a man in mind, and not in morals,

is to educate a menace to society.”

Theodore Roosevelt 26th President, United States

Finland & Music: Easter Passion & Dementia!

Finland is one of the few non Asian countries where their educational results matched those of Singapore and Hong Kong without spoon feeding.

They value their Health Care system and they protect their National Parks.

Looks like their emphasis on music education may be good for the grandparents too.

Listening to classical music modulates genes that are responsible for brain functions

March 13, 2015

Helsingin yliopisto (University of Helsinki)

Although listening to music is common in all societies, the biological determinants of listening to music are largely unknown. According to a new study, listening to classical music enhanced the activity of genes involved in dopamine secretion and transport, synaptic neurotransmission, learning and memory, and down-regulated the genes mediating neurodegeneration. Several of the up-regulated genes were known to be responsible for song learning and singing in songbirds, suggesting a common evolutionary background of sound perception across species.

Listening to music enhanced the activity of genes involved in dopamine secretion and transport, synaptic function, learning and memory. One of the most up-regulated genes, synuclein-alpha (SNCA) is a known risk gene for Parkinson's disease that is located in the strongest linkage region of musical aptitude. SNCA is also known to contribute to song learning in songbirds.

"The up-regulation of several genes that are known to be responsible for song learning and singing in songbirds suggest a shared evolutionary background of sound perception between vocalizing birds and humans," says Dr. Irma Järvelä, the leader of the study.

In contrast, listening to music down-regulated genes that are associated with neurodegeneration, referring to a neuroprotective role of music.

"The effect was only detectable in musically experienced participants, suggesting the importance of familiarity and experience in mediating music-induced effects," researchers remark.

The findings give new information about the molecular genetic background of music perception and evolution, and may give further insights about the molecular mechanisms underlying music therapy.

                                                      

© 2012 Am Ang Zhang

A reprint:

Easter Passion: Classical Music & The Next Generation

 Easter will soon be here and it is time for Bach's best music.

Passiflora alata ©2008 Am Ang Zhang

In the early 1600s, a Jesuit priest came across a Passion flower in South America and was taken by its complexity and beauty. That night he had a vision, so the story went, that the flower's trio of stigma resembled the three nails used in the crucifixion; the stamens represented the wounds; the spiky purple crown above the petals, the crown of thorns; and the tendrils of the plant were the scourges. The name was a direct reference to the Passion of Christ. I find it peculiar that the plant has been found in the wild in every continent except Europe and Antarctica. 

In England the Victorians loved it and then fell out of love with it. Now it is making a comeback possibly due to the fruits’ popularity in modern gourmet cooking. 

There are many varieties and some are edible. Of the edible kind there are two big groups, the one with the dark skin one and the one with the yellow skin.

The plant itself, from the stem to the leaves and the flowers, have been used by South American natives for various medicinal purposes, none currently approved by the F.D.A.

The fruit has some of the most concentrated fragrance of any fruit species. The charm is in its acidity which enhances the intense flavour and natural sweetness. With fine vanilla ice-cream it is a delight. It can be used as a topping for many desserts and famously for Pavlova. It is made into soft drinks and is often used in tropical cocktails. The golden variety is best eaten fresh and the dark skin ones can be left to mature as the flavour intensifies further.

With the golden to near blood red seeds, the fruit qualifies as a colourful non-green fruit, with all the necessary anti-oxidants. To me it is just flavoursome. 

©2008 Am Ang Zhang

As it is Easter I am listening to St. Matthew's Passion. Would this indeed be the piece of music to take to your desert island? 

“On the Easter music note, it is perhaps appropriate to mention Mahler’s Second Symphony: The Resurrection. The text of the music made no biblical reference and it was Mahler’s very personal view of life and his life was full of tragedies and suffering, with the premature deaths of his siblings and daughter, and his own heart disease. There has not been a greater composer to emerge since his death.”

The biologist Lewis Thomas when asked what message he would send to aliens famously said: “……Bach, all of Bach……”. 

Richard Dawkins picked it as one of his eight desert island discs. Now you know.

The Guardian:Why we are shutting children out of classical music.
April 2, 2009 Tom ServiceTom Service is a 33-year-old classical music critic. For 25 years of concert-going he found himself to be amongst the youngest in the audience.
But there is something else that is strange:
“I've noticed that bus and train stations now pipe canned classical music, day-in, day-out, through their speakers as a way of stopping young people hanging around. So toxic have the associations become, that this experiment actually works: there is evidence that playing Beethoven and Mahler has reduced antisocial behaviour on the transport network.”
He went on:

“An entire generation, aged between 10 and 30, seems radically disenfranchised from classical music. How, and when, did this happen?”
Then in Finland:

“A couple of years ago, I saw a class of seven-year-olds in Helsinki enthusiastically learning Finnish and maths by performing sophisticated little songs with astonishing tuning and rhythm. And this wasn't a music school - just a typical Finnish state primary. Finland only developed its curriculum in the postwar period, but it works: today, the Finns are classical music world-beaters, and their education system has produced more great instrumentalists, conductors and composers per capita than any other country on earth.”
Esa-Pekka Salonen is of course the Principal Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Finland’s most famous music export in recent times.
I was at a concert recently and a large numbers of players in the orchestra were Koreans. Well apart from steel and TV and cars, the Koreans are now into golf and music in a big way. The LPGA is certainly dominated by Koreans. Could it be that music gave them the edge in golf as well, not just the chopsticks?

Tom again:
“Here is a ready-made answer to the problems of renewing classical music's role in society. Make them statutory requirements for every local authority, and give them the responsibility for rebuilding the network of classical musical possibility that used to resound throughout the country.”
And perhaps throw in golf for good measure.

It was in 1990 that American troops played deafening pop and heavy metal music day and night outside the Vatican Mission to Panama City that Noriega surrendered.

In future, this strategy might have to be changed, Beethoven, Mahler and God forbid even Bach.

Tom Service’s last words:

“We've already lost one generation - we can't afford to lose another.”

Other Easter Posts:

Easter Passion: Bach, Beethoven and Mahler

Passion and Easter

The Cockroach Catcher II: Attempted Living---Review from Canada

Panama Canal

One of our early tours together.

Amazon Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars Our Lives in His Book

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 5, 2023I told Am Ang that I should not do a book review at Amazon. Simply because a review, if I know how, should be about the book, and not about my own overwhelming feelings and connections with his life stories. At this late date, all the insightful and all positive comments have already been made. At the risk of accusation of plagiarism, the book is not an ordinary memoir indeed. Written by a gifted author of very high professional achievements and contribution to society. Fully covering most aspects of human endeavours, cultural and traditional activities, music, food and wine, history, geography and travel logs, contemporary world events, politics, and notable celebrities, all kinds of personalities, etc. etc. 

Mateus Rose

Private Asylum

Easy to read, interesting and entertaining. Backbone of the book is the case files of the doctor with his autobiography built in and linked up to it. I have no medical background what-so-ever. Anorexia Nervosa to me is Karen Carpenter. Schizophrenic paranoia is Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny. Autism is Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, and so on. Yet I find most of the cases are so written that if we read on, most of the unknown medical terms eventually became self-explanatory. Losing track of story sequence could similarly be restored. Yes, we are both movie buffs. Only Am Ang use them to make a point. I get my education from them. By the way, I am recently hooked on the CBS series Bull, about a psychologist turned trial scientist to psycho-read jury for selection in court. Every episode is a new case of different story that reflected society. May be Am Ang would consider a similar project with the case details expanded. I also like the way the story line jumping back and forth through time. Isn’t it how our train of thought works, one thing reminding of another in time long passed? Oh, before I forget, I must mention the tons of common sense employed in the cases, something that separates a great professional from a just tick-box trained one.

Class reunion: Laguna Azul

So much, or so little left for me to say, about the book. It strikes me if Am Ang did not keep a detailed diary all through the years, then he must have exceptional memory. What should I say about the author? Not being long winded and for wanting of a better term, I will just say, to me, he is A Man of All Seasons. Not to be confused with the sixteenth century Englishman who lost his head by messing with the king with his eight wives. That guy they called A Man For All Seasons. How more original can one get? Rhetorically speaking, of course, just in case.

Now time to get close and personal. Am Ang just said to a group of us: “…. different bits of my book have a slightly different effect on different individuals and that its sharing is most treasured. …”. He spoke my mind. That established, I hereby challenge all comers to be the one most affected by the book.

Hong Kong

Incestuous Failure

My case as follows. My family returned to Hong Kong after the war when I was a toddler. We still have pictures of riding a tricycle. We settled in some ancestral premises in the walled village of Nga Tsin Wai, near the Kai Tak Airport. My uncle, aunt, with two of their five children joined us shortly later. One uncle and father-in-law were fighter pilots during the war. 

Peggy’s Cove Nova Scotia

Canada

Why Psychiatry

Then came Kowloon Government Primary School. The tiffin lunch box, the first record player/radio/speaker combo with our first records. Train rides through the tunnel pulling down windows, and on and on. Then there were three last years of high school with Am Ang in the same class. With good marks he entered HKU Medical School and then UK to be British. With poor marks I ended up in Canada to be Canuck. We both enjoy non team sports. For him it is golf and snorkeling and for me is scuba and fencing. 

Snorkeling in Laguna Azul

After retirement, in our many reunion holiday cruises and trips we did snorkel together in Aruba and Panama.
Did I say I have no more to say about the book? Not true. Still have to tell what the effects are on me. I am lucky to have a career full of interesting anecdotes in a boring profession. Still that is where I lost many points compared with the case encyclopedia of our renowned child psychiatrist in Cockroach II. However, with the very similar childhood background, same secondary school, closely mirrored life path thereafter, and the many reunion trips later, I find my life story all over the book. Natural to think that it is a coincidence and unique. 

Class Reunion at Valle Escondido

Panama

Then Am Ang tipped us off. With the huge scope of life experiences encompassed in the book, it is inevitable that anyone could find a piece of himself or herself in it. Just a matter of how much.
A great book of knowledge, no matter how good, is the author sharing his or her knowledge. A great book of wisdom, no matter how wise, is the author sharing his or her wisdom. Cockroach II, however, is my good friend Am Ang, sharing knowledge, wisdom, and his life story to remind all of us, whether know him or not, about our own lives. That is what this book is all about.

Laguna Azul

Final Chapter

There is hope as the sun rises!

The Cockroach Catcher II: Attempted Living---A Review from USA

The Cockroach Catcher II: Attempted Living---A New Review

The Cockroach Catcher II: Attempted Living---Review from Australia, Cade's Country.

The Cockroach Catcher II: Attempted Living---Reviews

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The Cockroach Catcher II: Attempted Living

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Cockroach Catcher-Seven Minute Cure

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