Should Artificial Intelligence be your Doctor? A Warning

Should artificial intelligence be your doctor? A warning for you. As I’ve mentioned here recently, AI is an amazing animal. As a “Chatbot,” AI can respond like a human with seemingly infinite knowledge. But to me AI is something of a murky creature facing an undefined future. Despite its eloquence, AI, in its ChatGPT form, is not infrequently wrong (see here, and here). If you would like a more detailed analysis of ChatGPT’s potential errors, a summary can be found here.

Earlier this month (6 July 2023) the Journal of the American Medical Association published online a series of articles on the risks and potential benefits of AI in health care. Below is an excerpt from the opening of one of the JAMA articles (AI Chatbots, Health Privacy, and Challenges to HIPAA Compliance). The article is largely free of medspeak, and the first three paragraphs telegraph the major theme of the article.

From JAMA

 As health care becomes more expensive and difficult to access, people turn to websites and smartphone apps for medical advice. These resources increasingly feature artificial intelligence (AI)–powered chatbots such as Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Chatbots rely on large language models (LLMs), which are the next generation of internet search products. These tools have rekindled enthusiasm for AI-powered health care. Chatbot answers to health care questions often compare favorably to those of other medical resources. Moreover, chatbots can save time by taking on repetitive tasks that contribute to clinician burnout. However, the technology can cause significant harm. Large language models make frequent mistakes, tend to reflect the biases of their training data, and can manipulate people. In one instance, a user reportedly died by suicide after the software urged him to harm himself.

We are only beginning to understand the risks, including how chatbots threaten privacy. This Viewpoint examines the privacy concerns raised by medical uses of LLMs. We conclude that chatbots cannot comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in any meaningful way despite industry assurances. Even if they could, it would not matter because HIPAA is outdated and inadequate to address AI-related privacy concerns. Consequently, novel legal and ethical approaches are warranted, and patients and clinicians should use these products cautiously. (My emphasis)

Food for thought

Should Artificial Intelligence be your Doctor? The advice you receive may be erroneous, even dangerous. And your privacy may be compromised. I suggest you weigh the potential consequences carefully.

 

Two Odes to the Heart, by Artificial Intelligence

Here are two odes to the heart written by that rapidly emerging poet (and soon to be anointed Poet Laureate of the World), Artificial Intelligence, or, as it prefers to be known by its common designation, AI. Each ode, AI might tell you modestly, was composed in a flash and printed out completely within a few seconds. As I posted here earlier, AI is mind-bending and thoroughly amazing, but at times astonishingly wrong (see here).

How did AI come to write the odes? I simply asked it by using ChatGPT on OpenAI.com (see here). Here is the exact prompt I gave ChatGPT to tell it what I wanted it to do:

Please write an ode to the heart, using rhyming poetry and praising this amazing organ for whatever factors you choose, but being sure to include its reliability, its muscular strength, it’s steadfast and rhythmic beating throughout an entire lifetime, and even include how it also functions as an endocrine gland. Please deal with these factors in whatever sequence you think is best. Perhaps you could end the poem with a stanza focusing on the heart’s popular association with love, composing that with a manner to make the reader smile.

And voila! An entire Ode to the Heart appeared on the monitor of my PC in an instant. I’ve pasted it below and added #1 to the title, because I greedily asked AI for a second ode. Please check out ode #1, and then I’ll comment on it.

 

Ode to the Heart #1

Oh, heart! O wondrous, beating core,
Reliable guardian at life’s door.
With strength of muscle pure and true,
Your rhythmic dance, a lifetime through.

From birth to dusk, you tirelessly beat,
A metronome of life’s vibrant feat.
Unyielding drum, a steadfast tune,
In sync with cycles, sun and moon.

A marvel that withstands the years,
Through joys and sorrows, hopes and fears,
Your faithful throb, an endless song,
A melody that keeps us strong.

Not just a pump, but more, you see,
An endocrine gland, or heart, you be!
You weave emotions into life’s art,
Releasing love, joy’s counterpart.

As hormones surge, enchanting dance,
In symphony, we find romance.
Your ventricles and chambers kind,
Unite two souls, true love to bind.

But let’s not forget, in every jest,
To treasure you, dear heart, with zest.
For though in love’s embrace you play,
You’re more than just emotions’ display.

Through valleys low and mountains tall,
You’re the anchor that keeps us all.
Reliable heart, so strong and true,
This ode to you, forever due.

And in this ode, we find our grace,
In beating hearts, we all embrace.
So let this twist bring forth a smile,
For hearts in live, go the extra mile.

Beyond romance and tender woo,
Our hearts unite, old and new.
From friendship’s bond to kinship’s art,
Love’s not just for a single heart.

For every heartbeat plays its part,
Together, love, we will impart.
In unison, let’s joyous be,
One heart, one love, eternally.

What do you think? For a poem written as fast as greased lightening, I think it’s not bad. Why did I ask ChatGPT to focus on the heart? Well, back in my working days I spent significant time investigating the heart, how its rate and strength of contraction are controlled, and, when Canadian scientists discovered somewhat surprisingly that the heart is also an endocrine organ, I studied what its hormone actually does. Despite what AI implies, when the heart’s hormone surges, it has nothing to do with romance. This hormone’s role is in regulating the circulatory system, not our reproductive system. That shouldn’t be a surprise.

So Ode #1 demonstrates one of AI’s glaring weaknesses. Although AI is unbelievably fast, and amazing in so many ways, it also can make colossal mistakes. Facts are not always one of its strong points. Still, if I were a poet, I think my knees would be shaking. Writers in general probably should be worried. I’m told that a novel written totally by AI was published recently.

As mentioned above, I went to the ChatGPT well again for a second dip, and just as fast came another Ode to the Heart. What do you think of this one? Again AI seems to “think,” if that’s the right word, that the heart’s hormone has a role in passion.

 

Ode to the Heart #2

Oh, wondrous heart, a marvel strong and true,
A rhythmic symphony, your beats construe,
Reliable and steadfast through the years,
A tireless guardian, allaying fears.

Within your chambers, muscular might,
You pump the crimson flow both day and night,
With every thump, a life’s journey sustains,
Enduring, unyielding, your love remains.

A marvel of design, with love entwined,
From birth to twilight years, a friend so kind,
In every pulse, a tale of life’s embrace,
A steady metronome, never to erase.

Oh, heart, you’re not just known for strength and grace,
A dual role you play, a hidden space,
An endocrine gland, you secret hormones share,
Emotions stirred, affection’s tender flare.

Through joy and sorrow, love’s enduring art,
You beat in time with every longing heart,
And when we find a love to call our own,
You flutter, dance, a rhythm all your own.

So, here’s to you, dear heart, for all you do,
For love, for strength, for life’s journey so true,
With every thump, you make us smile anew,
A symbol of love’s beat, forever and for you.

 

There you have it, a second ode to the heart, courtesy of AI. Does this one strike you as better than the first one above, or not? And now a more important question, I think. Can you imagine any danger that Artificial Intelligence might pose? Is it possible that this uncanny, and rapidly improving technique could be a danger? Is it possible that humans may lose their position on top of the food chain?

 

 

 

 

 

The Likely (and depressing) Biden-Trump Race

Here’s an update on the likely (and depressing) Biden-Trump race. Prepare yourself. It’s not pretty.

The first primaries are just more than six months away, the first GOP debate is next month, and yet the only thing to be sure of is that clear and consistent majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents don’t want the choice they’re likely to get, a race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. So wrote Peggy Noonan in today’s weekend Wall Street Journal (July 8-9, 2023, see her article here).

As I indicated in my previous post, both men would do the country a huge favor by dropping out of the race (see that post here). In that essay I zeroed in on the contents inside their respective skulls, touching on Biden’s declining mind and Trump’s grating behavior when he was in office.

Biden’s mental acuity

I didn’t elaborate much beyond that, thinking it would be unkind to mention that Biden apparently wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer even when he was younger, for example when he was in law school. Although he once claimed he had graduated in the top half of his law school class, when he released his law school records, they revealed that he had graduated 76th in his class of 85 at Syracuse University College of Law.

And his years of decline are evident to practically everyone. As NBC News correspondent Jonathan Allen phrased it 2021: Age is catching up to Biden in the White House, adding his decline is alarming. He went on to highlight numerous instances of Biden’s gaffes and verbal slip-ups, incidents that have become even more common.

Trump’s erratic behavior

Nor did I elaborate on some of Trump’s more egregious behavior while he was our president, or after he left the office. Plenty has been said about his conduct. As The Guardian’s Richard Wolffe said in an op-ed a few years ago, It is important to recognize that Trump’s language is toxic, incendiary, and dangerous. It tears at the fabric of the republic.

Trump’s bizarre behavior has far-reaching effects, although he seems oblivious of them, or refuses to care about the consequences. Here’s how Peggy Noonan expressed the repercussions of his aggressive demeanor. His special superpower is that he is the only Republican who will unite and rally the Democratic base and drive independents away. He keeps the Biden coalition together.

Course of action?

So what might we concerned citizens do to derail the likely (and depressing) Biden-Trump race? What powers do we have? No matter which side of the political aisle we occupy, surely we can find better candidates than these two  ____________  (fill in the blank with the noun you think best describes them). If you are a party activist, or simply someone who thinks the person serving as our president should be alert, competent, and diplomatically tactful, express yourself.  Let’s demand someone better than our two (whatever you called them) who are bumbling along in the depressing Biden-Trump race.

Food for thought

Here’s a final tidbit from Peggy Noonan: If either party were daring and serious about history, it would shake off its front-runner and increase its chances of winning in 2024. 

An Urgent Appeal to President Biden and Former President Trump

Dear President Biden and Former President Trump,

I am writing to appeal to your integrities, to your finest qualities. I am writing as a concerned citizen who deeply values the democratic process and our nation’s future. I am writing to kindly request that both of you withdraw from the upcoming presidential race.

In short, please drop out. Both of you! When I told others that I was planning this plea, every single person, regardless of political persuasion, urged me on, and with enthusiasm! Several even added sentences with Biden and Trump in the predicate.

I realize that this request may seem unconventional, but I believe it is a vital step for the well-being and unity of our country. Allow me to respectfully outline my reasons for this appeal.

President Biden

President Biden, I address this request to you first. It is apparent to many observers that your mental acuity has been diminishing over the course of your presidency. While it is natural for individuals to experience cognitive changes as they age, the demands of the presidency require sharpness, clarity, and the ability to make complex decisions. Anyone who has seen your misstatements and mental gaffes on TV, or has watched your aged movements, surely is aware of your mental and physical decline, as you yourself must be.

Dealing with the growing unrest between our country and China, to give one example, will require a leader who is mentally sharp and fully capable of navigating the nuances of international negotiations. By gracefully stepping aside from the upcoming election, you would prioritize the interests of the American people and ideally allow an individual with optimal mental capacity to lead our country.

Former President Trump

Former President Trump, I turn to you now. Throughout your presidency, your behavior at times deviated from the decorum and dignity traditionally associated with the office. Your often-vindictive rhetoric and inflammatory remarks have contributed to the divisiveness and polarization of our nation. If you were to return to office, one might fear that you would spend your time settling grudges rather than piloting our nation. I have lost count of how many former associates you have turned against.

By withdrawing from the upcoming election, you would not only demonstrate a commitment to fostering national unity but also allow for new voices and perspectives to emerge within your party. This would be an opportunity for the Republican Party to evolve and engage in a constructive dialogue that would move our nation forward. Certain programs you started might well come to fruition with new blood in the Oval Office.

Legal challenges for each of you

There is another important reason for both of you to withdraw from public life. Please consider the potential legal challenges that both of you might face. President Biden, it is no secret that investigations and legal inquiries surrounding your son, Hunter Biden, have generated significant public scrutiny. While it is not within my purview to determine guilt or innocence, the existence of these investigations creates distractions and questions that can hinder your ability to effectively govern and lead. By stepping aside from the election, you would allow for a fair and impartial resolution to these legal matters without the cloud of political implications.

Former President Trump, you too have faced legal challenges during and following your presidency. These include ongoing investigations into your financial dealings and potential conflicts of interest. Engaging in a presidential campaign while grappling with legal proceedings could further divide the nation and undermine the democratic process. By withdrawing from the upcoming election, you would provide the opportunity for these legal matters to be resolved impartially and independently, allowing the American people to have confidence in the integrity of our democratic institutions.

Unconventional  but sincere request

I understand that these requests may appear unconventional, but I hope both of you recognize the sincerity and concern with which they are made. Our nation is at a critical juncture, and we need leaders who can rise above personal ambitions and prioritize the well-being of our democracy. By stepping aside, both of you would create space for new candidates who can inspire unity, restore trust, and lead our nation with the clarity and dignity it deserves.

Because you both are experts at reading polls, you probably already know that a historic number of Americans dread a presidential race between you two (See the recent evidence here). Should my personal political leanings interest you, I consider myself to be a member of a vanishing species, a Jack Kennedy Democrat, as I described in my very first post on this blog (See that post here). This of course puts me somewhat to the right of the leftward shifted political mid-line, but I continue to judge candidates closely and make my ultimate decision on what each candidate supports, not on party affiliation.

Finally, as I think you already know, this letter is not intended as an attack on either of your characters, or an invalidation of your achievements. It is an appeal for selfless leadership, which I urge each of you to exhibit by withdrawing from the presidential race. Please take my recommended action so headlines across the nation will read:

Biden and Trump Drop Out!

 

Artificial Intelligence is often Wrong

Yes, artificial intelligence (AI) is often wrong. Admittedly, this digital wunderkind can spout smooth sentences with amazing ease, but its results cannot be trusted. If you’re looking for facts, say by using an AI chatbot such as ChatGPT, watch out! (A chatbot is a computer program that uses AI to answer questions in verbal form, thus mimicking a human response.) If you would like to learn more about using ChatGPT, basic information can be found by clicking here.

The frequent misstatements of facts by AI have been publicized for some time, but thanks to my son, Greg, I now have a personal example of how distorted a response from ChatGPT can be. As an experiment, Greg asked ChatGPT to provide a positive review of my most recent post at writerken.com, the one I had titled What are the Dangers of Artificial Intelligence?. ChatGPT fired back in quick order and gave a glowing account of the post.

Facile prose

In facile prose, ChatGPT claimed to have read my post. It offered soothing and complimentary agreement on what I had written. But the entire job was phony baloney. It praised me for arguments I hadn’t made. In a curious way, the entire result reminded me of words coming out of the mouth of a Washington politician, that being a blast of self-serving hot air. Check it out. Here’s the chatbot’s entire response to Greg’s request:

AI speaks
 
I recently came across the blog post on writerken.com discussing the dangers of AI, and I must say it was a thought-provoking read. I wholeheartedly agree with the points made regarding the potential risks associated with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence.
 
One of the key concerns highlighted in the blog post is the issue of job displacement. As AI technology continues to improve, there is a genuine worry that certain jobs may become obsolete, leading to unemployment and economic inequality. This is an important aspect to consider as we embrace the benefits of AI, and it is crucial that we develop strategies to retrain and reskill individuals who may be impacted by automation.
 
Ethical implications
 
Additionally, the ethical implications of AI are something that we cannot overlook. As AI systems become more complex and autonomous, there is a need for transparency and accountability in their decision-making processes. We must ensure that AI algorithms are not biased, discriminatory, or prone to manipulation. Striving for fairness and ethical responsibility in AI development is essential for building a future where technology serves humanity’s best interests.
 
Another significant concern raised in the blog post is the potential loss of human connection and empathy in a world increasingly driven by AI. While AI can undoubtedly enhance our lives in numerous ways, it should never replace the richness and depth of human interaction. It is crucial to strike a balance between leveraging AI for efficiency and innovation while preserving the essential human qualities that make us unique.
 
Applause for my blog
 
Overall, I applaud the writerken.com blog for shedding light on the dangers of AI and fostering important discussions. It is essential that we approach the development and deployment of AI with a responsible mindset, ensuring that its benefits are maximized while mitigating any potential risks. By staying informed and actively engaging in these conversations, we can collectively shape a future where AI serves as a powerful tool for progress and positive change.
 
My blog contradicts

If you haven’t read my post on the dangers of AI, you can find it by clicking here. My major point was that AI conceivably could lead to the extinction of human life, an eye-popping worry. After all, over 300 eminent experts had raised this alarm, as had countless others. But this monster point was unmentioned by ChatGPT. A colossal failure! (ChatGPT had been fed countless gigabytes of data, but obviously not my specific blot post). On the other hand, the chatbot patted me on the shoulder for raising issues I had not mentioned, those of job displacement and the loss of human empathy.

This is not to say that chatbots cannot be amazingly creative. They are accomplished writers of poetry and even novels, forms in which reality need not exist, and usually doesn’t. Recent reports indicate that Amazon’s Kindle store is being flooded with books written by ChatGPT. This brings up another looming danger of AI, and specifically of chatbots like ChatGPT (and one that ChatGPT credited me for saying, so I’ll get to that now). Chatbots might, and very likely will, put countless writers out of work, especially those contracted as writers for corporations to compose letters, advertising content, and miscellaneous company publications. A sad result.

Take home message

My take home message today is clear. Artificial intelligence is often wrong, sometimes spectacularly so. Somehow that comforts me.

Final observations:

I’ve noticed that readers rarely click on my links, such as when I refer to another website, or when I link back to earlier posts I’ve written on this site. I guarantee that these are not teasers designed to get you into trouble, nor are they in any way profitable to me. Rather they simply are trusted sources that I have found to be valuable as additional sources of information.

Stay tuned. I may go on a political rampage next. I’ve even got two obvious targets in mind.

 

What are the Dangers of Artificial Intelligence?

What are the dangers of artificial intelligence? Will AI extinguish human life? Could AI wipe out civilization as we know it? A crowd of experts assert that it could. You’ve probably read the stories over the past couple of days. An outfit called the Center for AI Safety (a San Francisco-based organization that few know anything about) published a 22 word statement that echoed around the globe. The statement was signed by over 300 notables, including a good number of leading AI specialists. If you missed it, here is the statement, in its entirety:

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”

Pandemics

Does this sound serious to you? It does to me. Pandemics haven’t extinguished us, but they’ve tried. They’ve wiped out millions of people. Covid killed something like 7 million worldwide, but that death rate was relatively puny when compared with the bubonic plague that killed over 20 million Europeans (over a third of the entire population) in the mid-14th Century (see here for details).

Nuclear War

And nuclear war? Well, if you’re aware of the power of the present-day nuclear weapons, you know that one single bomb could destroy any city on earth, and the resulting radiation, which causes radiation sickness, could kill many more. (If you haven’t read Neville Shute’s On The Beach, now is the time.) That novel describes the final days of the world’s remaining survivors after an atomic war. And it was published in 1958, when nuclear arms were primitive compared with today’s killers.)

AI is nothing less than mind-boggling. Its “brain” includes the entire digital world. Its computing capacity has solved equations in seconds that humans would have taken years to solve, if ever. And AI talks with us. It writes articles for us. Siri, a relatively low level form of AI on our iPhones, finds information for us instantly, and reports it to us.

A Big Question

So here’s the big question. Is AI sentient? Or could it become sentient? If you happened to see 2001: A Space Odyssey, you may have a chilling suspicion that computers can become “human” in their thinking. One of the characters in that movie is a large computer, HAL 9000, who speaks with a soothing male voice and has a camera to observe “his” surrounds. He also is proud, egotistical, and dangerous. (By the way, HAL was cleverly named. Just move down the alphabet one letter from H, A, and L, and you will come up with the name of a famed computer company.)

It truly is worth considering that AI, if it is sentient, or if it would become so, with its clear ability to out-think any human brain, has the wherewithal to become our master, or our killer, perhaps via the building of robots to wage war against us. Am I dabbling in science fiction? Maybe. Maybe not. The necessary tools are already in place.

Is Siri Sentient?

At times, I have a feeling that even what Apple calls my private assistant, Siri, is sentient. “She” at times refused to obey my commands. One of her favorite tricks is to refuse to speak to me when I am using her for driving directions. Her map appears on my iPhone, but Siri remains stubbornly silent more often than not, even when I patiently ask her to speak.

So, will artificial intelligence extinguish human life? Not, I believe, in the years I have remaining.

Finally

One final point about that 22 word statement printed above. Please note that the statement does not include global warming among its societal scale risks, a point I made earlier in another context. Click here to see that post.

 

 

The Ominous Threat of Surging DEI

The ominous threat of surging DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) powers on college campuses was again evident last month when campus security officers barged into a law classroom at Ohio Northern University and escorted Professor Scott Gerber to the dean’s office with armed police following down the hall. The professor was immediately barred from teaching, banished from campus, and told to sign a separation agreement within one week or Ohio Northern University would begin dismissal proceedings against him.

What did he do?

His crime? Murder? Rape? No! But his misdeeds did come down to one benign word: collegiality. (One might assume that lack of collegiality was implied, but apparently no details were supplied to the professor.)

Nonetheless, Professor Gerber had a good idea why he was selected for discipline. As he explained in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, he had “objected publicly as vice chairman of the University Council, an elected faculty governance body, and in newspaper op-eds and on television, to DEI efforts that don’t include viewpoint diversity and would lead to illegal discrimination in employment and admissions.”

Diversity of opinion is lacking on campuses

If you’ve read my most recent post (see it here), you will recall I have similar criticisms concerning the lack of diversity of opinion and obvious discrimination in campus DEI machinations.

From every indication, Professor Gerber is an outstanding teacher and a prolific scholar (one of the world’s most prestigious university presses is publishing his 10th book this summer). I submit that this case is a classic example of the ominous threat of surging DEI administrators on college campuses. Diversity of opinion is not tolerated. Rather “Group Think” is the goal.

Kafka’s The Trial

In his op-ed piece, Professor Gerber mentioned Kafka’s The Trial, the story about Josef K, a man who was arrested, prosecuted, and killed by inaccessible authority even though the nature of his crime was never revealed to him, or to the reader.

“I’m Joseph K,” said Professor Gerber. I think he has a point. His treatment is a worrisome development, one that I believe should meet increasing resistance.

FYI: A more detailed study of this troubling incident, with added historical details can be found here.

 

 

 

How Can Smart People Think Differently From Me?

How can smart people think differently from me? How do they develop opinions so contrary to mine? If they’re so smart, I reason, why don’t they see the light? It’s a well-worn riddle. Well, thanks to a stroke of serendipity, I’ve come to see clearly how conflicting views may be formed, more specifically how a very intelligent woman and I developed contrary opinions on a hot button issue.

This discovery was set in motion after I wrote my critical review of the “woke culture” (The Wooden-Headed World of Woke). If you haven’t read my review, you can find it by clicking here. Two unlikely events then followed, and voila!, I began to see why this very intelligent woman and I had developed different views on the woke culture.

Two events

The first of my unlikely events occurred on a long walk soon after I critiqued the “Woke Culture,” and the second followed hours later when this highly intelligent woman sent me an email explaining the background for her contrary opinion.

During my long walk, I was listening to a meditation-type app on my iPhone (the healthy minds program, which I’ll describe more fully at the end of this post). The app’s focus that day was, “Questioning Your Assumptions,”  and it directed me to pick a topic I considered to be important. I instinctively chose the Woke culture, because it was fresh in my mind.

My understanding of  “woke”

As I understand it, the term, woke, arose originally in the Black community and came to mean being aware of social injustices. I am all for that. I like the concept. What I don’t like is how woke activists are straining our society. But why do I think that? How did I come to that opinion? The healthy mind app pressed me for answers, indicating that our hidden assumptions often influence how we view, among other things, social situations.

The app was persistent in my ear buds, prompting me to uncover anything in my mind even distantly related to the woke culture, directing me to find any unconscious assumptions, no matter whether they were true or not, no matter whether they were good or bad, but just to find anything even distantly related to the woke culture.

Digging for answers

If that sounds difficult, it was. I started by remembering pertinent things I had heard or read, straining to do a thorough job. Then the app urged me to go back further in time, to think of all possible past connections to the subject, to examine any possible influences on my opinions. So I dug deeper for connections, for answers.

I’ll skip much of what I went through, but it was an enlightening process. I worked my way all the way back in time to my university days when I was a Jack Kennedy Democrat (As I reported in my very first post on this site [Stew of the Day, see it here]). I still have the same basic political beliefs, but the Democrats have shifted decidedly leftward over the years, so I now occupy a spot a bit to the right of that moving center line.

A Kennedy Democrat?

But why was I a Kennedy Democrat during my college days? (The healthy minds program kept pressing me for answers.) Well, for one thing, then as now I was a strong believer in free democracies, and free speech, and in Kennedy’s phrase “what I can do for my country.” Before enrolling at Wisconsin, I had spent three years with the U.S. Air Force in Germany, and I had seen firsthand what communist USSR had done with the Eastern part of Germany that it controlled after WWII. (The differences between the then-divided city of Berlin were extreme. What I observed in that divided city was appalling. You can find summaries of my observations by clicking here, and here.)

But as bad the economic woes of East Germany were after WWII, even worse was the fearful force of the Stasi, the dreaded East German secret police that infiltrated practically every aspect of East Germans’ lives. The Stasi had 100,000 paid employees, and more than a half-million silent collaborators, and that terrified the entire country. The silent collaborators stealthily monitored the personal lives and conversations of their neighbors and even their own families, and anonymously reported all to the brutal Stasi. So, talking frankly among family and friends was extremely dangerous because collaborating snitches were common. One could get into big trouble by speaking out. Fear was endemic. People didn’t know whom they could trust. If you don’t know about that horrible situation, you owe it to yourself to examine how devastating it was. An excellent summary is available here.

Mimicking the Stasi

But how did my knowledge of the Stasi influence my thoughts on the woke culture? I began to see the connection. Strident segments of the woke culture often reside in the DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusiveness) offices of colleges and universities, and over half of these offices have launched so-called Bias Reporting Systems in which students and faculty who believe they have experienced or observed a “bias incident” can report it, usually on line, and anonymously if they wish (see details here). Sound familiar? Like silent snitches and a dangerous young Stasi in the making? I believe this activity should be stopped in its tracks.

Beyond that, I believe strongly in merit, but the incessant pushes for diversity, equity, and inclusion, have generated a system in which slots are often filled not by the best candidates, but by the applicants who check whatever boxes those with decision-making power over enrollment, or employment, chose to use, skin color and race prominent among them.  By these criteria, the best qualified are often are bypassed by this system, a form of discrimination in itself. Excellence often replaced by mediocrity, because the best candidates are often bypassed.

DEI goal

The goal of DEI is in itself laudatory, namely to help disadvantaged citizens, often black. The history of being descendants from slavery is often mentioned, but that ugly era has passed for those living today. Black citizens today face different, but still formidable, difficulties. Many Black citizens live in dangerous inner-city streets, in neighborhoods where their children are deprived of safe and effective schools. Black students surely learn as easily as white students, but those living in inner cities do not have equal educational opportunities. This is where they often fall behind, and this is where, I believe, efforts for improvement should be concentrated, where equity for every student is vital. Ignoring this obvious problem and attempting to solve it at the time of college enrollment is too late in the cycle, a cycle that will never end if critical neighborhoods and schools are not improved.

I strongly favor a color-blind society. I believe all individuals, regardless of race or color, deserve to have equal opportunity to live their lives peacefully in a safe environment. But we do not have that today. It is in this critical area, I believe, where activists such as the DEI community, Black Lives Matter, and others, should put major efforts to improve conditions in inner-city neighborhoods and schools.  Admittedly, this will require major efforts. President Johnson’s Great Society, designed to eliminate poverty and crime, was begun over half a century ago (see here), with little apparent success.

One solution

Nevertheless, in my ideal world woke activists would go into inner city areas and assist the residents in making their neighborhoods safe while simultaneously upgrading their schools to national standards, thus attacking the core problems and providing students with the educations they deserve, thereby leveling the playing field for them. Furthermore, because positive role models are important for childhood development, it seemingly would be tremendously beneficial for prominent and successful Black citizens (athletes, actors, politicians) to go into these depleted neighborhoods on a regular and repetitive basis, to serve as role models for the children there. I occasionally see examples of this, something like a one-day sports camp sponsored by a well-known athlete, but the efforts are sporadic, often one-of-a-kind, and far less effective than more consistent and focused efforts would achieve.

To summarize my thinking, many present-day Black citizens do not have equity in either their inner-city neighborhoods or their schools, a persistent problem in desperate need of solution. It’s clear that inner city children learn as easily as others in more effective schools, but their inferior schools impede their progress, leaving them often less prepared for college than more fortunate children. But current DEI efforts ignore this fact and attempt to rectify this injustice by favoring inner-city youth for college enrollment over more qualified candidates.

This process of giving certain preferences to inner-city youth does nothing to remedy the core problem; it offers no hope for permanent improvement of inner-city education. Beyond that, DEI activities discriminate against better qualified students, thus reducing merit.  I think the solution is obvious. Provide proper education for students in the inner cities, and Black students will compete equally and successfully in a color-blind society.

The above is some of what I learned about my assumptions while employing the healthy minds app for guidance. Now we’ll switch to the email from the intelligent woman I’ve mentioned. She simply wrote spontaneously, unprompted by any app, yet her thoughts reveal her assumptions, and her views, quite clearly. She obviously has a more favorable view of the woke culture than I do. Some facts about this woman: we met in medical school, but lost contact until a chance encounter a few years ago. She is much better read than I am, and, as I said, highly intelligent. She reads The New York Times; I favor The Wall Street Journal. Here’s what she wrote.

A different point of view from an intelligent woman

Being a pediatrician and spending 25 years caring for children, adolescents and young adults, I have come to the conclusion that so much of what we become, what viewpoints we are open to are a result of our young, formative years. Whether you read about chronically homeless people and the traumas all of them have suffered in one form or another, or the very happy people who have had a pretty smooth course of development and life, those formative years are so key.

Loving parents

I was extremely blessed to have parents who not only loved me and nurtured me, they were well educated, had suffered bias themselves (my father being an Italian immigrant at age 5, my mother’s family immigrating from Italy just before she was born) at a time when the US was not too welcoming to Italians. Neither of them had any negative feelings about skin color, religion, or “caste” as we experience in America. I did not realize until I was in my late 40’s that one of the greatest gifts of all to me was my father raising me as a person, not as a woman. That gave me a freedom many females did not have, and encased me in the courage to become a physician when that was clearly not the norm for a woman. So, I could read anything I wanted, to pursue whatever curiosity I had about all sorts of things, though their value system did not make me want to explore darker things.

I saw on a regular basis what bias did to young people even though I lived in a very liberal community. The population was and is pretty “white” and many minorities live in different areas than the privileged white population. Our community does no better than others caring for the homeless, for example. The red lining to prevent people of color moving into certain areas is not as prevalent as elsewhere, but it is still there. That’s why I think every student in this country should be exposed to the 1619 Project. And, Toni Morrison should be required reading at some point before graduating high school. Many of us do not have the opportunity to rub shoulders with some of our populace, so never know them, and frequently are uncomfortable with them. That is a loss for humanity, in my view. I think good fiction provides an opportunity for the reader to create a visual image of what the author is trying to portray. I have learned much more about people and groups I have had little contact with by reading fiction than by reading nonfiction. It has been my experience that small children don’t see skin color or at least do not identify children by their skin color until they are taught that is something undesirable. One of the reasons I loved practicing pediatrics is that there is an innocence and curiosity and wonderful acceptance of so much that is then later taught to be not desirable.

Do not ban books

So, in my view, we should encourage children and young adults to read anything they want. We should certainly not let legislators, who have, by and large, no expertise in this area decide what books should be on the shelves, and what age they should be read. They can read anything they want as long as they want to and can read it. They may not get the nuances of it all, but I remember reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence as soon as it was no longer banned and thought it was an absolutely beautiful love story. I read Toni Morrison’s Beloved three times, because I thought her portraying the agony of a mother knowing what her child was going to face as a slave was worse than death, and so she killed her. What a horrible choice, a choice no mother should ever have to experience. And, we shouldn’t expose our children to that? That was what we had in this country from 1619 until the Emancipation Proclamation.

Parental guidance

I realize not all adults and parents want their children to be exposed to some things, and I respect that. They should be able to opt out if they don’t want their children exposed to certain things, but they are very naive if they think that will prevent their children from being exposed to things they don’t approve of. I think it is better for parents to be able to explain why something is not desirable.

We are facing so many really horrific problems in this world—climate change, war caused by autocratic rulers, pandemics, violence in our country, to cite a few. Let’s finally see if we can find an equitable way to deal with illegal immigration rather than just going through the same process and never making it better. There are enough intelligent people in this country that we ought to be able to come to some reasonable solutions for some of these really major problems and stop focusing on “the other.”

 

Final Note: As promised, I offer a final word about the healthy minds app. The healthy minds program was developed by Cortland Dahl at the University of Wisconsin. His well-designed app is available free from the Apple App store and also from Google Play. I have profited from its guidance, and I recommend you try it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Scary World of Dietary Supplements

Are you aware of the scary world of dietary supplements? I am, and I still ingest a good number of them, as I’ve mentioned here earlier (See here). Am I nuts? Maybe. As you know, dietary supplements can be purchased “over the counter” with no apparent restrictions. Although the packaging of these supplements almost always tells you what is inside, that information is not necessarily true. In fact, it’s often wildly wrong, as revealed by a recent article in the Journal of The American Medical Association.

In that article, researchers reported measuring the amount of melatonin in gummie products. Melatonin is the natural hormone that tends to induce sleep. It is secreted in higher amounts during darkness (our nighttime concentrations of the hormone in blood are about 10 times higher than during the day, thus helping to regulate our internal clock). Although small supplements of melatonin taken orally may help us slip into sleep, there appears to be no solid medical evidence for how effective this approach is. Nonetheless, melatonin is popular. According to one report, sales of synthetic melatonin preparations in 2020 reached $821 million. A nice chunk of dough.

Is it worth it?

So what did the buyers get for their money? According to the JAMA report, the authors analyzed 25 products (all gummies) that claimed to include melatonin. They found that one product did not contain any detectable melatonin but it did contain 31.3 mg of cannabidiol (CBD). CBD is a chemical found in marijuana, but it’s not the psychoactive ingredient. CBD is used medically to treat certain types of seizures. See here for more information about this chemical.

And what about those gummies that did contain melatonin? Well, the amount of melatonin ranged from three-fourths of the stated amount to three and a half  times that amount. An amazing 22 of the 25 products were inaccurately labeled.  Scary results. So buyer beware!

Bad effects

It’s clear that melatonin products can trigger bad effects. For example, over the 10-year period from 2012 to 2021, the National Poison Data System received queries on 260,435 pediatric (kids 19 and under) melatonin injestions. Those resulted in 27, 795 emergency department and clinic visits over the same period, 4,097 hospitalizations, 287 intensive care unit admissions, and 2 deaths. (Most of the serious cases resulted from “unintentional ingestions” among children aged ≤5 years.) Were they tempted by gummies?

Questions naturally abound. What can one do about the scary world of dietary supplements? Should supplements be more tightly regulated? How safe are they? How can you, the consumer, determine the accuracy of labeling of supplements?

If these questions trouble you and disturb your sleep, you might consider taking some melatonin, carefully!

 

 

 

Medicare advantage changes this interaction.

Physicians are Losing Their Authority

Physicians are losing their authority, a power they once had in abundance. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember that I touched on this topic when I dissected the exorbitant costs of our current medical care (click here to see that article). As I pointed out there, the days of authoritative physicians began to erode when the government got into the medicine business and began paying doctors and hospitals for treating indigent patients who earlier had often received free care. Yep, with government money comes government control (not to mention administrators galore). Nowadays, doctors bow to others.

I was reminded of this as I read a review of a new book (If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury in Medicine and Why It’s So Hard for Clinicians to Put Patients First. Find the book here).  The physician authors describe what many of us already know, namely that today’s physicians are seeing more patients, in less time (have you ever felt rushed while speaking with your doctor?), that doctors now rely on fewer support staff (but again there are administrators galore), and of course they mention the familiar bugaboo, required technology. (Yes, doctors hate looking at those computer screens as much as you and I hate them doing it.)

How did this happen?

The history is clear. With the increasing regulations requiring doctors to supply more and more paperwork (from both government and the growing insurance industry) doctors began spending more and more time “complying” and hiring extra staff to generate the required paperwork. This became so unbearable that many physicians in private practice began giving up and joining groups that often were run by hospitals, who saw huge profits in the deal. And, once being in charge of clusters of physicians, hospital administrators began squeezing their doctors to see more patients, and often to order more tests, and whatever, to increase earnings. That squeeze continues.

Doctors exhausted and cynical

As the reviewer of this book summarized, “our healers feel exhausted, cynical, alienated and ineffective.” However, it is important to note that the authors do not call these doctors “burned out,” which might suggest physicians are not resilient. Rather they claim that doctors suffer from “moral injury,” thus implying the overall system is at fault, not the physicians. FYI: This review appeared in the 4/5/23 addition of the Wall Street Journal (see here). Here is a telling excerpt:

“No matter how [physicians] respond, they are all victims of a profit-generating machine that has taken over healthcare.” Profit and nonprofit hospitals, “motivated largely by revenue,” cut staff, increase physician work hours, hijack physician autonomy. (It’s true, when I first made rounds in hospitals over 50 years ago, doctors were confident and clearly in charge of their domain. How times have changed. I’ll say it again. Physicians are losing their authority.)

Partners in crime?

Somehow those profit and nonprofit hospitals remind me of the colleges and universities I discussed in my previous post. Why? Because those colleges and universities started their exorbitant increases in tuition when the government began supplying funds for college students to borrow. With more cash available to students, these institutions were happy to sop that cash up, getting rich as their students wallow in debt. (click here if you haven’t seen that post). So the villain in each of these cases appears to be none other than the Federal Government.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”  President Ronald Reagan