- Girl brain-dead after tonsillectomy. No doubt her parents were not told (a) your tonsils are part of your immune system, an essential part of your body, and (b) tonsil removal is associated with a 50% higher death rate. As I said here, an “evidence-based” evaluation of whether tonsillectomies are good or bad failed to mention both of these things, along with a ton of other negative evidence.
- Reverse graffiti. I think of this blog as reverse graffiti.
- Interview with Peter Higgs. “Believes no university would employ him in today’s academic system because he would not be considered “productive” enough.”
- UC Berkeley Psychology Department fires staff employee (in his 24th year), apparently for union activities. “Francis Katsuura created a Cal Agenda account to track all time that Paul Haller attended bargaining [sessions]. No other department has created such an account.”
Thanks to Matt Cassell.
Re: Haller
So, we have State employees filing a complaint with State employees regarding the unfair behavior of State employees.
It was not a routine tonsilectomy, but a Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty. Is there an ambulance being chased.
Seth: This article says it was a tonsillectomy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/21/jahi-mcmath-life-support_n_4485119.html
Massive bleeding is a common side effect of tonsillectomy. Are you saying that this particular version of a tonsillectomy is much risker than other versions? If so where does that information come from?
My general point about tonsillectomies is that patients are not told the true risk. You disagree?
re Peter Higgs: whenever the future of the universities is under discussion and I intone “Dissolution of the Monasteries”, I admit that I wonder whether the dissolution is already well advanced.
My niece just had her tonsils removed. I sent a link from what you (Seth) posted some time ago. But my sister went ahead with the surgery partly because her daughter kept getting infections and started having trouble breathing. Now my sister is thinking of having all her children’s tonsils removed after the “successful” removal of her daughter’s tonsils.
My sister’s family have a very poor diet (although it has gotten a little better) in my opinion. Lot’s of processed foods and sugary foods. They have stopped eating quite so much processed foods and have stopped eating cereal but the poor health continues. I guess they still haven’t removed enough bad foods.
My stepfather recently died after he had another heart attack (4th or 5th?) at the age of 65. He was diagnosed with diabetes sometime ago (15 or 20 years ago). But couldn’t muster up the will power to sustain a healthy diet. Apparently a nurse told him 2 weeks before he died that if he didn’t change his diet he would be dead within 5 years guaranteed. After having multiple heart/artiary surgeries he started have trouble breathing from the last one. He couldn’t even get to the mailbox without breathing heavy. He wanted to live longer but couldn’t muster the willpower I guess. It is pretty sad. He basically poisoned himself over his whole life and probably cut 20 years off his life if not more.
I think these examples from my family definitely make me want to stick to a healthy and clean lifestyle. I find it interesting when people say, “I want to live a good life, I want my sugar!” It seems like a very selfish thing to say as if other people around them don’t care about their life. It is not just their life that they are ruining, it is also affecting those around them. After my stepfather got diabetes he was much more moody and harder to get along with, that’s 20 years of being around someone with mood swings that could have been avoided.
“tonsil removal is associated with a 50% higher death rate” What does this mean?
Seth: That’s what a survey found. The researchers compared people who had had tonsillectomies with similar people who hadn’t. I link to the study in my article about tonsillectomies.
Could you post a link to the previous tonsillectomies post? A fast googling didn’t turn it up.
I wonder if there’s a general problem that the risks of all operations are underestimated.
That patients are not told the risks is true. I do not disagree that the simple tonsillectomy is overdone, but one heck of a lot of people survive it, as did my dad who died not of complications from the operation as a kid, but simply from being old at 93.
Huffington post is not necessarily wrong, but also does not possess papal level infallability.
http://overlawyered.com/2013/12/jahi-mcmaths-routine-tonsillectomy/
Seth: Thanks for the source. Yeah, almost everyone survives it, I suppose no one notices that their immune system is not working so well because the tonsillectomy is given to people whose immune function is already bad (e.g., due to poor sleep). I was really surprised when I started sleeping better and stopped getting sick in the usual ways, nobody had ever said that was possible.
I have sleep issues and really started reading you more faithfully when you wrote that line about getting enough sleep and you can’t be killed, don’t and you can’t be kept alive.
It’s been a help. Thanks.
Joseph: Robb Wolf said that. I asked him who he was quoting and he said it was his own idea.
3 year old killed by dentist who had diagnosed her as needing 6 fillings and 4 root canals:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/04/justice/hawaii-girl-dead/index.html