Essays & Commentary
Foundational essays on defense medicine, xylitol research, healthcare reform, and the paradigm shift our medical system desperately needs.
Einstein was right on when he said that we can’t fix our problems as long as we think the same way we did when we created them. That holds true in lots of areas in our world, but…
Our healthcare system is controlled by an hegemon with little interest in our health. We the people need to understand and address that problem.
Our healthcare system is controlled by an hegemon with little interest in our health. We the people need to understand and address that problem.
In my recent book Common Sense Medicine: Making America Healthy Again (before RFK purloined it) I discuss ways to push power down to the people, which is what helps make people…
HOW DOES OPTIMIZING OUR DEFENSES CHANGE THE SYSTEM? Knowles and Boucher described our airway defenses, pointing out the major role of the mucin glycans: “It appears that mucin…
Xylitol optimizes our airway's major defenses and reduces adherence of major pathogens
The end of our pandemic is at your pharmacy
Our defenses are often bothersome and therefore seen as something to treat. But treating them destroys their survival benefit, which is why they are there.
Einstein was right on when he said that we can’t fix our problems as long as we think the same way we did when we created them. That holds true in lots of areas in our world, but…
at Common Sense Medicine know that any healthcare system must pay attention to significant facts in order to work. We also have suggestions to make it work. Fact 1. Healthcare is…
Evan McMullin wants to elect a bunch of Independents to balance the dominant powers in our government. In order to do that he needs some help.
Empowering individuals with both finances and information works better than entitlements and regulation. This approach doesn't lead to dependence.
When incentives prioritize survival and profit over diversity, systems lose resilience. A look at bankers, corporate capitalism, and political survivalism through an evolutionary…
While criticizing Duterte for killing drug users, we ignore the deaths of our users, where six times as many die annually. There is a better way.
Government is more than defense. It include a more perfect union, justice, tranquility, the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty – and we aren't doing well.
The important thing about Russian interference in our elections is preventing a recurrence. We also need to see more clearly where the problem is. Here are some points and…
as a means of communication, is big in the bug world. Bacteria release chemicals to communicate–it’s called quorum sensing–and when the message gets loud enough the colony shifts…
Dr. Baker shows why illness care is not a good model
safety is not found in a police state; it's found in the co-operation that in itself is built on a safe environment
what every bullying program needs and why every school needs one.
Xylitol found to help us cope with antibiotic resistant superbugs. Can we tame bacteria?
there are alternatives to antibiotic resistant bacteria. They are cheap, demonstrated to work, and drug free.
Xylitol 7/6/15 12:50 pm Xylitol Nasal Irrigation: A Possible Alternative Strategy for the Management of Chronic Rhinosinusitis Nsouli TM, Diliberto NZ, Nsouli ST, Davis CM,…
women's values can play a role in reducing violence.
Our bodies do a better job with immigration than our governments. Can we learn anything here?
terrorist want to produce the most expensive response they can for a minimal expense. So far we have accepted that strategy. We need to stop it.
Negotiating in our warfare with bacteria is possible and it works. Bacteria attach to us via sugars complexes on our cells. The right sugars can compete.
Charity is more likely to make us feel good; if we really want to help we need to empower the other to make their own way.
bacterial resistance is a problem, but it is not unsurmountable. Preventing the adherence of pathogens pushes them to adapt in friendlier ways.
If you want to know what xylitol does in the nose read this.
Bacteria have a sweet tooth; feeding them the right sugars makes for friendlier adaptation, reduces the need for antibiotics, and can help solve our problem of antibiotic…
Many would like to use creative destruction on our healthcare system. That's the wrong approach. Complex adaptive systems can be tweaked very effectively.
The people of Singapore are part of their healthcare system. Unlike our 3rd party payer system, they play an active role. Their marketplace medicine works.
Our war on drugs is founded on our fear of them. Fear stimulates primitive responses that are not necessarily the most rational. We need to choose better.
Cyborg science is predictable. Human beings aren't. Cyborg science is mechanical thinking, but we can adapt in novel ways that are not predictable.
CDC info is not all that accurate. They try to make us comfortable. We shouldn't be.
Analysis is a mechanical concept; it doesn't consider the ability of all living organisms to adapt to changes in both their physical and social environments
The problem with the analytical model is that we have developed the tools to take anything apart to a level where its complexity reveals either too many interconnected elements…
Diversity is a far better measure of the health of a system than is survival. There are ways to enhance cooperation and diversity follows.
Chinese students score well on tests, but they don't have any Nobel Prize winners. Testing promotes technocrats; we need innovators. We need something else.
We all have defenses that help us cope with environmental challenges. They come with symptoms that are often treated. That is wrong headed thinking.
The subjects we study in school aren't isolated from each other - they are intertwined.
Our children should be learning and adapting at school. Not just by listening, but through exploration and experience.
A little prevention goes a long way towards staying healthy. Here are some tips to reduce the risk of catching Enterovirus D68.
Our ability to recognize and encourage adaptation will benefit our schools, hospitals, and politics.
Imagination and creativity are childhood qualities that we should never let go of.
Strengthen Community Capital so there are no more Fergusons. Drugs and prisons also show how short we are in community capital. How to rebuild community.
I am writing this from Ghost Ranch in New Mexico where I am in a group studying with John Phillip Newell about The Rebirthing of God, the title of his latest book. One of the key…
I studied history before I studied medicine. I learned there that people could respond to a particular challenge in a variety of ways. Medicine tends not to see that way; drugs…
Insurance is designed to pay for the unexpected crisis. Health insurance started that way in the U.S. but gradually, because the companies we work for were paying for it and…
Thank you Standard and Poor’s for telling us what we already know. Now can we do anything about it? Right now many of us feel a bit like Clark Little as he waited under this…
If you read anything about general science in your spare time you know that physicists are presenting a variety of models as they try to explain our world in terms of the quantum…
Could the WIR help us, or Greece, or Spain? Common Sense Medicine is all about resilience, about giving people the information and the power they need to make better decisions.…
Arizona and the rest of the nation is now plagued with the gut infecting bacteria Clostridium difficile, which most know as C. diff. These bacteria used to grow in our GI tracts…
According to the New York Times report on asthma, printed on their front page on Sunday, October 13th, this condition costs us in the U.S. about 56 billion dollars every year.…
The first researchers looking into autism decided it was caused by “the refrigerator Mom”. Mothers were cold and withdrawn and didn’t give their children the love and care they…
If you read anything about general science in your spare time, you know that physicists are presenting a variety of models as they try to explain our world in terms of the…
As a physician, I am endlessly intrigued by the processes of adaptation that has led to our being on this earth; and I am amazed that these processes show up so dramatically in…
The Institute of Medicine was established by President Nixon in 1970. It is part of the American Academy of Sciences and its membership is taken from that prestigious group. It…
The Tea Party sees a major problem in the size of government and its incursion, influence, and control into more aspects of our lives than is warranted by the Constitution; they…
Studies from the medical literature on the dental and medical uses of xylitol
We all have friendly bacteria that help us stay healthy by competing with invaders.. Removing them is not in our best interest. Helping them is!
One of our primary goals at Common Sense Medicine is to teach the value of our defenses and to explain that the bothersome symptoms they sometimes produceshould not be ‘balanced’…
Claude Bernard is reported as saying the he could eat Pasteur’s anthrax with impunity. Not many today have his nerve; we have gone down Pasteur’s pathway where the fearful germs…
We recently returned from a trip to find that a close friend had died in the week we were gone. From healthy to dead in a week is what we are sometimes seeing with the current…
This post is based on a presentation given in the Dupont Summit conference dealing with science and public policy at the Carnegie Institute of Science in Washington DC on…
Transformation is all about how we see ourselves in the world. We are stuck if we limit that view to the egos we have constructed over the course of our lives. Expanding that…
Saving American Health and Healthcare: A view from the margins. If Wendell Berry is right then we ought not to be looking to our temples of healing and learning for solutions to…
Medicare reform is shaping up to be the issue for our time. “We, the people,” like our bread buttered on both sides and we don’t like change. But Medicare is continuing to grow…
Sandel argues that medicine doesn't belong in the marketplace. But removing it has been very costly, and it hasn't made us any more healthy. There is a mixed option.
An open letter to Don Berwick Dear Don, I was really glad when President Obama chose you to lead the Department of Health ad Human Services. First of all you’re a pediatrician;…
Welcome to Common Sense Medicine ® where we try to see our bodies and the practice of medicine that we have established to care for them in a new way. Before studying medicine I…
Read what Dr. Lon Jones has to say about alternative medicine treatments, and about changing our analytical paradigms about the body.
Our drug policy is based on our irrational fear of mind altering drugs. We need a more rational policy.
Areas of research we support: North Texas State University is a leader in Child centered play therapy. Play is the language of the child and provided with the proper ‘toys’ and a…
Common Sense Medicine focuses on holistic health. Learn how to recognize complex adaptive systems in the human body and other societal mindsets.
our medical model of homeostsis mistakenly treats many symptoms that contribute to making us sicker
Below you will find a link to a 10-page PDF on the subject “How Bacteria Stick”. Once clicked, it should either open on the same page or open a new page.
The CDC has provided treatment guidelines for Stage 3 of COVID-19. We also should treat it in Stages 1 & 2. The best treatment is through the nose.
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