Published Articles

Monday, May 21, 2001

In the early spring of 1995, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan medical liability bill (tort reform) by a significant margin (247 to 171), despite a strong opposition by the trial lawyers. This legislation was a sweeping tort reform bill that would have gone a long way towards reforming medical "malpractice" and alleviating the adversarial and litigious climate in which physicians have been practicing medicine for the last three decades.

Keyword(s): AMA, gun control, lawsuits, medical liability, tort reform


Tuesday, May 15, 2001

I was struck one particular morning when I heard on the radio on January 15, 1999, that the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), George D. Lundberg, M.D., had been fired by the AMA for using JAMA for his own political purposes. The chickens had come home to roost, I thought.

JAMA and Medical Journalism

Keyword(s): AMA, gun control, medical ethics


Thursday, May 3, 2001

The AMA is joining the gun prohibitionist movement in full force. Led by the long-time speaker of the AMA's House of Delegates, now president-elect of the AMA, organized medicine has joined the gun control movement full steam ahead. This new leader, Richard F. Corlin, M.D., will call for the AMA to increase funding to "study data on firearms injuries" at its June 20 annual meeting.(1)

Keyword(s): AMA, gun control, medical ethics


Thursday, April 19, 2001

Another favorite view of the gun control, public health establishment is the myth propounded by Dr. Mark Rosenberg, former head of the NCIPC of the CDC, who has written: "Most of the perpetrators of violence are not criminals by trade or profession. Indeed, in the area of domestic violence, most of the perpetrators are never accused of any crime. The victims and perpetrators are ourselves - ordinary citizens, students, professionals, and even public health workers."(6) That statement is contradicted by available data, government data.

Keyword(s): gun control, guns, public health, Second Amendment


Monday, April 16, 2001

Americans lost a bit more of their right to privacy last week -- and a little more of the freedom that goes along with it.

On April 12, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it will be implementing the so-called medical privacy regulations which were written and hurriedly submitted in the closing days of the Clinton administration.

Keyword(s): freedom, health care policy, privacy


Thursday, April 12, 2001

I have related previously (Medical Sentinel, Spring and Summer 1997) how the 1991 American Medical Associations (AMA) campaign against domestic violence launched for public relation consumption went hand in hand with the public health establishments 1979 stated objective of eradication of handguns in America, beginning with a 25 percent reduction by the year 2000.(1-2) Toward that objective, in the 1980s, hundreds of articles describing politicized, biased, result-oriented research funded at taxpayers' expense were published in the medical journals.(3) One of the p

Keyword(s): AMA, gun control, guns, public health, Second Amendment


Monday, April 2, 2001

In 1997, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., spoke candidly to Time magazine regarding McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation. The Democrat admitted, "What we have is two important values in direct conflict: freedom of speech and our desire for healthy campaigns in a healthy democracy. … You can't have both."

Keyword(s): politics, public policy


Sunday, April 1, 2001

Early in the 1990s the American Medical Association (AMA) launched a major campaign against domestic violence, which continues to this day. As a concerned physician, neurosurgeon, and then an active member of organized medicine, I joined in what I considered a worthwhile cause.

Keyword(s): gun control, guns, public health


Tuesday, March 27, 2001

The Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert is another excellent tome on the bloody Reign of Terror of the French Revolution.

The book is meticulously researched and, although the author describes it as a "readable introduction" to other historians' works to which he is indebted, the book contains a fountain of information and should also be helpful to students on the subject and other aficionados on the French Revolution.

Keyword(s): French Revolution


Monday, March 26, 2001

Just when you thought talking to your doctor or psychiatrist was one of the most private and confidential things you could do ... think again.(1)

In what it describes as an effort to curb handgun violence, a group called Doctors Against Handgun Injury is calling for sweeping changes in doctor-patient confidentiality that would allow doctors, including psychiatrists, to pry about their patients' gun ownership.

In the past, the medical community fought strenuously against any invasion by government or others into the confidentiality of patient records and information.

Keyword(s): AMA, gun control, guns, physicians, Second Amendment