Cure by Placebo?

A recent survey of roughly 675 doctors from around the country shows that nearly half the doctors in practice tend to prescribe placebos. The placebos they are said to use don’t adhere to the typical definition. A placebo is defined as “a substance having no pharmacological effect but given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine” such as a sugar pill. The practicing doctors have been said to use vitamins, antibiotics and sedatives. These common pills do in fact have a pharmacological effect on the patient’s body, and if misused could have detrimental effects.

To make matters worse, most doctors surveyed describe these placebos to patients as” a medicine not typically used for your condition but might benefit you.” Only 5 percent of these doctors actually introduced the placebo “a placebo.”

For example, syndromes such as fibromyalgia are believed to be phsycosomatic, and patients with such treatments tend to be very difficult to deal with. Out of the doctors surveyed, 24% said that they would be very likely to prescribe a placebo, 34% said moderately likely, 31% said Unlikely and only 10% said not likely.

I find this rather disturbing, that doctors, people you trust with your health, would be likely to prescribe a placebo without your knowledge. I mean, yes, placebos are much more effective if the patient believes they are taking something that will help them, but that only encourages people to believe that they need to take a pill to get better. Personally, I would rather be told that there is nothing the doctor can prescribe, then be given a prescription for a drug that is just a fancy name for Aleve.

A Suggestion for a Pride Campus

School district officials in Chicago have proposed a new type a school, known as the Pride Campus. This school would be a school targeted toward gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual students. The idea of the school is to create an environment where students will not be discriminated against or bullied because of their sexual preference. This school will be open to all students who need a better school environment, who are struggling for academic success.

I have mixed feelings about this idea, and as far as my negative opinion goes, I think its just asking for trouble. If students go to a school like this looking for an escape from discrimination and bullying, what's to say that they wont receive the same treatment from the other kids in their community. Just because they go to a different school doesn't mean that they won't still come in contact with the same kids they're trying to escape. Going to a different school just brings more attention to them, and makes them more susceptible to the bullying their trying to escape.

On the other hand I think that it would provide a better education, because its proven that if a student is free of distractions, they will perform better. There are other schools similar to this already in existence, and these schools boast an average 95% graduation rate. The students at the schools are most often in danger of dropping out, or have already dropped out from their previous schools. The fact that an environment like this can have such a positive affect is a great thing.

Overall, I think that this may be a temporary solution to an ongoing problem. I think that something like this would be much more effective if regular schools were taught to accept people for who they are. I know that something like that is not going to happen all at once, but I think its a good start.

Social Networking affects College Applicants

The Wall Street Journal recently released an article about the affect of social networking sites on college admissions. After surveying 500 of the top, most competitive colleges around the US, they found that a good 10% of admissions staff will use social networking sites in order to further evaluate their prospective students. The two most frequented social networking sites they are said to look at are Myspace and Facebook. Most often, colleges that use these sites for evaluation end up with a negative impression of the applicant, because not everyone shows of the best of their personality.

If you are a senior in High School, applying to college, and you have anything negative on your profile, be it language, pictures, etc. then you could very well hurt your chances at acceptance.

Most of the colleges surveyed claim to use this method only in special circumstances; for instance, if an application raises suspicion, or if another applicant hinted at a character flaw. While I understand their reasoning, the fact that this year there will be a record number of applicants, and it will be hard to decide who to accept and who to reject, I still don’t believe this is right.

Since these sites are public, it’s not exactly a breach of privacy, but I don’t feel that this is the best way to investigate a person’s character. Just because these sites are a place to openly express yourself, doesn’t mean that everyone represents themselves accurately. Most of us are still teenagers, still searching for who we really are. We need to be able to feel like we fit in, to make sure that people will like us. So many people will go to whatever means necessary to do that, and that is what leads to the negative impression. I know many people who are hard workers, wonderful students, and overall amazing people, but their Myspace pages are full of things that don’t relate to who they are at all.

Personally, I don’t think I have anything to worry about, however, I think this is a horrible way to judge character. The only way to truly judge someone is to get to know them personally. That’s the only level on which the connection is deep enough to truly view one’s character.

Google 10^100

Wednesday September 24th, 2008 Google announced their new project 10^100, which will be used to survey the general public for new ideas that help people around the world. They want the project to benefit as many people as possible all around the world. In February 2009, Google will select judges to choose five winning ideas from the plethora of ideas. The winning ideas will then be given an equal amount of money from a pool of 10 million dollars in order to begin implementation.

I think this is a wonderful idea. This will give millions of people around the world the chance to give their ideas a try. So many people have great ideas that will never be put into effect for lack of funding, and this project will give them a chance to make their dream a reality.

With this, the possibilities are endless. Google’s spokesperson said that they don’t want to limit people, they want ideas from every background, from every walk of life. Since this is so open ended, any idea is more than welcome. I think this is such an amazing opportunity, that everybody should contribute an idea. It couldn’t hurt. Just think, every little contribution has some potential, even if the idea isn’t one of the final choices, entering it into a competition such as this would give it life, and possibly start the ball rolling. All you need is a little bit of determination, and a creative mind. Everyone has some sort of impact, now lets get out there and change the world!

First Week of School

Today is the last day of the first week of school here at Tech High. It is going to take a while to get used to the new block schedule, but overall I enjoy it. My schedule is pretty laid back, which works really well with my work schedule. I think our Contemporary Literature class will be very interesting this year. Since we're trying to go paperless, and doing much of our work online, we will be making use of our new laptops. Overall I'm excited for my Senior year of High School. Luckily I've got quite a ways to go...