physicians-from-connecticut

"None, so far as I know, will affirm, or at least with any show of reason maintain, that anatomy, so far as that goes, is in favor of flesh-eating."

"No child, I think, can walk through a common market or slaughter-house without receiving moral injury; nor am I quite sure that any virtuous adult can."

"The world, I mean our own portion of it, sometimes seems to me like one mighty slaughter-house — one grand school for the suppression of every kind and tender and brotherly feeling — one grand process of education to the entire destitution of all moral principle — one vast scene of destruction to all moral sensibility, and all sympathy with the woes of those around us. Is it not so?"

"The destruction of animals for food, in its details and tendencies, involves so much of cruelty as to cause every reflecting individual — not destitute of the ordinary sensibilities of our nature — to shudder."

"Political economists tell us that the produce of an acre of land in wheat, corn, potatoes, and other vegetables, and in fruits, will sustain animal life sixteen times as long as when the produce of the same acre is converted into flesh, by feeding and fattening animals upon it."

"If perfect health is the best preventive and security against disease, and if a well-selected and properly administered vegetable diet is best calculated to promote and preserve that perfect health, then this part of the subject — what I have ventured to call the medical argument — is at once disposed of. The superiority of the diet I recommend is established beyond the possibility of debate. Now, that this is the case — namely, that this diet is best calculated to promote perfect health — I have no doubt."

"It is pretty well established that there is an overconfidence effect. ... You don't have the competence to assess your own competence. ... you need competence in order to assess your own competence. ... Everyone has the Dunning-Kruger effect."

"Placebo effects (plural) are mostly reporting bias, regression to the mean, investment justification, researcher bias, and other sources of self-deception. They are transient, and significant only for subjective symptoms where reporting bias can play a major role. Studies have shown, in fact, that there is no significant "healing" that occurs due to placebo effects — no objective biological improvement."

"I think the Internet is the biggest classroom we have."

"There's a host of scams that are evolving all the time."

"The thing about herbs is that there is nothing supernatural or implausible about the fact that any particular herb can have a medicinal effect. But the truth of the matter is that herbs are drugs. There's nothing magical about them. The fact that they are "natural" is irrelevant — it's meaningless. They are drugs. They are drugs that have not been purified, identified, … and quantified. … Probably for most plants … there are hundreds of chemicals in there with varying degrees of potency."

"I will never be convinced by any anecdotal report, ever, especially if something extremely unlikely or unusual. Memory is not a reliable piece of data."

"The inability to explain something doesn't mean that it is inexplicable. … Always consider the simplest things first. … The inability to explain it doesn't mean that it has to be something fantastical or alien, or that it's unexplainable."

"… most scientists are really quite happy to talk about their work. It's often hard to get them to shut up, actually."

"… you don't realize whether or not you completely understand a topic until you are tasked to explain it to someone else. … That really challenges your understanding of a topic."

"I think science is best taught as a puzzle to be solved."

"You need systems. You need checklists. You need … things in place to keep people from making mistakes. Left to their own devices, people will screw up on a regular basis."

"Even though I think they're probably usually wrong, minority opinions in science are very useful. It keeps the whole process honest ..."

"What defines a cult is not what they believe, at all. It's how they behave. The belief system is almost incidental."

"… our inherent assumption is that you convince people with rational arguments. But all the data shows that most people are not influenced by rational arguments. They're influenced by social pressure. … That's just the human condition, and we just have to acknowledge it and accept it."

"In fact, there are many altered brain states where people may have a very vivid experience, or at least a vivid memory of their experience, precisely because they have impaired brain function. When you start dropping some of the higher brain functions out of the loop, like reality testing and things like that, … things can seem hyper-real. That could actually be a sign of brain dysfunction. It's similar to … somebody who is stoned thinking that they are really profound."

"Ignorance is a low-energy state. It takes constant vigilance and work to climb out of it."

"Isn't the future necessarily going to be dominated by machine life?"

"We will make virtual brains. … We will be able to create consciousness without really ever understanding it."

"As you study science, and really try to understand what is happening behind the curtain, not just reading the predigested press releases but actually talking to scientists or reading technical papers, you realize that ... it's always more complicated than you think. ... No measurement is simple. ... The way you make the comparison will address different issues."

"Dr. Mikovits joined NIH in 1980 as a Postdoctoral Scholar in Molecular Virology at the National Cancer Institute and began a 20-year collaboration with Frank Ruscetti, a pioneer in the field of human retro virology. She helped Dr Russetti isolate the HIV virus and link it to #AIDS in 1983. Her NIH boss Anthony Fauci delayed publication of that critical paper for 6 months to let his protégé Robert Gallo replicate, publish and claim credit. The delay in mass HIV testing let AIDS further spread around the globe and helped Fauci win promotion to director NIAID."

"When Frank Ruscetti was out of town, I received a call from Dr. Fauci and he demanded that I give him our manuscript on the isolation and confirmation of HIV, while it was still in press. I refused to do that because it’s unethical. These manuscripts are confidential and only authors can give him a copy... He threatened to fire me for insubordination but still I refused. It’s unethical... When Frank Ruscetti returned a few weeks later, he gave the manuscript to Dr. Fauci, and Dr. Fauci purposely delayed the publication of our manuscript in order that his crony, Dr. Robert Gallo, could copy our work and submit a competing manuscript and get it into press before ours. On May 4, 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo famously published a series of papers demonstrating that a retrovirus he’d isolated was the cause of AIDS."

"Appropriating her (Judy Mikovits') work wasn’t the worst of it. This delayed the development of testing and spread the HIV epidemic through the world, killing millions."

"It is time now to introduce my friend Peter Duesberg. Where do I begin? At NIH, Peter is sometimes known as the battling bulldog. He gets his teeth into something and 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years later those teeth are still sunk in it...[...]...He began working with retroviruses . Peter the biochemist. This really led to the first molecular and genetically defined transforming gene, the Src gene. A great deal of this brilliant and original, the real critical aspects, was and Blood Transfusion vol.29 p. 1, 1985."

"The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all. All parents do their best job when they have a natural, easy confidence in themselves. Better to make a few mistakes from being natural than to try to do everything letter-perfect out of a feeling of worry."

"Don't take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense."

"The fact is that child rearing is a long, hard job, the rewards are not always immediately obvious, the work is undervalued, and parents are just as human and almost as vulnerable as their children."

"There are only two things a child will share willingly—communicable diseases and his mother's age."

"In automobile terms, the child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering."

"I no longer recommend dairy products after the age of two years. … Of course, there was a time when cow's milk was considered very desirable. But research, along with clinical experience, has forced doctors and nutritionists to rethink this recommendation. It is an area where there are still disagreements among scientists, but there are several points that most everyone agrees on. First of all, other calcium sources offer many advantages that dairy products do not have. Most green leafy vegetables and beans have a form of calcium that is absorbed as well as or even a bit better than that in milk. Along with this calcium come vitamins, iron, complex carbohydrates, and fiber. Calcium-enriched soy or rice drinks are just as tasty on cereal as cow's milk (once you get used to them), and they are free of animal proteins and cholesterol. These beverages, as well as calcium-enriched orange and other juices, provide as much calcium, ounce per ounce, as cow's milk. Vegetables and legumes can provide a healthy source of calcium, along with many other nutritional advantages."

"We used to think of cow's milk as a nearly perfect food. However, over the past several years, researchers have found new information that has caused many of us to change our opinion. This has provoked a lot of understandable controversy, but I have come to believe that cow's milk is not necessary for children. First, it turns out that the fat in cow's milk is not the kind of fat ("essential fatty acids") needed for brain development. Instead, milk fat is too rich in the saturated fats that promote artery blockages. Also, cow's milk can make it harder for a child to stay in iron balance. Milk is extremely low in iron and slows down iron absorption. It can also cause subtle blood loss in the digestive tract that causes the child to lose iron. … Some children have sensitivities to milk proteins, which show up as ear problems, respiratory problems, or skin conditions. Milk also has traces of antibiotics, estrogens, and other things a child does not need. There is, of course, nothing wrong with human breast milk — it is perfect for infants. For older children, there are many good soy and rice milk products and even nondairy "ice creams" that are well worth trying. If you are using cow's milk in your family, I would encourage you to give these alternatives a try."

"We used to recommend meat, poultry, and fish for children because they are rich in protein and iron. However, we now know that there are harmful effects of a meaty diet, particularly changes in the arteries and weight problems, and that these changes begin in childhood. When children develop a taste for meats, it is hard to break this habit later on. It turns out that children can get plenty of protein and iron from vegetables, beans, and other plant foods that avoid the fat and cholesterol that are in animal products."

"Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God."

"This solution has great superficial appeal--all the excitement of secret, forbidden, romantic sexuality without family responsibility and family grubbiness."

"Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal."

"As parents and teachers we need to bring up more of our children with generosity of spirit."

"Our dream ticket would have been one consisting of Martin Luther King and Benjamin Spock, linking the issues of civil rights and peace."

"An entire generation grew up unacquainted with the thwack of paddle against bottom."

"Some physicians who have called him excessively permissive just didn't understand and gave his understanding approach to child rearing a negative label. He was blamed for the radical behavior of the youth in the '60s. But that didn't emerge from Spock's teachings. It was far more a reflection of the social and political climate."

"I would say that the surest measure of a man's or a woman's maturity is the harmony, style, joy, and dignity he creates in his marriage, and the pleasure and inspiration he provides for his spouse."

"You know more than you think you do."

"People have said, "You've turned your back on pediatrics." I said, "No. It took me until I was in my 60s to realize that politics was a part of pediatrics.""

"I've come to the realization that a lot of our problems are because of a dearth of spiritual values."

"I really learned it all from mothers."