The Total Food Effect: Exploring Placebo Analogies in Diet and Food Culture

Food and medicine share an inseparable history with essential evolutionary underpinnings. In addition to nutritional, medicinal or toxic components, the tastes, colours, shapes, names and labels of foods elicit emotions, expectations, associations and conditioned responses rooted within both public consciousness and individual experience. This combination of chemical-driven bottom-up and meaning-driven top-down influences provides a fertile framework through which to explore metaphors of placebos and placebo-like effects. As reviewed, elements of placebo are widespread in food culture, appearing in numerous forms and with varying degrees of resemblance to those observed in medicine. We first adapt a model of placebo from the medical literature for application to the subject of food, diet and nutrition. Exploring the intricate interactions between drug or food, patient or consumer, and doctor or food source within different settings and contexts, we then demonstrate that the total effect of any food, meal or diet is seldom, if ever, strictly a function of nutritional composition or chemically-driven bottom-up effects. In closing, we summarize and integrate our observations relative to current understandings of placebo effects in medicine

Federal Tort Claims Act: Discretionary Function Exception Revisited

Several commentators have maintained that the federal courts have taken confusing and inconsistent positions with regard to the discretionary function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act. The authors attempt to refute this position by analyzing more recent opinions and finding a trend. This trend has led to a less confusing and more definite framework depending upon various factors which will appear in every case. By analyzing these factors while keeping in mind the purposes of both the Act and the exception, the authors conclude that the outcome of any dispute in this area will be susceptible to a higher degree of predictability

Federal Tort Claims Act: Discretionary Function Exception Revisited

Several commentators have maintained that the federal courts have taken confusing and inconsistent positions with regard to the discretionary function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act. The authors attempt to refute this position by analyzing more recent opinions and finding a trend. This trend has led to a less confusing and more definite framework depending upon various factors which will appear in every case. By analyzing these factors while keeping in mind the purposes of both the Act and the exception, the authors conclude that the outcome of any dispute in this area will be susceptible to a higher degree of predictability

Deliberate use of placebos in clinical practice: what we really know

Increasingly a focus of research as well as media reports and online forums, the use of placebos in clinical medicine extends beyond sugar pills and saline injections. Physician surveys conducted in various countries invariably report that placebos are routinely used clinically, impure placebos more frequently than the pure ones, and that physicians consider them to be of legitimate therapeutic value. Inconsistent study methodologies and physician conceptualisations of placebos may complicate the interpretation of survey data, but hardly negate the valuable insights these research findings provide. Because impure placebos are often not recognised as such by practitioners, they remain at the fringe of many placebo-related debates, hence quietly absent from discussions concerning policy and regulation. The apparent popularity of impure placebos used in clinical practice thus presents unresolved ethical concerns and should direct future discussion and research

Social Changes Reflected in Specialized Languages: Lexical Re-/deconstruction in Lesbian Studies

One of the most important factors of recognition, belonging and identification in scientific communities is their specialized language: doctors, mathematicians and anthropologists feel they are part of a group with which they can interact because they share a common “language”. While ideology is present in all academic registers, it is in human sciences where its presence (or absence) leads to more visible linguistic phenomena. An interesting example is that of lesbian studies: as non-heterosexual members of society have become less stigmatized, lesbian studies have developed a language of their own. In our paper, we shall explore the mechanisms used in the creation of specific vocabulary in this academic area, paying special attention to the refashioning or deconstruction of meaning of established terms as a result of changes in social perception or the challenging of pre-determined meanings

‘Chaucer’s World’ study days in Oxford for post-16 students: enhancing learning and encouraging wonder

This collaborative essay, structured as a collection of tales akin to Chaucer’s, provides a multiperspectival reflection on enhancement study days, entitled ‘Chaucer’s World’, co-organised by the University of Oxford, the Ashmolean Museum, the Bodleian Library, and secondary schools from the area. The event is aimed at UK secondary school students in their final two years of study, and is intended not only to help students with their preparation for the A-Level English Literature exam but also to instil in them appreciation for Chaucer’s works, as well as for medieval literature and culture in general

Catalogue of the Flora of Texas.

130 p

Prescription Drug Diversion: Predictors of Illicit Acquisition and Redistribution in Three U.S. Metropolitan Areas

Objective: Prescription drug diversion, the transfer of prescription drugs from lawful to unlawful channels for distribution or use, is a problem in the United States. Despite the pervasiveness of diversion, there are gaps in the literature regarding characteristics of individuals who participate in the illicit trade of prescription drugs. This study examines a range of predictors (e.g., demographics, prescription insurance coverage, perceived risk associated with prescription drug diversion) of membership in three distinct diverter groups: individuals who illicitly acquire prescription drugs, those who redistribute them, and those who engage in both behaviors. Methods: Data were drawn from a cross-sectional Internet 763 AIMS Public Health Volume 2, Issue 4, 762-783. study (N = 846) of prescription drug use and diversion patterns in New York City, South Florida, and Washington, D.C.. Participants were classified into diversion categories based on their self-reported involvement in the trade of prescription drugs. Group differences in background characteristics of diverter groups were assessed by Chi-Square tests and followed up with multivariate logistic regressions. Results: While individuals in all diversion groups were more likely to be younger and have a licit prescription for any of the assessed drugs in the past year than those who did not divert, individuals who both acquire and redistribute are more likely to live in New York City, not have prescription insurance coverage, and perceive fewer legal risks of prescription drug diversion. Conclusion: Findings suggest that predictive characteristics vary according to diverter group