John Lantos
Will AI replace doctors?
Will AI replace doctors? Well, it depends what you think doctors ought to be or do. If a doctor is supposed to competently read an EKG,...
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John Lantos
- 5 days ago
- 3 min
Two old doctor books that won't die
From the time it was published, critics of Samuel Shem’s The House of God have been either predicting its death or trying to explain away...
260
John Lantos
- Mar 4
- 4 min
The false-negative phenotype
We generally don't think of phenotypes as being "positive" or "negative." With genomics, that is changing. We can now imagine the...
230
John Lantos
- Feb 26
- 2 min
Who (or what) is a bioethicist?
Quick, tell me: who, among the following people, is a bioethicist? Amy Guttman, Jodi Halpern, Pedro Almodovar, Renee Fox, Jodi Picoult,...
820
John Lantos
- Feb 16
- 3 min
Trans politics brings down PM Sturgeon
Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon says that she resigned because she was exhausted by the pandemic. Others think that the battle...
491
John Lantos
- Feb 3
- 2 min
Trying to Defend the Living World
Richard Powers is the most scientifically savvy novelist at work today. He was one of the first people in the world to have his genome...
210
John Lantos
- Jan 30
- 3 min
High cost and low expectations
Beverly Gage writes about being a patient with a disease so rare that she might be the only person in the world who has it. After...
690
John Lantos
- Jan 20
- 3 min
Hunger Games
Looking for some dark comedy? In the opening scene of The Whale, Charlie (Brendan Fraser) clutches his chest in pain while jerking off...
400
John Lantos
- Jan 19
- 3 min
Did COVID kill Jacinda Ardern?
Democratic governments that impose vaccine mandates are often wildly unpopular. Protests against vaccine mandates were strong in 19th...
140
John Lantos
- Jan 12
- 2 min
Paul Offit vs. NEJM on COVID Boosters
In a Perspective essay, Paul Offit writes, “We should stop trying to prevent all symptomatic infections in healthy, young people by...
910
John Lantos
- Dec 30, 2022
- 7 min
A humane society after Dobbs?
O. Carter Snead’s book, What it Means to Be Human, is really two books. One is an idealistic program for cultural renewal. The other is...
870
John Lantos
- Dec 17, 2022
- 5 min
Loving him meant letting him die
There is a complex episode near the end of Rob Delaney’s shockingly readable memoir, A Heart That Works, The book is about his son Henry...
560
John Lantos
- Dec 12, 2022
- 2 min
Caution about COVID vaccines for kids
Five separable but interrelated issues should inform policies about COVID vaccines for kids. First, what is the goal? Vaccine doesn’t...
80
John Lantos
- Dec 8, 2022
- 5 min
Nights of Plague and Lessons of History
Orhan Pamuk’s novel Nights of Plague feels ripped from the headlines. A deadly infectious disease that started in China is threatening...
310
John Lantos
- Nov 28, 2022
- 3 min
UK Appeals Court Supports Ableism
Ms. Heidi Crowter has Down Syndrome. So does her son Aiden. She thinks that her and her son’s lives are are worth living. She thinks...
480
John Lantos
- Nov 13, 2022
- 2 min
Florida’s Anti-Vax Policy
The Florida Department of Health recently recommended that COVID vaccine not be given to males between the ages of 18-39. They claimed...
340
John Lantos
- Nov 2, 2022
- 3 min
The SARS-CoV-2 Lab-Leak Theory and the Dog That Did Not Bark
In a Sherlock Holmes story, a racehorse disappears on the night before a big race. Holmes is called in to investigate. He focuses not...
260
John Lantos
- Oct 26, 2022
- 2 min
Converging Crises for Kids
Two ominous trends, and two ends of the illness severity spectrum, portend trouble for kids who need health care and the doctors who take...
230
John Lantos
- Oct 11, 2022
- 3 min
COVID, Colonoscopies, and Certainty
OK, just “follow the science.” What the hell does that mean? Philosophers of science know that scientific knowledge is value-laden. We...
260
John Lantos
- Sep 25, 2022
- 3 min
Protecting children from ignorance
The FDA has issued a new draft guidance regarding research in children. An accompanying press release states that we must protect...
320
John Lantos
- Sep 20, 2022
- 3 min
End of Life Care for Children in Groningen
Filmmaker Jean Luc-Godard’s obituary focused on his astounding creativity. It also noted that his death followed assisted suicide. His...
2430
John Lantos
- Sep 4, 2022
- 3 min
Teach us to outgrow guidelines
In 1998, Norway, like many countries, adopted a national policy to guide decisions about life-sustaining treatment for extremely...
410
John Lantos
- Aug 30, 2022
- 2 min
When to let babies die
When is a premature baby so premature that we should consider them non-viable? When we do not intubate them and provide intensive care....
800
John Lantos
- Aug 17, 2022
- 3 min
Bombing bookstores and killing writers
“Some people get statues, others get holes.” – Salman Rushdie David Foster Wallace tells a story about an atheist and a believer sitting...
340
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