dejerine
07-16-2006, 06:05 AM
Just in case anyone doubts America is losing ground in technology, some interesting statistics are available. Japan China and India all graduate more than 700,000 engineers per year. The U.S. graduates around 70,000. Similar ratios exist in the other sciences including neuroscience.
Is it just me or have we as a nation forgotten that technology and science is what made this country? Stem cell research? Forget it. America isn't even in the top ten. Not even the top twenty. And so, as we contemplate pain research, it is increasingly clear that we must put our trust in places like Karolinska, Queen's Hospital in London, West Toronto Hospital, Sydney Australia, and even New Zealand, all of which seem to be publishing better material than we are.
America is still number ONE in placebo articles. It is just so easy to qualify oneself on placebo effect. You don't really have to know anything. On the other hand, a dynamic study of central pain on functional MRI--for that you have to go to Germany or some place that is interested in research.
Politics has become nothing more than a big gossip column. Time to turn off the TV, shut down the newspapers and switch over to the Discovery Channel. We will all learn more, think more, and hope more.
Just for fun, do a ratio of U.S. to foreign authors in places like the Journal of Neuroscience. The Journal Pain has a totally separate international version because there are so many articles on pain coming from outside the U. S. HINT: The American version is the one with all the articles on placebo effect.
We may soon have to learn Hungarian and Italian if we hope to stay current. If you look back at pain therapy articles from twenty years ago on drugs like Elavil, you could just put the word Neurontin in there and no one could tell the difference. Seems to help some people at high doses, but variable with many side effects. What progress has pain medicine made in the last two decades besides implantable pumps which break after three years? I am resigning my membership in the Society of American Placebo Scientists (SAPS). Also the Consortium of Rabid Advocates of Placebo (CRAP) I want some pain relief for nerve injury pain. No more garbage anticonvulsants which make you dizzy and drowsy with fancy names to mislead people that something new has appeared.
Is it just me or have we as a nation forgotten that technology and science is what made this country? Stem cell research? Forget it. America isn't even in the top ten. Not even the top twenty. And so, as we contemplate pain research, it is increasingly clear that we must put our trust in places like Karolinska, Queen's Hospital in London, West Toronto Hospital, Sydney Australia, and even New Zealand, all of which seem to be publishing better material than we are.
America is still number ONE in placebo articles. It is just so easy to qualify oneself on placebo effect. You don't really have to know anything. On the other hand, a dynamic study of central pain on functional MRI--for that you have to go to Germany or some place that is interested in research.
Politics has become nothing more than a big gossip column. Time to turn off the TV, shut down the newspapers and switch over to the Discovery Channel. We will all learn more, think more, and hope more.
Just for fun, do a ratio of U.S. to foreign authors in places like the Journal of Neuroscience. The Journal Pain has a totally separate international version because there are so many articles on pain coming from outside the U. S. HINT: The American version is the one with all the articles on placebo effect.
We may soon have to learn Hungarian and Italian if we hope to stay current. If you look back at pain therapy articles from twenty years ago on drugs like Elavil, you could just put the word Neurontin in there and no one could tell the difference. Seems to help some people at high doses, but variable with many side effects. What progress has pain medicine made in the last two decades besides implantable pumps which break after three years? I am resigning my membership in the Society of American Placebo Scientists (SAPS). Also the Consortium of Rabid Advocates of Placebo (CRAP) I want some pain relief for nerve injury pain. No more garbage anticonvulsants which make you dizzy and drowsy with fancy names to mislead people that something new has appeared.