Author’s Note: This story is a direct sequel to The Island Of Stability. It will therefore make more sense if you read that part first; but this is not a strict necessity. Medical lingo Nocturnist: a hospitalist who works night shifts AMA: Leaving the hospital “Against Medical Advice”
Comment on the graph, submitted without any actual knowledge of the specifics: Correlation need not imply causation. Possible alternative interpretation: if circumstances are bad, maybe people drink more and suicide rates go up. If the 1984 drop is indeed because of an anti-alcohol policy (rather than a more general policy targeting an underlying cause), that would be more convincing to me.
I'm too lazy to go read the actual article, so apologies in case the article does have evidence for a causal effect rather than just a correlation.
It's interesting wish-fulfillment, but it's a ways too far for me. Are *all* the safety regulations wrong? No additional cases like thalidomide?
Wouldn't there be some governments permitting some products from the island? Or real and fake products based on island discoveries getting out into the world?
Statins might be riskier than you think. There's not just risk of muscle pain, there's risk of muscle damage. Maybe the island has figured out a solution, but as far as I know, the safety regulations are too slow to restrict statins, not too restrictive.
Haha I definitely wrote this as pure wish fulfillment and/or as a thought experiment :) I like the original Island story more, and might rule this story non-canonical if I ever come back to this setting again.
I think the porcine organ farms are probably the most implausible portion of these; the second patient with a porcine heart transplant just died recently, from an accelerated microvascular ?rejection that we don’t quite quite understand. But I guess making them brainless in the story also makes it inherently the most scifi and out-there.
We have somewhat different opinions on statins, but I appreciate your input! In general I consider the muscle/liver side effects from statins to cause too much underuse right now. There’s a very strong and well-documented nocebo effect for muscle aches from statins, leading to patients stopping it prematurely. There’s a new medication called bempedoic acid, for which the indication would be statin-intolerance, and amongst the medical community it’s somewhat controversial. It’s benefit is less than statins, and so the worry would be that patients get put on it rather than trialing statins more aggressively or trying a second/third statin in the class.
That being said, yes this world is definitely lacking a Thalidomide type case :) Maybe for the next sequel story!
Comment on the graph, submitted without any actual knowledge of the specifics: Correlation need not imply causation. Possible alternative interpretation: if circumstances are bad, maybe people drink more and suicide rates go up. If the 1984 drop is indeed because of an anti-alcohol policy (rather than a more general policy targeting an underlying cause), that would be more convincing to me.
I'm too lazy to go read the actual article, so apologies in case the article does have evidence for a causal effect rather than just a correlation.
It's interesting wish-fulfillment, but it's a ways too far for me. Are *all* the safety regulations wrong? No additional cases like thalidomide?
Wouldn't there be some governments permitting some products from the island? Or real and fake products based on island discoveries getting out into the world?
Statins might be riskier than you think. There's not just risk of muscle pain, there's risk of muscle damage. Maybe the island has figured out a solution, but as far as I know, the safety regulations are too slow to restrict statins, not too restrictive.
Haha I definitely wrote this as pure wish fulfillment and/or as a thought experiment :) I like the original Island story more, and might rule this story non-canonical if I ever come back to this setting again.
I think the porcine organ farms are probably the most implausible portion of these; the second patient with a porcine heart transplant just died recently, from an accelerated microvascular ?rejection that we don’t quite quite understand. But I guess making them brainless in the story also makes it inherently the most scifi and out-there.
We have somewhat different opinions on statins, but I appreciate your input! In general I consider the muscle/liver side effects from statins to cause too much underuse right now. There’s a very strong and well-documented nocebo effect for muscle aches from statins, leading to patients stopping it prematurely. There’s a new medication called bempedoic acid, for which the indication would be statin-intolerance, and amongst the medical community it’s somewhat controversial. It’s benefit is less than statins, and so the worry would be that patients get put on it rather than trialing statins more aggressively or trying a second/third statin in the class.
That being said, yes this world is definitely lacking a Thalidomide type case :) Maybe for the next sequel story!