First a follow-up from last week's discussion: I was reminded this weekend that although every pill in a bottle we get from the pharmacy has exactly the same balance of chemicals, and drip machines let us know exactly how much morphine goes into a patient, we do NOT control how that particular chemical and amount interacts with the patient's own body. In a basic example, we metabolize codine into morphine, but due to variations in the enzyme that does that, how various people will react to the exact same does of codine depends not only on weight and age but on their genetics. With other drugs, genetic differences can mean life or death, psychosis, or addiction. I think this should be held in mind when we compare the "predictability" and "certainty" of western pharmaceuticals with herbal medicines. For this week, I find the readings ring true with what I see around me, and also with where universities like Stanford put huge amounts of resources towards research. But doctors cannot take responsibility for their patients' lifestyle. In a hospital in Turkey, where doctors are less expected to be spiritual counselors or even know their patients like we do, doctors talked about how the same patients and kinds of patients came in again and again with the same complaints from smoking, alcohol, diet, and lack of excercise. Their advice generally went unheeded and the patient would return. And this is where the doctors and patients share language, city, and deep culture. The role of public health, education, and social change gets much, much bigger. In fact this gives an opportunity for people to make a huge impact on health without chemistry smarts and ten years of school; educating children and giving them the resources (parks, fruits and veggies) requires far less expertise than an MD.