May 2018

Why Didn’t Harvey Run? By Leonard Zwelling Even with his company in financial trouble and his own life a mess, I would have thought that Harvey Weinstein would have had a suitcase full of cash under his casting couch for emergencies and would have been smart enough to know that his situation qualifies as an […]

Trump Vs. Pisters: Unprepared Vs. Ready To Go By Leonard Zwelling Trump cancelled the summit scheduled for June 12 with North Korea (or not—who knows?). I guess he took offense at the nasty things a Kim Jun-Un underling had to say about Mike Pence. No matter. Trump wasn’t ready for the summit because he did

What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been By Leonard Zwelling https://www.nytimes.com/section/magazine?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=TopBar&module=HPMiniNav&contentCollection=Magazine&WT.nav=page https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/16/magazine/health-issue-what-we-lose-with-data-driven-medicine.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine&action=click&contentCollection=magazine&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=4&pgtype=sectionfront On Sunday, May 20, The NY Times Magazine published its Health Issue. These two articles couldn’t be in more stark contrast. The first is excerpted from Michael Pollan’s new book called How To Change Your Mind: What The New Science Of Psychedelics Teaches

Make No Mistake. It’s Worse Than Ever In Israel By Leonard Zwelling In his NY Times op-ed of May 18, David Brooks gives a good summary of where things are in Israel right now and how they got there. There is one underlying fact that needs to be accepted by all participants in any potential

Drunk With Conflict By Leonard Zwelling If there is one person you do not want to get a letter from, it is Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA). He recently sent one to Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the NIH. It was about a large clinical trial. Apparently the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Is Israel Better Off With The American Embassy In Jerusalem? By Leonard Zwelling https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/trump-netanyahu-and-a-day-of-dangerous-fictions-at-the-new-us-embassy-in-jerusalem?mbid=nl_Daily%20051518&CNDID=28650707&spMailingID=13513471&spUserID=MTQxOTMwNTA4OTI5S0&spJobID=1401356284&spReportId=MTQwMTM1NjI4NAS2 The articles are everywhere—in the paper and on the web. On Monday, May 14, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner opened the new American embassy in Jerusalem. Even though this city has been the capital of Israel since the country’s inception in

Trump Reduces Drug Prices-Not! By Leonard Zwelling The vagary with which both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times covered the announcement by Donald Trump that his administration would reduce the price of drugs is only accurate reporting. Most of the president’s proposals are pretty vague. They do not include drug re-importation (allowing

What’s Normal? By Leonard Zwelling The hardest part of overseas travel for me is the difficulty I have keeping up with events back in the States. English speaking television in many foreign countries is limited to CNN and we all know that’s “fake news.” Not really, but still, having only one news source is never

The Face Of Cancer In Turkey Is Familiar By Leonard Zwelling It is striking how little it changes. The face of a child with cancer is the same in Turkey as it is in the U.S. Professor Rejin Kebudi, the chief of pediatric oncology at the Istanbul University Oncology Institute, had invited Dr. Kleinerman to

Istanbul and The Women Of Turkey By Leonard Zwelling This is a city of 20 million people that spans two continents with the Bosporus and three new suspension bridges running between the two sides of the city. There is a tunnel under the water as well. Despite all these routes from Europe to Asia, the