Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

The ‘DSM-5′: Introducing the Latest Edition of Psychiatry’s Diagnostic Bible

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The long-awaited, controversial new edition of the bible of psychiatry can be characterized by many numbers: its 947 pages, its $199 price tag, its more than 300 maladies (from "dependent personality disorder" and "voyeuristic disorder" to "delayed ejaculation," "kleptomania" and "intermittent explosive disorder"), each limning the potential woes of being human. But to the psychiatrist who shepherded the tortuous creation of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, perhaps the single most important number is the "5" in its title: This is the DSM-5, not the DSM-V. That ... Read More

Why Would a Medical Doctor Embrace an Unproven Treatment?

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Face down on a massage table, a 30-something corporate attorney grips a tiny vial of clear liquid and breathes deeply, again and again. My wife, Kathryn, an internal medicine specialist whose practice focuses on the arcane arts of alternative healing, presses her thumbs on each side of the woman’s neck and moves slowly down her spine. The woman suffers from chronic fatigue, nasal congestion, and a severely runny nose, which conventional medical treatments have failed to cure. So she’s come to see Kathryn. A few weeks later, after a handful of similar treatments, the woman calls to ... Read More

Changing Parental Attitudes on Child Vaccinations

During the 15 years that have passed since I began my pediatric training, I have been involved in the care of dying children. Thankfully, this is not a regular part of my practice, and I can remember each of those children. Most were kids who succumbed to chronic disease that had slowly yet inexorably overwhelmed them: leukemia, cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease. Sometimes, when nothing more could be done medically, all that remained was to sit by the bedside with the family and embrace the child as he passed away. Any child's death is tragic. Hardest to reconcile, though, are those ... Read More

iPad App ‘Proloquo2Go’ Gives the Gift of Voice

Just four years ago, my son, Jake, who has autism, couldn't make his basic needs and wants known. His speech therapist thought an augmentative communication device — a touchscreen computer running specialized software that speaks in a computerized voice when icons are pressed — would help him communicate with parents, teachers and peers. Jake is in good company — according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, more than 2 million people in the United States have a severe communication disorder and may be candidates for augmentative communication. But acquiring such a ... Read More

Storks, Vaccines and Causation

Before learning about the "birds and the bees" we may have been told how the stork brought us, as a little baby, to our parents. Even with a minimal interest in the animal kingdom of storks, birds and bees, we likely started to question this curious story. That is until we heard this news about Denmark: Post-1960 there was a significant decline in the number of nesting storks in Denmark. Also, beginning in the late 1960s, Denmark started recording its lowest average number of childbirths per woman. In short: fewer storks = fewer babies. Here rests one of the fundamental errors in ... Read More

TV Can Turn Public’s Dial

With its “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality, local television news has often been accused of feeding its viewers a skewed portrait of a dangerous, frightening world. But a different form of programming has been linked even more closely to fear of lawlessness. When it comes to arousing anxiety, grim-faced anchors have nothing on Dennis Franz. “Studies have found very clearly that watching NYPD Blue is a much better predictor than news consumption of whether you judge crime to be an important issue,” said R. Lance Holbert, an associate professor in the School of Communications at ... Read More