Author: Lance Garrison
By Shaini Saravanamuthu, as told to Kara Mayer RobinsonWhen I found out I have retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a type of inherited retinal dystrophy, I was shocked.Nobody in my family has vision problems. I had some trouble with my vision, but I thought it was because of bad lighting or simply because eyes weren’t meant to see well in the dark.After my diagnosis, my struggle to see at night made sense.My DiagnosisI discovered I had retinitis pigmentosa after I switched to a new optometrist. He caught it in a routine check-up. He had taken a picture of my retina and saw…
It was a relief to learn of the arrest last week of a 21-year-old Cornell University student for threatening to rape and murder Jews on campus in reaction to the Israel-Hamas war. It was also an easy case: Violent threats against specific people are illegal, and they are dealt with by the justice system, not school administrators.Easy cases are hard to come by these days, especially at colleges and universities, where the divisions over the Middle East conflict are starker than in any other sector of American society. Examples abound of abhorrent speech by students and faculty members, mostly aimed…
From the minute we wake up until we go to sleep, our eyes help us navigate the world. Like a finely tuned camera, each part of our eyes has a very specific job to do.What Is Inherited Retinal Dystrophy (IRD)Our dome-shaped cornea, the front layer of the eye, allows light to pass through and bends it to help us focus. Some light enters though the small opening of the pupil. How much light the pupil can let in is controlled by the iris, the colored part of the eye. That light then travels through the lens of the eye, which…
At an even more basic level, Mr. Trump doesn’t have to promise positive change so much as the chance to stiff-arm the current leadership. Plenty of protest voters may not be looking to punish Mr. Biden for a particular action, or inaction, so much as for their inchoate disenchantment with the way things are. The economy should be better. Life should be better. The people in charge should be doing better.Some protest voters will turn out to support anyone running against the object of their distaste. This is what plenty of people did with Mr. Trump in 2016 to express…
Ryan Piansky, a PhD student at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has had eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) since he was 2 years old. The condition causes swelling in your esophagus from too many white blood cells. Certain food allergies – meat, nuts, apples, rice, and sweet potatoes, in Piansky’s case – trigger EoE. While it’s possible to lead a normal life with EoE, you have to take some extra steps to plan ahead.Growing Up With Eosinophilic Esophagitis Many people with EoE are diagnosed at a young age. “From the day I was born, I was really, really sick,” Piansky says. “Throughout my…
Our friends are not those who, until recently, never mentioned that Gazan casualty figures come from a health ministry run by Hamas — a mistake they would never make if, say, they were relaying figures produced by the Russian government. Or who describe the people murdered on Oct. 7 as “Jewish settlers,” never mind that they were living in towns and kibbutzim that are part of sovereign Israel. Or who speak of people who murder babies and kidnap elderly women as “fighters” or “militants.”Our friends are not at universities where every third building seems to be named for a Jewish…
Standard treatments ease depression for a lot of people, but they don’t work for everyone. At least 30% of those who try two or more antidepressants continue to have serious symptoms. That’s called treatment-resistant depression.If it happens to you, keep in mind that there are still ways to manage your depression. Talk to your doctor about all of your treatment choices.”The most important point is not to give up,” says John Krystal, MD, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and a pioneer in research on ketamine and depression. “There are so many of these options…
In the movie “Back to the Future II,” Michael J. Fox’s character, Marty McFly, is transported to the fall of 2015 and encounters a world of self-tying shoes and hoverboards. He finds himself trying to make sense of how people behave and the choices they make.Lately, I too feel like I’ve been transported to autumn 2015.That fall, Republican Party officials, donors and operatives were brimming with hope that the field of presidential contenders facing Donald Trump would shrink, clearing the way for a one-on-one matchup between the then-unthinkable Mr. Trump and a more conventional nominee, like the senators Ted Cruz…
Nov. 7, 2023 — When Allan Greenberg was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012, he elected to take a then-uncommon approach to treating the disease.He did practically nothing.Instead of treating his prostate cancer with radiation or surgery, Greenberg chose active surveillance to monitor the disease. Only if the cancer worsened would he seek treatment.Now, at the age of 83, with little to no change in Greenberg’s prostate cancer, the retired college professor is considering forgoing both active surveillance and treatment altogether in the winter of his life, but he hasn’t made his decision yet.“At my age, treatment is the last thing…
[MUSIC PLAYING]From New York Times Opinion, this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”[MUSIC PLAYING]I’m just going to try to say what we’re doing this week as clearly as I can. Before there can be any kind of stable coexistence of peoples in Israel and Palestine, there’s going to have to be a stable coexistence of narratives. There’s a line I love from Yossi Klein Halevi’s book, “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor,” where he writes, quote, “We must recognize not only each other’s right to self-determination but also each side’s right to self-definition.”So you can think of the episodes this week as…