From the Library

“Two centuries earlier, a Persian scholar, Ibn Sina (980–1037), born near Bukhara, had laid the basis for a study of logic, science, philosophy, politics and medicine. He was critical of Aristotle’s Logic, regarding it as too remote from everyday life and therefore inapplicable. His skills as a physician let his employees, the native rulers of Khurasan and Isfahan, to seek his advice on political matters. Here, like Machivelli after him, he gave advice that annoyed some of his patrons. This meant that he often had to leave the city of his employment in a hurry. In these periods he disappeared from public life, earning his living as a physician. His Kanun fi’l-tibb (Medical Canon) was a summary of existing medical knowledge together with his own theories and cures developed through many hours of regular clinical practice. This became the major textbook in medicine throughout the medical schools of the Islamic world and sections of it are still used in contemporary Iran.” (Ali T. The Clash of Fundamentalisms. New York, Verso. 2002;53.)

Can we trust drug-company-sponsored trials. Researchers recently reviewed studies of statins and noted the results were 20 times more likely to favour the drug made by the company that …