Axel and I have frequently written about the sense and nonsense of treatments, but hardly about tests. Tests are neither a magic wand to keep you healthy, nor to detect illness. For example everybody agrees on fasting blood sugar testing, but what does a normal result say? Everything and nothing. As a single test it may be useful to screen for diabetes, but a normal test does still not exclude it entirely.
Summer Break
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
Thanks to the summer break I can seamlessly continue the story Merkel & Sarkozy. Initially I did not want to touch the subject (too complicated and too serious), but now it obviously is tempting, particularly after the social democrats have suggested the same in July, too.
Marxism, Merkelism, Papandreouism
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
I heard of somebody asking why I put Germany down in an English magazine. But would the English like to hear me praising Germany all the time?
Credibility
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
Deadlines for the Gazette are at times a difficult thing for the writer and one would wish the following edition to be printed already one week later. Whilst the last couple of weeks in German politics hardly are worth sarcastic comments or reflection, the days after the last deadline would have been worth lots.
Egypt – German Style
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
This month it is difficult to ramble in the German Jottings, considering the Libyan Slaughterhouse and the Japanese Inferno. John Lennon’s Imagine comes to mind and I feel that whereas we had made long strides towards a world living in peace, it is the famous one step forward, two steps backwards scenario.
Radioactivity: Kill and Cure
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
Doctor Wolfgang Piller has a look at radioactivity; the three kinds of rays; the damage it causes and its use to treat illnesses.
Petit Fours
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
Nothing special happened in Germany last month, but lots of political petit fours were consumed. Our darling politician, the Minister of Defence, had to swallow three of them within a few days. Does he know what is going on in his own ministry? – No: letters of soldiers being opened systematically; death through possible bullying…
Beat Addiction
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
I promised to write an article about smoking after I had managed to stay off cigarettes for one year. Just in time, after the majority of New Year resolutions have faltered and smokers now having to pursue their addiction in front of bars and restaurants.
Angry Citizen
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
“Citizen full of anger,” has been chosen words of the year 2010 by the Society of German Language and it has already been rejected by the ‘angry” citizens,’ because it does not reflect the reason of their discontent.
Eternal Affairs
by Wolfgang K Piller MD •
What we sent abroad last month was nowhere welcome. Obama did not like Merkel, the English did not like the bomb parcel from Yemen, arriving via Cologne, and the Spanish did not like my Pope. I say, ‘My Pope,’ because he was my local bishop back in the 70’s.