Jackie's tale sets alarm bells ringing

Friday, November 7, 2008 - 19:14 in Psychology & Sociology

Last week I failed to distinguish satisfactorily between the fantastical miasmatic theory of disease in the middle ages and the fantastical miasmatic theory of disease as meant by some homeopaths. This made no difference to my argument - that the science of a disease is more interesting than made up nonsense about it - but it was an error, it was mine, and there is no ignominy in clarifying that. So you're reading Woman's Own, and you get to the "Real life - health" pages, and you see "Most people jump when the phone rings unexpectedly, but for Jackie Dewhurst, 39, it could be deadly". This was a first person story about Addison's disease, a disorder of the adrenal glands, under the headline A Phone Call Could Kill Me. "Now I have to avoid stressful situations at all costs," says Jackie, "which means I've had to bid farewell to horror...

Read the whole article on The Guardian - Science

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