Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Adil Menon

  • Blaming Tuskegee for present ills

    Adil MenonChicago, Illinois, United States The USPHS Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male is United States medical history’s most tragic example of the road to Hell being paved with good intentions. In the early 20th century, the Public Health Service and the Rosenwald Fund looked to Alabama’s Maycomb County and found a…

  • Doubled edged shield

    Adil Menon Cleveland, Ohio, United States Working my way through a biography of pioneering vaccine developer Maurice Hilleman titled Vaccinated, I was struck by how often the researchers of his era, such as Jonas Salk, tested their vaccines both on their own children as well as on children with cognitive challenges. If indeed the latter were…

  • Pharmaceutical marketing in America

    Adil MenonAli MchaourabCleveland, Ohio, United States Within the past few decades, there has been a great change in how the pharmaceutical industry markets its products in the United States. Prices of medical drugs have skyrocketed as regulations have been eased by lawmakers. Granting more control to pharmaceutical companies has allowed the industry to bypass healthcare…

  • The other pain crisis

    Adil MenonCleveland, Ohio, USA A guiding principle of medical care is that humans regardless of their superficial differences are fundamentally the same in their physiology. One of the oldest and most persistent refutations of this premise is the centuries old myth of a uniquely “African body,” characterized by diminished pain response and elevated stoicism, a…

  • Manga as medical critique

    Adil MenonCleveland, Ohio, United States Stark lines are often drawn in American and European literature between graphic novels, which cater primarily to adults, and comics, which despite their broad appeal are perceived as being meant for younger audiences. No such dichotomy exists within the Japanese medium of manga, an expansive art form with works catering…

  • The Rockefeller Institute and the growth of cell biology

    Adil MenonBrookline, Massachusetts, United States In 1995 Nobel-winning cell biologist George Palade stated that “a newborn baby needs, of course, a friendly, comfortable cradle, which was provided by the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and thus became the American cradle of cell biology.”[1] This essay explores the unique aspects of this cradle, which  nurtured the…

  • Public insurance expansion versus a single payer system

    Adil MenonBrookline, Massachusetts Since the late 1940s when employer based private health insurance became increasingly prevalent in the United States, the expansion of public health insurance to a growing share of the population has been viewed as the best approach to helping people, particularly those on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, obtain medical…

  • Is there a united Hippocratic school?

    Adil MenonChicago, Illinois, United States Hippocrates once asserted that while “many admire, few know,” a truth that would come to cast a long shadow over his own legacy. Eager to connect themselves to a famous name, if not to the practices or ideology he espoused, a multitude of schools across the ancient Greek world have hailed…