A few tidbits from the Boston Globe

A few interesting pieces in today's Globe:In a letter to the editor, Dr. Bernhard Heersink critiques columnist Thomas Oliphant's "Healthcare deadbeats" article that I commented on a week ago. (Oliphant had condemned companies that don't provide health insurance to their employees.)

Wake up, people, your employers do not buy your home insurance, your life insurance, or your car insurance. Why should they buy your health insurance? Wouldn't you spend your own money more carefully than someone else's?

Columnist Charles Stein (A drug-ad ban is tough to swallow) echoes my rejection of Senator Frist's calls for restrictions on drug advertising.

There is something vaguely Soviet about telling companies that make legal, and presumably, useful products that they can't promote them. Drugs aren't cigarettes, after all. There is also something distinctly paternalistic about the idea. With an advertising ban, drug companies would talk only to doctors who would make decisions with less consumer input. The whole thing is a little too ''Father Knows Best" for me.

And finally, in case the pharmaceutical industry didn't have enough trouble already, Tom Cruise and the Scientologists are attacking the psychiatry profession and psychiatric drugs. (Scientology takes pulpit with anti-psychiatry gospel.)