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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Yeah I was surprised they took it down. I think it’s a foolish knee jerk reaction and is patronising towards readers.

    Ironically there is know nothing to put the current spike of interest in context as you can’t read the letter on the guardian website.

    I’m actually really unimpressed with the guardians action - they don’t respect their readers and clearly no longer believe in freedom of speech. They could have modified the article to put the letter in context themselves rather than link to a 20 year old article criticising it. It also makes it hard for those who want to push back against the letter and answer those who are pushing it.


  • So big mistake here: NAC is not harmless. It does have side effects and it also has toxicity at high doses.

    It has not been studied in long term use orally or IV, it’s main use bomg short term use for paracetamol overdose treatment. Inhalation is more studied but it is not absorbed into the body in the same way.

    We think it is safe but we haven’t actually done human trials to be sure. What we have found in mice is that high doses can cause lung and heart damage and also when it comes to alcohol it is protective if taken before alcohol consumption BUT it amplifies the toxicity to the liver if about 4 hours taken after alcohol. All of this is summarised on the Wikipedia page which looks to be good quality.

    Overall it may be a useful drug but don’t take it off label or self medicating. Medicine is littered with unexpected effects of drugs that only came out once it was too late. Thalidomide is a good example - a “wonder drug” for nausea used in pregnancy that was not tested and caused horrific birth defects which only became evident when it was too late.

    Your body is not a lab, be careful experimenting with supposedly “safe” drugs.



  • It’s called confabulation, and it’s not “normal” aging, it’s a sign of memory loss. Dementia is a common cause.

    I find it staggering that the democratic party are going with him as their presidential candidate. Feels like a mix of the sunken cost fallacy and a fear of turning away from someone who is currently beating Trump in the polls.

    Arguably Trump confabulates too but it gets dismissed as he’s been a liar for so long no one notices.

    2024 is looking like an election with two elderly men with dementia vying for the whitehouse, and another one as senate leader. That’s how extreme US politics has become - you could put up a literal monkey now and as long as he’s in the right party he would get nearly 1/2 the vote.

    It’s all a sign of how dangerously broken the US electoral system is.


  • Ultimately “live and let live” is all we can ask of anyone. If that is their attitude then they aren’t a bigot. People are expecting too much of other people now - not embracing someone does not make someone a bigot.

    Your starting position to me is honestly enough but unfortunately many people are way away from that. As a gay guy, I’d be happy with people just saying “do whatever you want want, just don’t ask me to like it”. The problem is too many people claim that with words but then actually act differently.