In one of my risk assessment and communication lectures, I liked to ask the attendees: "Which is more hazardous: Cyanide or water". The replies were always cyanide. Then I mentioned a scenario where the cyanide was properly labeled, in a closed container, and stored in a properly functioning fume hood, or that you were dropped unclothed from a helicopter three miles offshore in Lake Erie in the middle of January. And yes, we have seen children and adults seriously ill or fatally poisoned with psychogenic or Munchausen's syndrome by proxy oral water overdoses.
And I too, very much like Saliieri's' music, but it's kind of hard not to like Mozart's more. There's no accounting for tastes and to each his/her own. None are wrong. Just personal.
I also very much like the painting of Van Gogh and have a print of Wheatfield with Crows over my desk, but temporal lobe epilepsy didn't do him any personal good and he never sold a painting n his life and only his brother Theo kept him alive to some meager extent. The museum in Amterdam is well worth visiting, and I have done so many times. There's certain times of day when the light is just right for certain paintings.
And Varrichio(s) is/are correct, the main problems today are still overpopulation, inadequate measures for dealing with human waste, inadequate sanitation measures, and infectious diseases. More troops have died in wars from infectious diseases than were ever killed by combat wounds.
Alan
Alan H. Hall, M.D.
Medical Toxicologist
Major, USAFR, MC, FS (Hon. Ret.)
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