Barry Schwartz: TED Talk on Our Loss of Wisdom - Video

A wise person knows when and how to make the exception to every rule…

A wise person knows how to improvise…

Real-world problems are often ambiguous and ill-defined and the context is always changing. A wise person is like a jazz musician, using the notes on the page, but dancing around them, inventing combinations that are appropriate for the situation and the people at hand.

A wise person knows how to use these moral skills in the service of the right aims. To serve other people, not to manipulate other people.

And finally, perhaps most important, a wise person is made, not born. Wisdom depends on experience, and not just any experience.

You need the time to get to know the people that you’re serving. You need permission to be allowed to improvise, try new things, occasionally to fail and to learn from your failures. And you need to be mentored by wise teachers.

H1N1: Tamiflu results questioned by the UK BMJ

Research published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has confirmed that the antiviral oseltamivir, is only effective in reducing influenza A symptoms by 1 day. (normally Influenza A symptoms persist from 7 - 10 days)

It also confirmed that there was no evidence that oseltamivir prevented the most fatal complications, pneumonia and severe respiratory disorders.

It comes after the Government and GPs failed to reach an agreement on the swine flu vaccination programme for under-fives, with health visitors and district nurses now set to be asked by local NHS managers to step in.

The BMJ research has questioned the validity of research from Roche, the pharmaceutical giant that makes oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

More than a million courses of antivirals including Tamiflu have been given out to people across Britain since the start of the swine flu pandemic.

A review of 20 existing studies was carried out by a team led by experts from the Cochrane Collaboration, which last reviewed the evidence in 2005. Their updated study found Tamiflu "did not reduce influenza-related lower respiratory tract complications".

The drug was found to induce nausea while evidence of adverse reactions to the drug were "under-reported", they said.

Tamiflu was claimed to be effective in treating people preventatively, i.e. after they had come into contact with somebody who was infected, and shortened the length of symptoms in those with swine flu.

But the study criticised some of the evidence available and said Roche had not been able to "unconditionally" provide the information needed. As a result, the team dropped eight trials that were included in their earlier review because they were unable to independently verify the findings.

This leads to further speculation that the mass innoculation of peoples is commercially based, adding to the profits of the pharmaceutical companies, without there being sound medical evidence to back it up.

The power of the pharma lobbyists is such that this conspiracy to defraud the public has extended into the medical and political hierarchy and large incentives are being offered to executives, politicians and medical authorities that support the exploitation of this pandemic.