Questões de Inglês

It´s time to stop kidding ourselves about Greece. In

Wonderland, the White Queen told Alice that believing “six

impossible things before breakfast” is quite in order; but in

Europe it is not. Over the past 18 months, the fiction that

[5]  chronically dysfunctional, spendthrift Greece could, even

with massive handouts, reform its way back to economic

health has cost Europe´s taxpayers billions. Worse still, it

magnified the risks to the euro that they sought to avoid.

If the idea was that pouring money into Greece

[10]  would divert attention from Portugal, Spain, or Italy, the

strategy backfired; financial markets reasoned that if

politicians lacked the courage to face the facts in Greece,

what confidence could there be that peer pressure would

compel Italy and Spain to put their appalling finances in

[15]  order? The more Merkel and Sarkozy insist that Greece´s

future lies squarely within the eurozone, the more they put

the euro at risk.

The only uncertainties now are the terms of a Greek

default, what the wider damage will be, and how to limit it.

[20]  The fact that politicians have painted default as an

unthinkable catastrophe does not help. It will be messy –

yet no less messy than the political confusion that has

stymied decisions for the past 18 months.

(from How this Greek Tragedy Will End by Rosemary Righter in NEWSWEEK, September 26,2011)

It´s time to stop kidding ourselves about Greece. In

Wonderland, the White Queen told Alice that believing “six

impossible things before breakfast” is quite in order; but in

Europe it is not. Over the past 18 months, the fiction that

[5]  chronically dysfunctional, spendthrift Greece could, even

with massive handouts, reform its way back to economic

health has cost Europe´s taxpayers billions. Worse still, it

magnified the risks to the euro that they sought to avoid.

If the idea was that pouring money into Greece

[10]  would divert attention from Portugal, Spain, or Italy, the

strategy backfired; financial markets reasoned that if

politicians lacked the courage to face the facts in Greece,

what confidence could there be that peer pressure would

compel Italy and Spain to put their appalling finances in

[15]  order? The more Merkel and Sarkozy insist that Greece´s

future lies squarely within the eurozone, the more they put

the euro at risk.

The only uncertainties now are the terms of a Greek

default, what the wider damage will be, and how to limit it.

[20]  The fact that politicians have painted default as an

unthinkable catastrophe does not help. It will be messy –

yet no less messy than the political confusion that has

stymied decisions for the past 18 months.

(from How this Greek Tragedy Will End by Rosemary Righter in NEWSWEEK, September 26,2011)

Dr. Stephen Smith, professor emeritus of family

medicine at Brown University School of Medicine, tells

his physician not to order a PSA blood test for prostate

cancer or an annual electrocardiogram to screen for

[5]  heart irregularities, since neither test has been shown to

save lives. Rather, both tests frequently find innocuous

quirks that can lead to a risky odyssey of tests and

procedures. Dr. Rita Redberg, professor of medicine at

the University of California says that mammograms

[10]  detect too many false positives ( suspicious spots that

turn out, upon biopsy, to be nothing) and tumors that

might regress on their own, and there is little if any

evidence that they save lives. “There are many areas of

medicine where not testing, not imaging, and not

[15]  treating actually result in better outcomes,” Redberg

says. In other words, “less is more”.

That less care can lead to better health and,

conversely, that more health care can harm health, runs

counter to most patients’ conviction that screenings and

[20]  treatments are inherently beneficial. Most of us

wouldn´t think twice if our doctor offered us a test that

has the power to expose a lurking tumor, or a clogged

artery, or a heart arrhythmia. Better to know – and get

treated‐ than to take risks, the reasoning goes.

[25]  However in an Archives paper published this

month, a panel of physicians announced its first list of

tests and treatments that should be dropped for certain

patients and ailments: antibiotics for sinus infections,

imaging for low back pain, osteoporosis screening for

[30]  women under 65 and electrocardiograms in low‐risk

patients.

(from No! The one word can save your life, by Sharon Begley, in NEWSWEEK, August 29,2011)

Dr. Stephen Smith, professor emeritus of family

medicine at Brown University School of Medicine, tells

his physician not to order a PSA blood test for prostate

cancer or an annual electrocardiogram to screen for

[5]  heart irregularities, since neither test has been shown to

save lives. Rather, both tests frequently find innocuous

quirks that can lead to a risky odyssey of tests and

procedures. Dr. Rita Redberg, professor of medicine at

the University of California says that mammograms

[10]  detect too many false positives ( suspicious spots that

turn out, upon biopsy, to be nothing) and tumors that

might regress on their own, and there is little if any

evidence that they save lives. “There are many areas of

medicine where not testing, not imaging, and not

[15]  treating actually result in better outcomes,” Redberg

says. In other words, “less is more”.

That less care can lead to better health and,

conversely, that more health care can harm health, runs

counter to most patients’ conviction that screenings and

[20]  treatments are inherently beneficial. Most of us

wouldn´t think twice if our doctor offered us a test that

has the power to expose a lurking tumor, or a clogged

artery, or a heart arrhythmia. Better to know – and get

treated‐ than to take risks, the reasoning goes.

[25]  However in an Archives paper published this

month, a panel of physicians announced its first list of

tests and treatments that should be dropped for certain

patients and ailments: antibiotics for sinus infections,

imaging for low back pain, osteoporosis screening for

[30]  women under 65 and electrocardiograms in low‐risk

patients.

(from No! The one word can save your life, by Sharon Begley, in NEWSWEEK, August 29,2011)

Dr. Stephen Smith, professor emeritus of family

medicine at Brown University School of Medicine, tells

his physician not to order a PSA blood test for prostate

cancer or an annual electrocardiogram to screen for

[5]  heart irregularities, since neither test has been shown to

save lives. Rather, both tests frequently find innocuous

quirks that can lead to a risky odyssey of tests and

procedures. Dr. Rita Redberg, professor of medicine at

the University of California says that mammograms

[10]  detect too many false positives ( suspicious spots that

turn out, upon biopsy, to be nothing) and tumors that

might regress on their own, and there is little if any

evidence that they save lives. “There are many areas of

medicine where not testing, not imaging, and not

[15]  treating actually result in better outcomes,” Redberg

says. In other words, “less is more”.

That less care can lead to better health and,

conversely, that more health care can harm health, runs

counter to most patients’ conviction that screenings and

[20]  treatments are inherently beneficial. Most of us

wouldn´t think twice if our doctor offered us a test that

has the power to expose a lurking tumor, or a clogged

artery, or a heart arrhythmia. Better to know – and get

treated‐ than to take risks, the reasoning goes.

[25]  However in an Archives paper published this

month, a panel of physicians announced its first list of

tests and treatments that should be dropped for certain

patients and ailments: antibiotics for sinus infections,

imaging for low back pain, osteoporosis screening for

[30]  women under 65 and electrocardiograms in low‐risk

patients.

(from No! The one word can save your life, by Sharon Begley, in NEWSWEEK, August 29,2011)

Dr. Stephen Smith, professor emeritus of family

medicine at Brown University School of Medicine, tells

his physician not to order a PSA blood test for prostate

cancer or an annual electrocardiogram to screen for

[5]  heart irregularities, since neither test has been shown to

save lives. Rather, both tests frequently find innocuous

quirks that can lead to a risky odyssey of tests and

procedures. Dr. Rita Redberg, professor of medicine at

the University of California says that mammograms

[10]  detect too many false positives ( suspicious spots that

turn out, upon biopsy, to be nothing) and tumors that

might regress on their own, and there is little if any

evidence that they save lives. “There are many areas of

medicine where not testing, not imaging, and not

[15]  treating actually result in better outcomes,” Redberg

says. In other words, “less is more”.

That less care can lead to better health and,

conversely, that more health care can harm health, runs

counter to most patients’ conviction that screenings and

[20]  treatments are inherently beneficial. Most of us

wouldn´t think twice if our doctor offered us a test that

has the power to expose a lurking tumor, or a clogged

artery, or a heart arrhythmia. Better to know – and get

treated‐ than to take risks, the reasoning goes.

[25]  However in an Archives paper published this

month, a panel of physicians announced its first list of

tests and treatments that should be dropped for certain

patients and ailments: antibiotics for sinus infections,

imaging for low back pain, osteoporosis screening for

[30]  women under 65 and electrocardiograms in low‐risk

patients.

(from No! The one word can save your life, by Sharon Begley, in NEWSWEEK, August 29,2011)