silo

[Baker, John]

It's an extension of the organizational use of "silo," a pejorative term meaning that business units have vertical communications and control, resulting in a failure to work together with other units.  According to the Wikipedia article on "information silo," it was coined by Phil Ensor in 1988.  I understand the writer of the Yahoo News article to mean that the FDA has statutory, regulatory, or organizational constraints on the considerations that the FDA can take into account in assessing aspirin use.


John Baker



-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 6:32 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: silo

'Narrow restriction or constraint'?

Yahoo! News:

"According to the FDA, daily aspirin could cause serious side effects like
internal bleeding.

"Yet why do I still take and advocate two baby aspirins a day for most men
over 35 and women over 40?
"Because I am not bound by the same silos as the FDA. I can see that for
the same risk of bleeding, you also get the cancer protection that aspirin
affords, as well as the dementia prevention."

JL

--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org