  A recent claim has been made in the journal Nature that there must be a
self-regulation in the waiting times to see hospital consultants on the ground
that the relative changes in the size of waiting lists follow a power law. In
agreement with simulations of Frecketon and Sutherland, we explain the general
non-self-regulating mechanism underlying this result and derive the exact value
-2 of the exponent found empirically and numerically. In addition, we provide
links with related phenomena encountered in many other fields.
