Archive for the ‘Medicine’ Category
California’s ban on individual genetic risk assessment
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008The state of California is attempting to shut down direct-to-consumer genetic testing. Now, this is just bizarre. I don't even know what to say about it, but I felt I had to condemn it on my web page because it is just so stupid. It is also so typical of ...
Genetic-discrimination legislation scares me
Sunday, May 11th, 2008The journal Nature had a news story about the bill prohibiting genetic discrimination that breezed through the Senate and that will undoubtedly become law very shortly. Since you'd have to have access to the full content of the Nature website to read it, I will paste the text of the ...
Shoddy but equal
Sunday, May 11th, 2008In the UK, hospital maternity wards have been rejecting pregnant women because they are full. Well, it's something to look forward to here.
My biggest fear
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008The governmental injustice that gives me the most nightmarish flashes, the most cold sweats, the most nerve-wracking fear, is socialized medicine. Reading this news item made the realization that Americans are going to be victims of socialized medicine sooner rather than later hit me quite hard: Most U.S. doctors back ...
Why computers work and health care doesn’t
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008I think arguing by analogy is quite effective as a way to introduce an argument to someone whose beliefs are very different from yours. It can be quite instructive. Bill Walker wrote a good article last month about the contrast between the computer industry and the health care industry. Instead ...
Flu shots: “recommended” to “mandatory”?
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008Karen De Coster made a prediction that I made to myself when I read this announcement this morning: The Imperial Federal Government is now recommending that all children between the ages of 6 months and 18 years get a flu shot once a year. I predict that within our lifetimes, ...
Drugging unruly children is a method of social control
Friday, February 1st, 2008A letter to the editor of Nature this week strongly objected to the widespread and involuntary administration of Ritalin to children, and to a recent claim, published in Nature, that ADHD is heritable and very prevalent. Sir Sahakian and Morein-Zamir's reference to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as heritable and affecting 4–10% of ...
Biggest factor in rising health care costs:
Thursday, January 24th, 2008The doctors themselves, says Dr. Steve Cole. Thanks to Overlawyered.com.
Affordable private health care
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008A group of physicians in Rhode Island has formed what they call HealthAccessRI, a network of doctors who are providing their customers primary care for a small monthly fee, with medical insurance playing no part in it. This news article presents a very favorable view of it. The premise underlying the ...
Ron Paul speech on medicine and government
Saturday, January 19th, 2008Ron Paul gave a fantastic speech at the 15th Annual World Congress on Anti-Aging Medicine & Regenerative Biomedical Technologies, available on the homepage of worldhealth.net, about the harmfulness of government interference (coercion) in our medical care and the benefits individual freedom and choice would bring.
Medical bureaucracy
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008Yesterday I blagged about a biased book reviewer who was skeptical about patients' ability to make rational decisions and look out for their own well-being, and not the least bit skeptical about the ability of a socialist State to make decisions for people and improve economic efficiency. I had another thought ...
Health care bias
Monday, January 14th, 2008In this month's edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the book Who Killed Health Care?: America’s $2 trillion medical problem—and the consumer-driven cure by Regina Herzlinger is reviewed by an unsurprisingly biased public health researcher. While the book doubtlessly has many flaws, its central premise is a valid and correct ...