There was a one-day Congressional hearing last week on antibiotic resistance and industrial agriculture. Members of congress were looking for evidence that would link agricultural use of antibiotics to human illness. One Republican specifically asked for research done in the US, implying European studies would not be good enough. Medical experts from the CDC and… Read more
Author Archives: Jan
Are you distracting a driver?
Are you ever just a little bit nervous when someone calls you while they’re driving? Maybe you should be. Distracted driving takes two. These public service ads are from Bangalore, India. Without the text (“Don’t talk while he drives”), they simply seem shocking. But they certainly accomplish their intent of getting your attention and making… Read more
Babies are individuals: Don’t fret the milestones
Nice post on Slate about how developmental milestones can be meaningless and create needless worry. A little less than a century ago, Arnold Gesell, a developmental scientist at Yale, proposed that motor skills were related to the maturing of the brain. This led to the pronouncement that all infants would pass through the same steps… Read more
Jack Abramoff and healthcare lobbying
Alex Gibney is probably best known as the director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. He also produced the documentary Money-Driven Medicine, based on Maggie Mahar’s book of the same name. Gibney’s latest work is Casino Jack and the United States of Money, a documentary about the lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The video excerpt… Read more
Links of interest: Funerals, cremations, wakes
[A]s a society, Americans are no longer sure what to do with our dead. … Today … our death rituals have become downsized, inwardly directed, static and, as a result, spiritually and culturally impoverished. … At upbeat, open-mike “celebrations of life,” former coaches, neighbors and relatives amuse us with stories and naïvely declare that the dead, who are usually nowhere to be seen and have nowhere to go, will nevertheless live always in our memories. Funerals, which once made confident public pilgrimage through town to the graveyard, now tread lightly across the tiny tableau of our psyches.
The financial crisis: Blame it on the collapse of Communism
Why did the global economy collapse so suddenly, seemingly without warning? Economic experts and political analysts continue to offer explanations, but sometimes an outsider’s viewpoint can be especially illuminating. John Lanchester is a British novelist (The Debt to Pleasure) who stumbled on his insights into the financial collapse while researching a novel. The result is… Read more
Tony Judt and the Move for ALS bike ride
Saul Goldberg, a student of Tony Judt, will be cycling across the country this month to raise money for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and to increase awareness of this devastating disease. Goldberg will travel from Astoria, Oregon to Brighton Beach, New York, leaving on May 25th and arriving on July 25th. Those who would like… Read more
Can one communicate in a world of truthiness?
Anonymous Liberal captures the frustration of the current political scene in a post called “An Army of Trumans.” In this Bubble World, it is an accepted truth that our President is a bumbling ignoramus who can only string together a coherent sentence if he uses a teleprompter (which, apparently, other politicians don’t use). I can… Read more
Pig dignity: Animal welfare in Europe
The European Parliament, the governing body of the EU (European Union), met last week to consider (among many other things) a new animal welfare action plan. Last December animal welfare became a core value for the EU, right up there with opposing discrimination, promoting gender equality, and protecting human health and welfare. The new animal… Read more
Padded bikini bras for seven-year-olds
Source: Fox News A UK clothing chain, popular discount retailer Primark, reacted swiftly to criticism of its padded bikini bras designed for girls as young as seven. The product has been withdrawn, and Primark announced it would donate any profits from the inappropriately sexualizing items to a children’s charity. The bikinis were selling for £4… Read more
Why we passed health care: WellPoint and breast cancer
Source: People’s World Reuters has a terrific investigative piece on WellPoint’s practice of canceling health insurance, a practice known as rescission. When a woman develops breast cancer, WellPoint immediately flags her for investigation to see if there’s some reason her policy can be canceled. Grounds for cancellation can be anything on the original insurance application… Read more
Too much sitting? Try the adjustable-height desk
SOURCE: GeekDesk Sitting at a desk all day is hard on the body, especially the back. What the body needs is variety and the ability to move. One solution is an adjustable-height desk – one that allows you to alternate throughout the day between sitting and standing. Farhad Manjoo describes his experience with one such… Read more
Evidence of successful aging
A personals ad from a recent New York Review of Books:
WOMAN, 79 (LOOKS 78), Upper West Side pseudo-intellectual, Europe 4 years, wants man’s company occasionally for chamber concerts, lectures, meals. Platonic.
I’d love to meet this woman. I imagine her life as a Henry James novel written by Oscar Wilde. Read more
Asbestos, anyone?
I live in a building constructed in the 1950s, with asbestos in the ceilings. As is true for some schools, it’s safer to leave it alone than to disturb it and put all those fibers into the air. Hat tip to a relatively new blog, Medicina – Videos, consejos [advice], material de lectura relacionado a… Read more
Climate change: A few signs of legislative hope
Source: U.S. News The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, the House bill sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman, was passed by the House last June. The Senate bill, called The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, sponsored by Sen. John Kerry, has been languishing in the Senate since its introduction last September.… Read more
The health care battle isn't over
Source: About.com Now that health care legislation has passed, special interest groups — insurance and pharmaceutical companies, seniors, businesses, abortion rights opponents – are gearing up to influence the way specific provisions are implemented. Agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services need to draft regulations that govern implementation. This is where lobbyists… Read more
Andrew Sullivan on the Tea Party
Nice summation of what makes sense and what doesn’t about the Tea Party from Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish. His conclusion: In my view, this confluence of feelings can work in shifting the public mood, as seems to have happened. When there is no internal pushback against crafted FNC [Fox News] propaganda, and when… Read more
Obesity: Moving beyond willpower vs. the food-industrial complex
Source: The Pilver Marc Ambinder has written a terrific article on obesity for The Atlantic. It’s comprehensive and insightful, both objective and personal. Ambinder himself suffered from obesity until a year ago, when he went from 235 to 150 pounds following bariatric surgery. The operation immediately improved his severe diabetes, and within months it relieved… Read more
Avoid these OTC drugs
Source: Caribbean Net News I try to resist writing about health advice, since most health news is designed to increase anxiety unnecessarily. But here’s something I found that’s quite sensible and helpful. It’s a post by Dr. Edward Pullen on over-the-counter (OTC) medications at KevinMD. Scarring, stuffy noses, headaches, and sleep aids You might think… Read more
How socialist is the US?
Source: VotingFemale The opponents of health care reform lost the battle, but their war is not over. They argue, among other things, that the legislation amounts to socialism. When Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican Party, was asked if the health care plan represented socialism, he replied: “Yes. Next question.” In a recent Bloomberg National… Read more
Sesame Street’s When Families Grieve
This was hard to watch, but well worth it. The program talks to four families who lost a parent. Two military families – one husband who died in action, the other a returning vet who committed suicide. A firefighter who had a heart attack while on the job. And a mother who died of breast cancer. I can imagine that watching this program as a family would help children and parents talk about their feelings and help children realize they’re not alone. Read more
Civil disobedience and the individual mandate
Source: SFGate “Individual mandate” refers to a provision in the new health care reform act that requires all citizens to purchase health insurance. There are exceptions for those who cannot afford to pay and for those who have religious objections, such as Christian Scientists. Without this provision, health care reform falls apart. If we’re going… Read more
Obama and health care: Deal making with lobbyists
Frontline has put together a documentary on the passage of health care reform. It argues that Obama caved in to special interests at every step of the way and that this is bad news for Democrats. Barack Obama promised change. Then he took on one of Washington’s toughest issues: health care. During his first year… Read more
Why are there no new antibiotics?
Without new antibiotics, we’re at the mercy of antibiotic resistant bacteria – MRSA, Clostridium difficile, Acinetobacter baumannii, etc. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies lack a financial incentive to develop new antibiotics. One reason is that most patients get better when they use antibiotics. Many are prescribed for only a few weeks. It’s much more profitable for drug… Read more
Gender and racial discrimination at a Pharma giant
Source: TopNews We’ll need government financed incentives to push pharmaceutical companies into developing new antibiotics. Just when we need Pharma to clean up its act and improve its image with the public, we have more unflattering news about the industry. 5,600 women have filed a class action suit against the multinational drug firm Novartis, claiming… Read more
The "lie down and die" model of sleep
Source: Biacustica Do we need less sleep as we age? Experts differ on this question. Some studies find that older people need 1.5 hours less sleep each night than teenagers. Other studies indicate that our need for sleep does not diminish with age. One thing experts do agree on is that many older people have… Read more
Tony Judt: On the edge of a terrifying world
Being “Danish” or “Italian,” “American” or “European” won’t just be an identity; it will be a rebuff and a reproof to those whom it excludes. The state, far from disappearing, may be about to come into its own: the privileges of citizenship, the protections of card-holding residency rights, will be wielded as political trumps. Intolerant demagogues in established democracies will demand “tests”–of knowledge, of language, of attitude–to determine whether desperate newcomers are deserving of British or Dutch or French “identity.” They are already doing so. In this brave new century we shall miss the tolerant, the marginals: the edge people. My people.
Estranged species
I find these drawings by Jason Whitman, with their accompanying statements, strangely moving. The words are so tender. The animals express their complaints and their wonder about living in a post-modern world. I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t think we should talk anymore. I’ve gotten to point where there is no point. I… Read more
Obama on race and the Tea Party
David Remnick’s new book, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham offers a quotation from The Bridge, which will be released tomorrow. Here is Obama’s reply when asked about the racial component of opposition to his presidency, including the reaction of the Tea Party supporters. Read more