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 The product has been withdrawn, and Primark announced it would donate any profits from the inappropriately sexualizing items to a children’s charity.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
Category Archives: Politics & Issues
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
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
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
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
Our only language is English
Source: Teabonics When President Obama filled out his census form last week, he had to decide how to answer the race question. Even though his selection was only half true, he settled on the “Black, African American, or Negro” option. I noticed Facebook friends struggling with the same issue: If my father’s parents were born… Read more
Reaction to health care: A step backwards
Source: University of Virginia There have been nasty and violent responses to the passage of health care: Spitting on members of congress; chanting the “N” word at black congressmen on their way to vote; images of Nancy Pelosi surrounded by flames; death threats to members of Congress; Republican congressmen on the House floor cheering protesters… Read more
Westboro Baptist Church defeated by tolerance
This is a local story for me: I pass this school frequently and have a niece and nephew who are graduates. It’s also a heartening one that counters some of the more depressing stories from the right end of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, this event seems to have received only local media coverage. The following… Read more
A raffle for free (human) eggs
Source: Babble At a London seminar promoting American donor eggs for infertile British women, a Virginia infertility clinic offered attendees the chance to win an American woman’s eggs. Also included was a free in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycle (a $23,000 value). The reaction, on both sides of the Atlantic, was mixed. According to The Washington… Read more
A brief history of antibiotics
* 2000 B.C. – Here, eat this root * 1000 A.D. – That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer. * 1850 A.D. – That prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion. * 1920 A.D. – That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill. * 1945 A.D. – That pill is ineffective. Here, take… Read more
Gonorrhea bacteria: The next superbug?
After chlamydia, gonorrhea – also known as the “clap” — is the second most common bacterial STD (sexually transmitted disease). It’s easily transmitted. Women have a 60-80 % chance of becoming infected after a single sexual encounter with an infected male partner. Left untreated, the disease not only causes unpleasant symptoms – painful urination, urethral… Read more
The Supreme Court and health care repeal politics
Source: The Economist Attorneys general from 14 states (so far) are filing lawsuits to challenge the constitutionality of health care reform. Some have the support of their Republican governors. Others have incensed their Democratic governors. Orin Kerr, on the conservative/libertarian law professors’ blog The Volokh Conspiracy, gives the odds of repealing the individual mandate as… Read more
Global challenge: 10 new antibiotics by 2020
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has issued a statement challenging global leaders to develop 10 new antimicrobial drugs by 2020. The time has come for a global commitment to develop new antibacterial drugs. Current data document the impending disaster due to the confluence of decreasing investment in antibacterial drug research and development concomitant… Read more
Health care: A history of last minute arm twisting
Source: The Truth or the Fight The media love to play the upcoming health care vote as a sporting event, with daily play-by-play analyses of whether Nancy Pelosi will get the 216 votes she needs to pass the reform legislation. Speculations on the vote count are meaningless, however, until the very last minute. Those members… Read more
Health inequities, politics, and the public option
Source: Torontoist Constance A. Nathanson is an American historian of public health. She recently wrote an essay for The Lancet that explains why the public option is such a hot button – one that threatens to confront us with the underlying issue of health inequality. Early in the twentieth century, industrialized nations – with the… Read more
Déjà vu: Historical resistance to the inequities of health
If statistical analysis shows conclusively that morbidity and mortality are directly related to income, what should a (presumably) enlightened government do with this information? One approach, consistently popular throughout history, is to blame the victims. In the Reagan/Thatcher years we saw an enthusiastic promotion of taking personal responsibility for one’s health. Personal responsibility follows naturally… Read more
Health inequities: An inhumane history
Whenever there are disparities in income, inequities in health are inevitable. Today in the US, the gap between the rich and the poor is much greater than in most other highly developed democratic countries, and so are the health inequities. The roots of this inequality lie deep in the histories of developed nations. When children… Read more
Health care inequality: The US vs. Europe
During last year’s immersion in matters of health care, the US system was frequently compared to those of Canada, the UK, Japan, Australia, and Western European countries. Whether the comparison involved infant mortality, lifespan, or comprehensive coverage, the US fell far behind these other developed countries. The lack of universal coverage is perhaps the most… Read more
Why did health care reform fail? Lack of empathy
Source: The New York Times Continuing with Abigail Trafford’s analysis of health care reform, the next comparison between the Obama and Clinton failures is the ongoing empathy gap. Trafford describes an experience she had with supporters of Clinton’s health reform. In 1994 she traveled with the Health Security Express, a busload of individuals who suffered… Read more
Why did health care reform fail? Cognitive dissonance
Source: Ohio Daily President Obama was determined to avoid the mistakes of Bill Clinton’s attempt at health care reform. He made sure Congress was heavily involved. He courted the major interest groups – the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals. And yet it appears reform has failed once again. Abigail Trafford, author and former Washington… Read more
Where were the melamine whistle blowers?
Source: The Wall Street Journal When Texas nurse Anne Mitchell accused a doctor of unethical conduct, she had no idea how much trouble was in store. First of all, her complaint was anonymous, and second, she believed she was doing the right thing. When she was accused of harassment and faced a ten-year prison term,… Read more