healthcare
mikethemadbiologist | September 5, 2006Looking at the comments from a previous post about social security, I wanted to address a couple of other points, and then provide some more evidence about the ridiculousness of the Social Security 'crisis.' First, as I'll discuss below, Social Security will not collapse. There is no serious evidence to support that scenario (please, take a deep breath; I'll get to that). If you want to privatize social security, cut benefits, or change the eligibilty rules (one-third of Social Security payouts do not go to the elderly, but to widows, orphans, and the disabled), you have to make those…
mikethemadbiologist | September 3, 2006A recent study demonstrates that treatment failure of P. aeruginosa pneumonia infections due to antibiotic resistance is critical: a resistant infection is four times as likely to kill a patient as a sensitive one.
Mortality Rate Is Twice As High In Patients With Pneumonia Caused By Highly Resistant Bacteria
Patients suffering from hospital-acquired pneumonia caused by a type of bacteria that is highly resistant to virtually all antibiotics are twice as likely to die as patients infected with other, less resistant bacteria.
A study published recently in the journal Critical Care shows for…
mikethemadbiologist | September 1, 2006
Here's what the mayor of Salt Lake City, UT said yesterday. You would think he's one of those Northeast liberal elitist, latte-drinkin' types...
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Jackson:
A patriot is a person who loves his or her country.
Who among you loves your country so much that you have come here today to raise your voice out of deep concern for our nation - and for our world?
And who among you loves your country so much that you insist that our nation's leaders tell us the truth?
Let's hear it: "Give us the truth! Give us the truth! Give us the truth!"
Let no one deny we are patriots. We…
mikethemadbiologist | August 29, 2006No, it's not by me, silly! David Dobbs at Smooth Pebbles has a great explanation of why business should be in favor of a national healthcare system. Other than GM and a few smaller companies, business interests are usually against this idea. I think David's post puts the lie to the idea that business behaves rationally...
mikethemadbiologist | August 28, 2006The NY Times has an article about how real wages are not keeping pace with productivity increases. Quoth the Grey Lady:
With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.
That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year's midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years.
The median hourly wage for American workers…
purepedantry | August 20, 2006I found this article interesting, if for no other reason than people seem to be misunderstanding what it says and what it does not say.
The article by Leigh and Jencks for the Kennedy School of Government is entitled "Inequality and Mortality: Long-Run Evidence from a Panel of Countries." It compares the inequalities of income distribution in countries around the world with measures of health. The measure they use for income inequality is the percentage of income recieved by the top 10% of the income distribution. The measures of health that they use are infant mortality and life…
mikethemadbiologist | August 1, 2006I was going to write a post about the Lamont insurgency in Connecticut, but thankfully, the NY Times editorial staff pretty much covered everything I wanted to say. Instead, I'll discuss something else that's going on here: the beginning of the end of single-issue politics in the Democratic Party. Mark Schmitt describes this well (italics mine):
They aren't looking for the party to be more liberal on traditional dimensions. They're looking for it to be more of a party. They want to put issues on the table that don't have an interest group behind them - like Lieberman's support for the…
mikethemadbiologist | July 29, 2006While the main reason to use antibiotics only when needed is to preserve their effectiveness, it's always nice to have an economic incentive coupled with proper use of these important drugs. From the Guernsey Press and Star:
The States prescribing support unit is claiming success in a campaign to encourage islanders to think more carefully about their need for the drugs.
Prescriptions fell by 983 courses - a reduction of 3.3% on the previous year - between October 2005 and March 2006, reducing costs to the States by £30,000.
'That is a significant reduction in what is the peak season for…
mikethemadbiologist | July 28, 2006From the archives, comes this post about the health crisis no one cares about (except for the Mad Biologist. We are very caring): the 90,000 deaths per year from infections people get while in the hospital. And this number is probably an underestimate.
Bacterial infections aren't sexy: no one walks, bikes, hops, pogo sticks for the cure. There are no ribbons, no bumper stickers, and no hot celebrities (damn!). Yet, according to the CDC, bacterial infections acquired in hospitals kill at least 90,000 people per year in the U.S. Granted some of those who died would have died from something…
purepedantry | June 12, 2006Focus on the Family, a conservative social organization located in Colorado Springs, CO, has decided to oppose the mandatory vaccination of young girls for Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a virus linked to the formation of cervical cancer. Recently the FDA has approved a vaccine for two of the high risk (more likely to form cancer) subtypes that has proved very effective (over 90%) at preventing HPV infection in girls when administered before sexual activity.
Diane Carman of the Denver Post has this coverage:
HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that is the cause of more than 70 percent of…