Neuron Culture
Archives for February, 2009
Random tweets found by searching Twitter for “science”
Posted by David Dobbs on February 11, 2009 Just lost my physical science book… How is that possible? It’s so BIG. People do not believe in science. masturbation IS a science why did i decide to get involved with this computer science networking stuff? i am an arts person! what was i thinking? lol sitting here doing science homework , o fun. painting…
The drug rep’s ultimate sales tool – “First one’s free”
Posted by David Dobbs on February 11, 2009 A former: drug rep explains : Samples are the number one influencer of the prescribing habits of doctors, and I proved this with my last pharma company, which was a very small one, where doctors could request samples simply by faxing in a form off of the company%u2019s website. I became the third best rep…
How my local school board meeting is like the health care industry
Posted by David Dobbs on February 10, 2009 Attended my local school board meeting tonight, a friendly, almost cozy affair in the elementary school lunchroom. People we see around this small town daily; a principal I’ve watched Red Sox games with. The proximate issues: a continually rising budget despite falling enrollment, and — related — whether or not to ditch our aging middle…
Angell on drug money: Just say No
Posted by David Dobbs on February 10, 2009 Marcia Angell makes it plain: The fact that drug companies pay prescribers to be “educated” underscores the true nature of the transaction. Students generally pay teachers, not the reverse. The real intent is to influence prescribing habits, through selection of the information provided and through the warm feelings induced by bribery. Prescribers join in the…
Can medical records serve both statistical and patient needs?
Posted by David Dobbs on February 10, 2009 Reader Jay, in a comment on my post about health-care costs tanking the economy, raises an interesting question about the sorts of standardized medical records that would be needed to evaluate efficacy (and therefore economic efficiency) of various treatments: The idea is clearly to have standardized health-care records systems so that data can easily be…
A hidden health-care cost: patients’ time
Posted by David Dobbs on February 9, 2009 The Times’ Economix blog has a good post by Alan Krueger on the need toinclude patients’ lost time in estimates of health-care costs. After waiting more than an hour in a doctor’s waiting room, a friend of mine once presented his doctor with a bill for his time….. Although it doesn’t currently enter into our…
Health-care inefficiencies ctd: Scary graph dept.
Posted by David Dobbs on February 9, 2009 Check this very scary projection of what current trends in health-care spending will mean for our economy: a growing weight that will account for half of GDP by 2082: Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget director, shows that slide in his standard talk on what’s wrong with our budget. It shows why, as Ezra Klein puts it,…
YOU try to live on $500K in this town …
Posted by David Dobbs on February 8, 2009 You can’t make this stuff up. Unfortunately, you don’t have to: “As hard as it is to believe, bankers who are living on the Upper East Side making $2 or $3 million a year have set up a life for themselves in which they are also at zero at the end of the year with…
How health-care inefficiencies are tanking the economy
Posted by David Dobbs on February 8, 2009 The health-care system’s maddening inefficiencies — high per-capita spending with poorer overall health outcomes; tens of millions uninsured and tens of millions more underinsured; insane-making battles with insurers to get reimbursements you’re entitled too — are reason enough to spur reform. But “The Big Fix,” David Leonhardt’s marvelous-but-long piece on the fiscal crisis in last…
Yet more on uneasy symbiosis of mainstream and citizen journalism
Posted by David Dobbs on February 8, 2009 The note below was originally a response to a comment that Bora Z left on my “More on uneasy symbiosis (mashup? smashup?) of mainstream and citizen media, but given the interest in this subject I thought I best give it its own post. Thanks for writing, Bora. The limitations of small papers that you point…