health
gregladen | October 10, 2009A good friend of mine is. I know something about this particular issue, and my opinion as a doctor* is that she will be fine. Which I told her. But I know that means very little.
Please read this.
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Footnotes
*Well, doctor of philosophy, but really, that's better anyway.
gregladen | October 8, 2009There are several answers to this question. One was overheard the other day among a bunch of well educated people oriented towards science who were taking a break from their job.
Person 1: "So, how effective is the seasonal flu shot?"
Person 2: "I heard about 1%. If you get the flu shot, you'll have a 1% difference in if you get the flu."
Person 3: "That's crazy. I don't know where you are getting your data from. It can't be 1%, but I admit I don't know what the actual answer is, but it can't be that."
Persons 4 through 6: "Well, if YOU don't know, and HE says 1%, I'm going with the 1%.…
gregladen | October 8, 2009We are the angry left. Don't get us mad.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
gregladen | October 1, 2009Olberman's overview:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
gregladen | September 24, 2009... this is not close to perfect, but an experimental mix of two previously tested but ineffective vaccines appears to have at least a 31 percent prevention rate based on one recent trial. The story is written up here.
gregladen | September 24, 2009Most of the time that you hear a Sbling mention the ads on scienceblogs.com we're whinging about one thing or another. Russian brides here, woo and snake oil there. You know the routine. So, I thought I'd note that we currently seem to be running an ad staring Jennifer Lopez encouraging you to vaccinate your baby for pertussis. Which has been recently talked about here.
So next time you see an obnoxious offensive ad on scienceblogs, complain to us about it as loudly as ever. This pertussis ad does not get us any advanced brownie points. But at least, you'll know that sometimes marketing,…
gregladen | September 22, 2009Something terrible is happening. Pass it on.
Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell
gregladen | September 11, 2009Think back to the last time you had a bad coughing fit. It's gross, but think about the saliva and the mucus. Think about the last time you threw up. Now imagine all that together, along with gasping for air-and not being able to swallow.
And then go read this.
razib | September 6, 2009Global Health Magazine has some data up on the "% of women who believe it is OK for husbands to beat them." If you click through the original data, the question is more extensive:
% of girls and women aged 15-49 who responded that a husband or partner is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances (2001-2007)
I was going to cross-reference the data with the World Values Survey (which has a similar question), but I don't have time right now, so I'll simply pass on the raw data sorted by country. There's a rather large gap.
Jordan
90
Guinea
85.6
Zambia
85.4…
ddobbs | September 3, 2009The damage done resembles that found in bird flu as well as 'acute respiratory distress symptom,' reports Branswell - the latter being a condition that can rise from a number of causes, and which kills 30% of those who get it. (That is, get ARDS, not swine flu.)
Yet more signs that this is a strange strain.
razib | August 24, 2009Officials Weigh Circumcision to Fight H.I.V. Risk:
Public health officials are considering promoting routine circumcision for all baby boys born in the United States to reduce the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
...
He and other experts acknowledged that although the clinical trials of circumcision in Africa had dramatic results, the effects of circumcision in the United States were likely to be more muted because the disease is less prevalent here, because it spreads through different routes and because the health systems are so disparate as to be incomparable.
Clinical trials…
gregladen | August 21, 2009Ghostwriting, in the scientific medical literature, is the production of marketing literature which is then disguised as scientific literature. Part of this disguise is the appending of "authors" who are actual scientists who would normally write their own papers.
Newly unveiled court documents show that ghostwriters paid by a pharmaceutical company played a major role in producing 26 scientific papers backing the use of hormone replacement therapy in women, suggesting that the level of hidden industry influence on medical literature is broader than previously known.
NYT - caution, page…
razib | August 17, 2009Fat Tax:
Which is why it is so striking to talk to Delos M. Cosgrove, the heart surgeon who is the clinic's chief executive, about the initiative. Cosgrove says that if it were up to him, if there weren't legal issues, he would not only stop hiring smokers. He would also stop hiring obese people. When he mentioned this to me during a recent phone conversation, I told him that I thought many people might consider it unfair. He was unapologetic.
"Why is it unfair?" he asked. "Has anyone ever shown the law of conservation of matter doesn't apply?" People's weight is a reflection of how much…
razib | August 16, 2009Recently I listened to the author of Addiction: A Disorder of Choice, Gene M. Heyman, interviewed on the Tom Ashbrook show. A lot of the discussion revolved around the term "disease", which I can't really comment on, but a great deal of Heyman's thesis is grounded in rather conventional behavior genetic insights. In short, a behavioral trait can have a host of inputs, and is often a combination of environment & genes developing over a lifetime. Alcoholism is not much of an issue among observant Mormons because of their environment, not their genes. Heyman points out that whereas some…
gregladen | August 13, 2009Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care--to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Hmph. That fucked up quote comes from an op-ed in the WSJ by the CEO of Whole Foods Inc.
Whole Foods is now trying to pretend this little missive was never penned, and are backpaddling like kayakers upstream from Niagara Falls.
Joe is on it.
esiegel | August 5, 2009The Wall Street Journal has just reported that over 1,000 people in the Americas, according to data released by the World Health Organization, have died from the Swine Flu. They seem to think you should be alarmed.
The global A/H1N1 swine flu pandemic has claimed 1,154 lives since the outbreak was identified in April, data published by the World Health Organization showed Wednesday.
The Geneva-based health agency also said that the number of laboratory-confirmed cases stood at 162,380 worldwide as of July 31.
The WHO has estimated that 2 billion people, or one in three of the world's…
razib | August 1, 2009Apparently the average American gets ~17% of their calories a day from sugar. This varies by population segment:
The intake of added sugars was higher among men than women and inversely related to age, educational status, and family income. Asian Americans had the lowest intake and Hispanics the next lowest intake. Among men, African Americans had the highest intake, although whites and American Indians/Alaskan Natives also had high intakes. Among women, African Americans and American Indians/Alaskan Natives had the highest intakes. Intake of added sugars was inversely related to educational…
razib | July 30, 2009Megan McArdle has a post, Thining Thin, a follow up to America's Moral Panic Over Obesity. She says:
1. Obesity is increasing in the population, so it can't be genetic.
Well, average height is also increasing in the population. Does that mean that you could be as tall as me, if you weren't too lazy to grow?
Twin studies and adoptive studies show that the overwhelming determinant of your weight is not your willpower; it's your genes. The heritability of weight is between .75 and .85. The heritability of height is between .9 and .95. And the older you are, the more heritable weight is.…