mstebbins | September 25, 2008A group of 61 Nobel Laureates have gotten together to endorse Barack Obama for President. Their letter and the signatories are below. This is the largest number of Nobel Laureates to ever endorse a candidate for office, more than endorsed either Gore or Kerry. (Kerry had 48 total.) That is a remarkable statement. Here is the link to the original letter of endorsement.
An Open Letter to the American People
This year's presidential election is among the most significant in our nation's history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional…
mstebbins | September 25, 2008Most of you have by now heard of the 14 questions that a coalition of science organizations asked McCain and Obama. But I thought I would highlight the parallel efforts to ask a series of 7 questions of all candidates for congress. That project has been going strong for some months now and the answers are posted at Scientists and Engineers for America's SHARP Network. Today they tell me that 10 more members of congress and candidates have answered the 7 questions. If you have not heard of the project before, check it out here and if your candidate has not yet answered, tell them that Barack…
mstebbins | September 19, 2008Here is your Friday Trivia question brought to you by Scientists and Engineers for America.
Question: What percent of new R&D sites planned for construction in the next 3 years will be built in China or India?
A. 38% B. 54% C. 68% D. 77%
Click HERE for the answer.
mstebbins | September 18, 2008
There will be a McCain vs. Obama campaign debate on healthcare today at 5pmEST that can be viewed live at Scientists and Engineers for America. It will feature campaign surrogates who are expert on healthcare issues, and is sure to answer many of the pressing questions. I will blog on it afterward.
George Washington University on Thursday, September 18 at 5pm.
Jay Khosla, Health Policy Advisor for John McCain
Vs.
Dora Hughes, MD, MPH, Health Policy Advisor for Barack Obama
Moderated by Julie Rovner, Health Policy Correspondent, National Public Radio
mstebbins | September 18, 2008I am flabbergasted by the chilling reports that as mayor of Wasilla Sarah Palin was involved in the decision to force victims of rape to pay for their own exams and rape kits. If this story is true, then every newspaper and "news" program should be talking about it. What can you say to that? If it's true then it is just about the most soulless act I think I have ever heard of a politician. If this story turns out to be false, then someone needs to offer a huge apology. This is evil stuff.
"Eight years ago, complaints about charging rape victims for medical exams in Wasilla prompted the…
mstebbins | September 17, 2008The McCain and Obama Campaigns will be squaring off on healthcare this Thursday live on the web. The event is completely booked, but Scientists and Engineers for America will have it live HERE. This is going to be a very telling debate on where the campaigns stand on healthcare. Don't miss it. Here are the event details...
September 18, 2008
George Washington University 5-6:30pm
Dora Hughes MD, MPH: Health Policy Advisor for Barack Obama
Vs.
Jay Khosla: Health Policy Advisor for John McCain
Moderated by Julie Rovner: health correspondent for NPR
mstebbins | September 17, 2008Most people would agree that your health records are very personal. If you were applying for a job you might be offended and consider it an invasion of your privacy if your potential employer asked to see them. Yet, it has become commonplace for us to have Presidential candidates release their health records. They are, in essence held to a different standard for better or worse. That's why it was so unusual for the McCain campaign to only release his health records for a 3 hour period of time and only to a select group of journalists. What was surprising to me was that there were over 1173…
ioelrich | September 15, 2008Welcome to Seed's latest blog, Vote for Science. Seed set this blog up to cover science, science policy, and science politics relevant to the November election. The current plan is that the blog will run only until the election. Maybe it will continue. We shall see. I have been told I am a "guest blogger," which means, I think, that I will disappear when the blog disappears. I am a chemist/physicist by training and have worked in science and R&D policy. I am now heading up the Strategic Security Program at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), but my views expressed here do…
palmd | September 13, 2008Both candidates have proposals for reforming America's health care system. You can read them yourself (Obama's here, McCain's here, and a detailed comparison here).
As statements of policy, these plans focus on the big picture of American health care: how to cover the uninsured, how to pay for insurance, how to contain costs. There is little to be said about specific diseases. Now, we can argue about the merit of talking about health care policy without talking about diseases, but it's not a bad idea. Larger policy statements focus on the system as a whole---they don't need to declare a…
palmd | January 28, 2008(This post has been migrated from my old blog for reference. --PalMD)
But should you? Needles administering vaccines have saved millions of lives. Needles draw blood to help diagnose disease. They save diabetics' lives daily. Of course, they also help heroin addicts get high and catch diseases. So needles themselves must be good...or evil...or something...right?
To add more to the mix, an interesting study was just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (Hakkke, et al. German Acupuncture Trials (GERAC) for Chronic Low Back Pain. Arch Intern Med/Vol 167(17), Sept 24, 2007, pp…
palmd | January 18, 2008I am often asked my opinion of chiropractic care. My usual answer (based on evidence) is that it can be somewhat helpful in the treatment of low back pain. That's it. Any further claims are complete and utter bullshit. Many chiropractors practice ethically, and recognize the correct scope of their abilities...many do not.
Adapted from RationalWikiChiropractic is the theory and practice of correction of "vertebral subluxation processes" to treat and cure disease. It was developed in the late 19th century, just before the development of modern medical education in the United States.…
palmd | January 14, 2008"These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."
This "Quack Miranda Warning" is on every just about every woo-meister's website. I see dozens of patients every day, and I never Mirandize them, so whats the deal?
There are three ways to look at this: the truthful way, the sinister way, and the bat-shit insane way.
Truth: Anyone who wants to sell you something that's a load of crap must use this statement to cover themselves legally.
Sinister: Variation of above--someone wants to…
palmd | November 21, 2007They media is often full of hype about "health foods". True "health food", to quote Michael Pollan, probably means, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.'' That being said, chemical compounds isolated from natural substances (foods included) are an important line of medical research and can lead to insights on the health effects of food, and on drug development. The latest issue of Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, has a lovely little article about the cardiac effects of chocolate---and who doesn't care about chocolate?
Reading a scientific article is often a…