National Health Care Mythology

Our present health care (non) system is a mess. A national health care system would clean it up, provide good health care to ALL Americans, and be cost-efficient. Dr. Marcia Angell debunks some myths about a single-payer system here (Rep. John Conyers’s website) To paraphrase:

1. We’ll need to ration care. NO. A one-payer system is much more efficient than the current hodge podge of private insurance and public assistance shemes.
2. There will be long waiting lists for operations and procedures. NO. We don’t wait now; we won’t wait then.
3. It’s socialized medicine. No more socialized than Medicare is now. We’d still use private providers.
4.The Government would louse it up. NO. Do they louse up NASA, the NIH, the CDC, the VA? The Government answers to you and me. Besides it would be the payer not the doer of health care in a nationalized system. Ask your Grandma.

Bt or not Bt…that’s the question

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not on the side of agribusiness. I’m all for slow food and small farms. But let’s call a spade a spade when it comes to biotech food. Agribusiness uses it to maximise profits–in some insidious ways, too, like preventing farmers from collecting seeds from one harvest to plant the next year. But is biotech food dangerous to our health or the health of the enviornment? Probably less so than some environmental groups would want us to believe. Let’s call Monsanto on what it is: big, greedy, capitalistic. But let’s not squander our fight on the wrong things. Here’s a rational Q&A on Bt corn.

This just out: careful with those Tylenols, gentle viewers

I usually ignore the pharma ads that sprout out of the national broadcast news, but yesterday a new voice caught my attention. She was gently cautioning viewers not to take too much of our favorite medicines. More ain’t better was the gist of it, and she ended by telling us not to take 2 when 1 is enough. Message brought to us by Tylenol. What the…? Turns out a new study, reported here by AP, shows that Tylenol can cause liver problems. About 8 extra-strength a day can do damage. Impeccable timing, Tylenol ad lady.

Genetically Modified Fools?

Nobel laureate (physiology and medicine) Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard  made a telling offhand remark in an interview published in the New York Times Science section today.  Of Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and a PhD physicist, Nüsslein-Volhard said this: “I am happy that she is there because she understands science outside of ideology. In the Green Party and … the Socialist Party, there are people who are anti-science. They are against genetically modified foods…. She sees through it, and maybe this will help.”  Her impliction is clear. Arguments against GM foods may perhaps be driven more by ideology than by science. More on this later.

Independence Day 2006

It’s difficult to comment on this day without sounding corny. But it’s pretty mind-bending that a group of men had it in them to challenge the greatest power in the world. They felt that Britain was robbing them of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; it was time to break free. Britain–the superpower of its day–had the wealth, the lands (most of it not their own), the grandest armada in the world, the armies, the navies, the shekels, everything. It would be like the State of Arizona or Rhode Island challenging the US today. Not that it couldn’t do with a little challenging, but that’s for another post.

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