“The CDC has to change.” Those are the words of the Centers for Disease Control’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky as she announced a reorganization and change in leadership stemming from its flawed handling of the coronavirus pandemic. But, will such a shake-up lead to a shape-up? We have our doubts.
Harm Reduction
In the last few weeks, there was a skirmish in the political battles involving the veterans of our efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the Middle East, Jon Stewart, and PACT, the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act. After a bit of posturing and strategy, PACT was passed. But what do we know about the burn pits beyond the sound bites?
The robots are coming, the robots are coming. Robotic automation of manufacturing lines has been with us for some time. A new study looks at the benefits to our physical health and, for an important group, detriments to mental health.
Recent demands by gender activists include insisting that American medicine conforms to an individual’s contrived identity, including during emergency room and hospital admissions. People who identify as transgender (or gender nonconforming) may use a veritable cornucopia of different terms to describe themselves. [1] Forcing the public to use "preferred genders" is confusing and complicated enough socially, but more crucially: it is a significant problem clinically.
We are social creatures, taking our cues as we grow up from those surrounding us – it does take a village to raise a child. But our use of social cues, mimicking the behavior and thoughts of our “village,” does not end with adolescence; it follows us into adulthood. A new study looks at the influence of others on our behavior.
That phrase was a family motto of sorts. On the one hand, it expressed our drive to move forward; on the other, it spoke to our overconfidence in our opinions. Scientists have a term for those following the family motto, the Dunning-Kruger effect – when limited knowledge or competence is coupled with overestimating those qualities. A new study looks across a range of scientific ideas looking for those who are often wrong but never in doubt.
I am a child of the cold war. I remember being in second or third grade and hearing the teacher yell, “Drop,” as we were expected to take cover under our desks. I can remember the surging interest in bomb shelters and when I was old enough to laugh at the idea that “duck and cover” would have any value. Why the nostalgia? Because last week New York City released a public service announcement about how to survive a nuclear attack – valuable information in case one were to occur.
Lock up your gummy bears, mom, and barricade the hash brownies, pop. Medical centers worldwide report an alarming increase in emergency department visits for young children poisoned by unwitting cannabis exposure. Easy procurement of cannabis goodies where marijuana is legalized or medicalized seems to be driving the increase. So, what’s to be done?
There is some truth to the urban myth that those high on marijuana tend to drive more slowly and at greater distances from other cars. Whether out of an old-time fear of being pulled over or because of some impairment of their perceptions. [1] With eighteen states (and the District of Columbia) with recreational pot sales, and an inability to determine the presence of marijuana as an intoxicant, as we do for alcohol, there is rising concern about marijuana’s impact on traffic accidents and fatalities. Here is the latest data.
The media reports the results of sloppy vaping research, then quickly forgets them. We do not. What follows is a list of many of the low-quality studies that have investigated the alleged health risks of e-cigarette use. We'll regularly update this catalog of bad studies as necessary.
In 2010 the Physician Payment Sunshine Act was passed, requiring pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers to report all payments to physicians, be it royalties, speaking fees, or the proverbial “free lunch.” The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) share the #1 and 2 spot for impactful journals in the US. The authors of their articles are the thought-leaders in our medical understanding, but as a new study points out, reporting their conflicted interests, at least the financial ones, remains challenging.
If there's any reason to doubt the veracity of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing (PROP) there is now more. The group lied about the results of a June debate on the cause of the opioid crisis. We caught it.