Policy & Ethics

Tracking cookies, those bite-size snippets of code that log your internet behavior come in as many forms as recipes for chocolate-chip cookies. Let us make a few quick distinctions. Some “session” cookies are bound to your browser and expire when you close the browser. Other cookies can have “best-by” dates or may last forever, like Twinkies. More importantly to this study, some cookies are issued by the site you are visiting, first-party cookies; others, ghostwritten by obscure code, serve the need of external third parties. Those are the subject of some new research.
There are hundreds of pain-patient advocates constantly fighting to overturn the cruel and misguided policies of withholding power pain medications from those truly in need. But it would be difficult (perhaps impossible) to find one who's dedicated his career to advocating for pain patients, now for a quarter of a century. An interview with Dr. Richard "Red" Lawhern, an ACSH advisor.
A unanimous Supreme Court decision is a good first step for getting law enforcement out of prescription decisions. Drs. Jeffrey Singer and Josh Bloom in Reason Magazine.
Scientists’ use of flawed statistics and editors’ complaisant practices both contribute to the mass production and publication of irreproducible research in a wide range of scientific disciplines. This crisis poses serious questions for policymakers. How many grant dollars and federal regulations reflect irreproducible, flawed, and unsound research?
The barrage of PROP's BS propaganda continues. If they haven't looked stupid enough in the past month, you ain't seen nothing yet.
E-cigarettes can help smokers abandon their deadly habit. Unfortunately, that message has been buried under a mountain of anti-vaping messaging promoted by tobacco researchers and reporters.
Cato Institute's Dr. Jeffrey Singer (also an ACSH advisor) published an opinion piece in The Detroit News arguing that laws that restrict drug paraphernalia do more harm than good. "If states want to get serious about reducing the risk of harm from using illegal drugs, lawmakers should repeal their drug paraphernalia laws." We couldn't agree more. Harm reduction is one of the central tenets of ACSH.
As the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade took all of the oxygen out of the media greenroom, another SCOTUS decision on our healthcare, in this case, over insurance costs, was pretty much overlooked. That’s too bad because, in 2019, it involved slightly more than 6% of that budget – for individuals with end-stage renal disease (ESRD).
ACSH advisor Dr. Robert Popovian's commentary on how biomedical innovation remains critically important, despite advances against the Covid pandemic.
Last time, we discussed head transplants and how philosophers are gearing up to address the ethical implications. Many pages and scholarly brain waves were spent in the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy: A Forum for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine. What use were these ruminations? Are they valid considerations, even if the basic scientific premise is faulty? Or is this another example of asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? More importantly, what does this tell us about our capacity to resolve complex bioethical issues around new biotech?
Has the FDA lost its mind or just the ability to use it? ACSH advisor Dr. Jeffrey Singer discusses banning of Juul e-cigarettes.
As divisive as we are, I think we can all agree that our institutions and corporations are not held accountable for their actions. To my right are those concerned with the CDC, WHO, and social media censorship; to my left are those who want to hold the Bigs, tobacco, or food, and federal and state policy accountable. Governmental agencies are hard to pin down because the bureaucracy means everyone and no one is to be held responsible. Because they are legal “individuals,” corporations can have their feet held to the fire by lawsuits. But thanks to a rivalry between Delaware and Texas over who is the most “corporate friendly,” we have corporate’s “Get Out of Jail” free card – the Texas two-step.