Steven Landsburg on the difference between an absurdity and a lie about Obamacare
20 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, health economics, politics - USA
Jon Stewart demolishes Gruber and the Democrats on Obamacare
20 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics, economics of regulation, health economics, politics - USA Tags: health insurance, Jon Stewart, Obamacare
Measles has risen from the dead
17 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, measles, vaccinations, vaccines
Amazing ambulance drone cuts response time to 1 minute on heart attacks
09 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: ambulance drones, The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact
Once the heart stops beating, it takes about 4-6 minutes for the brain to die. The average response time for ambulances is about 10 minutes.
A professional response within a single minute could potentially increase the cardiac arrest survival rate to an astonishing 80%.
Though defibrillators are commonly available in public areas in case of emergency, 4 out of 5 cardiac arrests occur at home where the equipment likely isn’t available.
Currently, only 20% of untrained people are able to successfully apply a defibrillator, but this rate can be increased to 90% if people are provided with instructions at the scene.
My impression is that the sky will be quite crowded with drones in about 5 to 10 years and there will be an air traffic control problem.
HT: ambulance-drone-could-drastically-increase-heart-attack-survival
A New Measure of Suspense
03 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, health economics Tags: sport
Sporting suspense as measured by the number of heart attacks during world cup finals.
In our paper, Alex Frankel, Emir Kamenica and I argue that soccer is among the most suspenseful sports according to our theoretical measure. Now, via Matt Dickenson, comes an empirical validation of this finding using German cardiac arrest data:
The red line shows the spike in heart attacks on the dates of 2006 World Cup matches involving the German national team. Note that point 7 is the third place match against Portugal after Germany had been eliminated in their semi-final match against Italy (point 6.)
John Armstrong: Seances and crackpot ramblings belong in Greens’ mystical past
01 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: anti-vaccination movement, Quacks
Not so long ago, any Green MP who suggested sipping camomile tea or some other herbal concoction to ward off the horrific Ebola virus would surely have been deemed by his or her colleagues to be guilty – but only of being eccentric.
There used to be a lot of it about. Who can forget the senior party official who marked the opening session of one Green Party conference by lighting a large candle in recognition of any spirits that might have been present or invoke any that delegates wished to be present. (Sadly, the candle had to be extinguished soon after this mind-boggling seance. It fell foul of more earthly and more mundane forces – namely health and safety regulations.)
You don’t know how lucky you are: polio was a common childhood risk in the mid-20th century – not all that long before I was born
01 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, health economics, polio, The Great Escape
When I was in high school, we read I Can Jump Puddles (1955 ) – an autobiography by Alan Marshall. He contracted polio in 1908 at the age of 6. At the time, I didn’t really notice how recent the threat of polio was.
Citizens of urban areas were to be terrified every summer when this frightful visitor returned.
Soon after Dr Jonas Salk’s vaccine was licensed in 1955, children’s vaccination campaigns were launched. In the U.S, following a mass immunization campaign promoted by the March of Dimes, the annual number of polio cases fell from 35,000 in 1953 to 5,600 by 1957. By 1961 only 161 cases were recorded in the United States.
Until the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered one of the most frightening public health problems in the world:
Jonas Salk made scientists and journalists alike go goofy.
As one of the only living scientists whose face was known the world over, Salk, in the public’s eye, had a superstar aura.
Airplane pilots would announce that he was on board and passengers would burst into applause. Hotels routinely would upgrade him into their penthouse suites.
A meal at a restaurant inevitably meant an interruption from an admirer, and scientists approached him with drop-jawed wonder as though some of the stardust might rub off
Anti-Science Left alert: food labelling and natural food
01 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: Anti-Science left, food labelling, green rent seeking, Quacks
Homeopaths offer services ‘to help fight’ Ebola epidemic in west Africa | The Guardian
31 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: Ebola, Quacks
On their website, Van der Zee now urges supporters of homeopathy to sign the Change.org petition started in Australia, calling on WHO “to test and distribute homeopathy as quickly as possible to contain the outbreaks”.
Among the signatories is Steffan Browning, a Green Party MP in New Zealand.
He was publicly dismissed by the prime minister John Key as “barking mad”.
“Let’s be honest, this is a serious global issue, and if he really thinks that’s the answer I’d love to see the medical research,” said Key.
Browning admitted “it was probably a bit unwise” to sign the petition, which he also shared on his Facebook page encouraging other people to sign it. He said he had signed it “pretty late at night”, although he hoped WHO would keep an open mind on potential treatment options, since there was currently no cure.
New Zealand’s health minister, Jonathan Coleman, however, said treating Ebola patients with homeopathic remedies was “a wacko idea”, adding: “I don’t know what he’s thinking, it’s very, very dangerous. I think he really needs to engage his brain, it’s a really and stupid dangerous idea.”
via Homeopaths offer services ‘to help fight’ Ebola epidemic in west Africa | World news | The Guardian.
Homeopathic A and E
30 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics, liberalism Tags: Quacks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0#t=21
HT: Sane Bob
Anti-Science Left alert: Fight Ebola with homeopathy–NZ Green party MP – updated
30 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: Anti-Science left, do gooders, GMOs, Quacks, vaccines
NZ Green MP Steffan Browning says giving his support to a call for the World Health Organisation to deploy homeopathic remedies to combat the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
Mr Browning this week signed a petition started by Australian Fran Sheffield which calls on the World Health Organisation (WHO) to
End the suffering of the Ebola crisis. Test and distribute homeopathy as quickly as possible to contain the outbreaks.
Asked whether he thought homeopathy could cure Ebola, Mr Browning said:
It’s not for me to go down that track at all.
The World Health Organisation, world health authorities are doing that.
They will be considering I hope absolutely every possible options to this very concerning disease.
Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the petition did not reflect the position of the party, and agreed it was unwise of Browning to have signed it.
Green party health spokesman Kevin Hague said he was "disappointed" Browning had signed the petition.
Browning is also on the record has been anti-GMOs, and is the green party spokesmen on genetic modification as well as the range of science-based portfolios such as agriculture and biosecurity.
To listen to most pundits, evolution, stem cells, and climate change are the only scientific issues worth mentioning—and the only people who are anti-science are on the right of politics.
Those on the left have numerous fallacies of their own. Aversion to clean energy programs, basic biological research, and even life-saving vaccines come naturally to many progressives. These are positions supported by little more than junk-science and paranoid thinking.
Concerns about vaccine safety and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are often held up as evidence of anti-scientific beliefs among liberals. The anti-GMO movement is a product of the political left and has reached levels of delusion, paranoia and anti-intellectualism worthy of Michele Bachmann and young-earth creationists.
Though 70 percent of scientists support nuclear power, left-leaning organizations such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club strongly oppose it.
How to sell a toxic pesticide the smart way–call it organic | Genetic Literacy Project
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, environmental economics, health economics Tags: food safety, food snobs, Quacks
If you are a pesticide company wondering how you can sell a product without being caught in a cultural crossfire, I have good news.
There is a template for marketing success you can use free of charge, courtesy ofMcLaughlin Gormley King Company (MGK) and Valent, which recently announced a sales partnership: Make a toxic chemical cocktail that meets National Organic Program standards and then have the product sold by a subsidiary to foster the perception that it’s a family-run organic companies and not part of the same multinational chemical conglomerate.
via How to sell a toxic pesticide the smart way–call it organic | Genetic Literacy Project.
Rich, educated and stupid parents are driving the vaccination crisis – LA Times
29 Oct 2014 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: anti-vaccination movement, herd immunity, The Great Escape
In Los Angeles County, the rise in personal belief exemptions is most prominent in wealthy coastal and mountain communities.
The more than 150 schools with exemption rates of 8% or higher for at least one vaccine were located in census tracts where the incomes averaged $94,500 — nearly 60% higher than the county median.
That 8% exemption level is the point at which lack of immunization threatens herd immunity, an important factor in preventing and constraining disease outbreaks.
via Rich, educated and stupid parents are driving the vaccination crisis – LA Times.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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