We’ve written before about HealthMap, a project spearheaded by folks from Harvard, Children’s Hospital-Boston, and a few other institutions. At TEDMED 2010 we had a chance to interview John Brownstein, co-founder of the project, about what HealthMap is up to these days:
Flashbacks:
The Latest on HealthMap, an Online Disease-Mining System
HEALTHmap Global Disease Tracker
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
We write a lot about vaccines here at Science-Based Medicine. Indeed, as I write this, I note that there are 155 posts under the Vaccines category, with this post to make it 156. This is third only to Science and Medicine (which is such a vague, generic category that I’ve been seriously tempted to get rid of it, anyway) and Science and the Media.
There is no doubt that vaccines represent one of the most common topics that we cover here on SBM, and with good reason. That good reason is that, compared to virtually any other modality used in the world of SBM, vaccines are under the most persistent attack from a vocal group of people, who, either because they mistakenly believe that vaccines caused their children’s autism, because they don’t like being told what to do by The Man, because they think that “natural” is always better to the point of thinking that it’s better to get a vaccine-preventable disease in order to achieve immunity than to vaccinate against it, or because a combination of some or all of the above plus other reasons, are anti-vaccine.
“Anti-vaccine.” We regularly throw that word around here at SBM — and, most of the time, with good reason. Many skeptics and defenders of SBM also throw that word around, again with good reason most of the time. There really is a shocking amount of anti-vaccine sentiment out there. But what does “anti-vaccine” really mean? What is “anti-vaccine?” Who is “anti-vaccine?”
Given that this is my first post for SBM’s self-declared Vaccine Awareness Week, proposed to counter Barbara Loe Fisher’s National Vaccine Information Center’s and Joe Mercola’s proposal that November 1-6 be designated “Vaccine Awareness Week” for the purpose of posting all sorts of pseudoscience and misinformation about “vaccine injury” and how dangerous vaccines supposedly are, we decided to try to co-opt the concept for the purpose of countering the pseudoscience promoted by the anti-vaccine movement. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
Back in the 1970s, Kansas passed a law that could prevent people with mental illness from voting. The law was never used, but advocates were successful in getting an amendment passed that revoked that law.
This law was passed at a time when stigma against mental illness was much higher than now. I’m guessing it was presumed that folks with a mental illness could not reason enough to exercise an informed vote, which is not true, of course. If 1outta5 have a psychiatric illness, including anxiety, depression, and substance abuse, then there could have been a huge swath of disenfranchised voters.
And there already exists, to a degree, a basic cognitive test for voting: Navigating the whole ballot process. In Maryland, ours was electronic and no harder to use than an iPad, but I could still imaging some with severe dementia unable to navigate the system. But there should never be a cognitive bar one must pass to vote. The challenge would be where to draw the line.
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
Continuing this week’s spontaneous theme (we didn’t make the claims and write the stories) of runaway enthusiasm for various screening tests by some researchers and journalists, HealthDay news service has reported on a study published in the Oct. 28 issue of the journal Nature that they say “provides new insight into the genetics of pancreatic cancer.” In the story, they let one of the researchers get away with saying, almost unchallenged:
“What’s important about this study is that it’s objective data in support of why everyone should be screened for pancreatic cancer.”
Mind you, this was a study that looked at tissue from just seven patients. The story continued with its breathless enthusiasm for the pancreatic cancer screening idea:
“In the future, new imaging techniques and blood tests will offer hope for early detection, the study noted. And just as people have a colonoscopy when they turn 50, “perhaps they should have an endoscopy of their upper gastrointestinal organs that includes an ultrasound of the pancreas,” said (the researcher).”
The very end of the story included some skepticism from Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
Interesting [recent] front-page article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) about the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC). From the WSJ:
Three times a year, 29 doctors gather around a table in a hotel meeting room. Their job is an unusual one: divvying up billions of Medicare dollars.
The group, convened by the American Medical Association, has no official government standing. Members are mostly selected by medical-specialty trade groups. Anyone who attends its meetings must sign a confidentiality agreement. […]
The RUC, as it is known, has stoked a debate over whether doctors have too much control over the flow of taxpayer dollars in the $500 billion Medicare program. Its critics fault the committee for contributing to a system that spends too much money on sophisticated procedures, while shorting the type of nuts-and-bolts primary care that could keep patients healthier from the start — and save money.
I’m glad to see the RUC getting some much-needed scrutiny, and skeptical scrutiny at that. But they miss the point with the “fox watching the henhouse” angle, or at least they paint with too broad a brush. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
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