blog.bioethics.net
a Nature Top 50 science blog from The American Journal of Bioethics
Entries from blog.bioethics.net tagged with 'public health'
Caplan: Swine Flu Response Isn't Even Worth Sneezing At
For all the planning, prioritizing, and head scratching done by state and federal governments for the coming H1N1 flu crisis this fall, we still have fallen short, says Arthur Caplan in his most recent MSNBC column. Why? The reasons are plentiful, but if you ask me the answer is simple:... (read the rest)
Stay Up-to-Date about H1N1 at pandemic.bioethics.net
WIth the launch this week of the national vaccination program for swine flu, debate is raging over whether children should be vaccinated, who should be first in line to receive the vaccine, and whether the program in general will be effective. Is America ready for a nationwide flu vaccine drive?... (read the rest)
Slapping Docs' Hands for Not Washing Them
That's the recommendation from the master of medical checklists Peter Pronovost of Johns Hopkins University and Robert Wachter of University of California at San Francisco, says the WSJ Health Blog. Lack of accountability is the reason why a whole range of medical errors exist contend the pair, according to a... (read the rest)
Who Cares About Preventive Care? Who Should?
The role and scope of preventive care in our healthcare system has been a perennial issue for decades. Emily Willingham raises the issue and its role in healthcare reform and are larger healthcare system in light of a recent encounter on Facebook and more: I received a Facebook invitation today... (read the rest)
Pucker Up!
Ladies, how much risk of lead exposure would you be willing to undergo for ruby red lips? Is it even something to be concerned about? Well, it depends on who you ask. According to the NYT, a debate is ensuing at the FDA over lead suspected in tubes of women's... (read the rest)
Will Your Tweets Keep You Healthy Or Make You Sick?
Google has been tracking flu trends to monitor disease outbreaks for some time, but with the most recent outbreak of swine flu, social media has taken on a new role in the monitoring of health in our lives. Not only did we, here at bioethics.net, decide to create pandemic.bioethics.net on... (read the rest)
Politicians are NOT Public Health Officials, But They Try to Play Them on TV!
After Vice President Joseph Biden's gaffe last week when he appeared on the Today Show about not taking public transportation such as subways and airplanes out of concern for being in confined spaces due to the swine flu, he's making up for it now. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World... (read the rest)
Politicians are NOT Public Health Officials, But They Try to Play Them on TV!
After Vice President Joseph Biden's gaffe last week when he appeared on the Today Show about not taking public transportation such as subways and airplanes out of concern for being in confined spaces due to the swine flu, he's making up for it now. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World... (read the rest)
Politicians are NOT Public Health Officials, But They Try to Play Them on TV!
After Vice President Joseph Biden's gaffe last week when he appeared on the Today Show about not taking public transportation such as subways and airplanes out of concern for being in confined spaces due to the swine flu, he's making up for it now. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World... (read the rest)
The Two Ruths Say Wash Your Hands and Don't Panic.
At the risk of blog.bioethics.net becoming the porcinefluenza.bioethics.net, I had to post at least one more commentary today about the swine flu epidemic. Ruth Karron and Ruth Faden from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health weigh in at the New York Times answering the question, "Swine Flu: A Cause... (read the rest)
What's It Like to Be a Middle Aged Guinea Pig?
If you want to know, read the L.A. Times Booster Shots post which recounts Rosie Mestel's recent experience volunteering for a cancer epidemiology study. A first hand account of what it's like to be interviewed by a health services researcher, this blogger goes from being a bit reticent about giving... (read the rest)
WWJE? What Would Jesus Exchange? Evidently, Needles.
In one of the more creative arguments I've seen in a while, William Martin, the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Senior Fellow in Religion and Public Policy at the James A. Baker III Institute at Rice University, argues that needle exchange programs are what Jesus would have advocated for, had they... (read the rest)
Chinese Doctors: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
The Chinese government is cracking down on smoking--among one of its most heavily using populations: physicians. Yes, according to Reuters, more than 50% of China's male MDs smoke cigarettes. Now the government is asking them to set an example for their patients by kicking the habit. While this is only... (read the rest)
Once a Fast Food Junkie, Always a Fast Food Junkie
New child and adolescent heath research suggests that once the fast food industry has you hooked you on commercials for you to "run for the border", you are all the more likely to continue those behaviors into adulthood, says the Washington Post. Interestingly enough, however, it's not the actual consumption... (read the rest)
NYC Is At It Again. This Time Salt Is The Enemy.
Last month, we blogged about New York Governor David Paterson's announcement that he was supporting an 18% tax against sugary drinks that contribute to the obesity epidemic in his state (and across the country). I called him "New York Governor--Public Health Crusader." Now, New York City's Department of Health and... (read the rest)
The Promise of SCHIP
Ronald Bayer and Amy Fairchild published a commentary on the impending expansion of the SCHIP program on the Huffington Post. While the column is the standard public health ethics and history fare, it is an interesting read for those of you interested in children's health policy, politics, and the ethics... (read the rest)
CDC Name Change: Semantic, Symbolic, or Silly?
U.S. Preventive Medicine is lobbying for a name change for the government's public health agency. The proposed change would be to convert the Centers for Disease Control and Prevent to the shockingly dissimilar Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. No potential for confusion there. According to a press release today,... (read the rest)
Contaminated Chinese Milk Turns Deadly...For Company Execs
Two men responsible for the melamine contamination scandal in China, Zhang Yujun and Geng Jinping, were given the death penalty by the Chinese government today and the company's chairwoman, Tian Wenhua, was given life in prison for being responsible for the melamine-contaminated milk responsible for killing six children and hundreds... (read the rest)
The Nose Knows (Or Why Smoking Should Be Banned Everywhere)
According to a recent Harvard study, published in this month's journal of Pediatrics, there isn't just first-hand and second-hand smoke, now there is another kind of smoke to fear: third-hand smoke. As the New York Times described it, it's "the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to... (read the rest)
NY Governor--Public Health Crusader
On Tuesday, Democratic Governor of New York, David Paterson, spoke out against an epidemic in this country. The epidemic of fat. Now he is putting his weight (pun intended) behind a $404 million dollar tax, or put another way an 18% tax, on sugary drinks like that dangerous soda pop... (read the rest)
Crestor for All?
It turns out that not just the high cholesterol crowd benefits from the use of anti-cholesterol medications, in this case Crestor, says Bloomberg. Recent studies have shown that the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death is cut almost by half by the use of these drugs by those well... (read the rest)
Run Away from the Border?
I too want to praise Yum! Brand Foods, right along with the Association of State and Territorial Public Health Officials for its commitment to put nutritional information on its menu boards of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, and Long John Silvers restaurants. Yet, should it really take until January 1,... (read the rest)
Truckers Save Us in a Pandemic
Who should get priority in a pandemic? Some say healthcare workers; some say the garbage collector. But according to one Johns Hopkins study, says the Toronto Star, it's truckers driving across the country and who are committed to serving those areas affected by an outbreak who should get the medical... (read the rest)
Doctors Flee from Epidemic
In the latest issue of the American Journal of Bioethics, Malm et al. address the question of whether physicians have a duty to treat during a public health emergency or whether the duty to heal ends where the epidemic beings. However, if people began to have the RFID tags implanted... (read the rest)
Say Goodbye to Tobacco
What's the way to save the world? Luckily you can keep driving your car, eating fatty foods and even going out in the sunshine--as long as you stop lighting up. According to Michael Bloomberg, America's public health mayor (so much so that they've named a School of Public Health after... (read the rest)
Put Down that E-Cigarette
It turns out that no nicotine delivery device is good for you, even if it's electronic. The World Health Organization has said that so-called "electronic cigarettes" are not effective and may even be poisonous, as reported in US News. Sold around the world and masquerading as WHO-endorsed products, these fake... (read the rest)
Can you buy changes in health behaviors?
By Stuart Rennie And the girl behind the counter has a tattooed tear One for every year he's away she said Such a crumbling beauty, Ach there's nothing wrong with her That a hundred dollars won't fix Those are lyrics from Tom Waits' song '9th and Hennepin.' They slipped involuntarily... (read the rest)
What should be the state's role in keeping us healthy?
That's the question taken up by a report out today from the UK's Nuffield Council on Bioethics. The committee behind the report recommends a "stewardship" model for the government. From the report's executive summary (pdf): The concept of ‘stewardship’ is intended to convey that liberal states have a duty to... (read the rest)
Bringing ethics to the Grand Challenges in Global Health
By Stuart Rennie Social scientists and people working in ethics have been gradually infiltrating international health research over the last decade. The first step -- in the wake of well-known controversies -- was to make challenges raised by international health research into objects of ethical analysis. The literature on the... (read the rest)
New paper on homeschooled kids and vaccinations
Art Caplan and Donya Khalili -- a student at UPenn School of Law -- write in the latest issue of The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics about strengthening the systems set up to ensure homeschooled kids get their shots. Here's the abstract: To protect public health, states require that... (read the rest)
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