Menu Labeling: a scrumptious piece of legislation I live near the intersection of 24th and Mission streets, a part of San Francisco that’s “colorful”, in the parlance of my soon-to-be-in-laws. The corner boasts a plethora of visual and auditory stimulants that some of us prefer to battle with noise-canceling headphones and sunglasses. But, to your average out-of-towner who steps off the BART train and struggles to look straight ahead, there is one beacon of comfort and familiarity. Lodged between the skulking gangbangers and the raving preachers sits our local McDonald’s, open 24 hours, selling Big Macs at a noticeably brisk...

A new paper concluding that drunk driving increases after smokefree bar laws are passed was just published in the Journal of Public Economics (Adams and Cotti, J Public Econ 92:1288-1305;2008). Stan Glantz at UCSF, a pioneer in tobacco-free policy, set the record straight through his analysis of the research, disseminated through smokefree.net.. After detailing the article's questionable statistical practices and biased literature citations, Glantz concludes by emphasizing that even if we accept the authors' conclusions that a smokefree law is associated with 2.54 more accidents per year in the average county, the benefits in terms of just reduced heart attacks...

On December 1st each year, the world comes together to commemorate World AIDS Day. Today, about 42 million people live with HIV/AIDS worldwide. Of the approximately 15,000 people who will be infected with HIV each day this year, the majority will not even know that they are infected and will continue to spread this disease for another several years before they realize they are ill. As the epidemic spreads, it is affecting more and more women; globally, it is estimated that women represent approximately 65% of all those infected with HIV/AIDS. In fact, the leading risk factor for HIV among...

I thought this was an interesting example of unintended policy consequences. . . New Jacobson study on potential increased smog fatalities from ethanol Ethanol is widely touted as an eco-friendly, clean-burning fuel. But if every vehicle in the United States ran on fuel made primarily from ethanol instead of pure gasoline, the number of respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations likely would increase, according to a new study by Stanford University atmospheric scientist Mark Z. Jacobson. His findings are published in the April 18 online edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T). "Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and...

Assuming that we’re sexually active, 80% of us will be infected with one or more strain of human papillomavirus (HPV) at some point in our lives. HPV does not have negative health impacts for men; but 10 of the 30 detectable genital HPV strains (there are dozens of undetectable strains) can, in rare cases, lead to cervical cancer in women. Regular visits to the gynecologist and pap smears are the best defense against HPV’s cancer risk, and Merck is now offering a vaccine. HIV/AIDS affects an estimated 1,000,000 Americans. It is a horrible disease which impacts all corners of society...

On January 11th, the House of Representatives for the second time approved – it was first passed in 2006, and subsequently vetoed – a bill to allow federal support for research using stem cells extracted from leftover embryos that fertility clinics would otherwise discard, in an attempt to end a funding moratorium initiated in 2001 by the Bush administration. Stem cell research involves extracting stem cells from human embryos that are a few days old. The embryos are destroyed in the process, raising important ethical questions about the sanctity of human life and whether it is appropriate to use human...

A post I left a few weeks ago about the strange connection between employment and healthcare, apparently mirrors a debate that took place in 2000 between Adam Gopnik and Malcolm Gladwell in the Washington Monthly.
A number of blogs have recently resurrected the debate, in which Gopnik and Gladwell discuss the merits of the Canadian system. Malcolm Gladwell, who once took the role of the single-payer skeptic, has come around. He tells the tale in his new blog. It's actually a two parter.

It's worth a read, especially for his simplistic but effective comparison of healthcare to public transportation.

Considering the stakes and the profound values at play, most abortion "debates" -- those hyped-up events between your college's pro-choice and the pro-life clubs -- are pretty insipid affairs. It's just the nature of the issue: you can only define "zygote" and "personhood" so many times before, eventually, you trip over your own repetitive arguments, and the audience once again fails to learn anything new.

So I was surprised by just how incisive this discussion in Slate has become, even more so because it's just between two avowed pro-choicers.