5 Myths about Our Ailing Health-Care System
Shannon Brownlee and Ezekiel Emanuel, Washington Post
“Health-care reform may be more doable than you think, provided we dispel a few myths about how health care works and how much reform Americans are willing to stomach.”
Wrangling over Psychiatry’s Bible
Christopher Lane, Los Angeles Times
“If the proposed new disorders don't receive a full professional airing, including a vigorous debate about their validity, they will be incorporated wholesale into the fifth edition in 2012.”
Troubling Data on Infant Deaths
Eugene Declercq and Judy Norsigian, Boston Globe
“The first step in improving outcomes is recognizing that our problems go beyond access to care.”
Healthcare, Education through the Looking Glass
Jim Gomes, Boston Globe
“Both systems are deeply flawed, but their weaknesses and irrationalities can be hard to see simply because we are so used to them.”
How Old Is Too Old for Lifesaving Surgery?
Dan Callahan, 'The New Old Age,' NY Times Blog
"I doggedly believe we will one way or the other have to set limits on health care for the elderly, even if a specific age limit will not do."
At the End of Life, a Delicate Calculus
Jane Gross, 'The New Old Age,' NY Times Blog
"When physician-assisted death is a covert operation, far more people seem to grab the chance."
Stem Cell Solution
Ronald M. Green, Washington Post
“By executive order, Obama could authorize the NIH to invite couples who planned to discard their frozen embryos to donate them for research.”
Gene-Altered Animals and Food Safety
Rick Weiss, Boston Globe
“The good news is that the FDA wants to regulate gene-altered animals under its strict ‘new animal drug’ provisions. The bad news is that the drug approval process in this country is extremely secretive.”
Health Care Can’t Wait
Edward M. Kennedy, Washington Post
“The cost will be substantial, but the need for reform is too great to be deflected or delayed.”
Off-Label Meds, Not Placebos, are the Real Worry
Art Caplan, MSNBC
"A 'decoy' indication for a rare or unusual condition may get a drug approved quickly while the company gears up a subtle campaign to suggest off-label uses for which no data has been given to the FDA."
How to Take American Health Care From Worst to First
Billy Beane, Newt Gingrich, and John Kerry, New York Times
"Remarkably, a doctor today can get more data on the starting third baseman on his fantasy baseball team than on the effectiveness of life-and-death medical procedures."
Health Care Destruction
Paul Krugman, New York Times
“The McCain plan would do for health care what deregulation has done for banking. And I’m terrified.”
Tuskegee, A Cloud Over Research
Ken Getz and Doug Peddicord, Washington Post
“Without clinical study participants of all races and ethnicities, promising new drugs cannot be fully evaluated for safety and effectiveness. It is time for the clinical research community and the public together to move beyond the inexcusable history of Tuskegee.”19050
US Election: Questioning the Candidates, Part 2
Science
Barack Obama accepted Nature's invitation to answer 18 science-related questions in writing; John McCain's campaign declined. Here are Obama's answers to additional questions that did not appear in our print magazine.
Forget about Testing for the Infidelity Gene
Erik Parens, San Francisco Chronicle
“We should be grateful when we find what might be another small piece of a fabulously complex puzzle. But we should have learned by now to curb our enthusiasm.”
The Fundamental Right to Refuse
Crispin Sartwell, LA Times
“If we respect the decision to perform abortions, we ought to respect the refusal to do so.”
Testing Genes, Solving Little
Olivia Judson, New York Times
“For most traits, genetic testing is — for now, anyway — little better than consulting the tea leaves.”
Mentally Ill Still Subject to Contempt
Art Caplan, Philadelphia Inquirer
“Unless we can get past dismissing mental illness as the product either of a lack of willpower or a lack of character, we don't stand a chance of helping those who must suffer with the shame and stigma.”
Birth-Control Blur
William Saletan, Slate.com
“HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt writes as though conscience protection is a separate issue from the blurring of abortion with contraception. It isn't.”
Enhanced Athletes? It's Only Natural
Andy Miah, Washington Post
“I’m all for the high-tech hero. She’s the future.”
New IVF Dilemmas Make Old Fears Seem Quaint
Art Caplan, MSNBC
“While the initial worries and fears about IVF were misguided, that doesn’t mean there is nothing to worry about now or in the future as reproductive technology evolves.”
Free-Market Baby Making
Gregory Pence, LA Times
“The experience of 30 years teaches us two things: first, discount alarmism about assisted reproduction and embrace (don't fear) new ways of making babies. Second, let the market, not government, regulate baby making.”
Paying Doctors to Ignore Patients
Peter B. Bach, NY Times
“Scattershot strategies aimed at individual fees are unlikely to reduce health care costs. More fundamental changes are needed in the way doctors are paid.”
Mind-Altering Drugs and the Problem Child
Claudia Meininger Gold, Boston Globe
“If we can listen differently to parents of young children who have ‘behavior problems,’ we can intervene early, before there is even a question of medication, and may be able to change these developing brains.”
Cash for Kidneys? Scheme Won't Work
Art Caplan, MSNBC
“A default donation plan could bring a boost in organs for transplant without creating the headaches, fears and misdistribution of a financial market.”
'Blade Runner' Ruling Subverts Nature of Sport
Art Caplan, MSNBC
“It may be fascinating to see who can go the fastest on rocket-powered legs or throw a heavy weight the farthest using performance-enhancing drugs, or genetically engineered muscles. But what you have then is an exhibition or a show, not a sport.”
A Phony 'War on Science'
Michael Gerson, Washington Post
“In their talk of a Republican war on science, liberals may be blinding themselves to a very different kind of modern war in which their own ideals are deeply implicated: a war on equality.”
It’s Not Immoral to Want to be Immortal
Arthur Caplan, MSNBC
“Despite a lot of hand-wringing and finger-pointing, it is not obvious that wanting to live a lot longer is evil or immoral.”
Science Is Leading Us to More Answers, but It's Also Misleading Us
David A. Shaywitz, Washington Post
“Consumers of scientific information must balance the hope we place in global biology with the skepticism this field has surely earned.”
Taking the Scary out of Breast Cancer Stats
Carol Tavris and Avrum Bluming, LA Times
“The media understand how deeply women fear breast cancer, and the result is that every study that seems to find a link between some new risk factor and the disease makes headlines everywhere.”
Dollars to Doughnuts Diagnosis
Albert Fuchs, LA Times
“Insurance doesn't make routine care affordable; it makes it more expensive by adding a middleman.”
Tainted Medicine
Jerome P. Kassirer, LA Times
“Disclosure of financial ties may give a scientist or researcher a clean conscience, but that doesn't erase the possibility of a conflict.”
Children's Health Can't Be Left to Faith Alone
Arthur Caplan, MSNBC
“Parents do not have the right to watch a child wither away while they pray.”
Making Cells Like ComputersErik Parens, Boston Globe“Conceivably, we are on the verge of installing synthetic genomes in bacterial cells to create products we want. But we are still a long, long way from doing what most people mean by ‘synthesizing life.’”