IHT Does Another Hatchet Job on American Health Care System

There are plenty of legitimate problems with the American heath care system.  Medical insurance companies are bogging doctors down with truckloads of paperwork and ensnaring them in a Gordian knot of red tape.  Malpractice insurance is dramatically cutting into their profits, pushing a lot of them to retire or to leave private practice.  As doctors become scarce, burdens are shifting to overworked, […]

BCI Update: Controlling a Video Game Character with your Brain

This article discusses the latest breakthrough in brain-computer interface research: a motor cortex implant that allows a paralyzed man to control the movements of a Second Life character with only his thoughts.
This video has a short demonstration.

This follows on prior research such as that conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, which had monkeys using their thoughts […]

Europe Doesn’t Get Capitalism: Part 9,452,178; Also, Socialized Medicine Blows

EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, fresh off of her Microsoft witchunt, is at it again, this time targeting pharmaceutical makers.  Apparently, it’s the unmitigated responsibility of big pharma (whom we all know to be Eeeeeevil) to betray the fiduciary duty they owe their stockholders and lose billions of dollars selling generic drugs to countries who CHOOSE […]

The Responsible Parties Ought to be Shot

I’m not usually not much for health care horror stories, because individual failings, though tragic, generally aren’t enough to indict an entire system, but this British woman’s story caught my eye.
She’s quite possibly dying of breast cancer, yet the NHS, the UK’s government-run health system, wouldn’t pay for a life-extending drug (one that’s a standard […]

Lazy, Irresponsible Reporting Misleads Public on Diabetes Research

Can you imagine a world where most MSM journalists had even an elementary grasp of the sciences and the ethics to do thirty seconds of research in order to get the story right?
Yesterday, JAMA published an article on type II diabetes - more specifically, on the use of therapeutic gastric banding to treat type II […]

The Guardian Takes a Page from Michael Moore

Browsing through The Guardian today, I came across these links to photojournalism commentaries extolling Cuban healthcare and slamming healthcare in the US. The galleries contrast pictures of smiling, healthy Cubans with fat, despondant Americans being treated in livestock barns, and argues that Cuban healthcare is better than American.
Consider this quote:
Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko, holds up […]