Gym regulars might grumble when classes and locker rooms fill with resolute new members each January, but the crowds rarely last long. I’m sure many gyms’ revenue models depend on members who pay monthly fees but use the facilities infrequently, if at all. These people (and I’ve been one in the past) are essentially throwing […]
Cholera has killed roughly 3,800 people in Haiti and sickened another 189,000, and it will continue to circulate in the population for the foreseeable future. The good news is that the number of new cases per week has dropped from 12,000, which it reached in November, to about 4,700, and the mortality rate has also […]
On April 5, 2010, a massive explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, killed 29 miners. Last week, federal Mine Safety and Health Administration investigators briefed victims’ relatives on what MSHA thinks happened at the mine. (MSHA’s official final report is not expected for another 2-3 months, though.) NPR’s Howard […]
In the new executive order, which Rena Steinzor wrote about yesterday, President Obama stated that agencies must “propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its costs.” This isn’t a revolutionary requirement; public-health agencies are already required to demonstrate cost-effectiveness of proposed regulations. For instance, when Occupational Safety and […]
This week, House Republicans are voting on whether to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Their bill, misleadingly titled “The Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act,” has a good chance of passing the House but virtually none of passing the Senate or being signed by the President. It’s a chance for House […]
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Travis Saunders at the Scientific American Guest Blog: Can sitting too much kill you? Tanya Snyder in Streetsblog Capitol Hill: Actually, Highway Builders, Roads Don’t Pay for Themselves Tina Rosenberg for the New York Times’ Opinionator: To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor Ilan Greenberg in Guernica: […]
One year after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed more than 200,000 Haitians and left 1.5 million homeless, conditions in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation are still grim. Cholera has killed 3,600 people and weakened many more; the UN warns that 650,000 may be affected over the next several months, and the death rate from the disease […]
According to new research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, in 2010 44 million private-sector US employees, or 42% of the workforce, lacked access to paid sick time. This IWPR analysis distinguishes between employees who are eligible for paid sick time vs. those who can actually access it, because employers often don’t allow for […]
Food Safety & Nutrition
More to the Food Story than Prices: Protracted Crises Keep Hunger High in 22 Countries
Earlier this week, riots erupted over food prices in several Algerian cities – according to Reuters, prices for flour and salad oil there have doubled over the past few months. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price index is now slightly higher than it was during the last global food crisis in 2008, though […]
Environmental Health
Worth Reading: “Chronic Lyme Disease,” Migrant Farmworkers, and China’s Pollution Data
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Patricia Callahan and Trine Tsouderos in the Chicago Tribune: Chronic Lyme disease: A dubious diagnosis (via Orac, who critiques the backlash against the article) The Economist: Migrant farm workers: Fields of tears Christina Larson in Yale Environment 360: In China, a New Transparency on Government Pollution Data […]