March 26, 2009 The Pump Handle 2Comment

It’s Cover the Uninsured Week, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is working to “highlight the fact that too many Americans are living without health insurance and demand solutions from our nation’s leaders.” Concern about uninsurance is growing as more people lose jobs that provided them with health insurance. But most of the factors behind […]

March 25, 2009 The Pump Handle 6Comment

Our food production system is unsustainable, but those who advocate for healthier agriculture and diets often find themselves dismissed as elitists. While I think this is often an unfair criticism , it’s clear that it hampers advocates’ effectiveness. So, I was delighted to read in the Washington Post this morning about a good-food advocate from […]

March 23, 2009 The Pump Handle 3Comment

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure One of the nastiest things about the years after the Republicans took control of the Congress in 1994 and Bush the White House in 2001 was the increase in inequality in the US. The rich not only got richer and the poor, poorer, but rich got more comfortable and […]

March 20, 2009 The Pump Handle 2Comment

By Alison Bass (cross-posted) At a talk I gave Wednesday at George Washington University, someone in the audience asked why there seemed to be an inordinate number of psychiatrists on the take to the drug industry. Was it something about the specialty of psychiatry itself or the individuals involved? I have often pondered the same, especially since […]

March 17, 2009 The Pump Handle

Alison Bass, an award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee, will be here at George Washington University tomorrow to speak about why the system of drug research and development in the United States is seriously flawed and what reforms are needed. Wednesday, March 18, 4:30pm GWU-SPHHS Health Policy Department 2021 K St. NW, Ste. 800, Washington, […]

March 16, 2009 The Pump Handle 2Comment

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure There is an attitude toward the prospects of an influenza pandemic and what, or what not, to do about it that I have little patience with. We saw examples a couple of years ago with the writings of Wendy Orent and Marc Siegel and now it is surfacing again […]

March 14, 2009 The Pump Handle

by revere, cross-posted from Effect Measure There is a good summary by Robert Roos at CIDRAP News about the $420 billion spending bill signed by President Obama this week to cover the next six months. The good news edges out the bad news, so the net is positive, a welcome change from the kind of deeply depressing […]

March 9, 2009 The Pump Handle 2Comment

Today, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies regarding scientific integrity. It begins: Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health, protection of the environment, increased efficiency in the use of energy […]

February 25, 2009 The Pump Handle

Yesterday, the Institute of Medicine warned that employment-based health insurance coverage is eroding, and that the safety net (clinics and emergency rooms that provide charity and uncompensated care) won’t be able to handle the demand from the uninsured. IOM’s new report, America’s Uninsured Crisis: Consequences for Health and Health Care, notes that the decline in […]