Doctors at Houston’s Texas Medical Center recently pioneered a new experimental treatment for stroke victims in which the patient’s own adult stem cells are harvested and injected into the bloodstream. Dr. Sean Savitz, a neurology professor and the study’s lead investigator, hopes to show that the stem cells will take it from there, migrating to…
Category: Health
ADHD Medicine’s Value Over Time
In 1999, a group of researchers led by William Pelham released the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children with ADHD (MTA), a paper that failed to note the benefits that children receive from their medicine decline over time. The MTA ran into controversy when an academic review of the paper questioned why it played down negative…
The Case for Universal Healthcare
The U.S. healthcare system is broken. No one seriously disputes that any longer. The current national discussion is all about how far to nationalize healthcare. This presupposes both the existence of a problem and that the free market cannot fix it. But do we know the latter assumption is true? How long has it been…
Obama’s Health Care Plan to be Mandatory?
Ezra Klein says that Barack Obama will ask Congress to include a mandatory participation clause when he spells out the broad strokes for his proposed health care plan: Administration officials have been very clear on what the inclusion of “universality” is meant to communicate to Congress. As one senior member of the health team said…
Medicine in the Era of Big Government
My wife is having surgery today. She’s chosen her doctors as best she can with the limited information available regarding their abilities, which is to say word-of-mouth, and we’ll soon be off to the relatively new facility in Bryan, Texas for her operation. It’s a relatively minor procedure, but I have to admit to being…
Equality in Fact, Law, and Medicine
Dennis Prager’s comment that equality is not an American value stirred up a few left-wingers like Ali at ThinkProgress. His aghast reaction, like those of many TP commenters, was based on a superficial reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Neither document guarantees equality in fact, merely in law. We come into this…
Rights and Privileges
What are our rights as Americans? Bill Whittle knows. With reference to health care, Bill writes: …back in the day, we would simply say that a right has legal authority — it’s in the Constitution and therefore it’s a not just a right, it’s a birthright. Health care is a privilege of being born in…
Medical Discrimination
Wisconsin Congressman Steve Kagen has what he thinks is a noble goal in mind: ending price discrimination in the medical insurance marketplace. Why? As Kagen writes at the Huffington Post, charging people different prices for health insurance is unconstitutional. Kagen uses some strong rhetoric in attacking insurance companies: That’s why I’ve introduced the No Discrimination…
Deciding to Die
From the NY Times: Modern medicine can keep people alive into their 9th and 10th decades, when in years past they would have succumbed to any number of conditions. Now a small but growing number of these people are asking why. What is the point of living so long if you can no longer enjoy…
John Edwards’ 4 Steps
Edwards, running a reasonable 3rd in the Democratic primary polls, today published a 4 step program to a healthier America in the Boston Globe. But would following his recipe really make America a better place to live? The first thing we need to do is create more jobs and make sure those jobs pay enough for people…