Yes, I’m on Twitter- alandove: Another reason we need universal healthcare. @DrFriedenCDC "education & income ... keys to better health. Another reason to stay in school!"
- alandove: No, the Lexus with its lights on probably doesn't belong to anyone at this public health meeting.
- alandove: RT @stevesilberman: Taxes, spending and deficits are all lower today than when Obama took office. http://t.co/NGnJlr5l
- alandove: Good: Apple store next door to conference. Bad: they couldn't fix it either. Good: bought Bluetooth keyboard, now phone = laptop.
- alandove: @lhrandall Cool! I've been sitting about five rows back, end of row, house left. Will probably take same seat tomorrow.
- alandove: My new laptop. #oldschool http://t.co/UK1oPLAQ
- alandove: Just arrived in ATL to cover 2 conferences, and my brand new MacBook Air suddenly and completely croaked. No words for how much this sucks.
- alandove: The journey of a thousand miles should begin with an empty bladder.
- alandove: RT @profvrr: This Week in Virology (TWiV) episode 183 is up: Bats out of hell http://t.co/8ukXCDCq
- alandove: Plenty happens if you listen to HF radio frequencies. "We keep hearing about these ... sunspots and nothing happens!" @sciencegoddess
Tag Archives: public policy
Genetic Privacy: An Inalienable Right?
Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has a thought-provoking editorial in the 11 May issue of Science:
The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) languished in past Congresses for 12 years. But finally, new leadership in the House of Representatives has given the bill its best chance to become law since its introduction in 1995. On 25 April, GINA passed the House by a vote of 420 to 3. The act will prohibit health insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums to a healthy individual solely because they possess a genetic predisposition to develop a disease in the future. It will also bar employers from using genetic information in hiring, firing, job placement, or promotion decisions.
She goes on to argue that genetic discrimination is a real and insidious danger, and that the new legislation is critical to stopping it. While I do believe that people are already facing uninformed discrimination on the basis of primitive, misinterpreted genetic tests, I’m not convinced that we should have an inalienable right to keep our genetic information secret from insurers and employers. Currently, insurers can ask if I have a family history of, say, cancer or diabetes. That’s genetic information. So if a test comes along that makes solid predictions from my actual DNA sequence, rather than a potentially flawed inference from vague family history data, why am I suddenly allowed to keep that a secret? Continue reading
Friendly Fire in the War on Bioterror
Today’s New York Times brings a sobering story:
A 2-year-old boy spent seven weeks in the hospital and nearly died from a viral infection he got from the smallpox vaccination his father received before shipping out to Iraq, according to a government report and the doctors who treated him.
The boy, who lives in Indiana and has recovered, became ill in early March, two weeks after his father’s deployment was delayed and he was allowed to make a trip home. Over the next few weeks, the boy suffered kidney failure and lost most of his skin to the disease, eczema vaccinatum.
By my count, “bioterrorism” has killed somewhere around six Americans. How many have been killed and maimed by the multi-billion-dollar-and-mushrooming “biodefense” response? Continue reading
Pharmaceutical Pollution: The Paper of Record Notices
I was pleased to see that the New York Times finally picked up on the story of pharmaceutical pollution. They covered much of the same ground I visited in my feature a while back for Nature Medicine, but they also brought up an interesting social phenomenon that could dog efforts to quantify the effects of these pollutants:
But even that normally anodyne approach comes under question because of something scientists call “the nocebo effect” — real, adverse physiological reactions people sometimes develop when they learn they have been exposed to something — even if there is no evidence it may be harmful.
“The nocebo effect could play a key role in the development of adverse health consequences from exposure even to trace elements of contaminants simply by the power of suggestion,” Dr. Daughton wrote recently in a paper in a special issue of Ground Water Monitoring and Remediation, a publication of the National Ground Water Association, an organization of scientists, engineers and businesses related to the use of groundwater.
So let’s take this problem seriously. But not too seriously. Continue reading
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Tagged pharmaceutical pollution, public policy, science, scoops
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Still Pulling for Poor Countries’ Vaccines
The G7 nations are apparently setting up another effort to entice drug companies to work on unprofitable diseases:
The UK and other leading industrialised nations are setting up a £750m ($1.5bn) fund to speed up the development of new vaccines for use in poorer countries.
The plan is to subsidise the future purchase of vaccines in the hope this will galvanise drug firms into action.
A vaccine for pneumococcal disease is the first target.
A jab already exists, but developing countries need a tailored version which firms have been slow to invest in as there is no guaranteed market.
This is an example of a “pull” incentive, guaranteeing a market for the putative vaccine by committing rich countries to buy a certain amount once it’s developed. This contrasts with “push” efforts, which fund the research up front. The idea of “pull” systems is that drug companies will invest their own money in development if they perceive that there’s going to be a market for the final product. By guaranteeing an artificial market in the future, we can reap the benefits of corporate research without having to put taxpayers’ cash on the table until the products are ready.
It’s a neat idea, and drug company executives publicly laud it. Privately, however, they consistently admit that their own company probably won’t do it. Developing a new vaccine can take a decade or more, and there’s a tremendous risk that politicians yet to be elected will balk at honoring the expensive promises of their predecessors. Also, the governments involved have to be willing to pay the companies a suitable profit margin beyond their basic development costs, which would inevitably become a political lightning rod.
On the other hand, as the ongoing problems with “push” efforts like the Bioshield project show, there’s clearly a need for some alternative. It’s just not clear that pulling will be any more successful. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged epidemiology, public health, public policy, science, vaccine
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Malaria Control: Spraying You-Know-What
The US Agency for International Development just awarded a $150 million grant to open a new front in the Bush administration’s anti-malaria effort. The press release, however, has a rather obvious omission. Here’s how it starts:
The U.S. Government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced the awarding of a $150 million Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) contract to a consortium headed by Research Triangle Institute (RTI). Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) is the application of safe insecticides to the indoor walls and ceilings of a home or structure in order to interrupt the spread of malaria by killing mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite. Malaria is the number one killer in Africa.
And exactly what “safe insecticides” are they referring to? DDT, of course. As I pointed out in an earlier post, DDT can indeed be quite safe in this application, but its revival poses some thorny problems that the Administration might not be prepared to handle. In any case, it’s unfortunate that they felt the need to censor the press release like this. Is this the start of a pattern of obfuscation in this new effort? Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged ddt, entomology, malaria, public health, public policy, science
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Drug Lunches – This is News?
The New York Times just ran an article about drug company marketing tactics that really surprised me. Specifically, I was amazed that this is considered news, and somewhat amused that the reporter didn’t get anywhere close to the bottom of this particular rabbit hole. Yes, drug companies buy lunches for delivery to doctors’ offices. And yes, many practices – and even entire hospital departments – have come to consider these regular meals a no-cost benefit for their employees. And yes, of course the drug salespeople (former cheerleaders, mostly – no kidding) pitch their products while the medical staff dines. Continue reading
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Tagged health policy, marketing, pharmaceuticals, public policy
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