Here are some of articles that I found interesting, all of which have to do with health and medicine:
- I Don’t Want Health Care If Just Anyone Can Have It: (from The Onion) “The only reason this is even being considered is because a majority of voters want it. Well, of course they do—they don’t have it! But you don’t see 33rd Degree Freemasons letting any old average citizen into their inner sanctum just because he’s curious. And you won’t catch me sharing my God-given right to affordable lifesaving medical procedures with every bum who’s got a jones for another hepatitis vaccination. It’s undignified. After all, how do I know I’ve made it in this world if I’m not able to enjoy something others can’t?”
- A comment on the aforementioned Onion article in Reddit: “I’m not saying the Canadian system isn’t better, it is better. It’s far less wasteful. I’m saying, don’t pretend Canada is this panacea that it isn’t. There’s a reason many people are pushing for a two-tiered system… one tier where you pay with time, and the other where the impatient wealthy pay with money. There’s nothing unfair about it, it works in European nations, and it makes all kinds of sense.”
- Fighting MADD: (from Modern Drunkard) An article that argues that Mothers Against Drunk Driving has lost the plot — “In October of 1985, MADD’s board of directors, largely salaried male executives at that point, fired Candy Lightner. They claimed she was making excessive demands on the budget, she claimed it was a coup d’etat by radical prohibitionists who had infiltrated the organization. Disturbed by the shift from attacking drunk driving to attacking drinking in general, the founder of MADD later joined the liquor lobby, declaring, ‘I worry that the movement I helped create has lost direction. (The .08 legislation) ignores the real core of the problem. If we really want to save lives, let’s go after the most dangerous drivers on the road.'”
- America’s Drunk Driving Dilemma: “America has had a problem with drunk driving since Ford perfected the assembly line. I know it is a serious danger because I’ve lost young friends to drunken driving accidents. So what’s the answer? Today we continually increase the severity of the laws, strip away individual rights, and arrest over a million people per year. Is it working? MADD says it is, but critics say it isn’t. It depends on which statistics you wish to believe. I personally believe our current strategy is a failure and we could do better by trying to change the American values that lead to the drunken driving dilemma.”
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Facing Life with a Lethal Gene:
A New York Times piece on Katherine Moser, who was diagnosed as having the gene for Huntington’s Disease, a rare genetic disease which strikes in middle age, causes degenration of brain cells and is incurable and lethal. - Without Mouth-to-Mouth, CPR Still Works: “Chest compressions — not mouth-to-mouth resuscitation — seem to be the key in helping someone recover from cardiac arrest, according to new research that further bolsters advice from heart experts. A study in Japan showed that people were more likely to recover without brain damage if rescuers focused on chest compressions rather than on rescue breaths, and some experts advised dropping the mouth-to-mouth part of CPR altogether. The study was published yesterday in The Lancet.”