For those of you who were wondering what new scam the financial geniuses on Wall Street would get up to next, I have the answer: life insurance. Financial institutions are buying people’s life insurance policies. They then bundle the policies and sell those bundles, very much as they did with mortgages. Continue reading →

Last week the media reported that researchers based at Kaiser Permanente found an association between cholesterol levels in middle-aged people and the risk for those people of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia in old age. I thought, “Jeeze! These people just can’t leave it alone.” So I’d like to propose a cholesterol theory of my own: cholesterol causes obsessive and myopic behavior among researchers. Continue reading →

Two weeks ago, the media reported on research concerning the effect of calorie restriction on health and longevity. The research was carried out at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and is the longest experiment of its kind. The study compared a control group of Rhesus monkeys allowed to eat freely as compared to monkeys restricted to a diet with 70% of the calories consumed by the free eating group. Continue reading →

So-called health care reform is in the news because of the impending battles over what’s going to be in it and who’s going to pay for it. One of the more outrageous funding proposals is to tax people for excessive medical insurance. That is, if you have an insurance plan that provides more coverage than some defined norm, you’ll be taxed on the value of the excess coverage. Don’t jump to the conclusion that fat cats will be hard hit. The group that will be hit the hardest are members of unions that managed to fight successfully for good health benefits. Continue reading →

Last year the company Matrixx Initiatives of Scottsdale, Arizona sold $40 million worth of Zicam brand cold remedies. Zicam is marketed as homeopathic and so comes under the FDA’s consumer product jurisdiction and not under its drug regulation jurisdiction. Two weeks ago, the FDA issued a warning to consumers that use of Zicam brand products puts users at risk of losing their sense of smell, perhaps permanently. Continue reading →

Is increased life expectancy a measure of better health? Or does it simply measure the success of medical technologies in keeping the machinery of the body operating? Continue reading →

The current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association is devoted to health promotion and disease prevention in children. Even the usual fare about vaccinations was of interest: Nicaraguan children vaccinated against rotavirus suffered less from diarrhea. The outcome was of less interest than the fact that the effectiveness of the vaccinations for Nicaraguan children was half that for US children. What could account for the difference? Neither the authors nor the Journal’s editors discuss possible answers. Continue reading →

The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology ends today. Several studies reported at the meeting have made it into the news. One was yet another misbegotten outcome from the Women’s Health Initiative and another was on the ineffectiveness of screening for ovarian cancer. Continue reading →

Swine flu is still in the news, although not with the level of panic we experienced two weeks ago. Last Friday the head of the World Health Organization’s Global Influenza Programme held a news conference in which she discussed, among other things, two groups who seem to be particularly susceptible. While this is valuable information, it shows how health institutions fail us. Continue reading →

I was thrilled a few weeks ago by an NPR report. It was about legislation to control exposures to bisphenol A (BPA). The thrill came from the core of the story: a discussion of the precautionary principle. Unfortunately, the thrill was gone by the end of the report. I knew we were in trouble when the reporter opened with a discussion of the concept’s history that concluded with the observation that there are weak versions and strong versions. Continue reading →