Healthcare.gov 3.0 — Behavioral Economics and Insurance Exchanges

Many people consider the randomized control trial the gold standard for assessing medical interventions. The US government has been a major funder of such trials, as illustrated in this picture which shows that the government funds just about as many RCTs as private industry: Despite so much US funding for RCTs, the location of such…

Today’s science lesson is sponsored by XKCD comics. You can find more at http://xkcd.com/, in case you haven’t checked it out before.

Shutterstock The last four decades have witnessed an explosion of thyroid cancer diagnoses in the U.S. People are three times more likely to receive cancer diagnoses now than they were in 1975. Why? Is it chemicals in the water supply? A side effect of all those childhood vaccines? Or is it because a TV ad…