Is Information Always A Good Thing?
“Is Information Always A Good Thing?” – Medical Care
“Is Information Always A Good Thing?” – Medical Care
In a recent post, I showed two drugs that were much more expensive in the United States than elsewhere. One was for rheumatoid arthritis and the other for hepatitis C. Today we get to look at a cancer drug, Avastin, and just how much more Americans pay for it than people in other countries. This…
I know, I know: correlation does not mean causation. But it is still suspicious that when industry employees join as co-authors in medical journals, the randomized trials they are writing about are more likely to show positive results – results that make industry products look good. At least that was the finding from a study…
Imagine that you are gasping for breath, literally on the verge of death. Then someone injects you with a medicine and – miracle! – you are perfectly healthy again. Would you pay $300 for that injection? The treatment is epinephrine; your illness was a life-threatening allergy. And that $300 price? That reflects a six-fold increase…
Taste versus health: That’s a trade-off we are often faced with when deciding what to eat. Some foods are bad for our health but happen to taste quite good. All of us have limited willpower, and when we are exhausted those unhealthy foods become harder to resist. But did you know that when willpower is depleted,…
The novel coronavirus has decimated our economy at the same time as it has directly threatened our health. As if that weren’t bad enough, the economic damage Covid-19 is causing could have an indirect impact on our health. Consider what we already know about economic downturns and opioid overdoses. A research team led by Atheendar…
The percent of Americans without health insurance has dropped precipitously in the last few years, thanks in large part to the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. This is especially true in those states that, in accordance with the law, expanded Medicaid eligibility. Here is a picture of some recent data: This is really good news,…