The Gates Foundation’s Global Reach Expands, to Mixed Reviews
The Gates Foundation steps into the void left by the U.S., and brings with it limited accountability, conflicts of interest, and a history of failure in its stated mission.
Read more...Category Archives: Health care
Coffee Break: Ancient Food Facts, Cancer Therapy, the Conscious Brain, and Biohacking with Biotech…Plus Thomas Jefferson
On this Independence Day in one country in North America a few notes on life outside current politics, scientific and otherwise. Part the First: The Archaeology of Food Is Fascinating. Having read about Roman eating habits over the years I have wondered about two things, fish sauce and the dormouse. Now we know which fish […]
Read more...Trust in Science, Public Health, and Politics: Lessons from COVID-19
Shortly after COVID-19 was recognized as a worldwide catastrophe, my much better half asked me how long I thought this would this last. Based on my then 45 years of biomedical research experience I replied, “Three years.” I was wrong. That was more than five years ago, when the refrigerated makeshift morgues were parked on […]
Read more...Coffee Break: Funding Medical Education, A Human Ancestor, Tardigrades to the Rescue, Trashing the Earth, Plus MAHA and Measles
Part the First: Financing Professional Education in the United States. College costs too much in the United States. Professional School costs way to much. Up until the present – who knows what will happen next as the broad attacks on American universities continue – graduate education at the PhD level in traditional disciplines in the […]
Read more...A Possible Connection Between Mental Illness and Diet
On the mounting evidence that a ketogenic diet considerably can alleviate some debilitating mental health ailments, such as schizophrenia.
Read more...On the Accelerating Decline in US Medical Training, and With It, Doctor Competence
A warning to US readers on the further degradation in medical training and resulting crapification of care.
Read more...Coffee Break: Healthcare and the State of Science, Plus Baseball and Abundance
Part the First. How Did the United States Get This Healthcare System? I distinctly remember the first time this question occurred to me, because as the child of a union household a visit to the doctor or the Emergency Room (trees were made to fall out of) was never a problem. I was twenty years […]
Read more...Via the False Claims Act, NIH Creates Another Weapon for Ideological Enforcement at Universities
Universities are loath to take NIH funding due to “evil” grant terms that make ideological non-compliance subject to False Claims Act damages
Read more...‘Not Accountable to Anyone’: As Insurers Issue Denials, Some Patients Run Out of Options
Health insurers are behaving even more badly, yet advocates do not seem to be pushing for the remedy of external appeal for denials.
Read more...Kennedy’s HHS Sent Congress ‘Junk Science’ To Defend Vaccine Changes, Experts Say
More on RFK, Jr. making shit up but attempting to wrap it in the mantle of science.
Read more...The Projected Death Count from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill
Researchers projects that “big beautiful bill” cuts to public health insurance coverage may lead to upwards of 51,000 deaths a year.
Read more...Coffee Break: Working Class Life in 17th-Century Italy, Science in Decline, AI and Scientific Understanding, and Neanderthal Art
Part the First. Tales from the Crypt. Subtitled The lives of 17th century Milan’s working poor – their health, diet, and drug habits – emerge from thousands of bodies buried under a public hospital. This article appeared in Science on 1 May 2025: In 1456, the Duke of Milan established a medical institution dedicated to […]
Read more...MAHA Influencers, the Future of Public Health, and Longings for Immortality
The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Report has dropped! The original document included phantom (hallucinated?) references, but those have been fixed apparently. Or maybe not. A graduate student who wrote a review with the same defects would get a flat “F”, but this does not seem to matter. Could AI (Algorithmic Intelligence) have had anything […]
Read more...Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Continues Assault on Obamacare
Rather than end Obamacare, which would be politically costly, the Trump Administration is working to hollow it out.
Read more...Coffee Break: Advances in Limb Regeneration & Malaria, Plus Science & Politics and a World through the Lens of Tuberculosis
Part the First. Old Experimental Models in Biology Lead to New Knowledge. Developmental Biology began as Embryology. A few of us still kicking remember the transition and miss the holistic approach required to master the material. Early embryological models included sea urchins and salamanders, tadpoles and the chicken. Much useful research was done with these […]
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