Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts

Emergency Room Visits Continue to Rise Under Obamacare

by Peter Suderman.   Another Obamacare promise bites the dust. In September, 2009, President Obama gave a prime time speech to the joint Congress making the case for the health care law that would come to be known as Obamacare. Much of the speech was devoted to explaining and justifying the law’s major components. Subsidies, he argued,   ... MORE

Being A Good Mom Puts Her At Odds With Her Government

by John Pendygraft.   Mom of epileptic son caught in Charlotte's Web medical marijuana bureaucracy. Just as 13-year-old Branden Petro flops into the passenger seat of his mom's car, his eyes roll back. His face twitches uncontrollably. He curls into a fetal position. It is his third seizure on a particularly bad day. His mother, Renee Petro, 36, jumps   ... MORE

Study Confirms E-Cigarettes Generate Virtually No Toxins

by Jacob Sullum. Does it matter to the option destroyers? Anti-smoking activists and public health officials who question the usefulness of electronic cigarettes in reducing tobacco-related disease often talk as if the content of the aerosol generated by these newfangled contraptions is utterly mysterious. While it may be plausible that the absence of ... MORE

Ronald Bailey: The Red Meat, Eggs, Fat And Salt Diet

Government nutrition nannies get it wrong. Progressives tend to believe that government knows best. The unfolding fiasco over government nutrition misinformation should give them pause. For years now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been recommending that "everyone age 2 and up should consume less than 2,300      ... MORE

Gilbert Ross: The Madness Of The War On E-Cigs

Corruption + distorted facts = clampdown on vaping.    Is it mass insanity, or something even darker, that has led America’s public-health leaders to engage in a mass assault on electronic cigarettes? To put this in perspective, their target is not smoking, our number-one preventable health problem, but a product that could prove to    ... MORE

J.D. Tuccille: Check Out On Your Own Terms

Tragic or self-empowering?     Every couple of years, some well-intentioned scribbler pens a hand-wringer about the national tragedy of suicide among the elderly. "Suicide rate for elderly men is alarming," noted Dennis Streets in the Chatham Journal last month. "Suicide rates are high among the elderly," cautioned Paula Span in a 2013 New York   ... MORE

Public Health Nannies Won't Admit: E-Cigs Save Lives

by Bill Godshall.     In sharp contrast to the Trib's fear-mongering headlines and Adam Smeltz's news story “Western Pa. cancer specialists call for electronic cigarette crackdown” , the scientific and empirical evidence indicates vaping is 99 percent less hazardous than smoking cigarettes, is more effective for quitting smoking than are FDA-   ... MORE

Did Border Crisis Trigger Measles Outbreak?

by Joel B. Pollack.    More than a coincidence. A quick review of the U.S. State Department visa requirements for immigrant visas reveals that applicants must be vaccinated for measles prior to their approval. Measles vaccination is not required for tourist visas, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nor is it required for any     ... MORE

New Surgeon General Should Prescribe Honesty On E-Cigs

by Sally Satel, Forbes.        Early last week, the nation’s new Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said health officials are “in desperate need of clarity” on electronic cigarettes to help guide policies. The technology should be embraced, he said, if evidence shows e-cigarettes are able to help those who otherwise have trouble quitting smoking. Dr.    ... MORE

Kim Bellware: Despite Medical Marijuana Having Been Legal In Illinois For Over A Year, No Patients Have Benefited

Government obstruction at its best.  Medical marijuana has been legal in Illinois for more than 365 days, but the number of patients that have actually been able to get relief from the drug remains a big fat zero. While 600 local patients have already been approved for a medical marijuana card, there's no place to actually buy the stuff. And   ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Are E-Cigarettes Displacing the Real Thing?

Technology's healthier choice.  Survey results released last week indicate that use of electronic cigarettes by American teenagers continues to rise, even as their use of conventional cigarettes continues to fall. You might think these diverging trends would give pause to critics who worry that e-cigarettes are "reglamorizing" the old-      ... MORE

Excellent News As E-Cigarette, Or Vaping, Use Rises

by Tim Worstall.   We’ve news from the government that the use of e-cigarettes, or vaping, is on the rise among schoolchildren and teenagers. We might think that this is a health story and it is, but behind it is an interesting little economic point and a guide to public policy. The question really revolves around whether vaping is a substitute   ... MORE

Congress Just Says No To Funding War On Medical Pot

by Ryan Burns.     People pulling politicians by the ear again. When the U.S. government loses a war it does so quietly, with an utter dearth of fanfare. True to form, in the latest spending bill to pass the U.S. House of Representatives there appears to be a tiny, inconspicuous white flag signaling the end of the Justice Department's war on medical    ... MORE

Mitchell Feinberg: On The Moral Use Of "Smart Drugs"

Smart is good.  Cognitive enhancement drugs (CEDs), such as Ritalin, Adderall, and Provigil, are most commonly known for their use in treating patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). But these drugs, often called “smart drugs,” can profoundly enhance a perfectly healthy person’s ability to sustain concentration and thus     ... MORE

David Leonhardt: Football, The Newest Partisan Divide

Dismantling the gridiron.      To the list of issues that divide the country along partisan lines, you can add an unusual item: football. Yes, virtually every slice of America still watches football in enormous numbers. But blue America — particularly the highly educated Democratic-leaning areas of major metropolitan areas — is    ... MORE