- Teens who use cannabis face 11 times the odds for a psychotic episode compared to teens who abstain from the drug, new Canadian research contends.
- The fertility rates in some countries (e.g., South Korea). Are below 1.0. That is less that one birth for every two adults.
- Why the unwinding of the (Covid-related) expansion of Medicaid didn’t cause an increase in uninsurance: Nearly half of the 5.9 million people who were projected to become uninsured … already thought they were uninsured.” in a 2022 survey.
- Homelessness is bad for your health.
- Whether worker pay has kept up with productivity depends on how you measure “worker pay” and how you measure “productivity.” Is this a joke?
- GPT4 passes the restaurant review Turing test. Observers can’t tell whether the reviewer was human or not.
- How CMS wants to regulate your access to drugs.
Is Covid -19 Mostly Gone or Merely Forgotten?
My wife and I caught Covid back in… I don’t even recall which year. I think it was the winter of 2021 if I recall correctly. My wife got her first and only Covid vaccine shot not long after, whereas I had gotten shot and a booster earlier in the fall or maybe it was later in the spring. Basically, I don’t recall much about the Covid outbreak. It’s all a blur at this point and I’ve basically lost interest. Apparently, I’m not alone.
Friday Links
- “The energy stored in a human baby’s tissues accounts for only about 4 percent of the total energy costs of pregnancy. The other 96 percent is extra fuel required by a woman’s own body.” (NYT)
- The (leftwing) American Prospect complains that Medicare Advantage plans are spending $64 billion a year on such supplemental benefits as dental, vision, gym memberships, etc. – benefits that those in traditional Medicare enrollees don’t get. C’mon, guys. If traditional Medicare weren’t so inefficient, it could offer those benefits as well.
- How the Biden administration is negatively impacting Medicare.
- Do for-profit hospitals practice cream skimming (taking on healthier patients with lower costs of care)? No. it’s the nonprofits that are more guilty of this practice.
- Giving blood is an alternative to a payday loan.
Study: Pharmacists Can Provide Cost-Effective Care for Minor Illnesses
Over the years I have often cited the figure that more than 60% of care, at least initially, is self-care when patients treat themselves with OTC drugs. As an aside, if we really want to boost access to care we need to force the FDA to move more prescription drugs to over the counter, or even behind the counter. A behind-the-counter drug is a drug that pharmacists are authorized to dispense without a prescription. Over the counter drugs, behind the counter drugs and prescription drugs are all available at pharmacies. Perhaps there should be more care available at pharmacies.