Category: COVID-19 and Public Health
Saturday Links
- “The projected $4.7 billion spent on migrant services in FY 2025 either eclipses or approximates what New York City will spend on core public services such as sanitation and the fire department.”
- Organ transplants: “While most organs are delivered successfully, some organs are delayed in transit, lose viability, and have to be thrown away. Some just get lost, too.”
- What’s wrong with the IRA bill: “Electricity prices have skyrocketed by 30% since 2021, rising 13 times faster than in the previous seven years. Meanwhile, gas prices have more than doubled since Biden took office. Rising energy costs have also been a major driver of food inflation, forcing Americans to spend over 11% of their disposable income on food—the highest percentage in three decades.” (Recommended)
- More than four years since the advent of Covid, public authorities keep pushing health practices contrary to medical and scientific knowledge.
- Goldman Sachs estimates that taxpayers will shell out a staggering $1.2 trillion—over three times the initial prediction—to fund the IRA’s green energy subsidies.
- Biden exaggerates the benefit of price negotiations for 10 drugs: “overall numbers tied to the amount Medicare actually pays for drugs that show discounts of roughly 22% on the 10 drugs collectively, compared to what the program paid last year. That’s more modest than the exaggerated discounts based on list prices that show price reductions of up to 79%.” And patients only pay a small fraction of the 22%. (STAT: gated)
- Charles River Laboratories, a top research contractor that helps drug makers with clinical trials, warns that pharmaceutical companies are slashing research and development owing to the IRA’s drug price controls. (WSJ)
WSJ: You Can Be Hospitalized in Your Own Home
Some public health advocates think back and view house calls as a simpler, more caring time in the history of medicine. The reality is that house calls are an inefficient use of physician’s time, but I digress. With telemedicine, Zoom video-style technology and remote monitoring doctors do not always have to see their patients in person.
Monday Links
- During the covid pandemic, Gov. Walz had a “snitch hotline.”
- A blood test can accurately diagnose Alzheimer’s 90% of the time. So, why doesn’t your doctor have access to the test?
- A “marriage desert” is an entire neighborhood where there are persistently low rates of marriage.
- Why exercise is good for you.
- A blog post making the case for the right to die. Warning: it’s gruesome.
- What to know about ultrasound stimulation of the brain.