- Covid study: almost no form of pandemic preparedness helped to ameliorate or shorten the pandemic. Compared to other countries, the United States did not perform poorly because of cultural values such as individualism, collectivism, selfishness, or lack of trust.
- Are science and technology becoming less disruptive?
- MLK Day studies reviewed, including this finding: Slavery played no major role in the US economic growth.
- Is the decline of religion causing a rise in “deaths of despair”?
Category: COVID-19 and Public Health
The FDA Has a Long History of Standing in the Way of Personalized Medicine
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never been an agency to empower consumers. Not only does the FDA regulate and approve drugs, but the agency also regulates medical devices and at-home medical tests. Tests you can administer at home on yourself are a form of personalized medicine. The FDA has a troubled history of…
Thursday Links
- Are family leave policies keeping women’s wages down?
- Study: Medicare Advantage is substantially better than traditional Medicare for diabetes.
- GOP House to investigate federal funding of gain-of-function research.
- Asian-Americans have a life expectancy of 85.7, compared to the US average of 79.1. (“I suspect that highly educated Asian Americans have a life expectancy that is absolutely off the charts.”)
- Why was there a surge of traffic deaths in the first year of the pandemic?
- Why is the FDA hostile to personalized tests?
Wednesday Links
- Pfizer board member pressured Twitter to suppress info on natural immunity and low Covid risk to children.
- The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated an overall decline in religious attendance. Arnold Kling extends to observation to the reluctance of employees to return to work and the disengagement of college students.
- Now we learn. WaPo: Russian trolls on Twitter had little impact on 2016 voters.
- Solution to Obamacare’s high premiums and narrow networks: Let people purchase plans from Puerto Rico and other US territories from established insurers – like Aetna, UnitedHealthcare, Humana and BlueCross BlueShield — which already do business in at least one territory and have provider networks in Arizona.