By now everyone knows that driving under the influence is bad. Indeed, nearly one-third of all traffic fatalities involve a drunk driver. More than half (56%) of drivers involved in an injury or fatal car crash were on at least one drug (including alcohol) at the time that impaired their ability to drive. When I took flying lessons, we were warned that OTC cold medicines and flying is not allowed. The FAA has an explicit list of medication types that pilots cannot ingest while flying. An FAA study found the most common drug in the body of pilots involved in fatal aviation accidents was diphenhydramine (brand name Benadryl).
Category: Policy & Legislation
Monday Links
- The power to define poverty is the power to spend money – a lot of money.
- Mark Pauly questions the wisdom of the GOP’s Medicare reforms requiring price transparency and site neutral payments.
- Survey: Patients find the health care system confusing. They needed a survey to know that?
- Why haven’t we made more progress with personalized (gene-based) medicine?
- “[W]e argue that mink, more so than any other farmed species, pose a risk for the emergence of future disease outbreaks and the evolution of future pandemics.”
Why Not Make Daylight Savings Time Permanent?
During the Summer months there are roughly 15 to 16 hours of daylight in the Continental United States (13 hours in Hawaii and 24 in Northern Alaska). When you get home from work you have at least three hours of daylight left. In Winter there are only nine to ten hours of daylight. Depending on where you live in the U.S. your daylight hours are five to six hours less in Winter. So how does the U.S. government deal with this Winter daylight disparity? By moving the clock back an hour so Americans get one hour less daylight in the evening during a time of the year with reduced daylight. That makes little sense.
Saturday Links
- Biden’s executive order on AI: tons of paper work but no substantive regulations so far.
- A devastating critique of Biden’s executive order.
- What it’s like to be in a clinical trial. HT: Tyler
- Anesthesia may have unhealthy side effects for older patients.
- Over the last century, global suicide rates have been in decline, but in all five Anglosphere nations, Gen Z girls and young women had the highest rates of suicide of any recent generation.. HT: Arnold Kling