The Pew Charitable Trust says I’ve been wrong all these years. I’ve written for 25 years that Americans increasingly get their health information from the Internet. Furthermore, a few minutes spent surfing the Web for health information can educate patients far more than their physicians would ever have time to explain. In a new Pew survey of where people get their health information, the Internet trails health care providers.
Category: Policy & Legislation
Thursday Links – 14 May 2026
- Should health AI programs be required to obtain a license to practice medicine?
- Eliminating the gas tax may not lower the price of gasoline.
- Jeffrey Singer: The “right to try” exists mainly on paper.
- Early evidence on smartphone bans: “no clear evidence that the school ban policy reduced screen time or improved psychological wellbeing.”
- Are second opinions needed in dentistry? (NYT)
Wednesday Links – 13 May 2026
- Fraud in government spending is even worse than what has been reported.
- Jobs under Trump: private sector jobs up; public sector jobs down.
- What state gasoline taxes look like.
- Pharmaceutical and health products industries spent $457.3 million on lobbying last year.
- The Community Development Block Grant program is “one of the nation’s most wasteful and ineffective domestic-spending programs”
In Praise of (Outgoing) FDA Commissioner Marty Makary
When the Senate set about confirming Dr. Makary, the view was that Trump had appointed a qualified, talented, noncontroversial commissioner. Yet, the mood inside the FDA turned sour immediately, although this was not necessarily Makary’s fault.