Health and Sanity category archive
Blinders 0
Farhad Manjoo uses the spread of the coronavirus–more precisely, the spread of misinformation and hysteria and outright falsehoods about the coronavirus–to highlight a larger problem: the failure to pay attention to and heed what science and scientists have to say about real things happening in the real world.
Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
Our collective inability to communicate about science has thoroughly perverted our politics. Because science has become so deeply intertwined with partisan dogma, people’s very conception of scientific expertise has been hijacked by tribal reflex. Today, a lot of people seem to determine how much they trust scientists based on their political ideas, which is backward and bizarre.
Epidemiological Twits on Twitter 0
Afterthought:
Given the similar wording in the twits Farron cites, one must needs wonder to what extent they may have been of robotic genesis.
From an Epidemic of Epidemiology . . . 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Dr. Eva Ritvo notes the dissonance:
She goes on to offer some hints for remaining sane as the coronavirus goes, you will pardon the expression, viral.
The Epidemiologist 0
Chris Koski analyzes the Trump Administration’s response to the coronavirus and isolates its single guiding priniciple; follow the link to see how he frames his case:
Via PoliticalProf.
Epidemiology in Trumpled Times 0
And, in related news, predictions of possible products of the potential pandemic proceed from potential to present.
Image via Juanita Jean.
Just the Vaxx, Ma’am, There’s No Vaccination for Stupid Dept. 0
NJ.com attempted to talk with two New Jersey State Senators their anti-vaccine stance. Here’s how it went (emphasis added):
He said he read articles on the Internet: “Social media is full of them.”
We wondered, if he doesn’t trust the overwhelming scientific consensus that vaccines are safe, does he believe the 97 percent of scientists who say human activity contributes to global warming?
“Am I Encyclopedia Britannica?” he countered.
The stupid. It burns.
(More stupid at the link.)
Paying the Health Care Ransom 0
In The Denver Post, Colorado Lieutenant Governor Diane Primavera explores the high cost of American health care and argues that it really doesn’t have much to do with the cost of caring for persons’ health. A snippet:
(snip)
So if all the money we spend on health care isn’t making us healthier, then where is all the money actually going?
The short answer is that it’s going to the middlemen — insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals — whose business model is to act as a tollbooth standing in between patients and caregivers like doctors and nurses.
Follow the link for her evidence.
And, in related news . . . .
Epidemiology, One More Time 0
William Haseltine digs into the question if why, when the flu by the numbers is clearly much more dangerous, so many persons are wigging out over the coronavirus. Here’s part of what he has to say; follow the link for the rest.
Why does the 2019-nCoV outbreak rile our fears so? The discrepancy has to do with how humans perceive risks. Novel threats provoke anxiety in a way that everyday threats do not, triggering a fear response that begins with the part of the brain known as the amygdala and travels via activation of “fight or flight” motor functions throughout the body.
While this evolutionarily honed instinct for the unfamiliar and foreboding can sharpen the senses—a sort of physiological priming for confrontation with a predator—it can also confuse the mind.