Ira R. Allen's blog
It's not only bad science but it's bad religion when unprovable health claims about prayer are made. In this case, it's just plain bad journalism. But it's on morning TV, so what do you expect?
Hospitals these days are basically emergency rooms connected to inpatient conveyor belts-- admit 'em and toss 'em out when the insurance coverage expires. How hospitals are changing reflects the pressure points of the health care system.
If health care providers want to refuse services to certain people based on their personal beliefs, they should have chosen divinity school instead of medical school.
The paradigm has shifted. Teenagers are having fewer babies out of wedlock and older women are having more. What's going on? Shouldn't adults be more responsible than teens?
Surgeon General Richard Carmona is a riveting speaker – using his own biography as homeless street child, high school dropout, soldier, nurse, doctor, war hero, trauma surgeon and deputy sheriff as an example of what sheer will power can do. But that's the problem: will power alone doesn't change much and he is against prescribing policy changes.
People are much less reliable than mice or bacteria when it comes to measuring behavior.
The prevalence of cancer is predicted to skyrocket around the world, and some are using that fatalistic prediction to argue against indoor smoking bans!
We always looking for the magic bullet to prevent any number of things: pregnancy, obesity, baldness -- and now shortness.
I didn't even know they HAD scriveners anymore, but the one they have in Congress did a heckuva job throwing millions off Medicaid.
There does not seem to be conclusive evidence that a heart attack results from stress alone. There is no conclusive evidence that prayer is related to to fatal illness. But sometimes, you have to wonder.
Knowing what we know about obesity and depression, why is it big scientific news that fat people are not happy? To believe otherwise, why you would have to believe in Santa Claus!
The administration made a big splash during the 2004 campaign by signing a U.N. tobacco treaty. Then the president shoved it in his back pocket, making another mockery of "the culture of life."
Shed no tears for BigPharma. The patents may expire, but the pirates sail on, dumping the generic-drug industry in its wake.
Finding out you have a genetic predisposition toward a disease doesn't mean you will get it – unless you fatalistically engage in behaviors that increase the risk. Conversely, finding out you don't have markers for a particular disease doesn't mean you won't get it.
When religious zealots believe young people decide whether to have sex based on regulations or epidemiological studies, then the discussion should be framed not as a sexual health matter but as a mental health one.
