Ira R. Allen's blog
Building a genetic evidence base raises the potential for mischief but also may significantly reduce childhood disease and let doctors screen everybody for everything.
Thanks to the Associated Press, and maybe others, a serious but heretofore little-known mental disorder has been linked to road rage, thus giving comics and yahoos in Congress more anti-science fodder.
About half of Americans believe God created humans all at once pretty much in their present form. Most of the other half believe God may have helped evolution along. But 100 trillion microbes in our gut can't be wrong.
The government's logic that providing more information about medical costs will lead to improved health is skewed. Without quality measures, price means nothing.
An issue requiring constant vigilance is whether today's vast health claims are mostly on the level or merely half-vast.
It may seem trivial for scientists to to look for a medical solution for happiness, but the search might produce neurological relief of physical pain.
While the Internet can help people find the medical information they otherwise might not, AOL is proving it can also do more harm than good.
The Food and Drug Administration no longer commands respect from the American people. Is it any wonder?
If all someone does is one thing – be it brain surgery or repairing transmissions -- you can bet that person will be expert.
The debate over how best to prevent and treat breast cancer also may help people with other conditions better understand the promise and pitfalls of evidence.
Pit doctors and lawyers against one another, as Congress routinely does, and the only straight answer you will find is "it all depends." Now, throw in the news media, and then throw up your hands.
As in most of health care, it isn't how many drugs you have, it's how many brains. New Mexicans are dying at higher rates from the abuse of legal drugs than from illegal ones. Across America, there were more emergency room visits in 2004 for abuse of legal drugs than for cocaine.
The dots are there for connecting, but an administration more concerned with stopping unmarried and unprotected sex than with dead babies doesn't even admit that the dots exist.
It's fine to believe that lawn mowers will catch fire and burn homeowners if they are required to have catalytic converters. It's fine to believe that "virginity pledges" will stop teenagers from having sex. But when data show otherwise, it's up to the doubters to provide more than just belief.
Know Nothing ideologues in government twist the language -- and often the facts -- to keep scientific evidence out of health and safety rule-making.
