Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
Category: Health
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This week a student and I published an article in PLOS ONE examining the relationship between healthcare-related expenditure and financial catastrophe in Bangladesh. Because PLOS ONE is an open access journal it is possible to read the entire article free online, here. Our study was a statistical analysis of data from a probability-sampled survey of…
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Next week sees the release of the Ken Loach movie The Spirit of ’45, which describes the UK’s attempts to implement socialism through the ballot box between 1945 and 1951. Ultimately a failed project, this revolution has left one enduring and much-loved symbol, the UK National Health Service (NHS). In the same month as the…
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Today’s edition of PLOS Medicine contains an article describing a possible cap-and-trade scheme for global health investment, designed around a cap-and-trade carbon permit scheme. Built on the assumption that health is a global public good, it proposes that all countries sign up to a centralized system of permits based on disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). If…
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With the sad events recently in America, and president Obama’s newfound (apparent) determination to do something about assault weapons, a lot of attention has focused on Australia’s National Firearms Agreement (NFA), which outlawed certain categories of guns and included a program to buy back guns already in circulation (commonly called the “gun buyback program”). Several…
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In October my master’s student had her work on modeling HIV interventions in China published in the journal AIDS, with me as second author. You can read the abstract at the journal website, but sadly the article is pay-walled so its full joys are not available to the casual reader. This article is a sophisticated…
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Today’s issue of PLOS Medicine contains an interesting debate between Australia’s own anti-smoking paladin, Simon Chapman, and a professor Jeff Collin from Scotland, over whether governments should introduce a license for smokers. Chapman puts the case for a license, while Collin opposes it, and the debate is refreshingly free of jargon or paywalls, so quite…
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Congratulations America! With the American electorate[1] having given a resounding endorsement[2] of the policies of the Revolutionary Islamic Socialist Party of Kenya, America will finally see a form of healthcare financing reform. Depending on who you read, this reform seems to be either an insane policy that will bankrupt America, or not much change. I…
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Christianity’s fundamental promise is of eternal life, and the risk of refusing to accept God’s grace is generally accepted to be eternal damnation. While the truth of these statements is still subject to debate, there is little empirical evidence of the benefit of eternal life, and little research exploring the possible drawbacks of a decision…
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At dinner tonight with a couple of Japanese friends, I heard a horror story about student part-time work in the 60s: corpse-grinding. It’s very common for students in Japan to work part time while they study, and this has been common since the war. Such work is referred to as an arubaito, from the German…
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This week sees the simultaneous release of pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge’s breasts, and the release of a Counterpunch article on how a feminist Assistant Professor should be allowed to breastfeed in class. I think everyone is roughly aware of how the debate is proceeding vis a vis the Duchess’s breasts – they’re a…
Compromise and Conceit 