- Snakebites are worse than we thought: They kill between 81,000 and 138,000 people each year, and leave another 400,000 with permanent disabilities.
- Contra PhARMA: Profit growth at the largest pharmaceutical companies—driven by price hikes on older, branded, monopoly drugs—rarely leads to the development of innovative new medicines, according to a FREOPP study.
- Heritage study: The federal government spent $279 billion of taxpayers’ money on improper payments in 2021 alone. That is more than $2,000 per U.S. household.
- Does coffee drinking increase your life expectancy? Or, do we never seem to tire of bad studies?
Cato Health
- Cops practicing medicine: Government and law enforcement increasingly surveil and influence the way doctors treat pain, psychoactive substance use, and substance use disorder.
- Its time to free the birth control pill: Allow OTC sales.
- Free the nurses: They can provide excellent primary care services.
Monday Links
- Balwani and Holmes are off to prison; but medical research has a long history of unethical practices.
- Does ChatGPT have political biases? Yes.
- What conservatives want from Kevin McCarthy if he is to be the Speaker.
- England’s chief medical officer says the nation faces a rising death toll from heart disease and cancer cases – the knock-on effects of dealing with Covid, which saw thousands of routine treatments and appointments delayed.
- Karol Sakora, a prominent British oncologist, warns that “lockdowns and associated choices had an unforgivable impact on cancer patients with an immeasurable amount of suffering as a result.”
- The Incidental Economist discovers Health Care Sharing Ministries. Not mentioned: if a plan is not working, people can always switch to a plan in the (Obamacare) exchanges – which become the ultimate risk pool.
Friday Links
- How the FDA is causing more RSV in deaths in children: “Smart Socks had been on the market for five years, boasted a 90 percent accuracy rating according to peer-reviewed research, and helped over 600,000 parents care for their children….”
- Sam Bankman-Fried’s unholy involvement in the Covid wars.
- Do we need hate crime legislation to protect Anthony Fauci and others from Sen. Rand Paul and other critics?
- The number of requests for abortion pills doubled each month, following the fall of Roe. (NYT)
- 1 in 8 deaths among nonelderly adults due to excessive alcohol use.
- More on the difficulty of CDC reform.