If there’s one group that meets with as much approbation as one can in our modern world, it is Medecins Sans Frontieres. They recently turned down a million doses of a pneumonia vaccine from Pfizer, the big pharma giant. The head of MSF explained why. Pfizer’s was a one time donation. Sure many children would benefit and many lives would be saved. But that would not solve the problem. The problem is how unaffordable the vaccine PCV13 sold as Prevnar 13, is. A course of treatment is 3 to 4 doses, and one doze in Morocco costs (more…)
October 2016
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Forced Catheterization
We are surrounded by so many serious issues that sometimes the problems not affecting many people can slip through the radar. Despite the amount of reading I do to write these pieces, I was not aware that forced catheterization was among them. In several states including Indiana, Utah, Idaho, Washington and South Dakota, forced catheterization is and has been used. A good illustration of how it happens is the case of Jamie Lockard in a small town in Indiana. He was stopped by the police for going through a stop sign. Suspecting he was intoxicated they gave him a breathalyzer test. He blew .07 which is right under the limit. They then got a search warrant for both (more…)
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Gun Ownership–A New Picture
A new survey jointly conducted by public health researchers at Harvard and Northeastern Universities gives a fuller and edifying picture of gun ownership in the US. There are, says the survey whose results were first published in The Guardian, 265 m guns in the US, which is more than one for every adult. Here is the intriguing statistic, 133 m of these guns are in the hands of 3% of US adults. This suggests an average of 17 guns per super gun owner. The US gun stock has increased by (more…)