archives

public health

This category contains 82 posts

Elections have consequences (abortion, contraceptives, committees)

ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopolis ran an interview with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Sunday, January 25, 2009. The transcript is here. Stephanopolis allowed the Speaker to gloss over her policy that does not allow debate or amendments from the House floor, or that no Republicans were allowed to see or vote … Continue reading

Texas teens form pro-life club

And, it seems that the kids in Coppell, Texas (near Dallas) are only “anti-abortion” because of the undue influence of their families and churches. From the Dallas Morning News: Abortion rights advocates say it’s even harder for them to organize high school students because of the focus on abstinence. “We’re up against a movement that … Continue reading

Texas teens form pro-life club

And, it seems that the kids in Coppell, Texas (near Dallas) are only “anti-abortion” because of the undue influence of their families and churches. From the Dallas Morning News: Abortion rights advocates say it’s even harder for them to organize high school students because of the focus on abstinence. “We’re up against a movement that … Continue reading

Teen Pregnancy Rates Increase at Same Rate as Others

It seems that everyone decided to have more babies in 2006, including teen girls from age 15 through 19. The summary of the CDC report is available as a news release, here. A 100-page report is available pdf containing more numbers and breakdown of the data is at this link. I don’t believe that the … Continue reading

>Virginity pledges: the rest of the story

>The “kids” aren’t “kids” and they aren’t “teens.” And they wait 3 years longer than their peers and no one knows if they even had a sex ed course in school. Fox News reports on their interview with the author of a report on teens who take virginity pledges. She told them that religious teens … Continue reading

New study on virginity pledges and behavior

The article in question can be downloaded from Pediatrics, here. The final “wave 3” data came from the group that the author calls “adolescents” — who were 22 years old. Data from those who had married was treated as “missing.” We don’t know anything about the actual sex ed courses that the students took, who … Continue reading

Health care reform conversation

There’s a comment from a proponent of single payor health care payments on one of my November posts. A few points need to be clarified: The numbers about infant mortality are skewed in the US because we count more infants as “live births” than other countries. We use Medicaid money to finance special education and … Continue reading

>Causal link between abortion mental illness claimed

>Fergusson of Australia has published more data on his birth cohort from ChristChurch, New Zealand. This time, he’s claiming causal relationship between abortion and later mental illness. A 3 invited comments in the same journal seem to accept that his conclusion is true: Abortion responsible for depression, anxiety, and substance abuse, at least do some … Continue reading

>Insurers, you go first

>You did know that due to the Social Security Act and the Patriot Act your medical records can be viewed and copied by anyone who claims to be an agent of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, didn’t you? Or that those same agents write their own subpoenas? (The best reference is this ACLU … Continue reading

Upside down ethics

That last post definitely points out the mess of current bioethics: Autonomy as the first principle, before the more traditional “Heal when possible, but first do no harm.” Is the purpose of medicine to give the patient what he or she wants, or is it to save lives and restore or maintain health? As I’ve … Continue reading

If the post is missing: take the “www.” out of the url

Categories

Archives

SiteMeter