Ambivalence About Equality in the United States or, Did Tocqueville Get it Wrong and Why Does that Matter?

Commentary: Epidemiology and futurology--why did Rothman get it wrong?

Why does medical research sometimes get it so wrong

Douglas Altman, back in 1994, wrote a highly influential paper in the British Medical Journal entitled ‘the scandal of poor medical research’ (1). It focused on the prevalence of poor design and analysis in medical research. Altman believed the reason was a general failure to appreciate the principles underlying scientific research, coupled with the ‘publish or perish climate’ where scientific ...

The human lung: did evolution get it wrong?

Some 300 million yrs ago, the ancestors of modern reptiles emerged from water and were committed to air breathing. They were exothermic and incapable of sustained levels of high physical activity. But from them evolved the two great classes of vertebrates with high levels of maximal oxygen consumption: the mammals and birds. A remarkable feature of these two divergent evolutionary lines is that...

Does the Accountable Care Act Aim to Promote Quality, Health, and Control Costs or Has It Missed the Mark? ;Comment on “Health System Reform in the United States”

McDonough’s perspective on healthcare reform in the US provides a clear, coherent analysis of the mix of access and delivery reforms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka Obamacare. As noted by McDonough, this major reform bill is designed to expand access for health coverage that includes both prevention and treatment benefits among uninsured Americans. Additionally, this legislation includes s...

Why is the teen birth rate in the United States so high and why does it matter?

Teens in the United States are far more likely to give birth than in any other industrialized country in the world. U.S. teens are two and a half times as likely to give birth as compared to teens in Canada, around four times as likely as teens in Germany or Norway, and almost 10 times as likely as teens in Switzerland. Among more developed countries, Russia has the next highest teen birth rate...