Emulating Our Adversaries, Betraying Our National Values
President Trump ’s appointment of Gina Haspel as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency has revived memories of the abuses the CIA committed during George W. Bush’s administration. The appointment is indeed deeply troubling, since Haspel ran one of the Agency’s infamous overseas “black sites” that featured “enhanced interrogation” techniques (a cynical euphemism for torture). But as I point out in a newNational Interest Onlinearticle, Haspel ’s conduct is the symptom of a much deeper problem. Both during the Cold War and the war on terror, too many U.S. officials have succumbed to the temptatio...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 26, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs
Food Labeling: Say No To International Nannyism
U.S. negotiators are rumored to be taking the position that if the NAFTA treaty is to prescribe uniform food labeling among member countries, that labeling should be done along the lines of the current U.S. federal scheme, meant primarily to inform consumers rather than scare them away from bad-for-them-in-excess choices like ice cream and corn chips. Afront-page article in Wednesday ’s New York Times is upset about that stance. Instead, the Times takes the principled position that labeling rules are best decided by each country under national law, and that transnational institutions, such as treaty organizations...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Walter Olson Source Type: blogs
Fighting Obesity: Why Chile Should Continue Placing'Stop Signs' on Unhealthy Foods
By instituting its innovative food warning label policies, Chile has become a beacon of light to countries around the world. The new government would do well to consider why they should maintain these policies, which in the long run will benefit business and the country as a whole. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - March 19, 2018 Category: Health Management Authors: Deborah Cohen Source Type: blogs
Um, You Missed Some Evidence: A “Thought Experiment” Fails Private Schooling
Toparaphrase John Lennon, imagine there are no public schools, or private ones, too. That is what writer Julie Halpert ostensibly does in anewAtlantic article in which she purports to conduct a “thought experiment,” first imagining a world of all private schools, then one of all public. But rather than coming off as a true, objective experiment, the piece reads more like a dystopian novel depicting the horrors of an imagined all-private system, while comparatively glancing past the man y real, actually experienced stains and injustices of public schooling.It ’s not auspicious that the article, before the “experimen...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 7, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Neal McCluskey Source Type: blogs
Precision Medicine and Public Health (from Precision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human Disease)
Excerpted fromPrecision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human DiseaseDespite having the most advanced healthcare technology on the planet, life expectancy in the United States is not particularly high. Citizens from most of the European countries and the highly industrialized Asian countries enjoy longer life expectancies than the United States. According to the World Health Organization, the United States ranks 31st among nations, trailing behind Greece, Chile, and Costa Rica, and barely edging out Cuba [42]. Similar rankings are reported by the US Central Intelligence Agency [43]. These findings lead us to infer that acc...
Source: Specified Life - February 6, 2018 Category: Information Technology Tags: cancer cancer vaccines precision medicine prevention public health Source Type: blogs
Hispanic Nurses On Fire
I recently spent an incredibly inspiring and powerful weekend with 100 Latino nurse leaders who gathered in San Antonio, Texas for the inauguralNational Association of Hispanic Nurses Leadership Institute. This spirited group of forward thinking nurses of all ages clearly demonstrates that unity, organizing, critical thinking, and planning for the future are part and parcel of enlightened 21st-century nurse leadership.The National Association of Hispanic Nurses is the premier nursing organization focused on growing Latino nurse leaders and uniting the many cultures and people within the Hispanic nursing community throughou...
Source: Digital Doorway - January 30, 2018 Category: Nursing Tags: careers healthcare healthcare careers nurse nurse career nurse careers nurses nursing nursing careers Source Type: blogs
Eugenics, UCL and freedom of speech
Jump to follow-up
On Monday evening (8th January 2018), I got an email from Ben van der Merwe, a UCL student who works as a reporter for the student newspaper, London Student. He said
“Our investigation has found a ring of academic psychologists associated with Richard Lynn’s journal Mankind Quarterly to be holding annual conferences at UCL. This includes the UCL psychologist professor James Thompson”.
He asked me for comment about the “London Conference on Intelligence”. His piece came out on Wednesday 10th January. It was a superb piece of investigative journalism. On the same ...
Source: DC's goodscience - January 14, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: ethics eugenics genetics UCL Universities University College London Adam Rutherford Francis Galton James Thompson Karl Pearson Steve Jones Toby Young Source Type: blogs
Eugenics, UCL and freedom of speech
Jump to follow-up
On Monday evening (8th January 2018), I got an email from Ben van der Merwe, a UCL student who works as a reporter for the student newspaper, London Student. He said
“Our investigation has found a ring of academic psychologists associated with Richard Lynn’s journal Mankind Quarterly to be holding annual conferences at UCL. This includes the UCL psychologist professor James Thompson”.
He asked me for comment about the “London Conference on Intelligence”. His piece came out on Wednesday 10th January. It was a superb piece of investigative journalism. On the same ...
Source: DC's goodscience - January 14, 2018 Category: Science Authors: David Colquhoun Tags: ethics eugenics genetics Uncategorized Universities University College London Adam Rutherford Francis Galton James Thompson Karl Pearson Steve Jones Toby Young UCL Source Type: blogs
Privacy Still at Risk Despite New CBP Search Rules
International travelers, citizens and foreigners alike, enjoy reduced privacy protections at ports of entry. Thanks to the “border exception” to the Fourth Amendment, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers do not need reasonable suspicion or probable cause to search electronic devices at airports. This regrettable authority made headlines last year after CBP officers searched phones belonging to innocent Ameri can citizens. CBP has updated its electronic device search policy via a new directive. While the directive does include a welcome clarification, it states that CBP can search anyone’s electronic devices ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 8, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Matthew Feeney Source Type: blogs
What the World Can Learn from Chile's Obesity-Control Strategies
Nearly 30 years into the ongoing global epidemic of obesity and chronic diseases, Chile has taken the lead in identifying and implementing obesity-control strategies that could prove to be the beginning of the end of the epidemic. The country ' s success on this front can serve as a lesson plan other countries could follow. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - December 30, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Deborah Cohen Source Type: blogs
Chileans Show Buyer ’s Remorse with Left’s Agenda
The big question ahead of this year ’s presidential election in Chile was whether Chileans were actually fed up with their country’s free-market model, or whether they were satisfied with it, but just indifferent to the ideological debate surrounding it. Up until yesterday’s run-off election, there were mixed signals. However, t he decisive victory of center-right Sebastián Piñera over socialist Alejandro Guillier could be interpreted as a popular slap on the back of Chile’s successful economic model.For nearly 20 years after the return of democracy in 1990, Chile enjoyed a political consensus on its liberal econ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 18, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo Source Type: blogs
Would a Chilean-style Fiscal Rule Work for the US?
It was reported last week thata Republican working group is considering a proposal to link spending caps to the growth of actual or potential GDP. This is encouraging, and much more economically sensible thanrigid balanced budget legislation.I ’ll write about other countries’ experiences with backward-looking rules in the future. But one country which uses forward-looking estimates of potential GDP to determine overall government spending is Chile. Indeed,economists such as Jeffrey Frankel have previously written glowingly about Chile ’s fiscal rule, which Frankel concluded had constrained government debt whilst bei...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 14, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Ryan Bourne Source Type: blogs
How to Deal with Honduras ’ Quagmire
There are good reasons to believe that fraud took place in Honduras ’ presidential election.The Economistdid astatistical analysis of the election results and found “reasons to worry” about the integrity of the vote—although they were not conclusive. Areport from the Organization of American States Observation Mission points out “irregularities, mistakes, and systemic problems plaguing this election [that] make it difficult… to be certain about the outcome.”At the heart of the controversy is how the results of the presidential election shifted dramatically after a blackout in the release of information that l...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - December 6, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo Source Type: blogs
Economists Oppose a Strict Balanced Budget Rule. Could the US Adopt a Sophisticated One?
TheIGM Economic Experts Panel overwhelmingly opposes a constitutional strict balanced budget amendment.Weighted by the confidence of their answers, 99 percent of responders disagree or strongly disagree that a requirement the federal government balance the books would reduce output volatility; whilst 53 percent disagree with the view that it would lower federal borrowing costs. This is timely. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has tasked Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) as part of a22-person strong task force to consider alternative fiscal rules to the debt ceiling to help constrain the growth of US federal government debt. The tas...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 13, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Ryan Bourne Source Type: blogs
Stem cells to treat heart failure
Currently over 6.5 million people in the US are affected by heart failure. This number is “expected to rise by 46 percent by the year 2030.” Heart failure is a chronic condition where the heart’s muscles weaken and it doesn’t pump blood as well as it should. “Half of all heart failure patients are expected to die within the first 5 years after the diagnosis, and the 10-year survival rate is less than 30 percent.” New research shows hope for people suffering from this disease.
In a new trial, Dr. Jorge Bartolucci, a professor in Chile, along with his colleagues looked at injecting stem cells derived from the umb...
Source: Cord Blood News - October 16, 2017 Category: Perinatology & Neonatology Authors: Maze Cord Blood Tags: Cord Blood Cord Tissue medical research Source Type: blogs
