“Give me your tired, your poor…”
The rapid influx of unaccompanied immigrant children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the last few months has spurred a national conversation regarding the United States’ role in offering refuge to these children, the majority of whom are fleeing widespread gang violence and delinquency in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. A key talking point for some in the debate has become the supposed threat to public health that these children pose.
Pundits and politicians, from city councils to the U.S. Congress, have latched on to the alarmist claim that immigrant children are carrying diseases with t...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 1, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Access Advocacy Consumer Health Care Disparities Global Health Policy Politics Publc Health Source Type: blogs
Measuring Misery in Latin America: More Dollarization, Please
Steve H. Hanke
In my misery index, I calculate a ranking for all countries where suitable data from the Economist Intelligence Unit exist. My misery index — a simple sum of inflation, lending rates, and unemployment rates, minus year-on-year per capita GDP growth — is used to construct a ranking for 89 countries. The table below is a sub-index of all Latin American countries presented in the world misery index.
A higher score in the misery index means that the country, and its constituents, are more miserable. Indeed, this is a table where you do not want to be first.
Venezuela and Argentina, armed with aggressive so...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 10, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite — 02-06-2014
More medical news from around the web over at my other blog at DrWhiteCoat.com
Holy feces, Batman! How bad of a marriage do you have to be in for your wife to inject “fecal matter” into your IV line while you’re recovering from a heart procedure in the hospital? Whacked out wifey is a former nurse who will now enjoy an extended stay in Arizona’s Maricopa County jail. Thanks to PJ for the link!
Pennsylvania jury awards a $32 million judgment against two nurses who failed to notify an obstetrician about a change in the fetal heart rate for 13 minutes during the mother’s labor. Child later born w...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 6, 2014 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
Baxter completes patient enrollment in phase III trial of BAX 855, extended half-life rFVIII to treat haemophilia A
Baxter International Inc. has completed enrollment in its phase III clinical trial of BAX 855, an investigational extended half-life, recombinant factor VIII (rFVIII) treatment for haemophilia A. The ongoing trial is aimed at assessing the efficacy of the compound in reducing annualized bleed rates (ABR) in both prophylaxis and on-demand treatment schedules, and will also evaluate its safety and pharmacokinetic profile.BAX 855 was designed based on the full-length ADVATE [Antihemophilic Factor (Recombinant) Plasma/Albumin-Free Method] molecule, a product with 10 years of real-world experience. The BAX 855 molecule was modi...
Source: Medical Hemostat - November 15, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: hemostatguy at gmail.com (hemostat guy) Source Type: blogs
The Human Cost of Yellow fever in America: A Chronology
[1,2] (primary references available on request).
1793 to 1900 – An estimated 500,000 cases of yellow fever occurred in the United States.
1693 to 1905- An estimated 100,000 to 150,000 died of yellow fever in the United States. These figures included 14,217 deaths in Philadelphia during 1699 to 1803.
1904 to 1914 – The death rate among American personnel involved in constructing the Panama Canal was 15.8 per 1,000.
Chronology:
1668 – Yellow fever was first reported in North America – including 370 fatal cases in New York City
1803 – 606 fatal cases were reported in New York City.
1856 – 538 fatal cas...
Source: GIDEON blog - October 18, 2013 Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Dr. Stephen Berger Tags: Ebooks Epidemiology VIPatients united states Yellow fever Source Type: blogs
Comparing children's sharing tendencies across diverse human societies
Up until about the age of seven, children across the world show similar levels of sharing behaviour as revealed by their choices in a simple economic game. The finding comes courtesy of Bailey House and his colleagues who tested 326 children aged three to fourteen from six different cultural groups: urban Americans from Los Angeles; horticultural Shuar from Ecuador; horticultural and marine foraging Fijians from Yasawa Island; hunter-gathering Akas from the Central African Republic; pastoral, horticultural Himbas from Namibia; and hunter-gatherer Martus from Australia.
In one game, the children had to choose whether ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - October 15, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Christian Jarrett Source Type: blogs
A Familiar Pattern of Futility in the International Drug War
Ted Galen Carpenter
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime announced last week that the production of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, has shifted away from Colombia toward Peru. Observers of the war on drugs are not surprised by that development. During the early and mid-1990s, drug warriors hailed the decline of coca production in Peru and neighboring Bolivia, thanks to a crackdown that Washington heavily funded through aid programs to Lima and La Paz, as a great victory in the crusade against illegal drugs. They ignored the inconvenient fact that cultivation and production had merely moved from Peru and Boli...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - September 30, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Ted Galen Carpenter Source Type: blogs
Sunday News Round-Up, Announcements Edition
A few things that have caught my eye recently:
Rape Victims As Criminals: Illegal Abortion after Rape in Ecuador – I haven’t read this report yet, but wanted to pass it along for exploration of how restrictive anti-abortion laws make criminals out of rape victims.
A reminder about the disproportionate violence experienced by transgender people. Islan Nettles, a 21-year-old black transgender woman, was beaten to death. Someone on Facebook this week mentioned they hope the vitriol directed at Chelsea Manning online was not representative of what people would say in person to a transgender individual; unfortunate...
Source: Women's Health News - August 25, 2013 Category: Medical Librarians Authors: Rachel Tags: Abortion Abuse, Rape, & Safety Access, Rights, & Choice Adolescent Health Advertising/Marketing Birth Events & Observances Global Issues Health Research Libraryland Menstruation Miscellaneous News Round-Ups Shameless Self-Promoti Source Type: blogs
Sunday News Round-Up, Announcements Edition
A few things that have caught my eye recently:
Rape Victims As Criminals: Illegal Abortion after Rape in Ecuador – I haven’t read this report yet, but wanted to pass it along for exploration of how restrictive anti-abortion laws make criminals out of rape victims.
A reminder about the disproportionate violence experienced by transgender people. Islan Nettles, a 21-year-old black transgender woman, was beaten to death. Someone on Facebook this week mentioned they hope the vitriol directed at Chelsea Manning online was not representative of what people would say in person to a transgender individual; unfortunate...
Source: Women's Health News - August 25, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Rachel Tags: Abortion Abuse, Rape, & Safety Access, Rights, & Choice Adolescent Health Advertising/Marketing Birth Events & Observances Global Issues Health Research Libraryland Menstruation Miscellaneous News Round-Ups Shameless Self-Promoti Source Type: blogs
Sovereign Currency Populism versus Dollarized Populism
Juan Carlos Hidalgo
Venezuela and Ecuador both have left-wing populist governments that have benefited tremendously from record high oil revenues. Both governments used those revenues to significantly increase public spending. However, there is a critical difference between these countries: while Venezuela has its own currency (the so called “strong Bolívar”), Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar as its official currency in 2000. That means that, no matter how fiscally irresponsible the Ecuadorean government, it can’t print money to pay for its spending.
The result: Venezuela has the highest inflation rate in Latin Amer...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 6, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo Source Type: blogs
The Ecuadorian Pot Calls the American Kettle Black on Media Freedom
Doug Bandow
For a time it looked like Edward Snowden, famed NSA leaker, was headed for Ecuador, whose London embassy still hosts asylum-seeker Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. But the leftist government curiously has cooled on Snowden.
President Rafael Correa originally praised Snowden for his leaks, but then back-tracked. More recently Correa indicated that an asylum request would be considered only after Snowden reached Ecuadorian territory or an embassy, and after consultation with the Obama administration. The Hugo Chavez confidante added: “I believe that someone who breaks the law must assume his responsibilities.”&n...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 9, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
What Happens to Leakers in Ecuador?
Juan Carlos Hidalgo and Gabriela Calderon de Burgos
With the political asylum request by Edward Snowden to Ecuador—which hasn’t been approved yet—and Julian Assange’s one-year ordeal in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, there is a lot of self-righteousness coming from the administration of Rafael Correa and its sympathizers about that country being a safe heaven for leakers and transparency types.
In truth, Ecuador is one of the least friendly countries in Latin America in terms of freedom of the press. Just recently the country’s National Assembly approved a law (the so-called “gag law”) that tightens contr...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 28, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Juan Carlos Hidalgo, Gabriela Calderon de Burgos Source Type: blogs
Ambulance Broadcasts Own Transmissions to Drivers to Clear Road Ahead (VIDEO)
Car traffic is a terrible thing, and as everyone knows one of the few antidotes to stalled traffic is a nice tune on the radio. Crank it up loud enough and the traffic disappears. And that includes the ambulance behind you rushing to get to a person struggling to stay alive. But, it’s hot, the air conditioner is on, the windows rolled up, the music is playing, and the whole road is full of folks like you. What does the ambulance do?
Well, in Ecuador the ambulance is equipped with an AM/FM radio transmitter and an antenna that can overpower the radio stations in its vicinity. The driver simply talks into a microphone,...
Source: Medgadget - June 27, 2013 Category: Technology Consultants Authors: Editors Tags: in the news... Source Type: blogs
Dollarize Argentina Now
Steve H. Hanke
Argentina is once again wrestling with its long-time enemy – inflation. Now, it appears history may soon repeat itself, as Argentina teeters on the verge of another currency crisis. As of Tuesday morning, the black-market ARD/USD exchange rate hit 9.87, meaning the peso’s value now sits 47.3% below the official exchange rate.
This yields an implied annual inflation rate of 98.3%. For now, the effects of this elevated inflation rate are being subdued somewhat by Argentina’s massive price control regime. But, these price controls are not sustainable in the long term. Indeed, the short-term “lyin...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 8, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Price Controls: A Troubling Trend in Latin America
Steve H. Hanke
Argentina, Venezuela, and now even Ecuador have all embraced an unfortunate, if familiar, economic craze currently sweeping the region – price controls. In a wrong-headed attempt to “suppress” inflation, the respective governments have attempted to fix prices at artificially low levels. As any economist worth his salt knows, this will ultimately lead to scarcity.
Consider Venezuela, where the government sets the price of a number of goods, including premium gasoline, which is fixed at only 5.8 U.S. cents per gallon. As the accompanying chart shows, 20.4% of goods are simply not available in stores.
W...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 17, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
