In Defense of Mistakes
By MARTIN SAMUELS, MD
“How much of the medicine that you now use, did you learn during medical school?”
My answer may be surprising. It is not the response given to me by my professors, when they were asked similar questions. I recall them telling me that virtually nothing that I was learning in medical school would be correct 20 years later.
I have thought about this since and will reveal my answer shortly, but before I do, we should pause for a moment to reflect on the process of medical education. I will refer here to natural selection as an analogue of this process, a concept that I have adapted from some ideas gle...
Source: The Health Care Blog - October 7, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs
Russia Follows U.S. Script to Intervene in Syria and Embarrass Washington
Vladimir Putin opened a new game of high stakes geopolitical poker, backing Syria’s President Bashir Assad. But Washington has no complaint. America has been meddling in Syria’s tragic civil war from the start.
Russia’s dramatic backing for Syria’s beleaguered Assad government formally buries any illusion that “what Washington says goes,” even in the Middle East. Moscow has begun bombing regime opponents. Sounding almost like the George W. Bush administration, the Putin government insisted that it was fighting terrorism and there really wasn’t a “moderate opposition.”
In contrast, Russia’s intervention ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - October 5, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
In Defense of Mistakes
By MARTIN SAMUELS, MD
“How much of the medicine that you now use, did you learn during medical school?”
My answer may be surprising. It is not the response given to me by my professors, when they were asked similar questions. I recall them telling me that virtually nothing that I was learning in medical school would be correct 20 years later.
I have thought about this since and will reveal my answer shortly, but before I do, we should pause for a moment to reflect on the process of medical education. I will refer here to natural selection as an analogue of this process, a concept that I have adapted from some ideas gle...
Source: The Health Care Blog - October 2, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs
A case of prion disease acquired from contaminated beef
Spongiform encephalopathies are neurodegenerative diseases caused by misfolding of normal cellular prion proteins. A 2014 case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob prion disease in the United States was probably caused by eating beef from animals with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.
Human spongiform encephalopathies are placed into three groups: infectious, familial or genetic, and sporadic, distinguished by how the disease is acquired initially. In the mid 1980s, a prion disease called bovine spongiform encephalopathy appeared in cows in the United Kingdom. It is believed to have been transmitte...
Source: virology blog - October 2, 2015 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information bovine spongiform encephalopathy bse mad cow disease prion transmissible spongiform encephalopathy TSE viral virus Source Type: blogs
After Attacks in France, Tunisia, and Kuwait, West Must Do More to Fight Surge of Terrorist Attacks
The terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia, and Kuwait are just the latest warnings that ISIS is turning its campaign into a global enterprise. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - June 29, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: RAND Corporation Source Type: blogs
Has the GOP Learned Anything from the Iraq Debacle?
“GOP Agrees Bush Was Wrong to Invade Iraq, Now What?”—that’s how the US News headline put it last week. A good question, because it’s not at all clear what that grudging concession signifies. It’s nice that 12 years after George W. Bush lumbered into the biggest foreign policy disaster in a generation, the leading Republican contenders are willing to concede, under enhanced interrogation, that maybe it wasn’t the right call. It would be nicer still if we could say they’d learned something from that disaster.
Alas, the candidates’ peevish and evasive answers to the Iraq Question didn’t provide any evi...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - June 4, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Gene Healy Source Type: blogs
Contra Shiller: Stock P/E Ratio Depends on Bond Yields, Not Historical Averages
The Wall Street Journal just offered two articles in one day touting Robert Shiller’s cyclically adjusted price/earnings ratio (CAPE). One of then, “Smart Moves in a Pricey Stock Market” by Jonathan Clements, concludes that, “U.S. shares arguably have been overpriced for much of the past 25 years.” Identical warnings keep appearing, year after year, despite being endlessly wrong.
The Shiller CAPE assumes the P/E ratio must revert to some heroic 1881-2014 average of 16.6 (or, in Clements’ account, a 1946-1990 average of 15). That assumption is completely inconsistent with the so-called “Fed model” obs...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 2, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Alan Reynolds Source Type: blogs
Saudi Arabia Rents U.S. Military to Help Kill Yemenis
The Obama administration is part of Saudi Arabia’s 10-member “coalition” fighting against Houthi rebels and in support of the now-deposed Yemeni government that is in exile in Riyadh. This was recently underscored by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who said of the Saudis, “We’re not going to step away from our alliances and our friendships.”
Alas, the entire Yemen campaign is built on a lie. Contrary to Riyadh’s claims, the Houthis are not directed by, and seem only barely supported by, Iran, whose supposed involvement is the ostensible reason for U.S. involvement. Instead, the rebels have been fighting ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 24, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
Americans Should Not Wait for Politicians to Help Syrian War Victims
KUWAIT CITY, KUWAIT—Seventy-eight nations plus 40 non-governmental organizations recently gathered to raise money for the relief of Syrian refugees. Kuwait’s Emir opened the Third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria with a plea for funds.
The small Gulf nation has carved out an international humanitarian role. “This is our baby,” one Kuwaiti official told me.
Kuwait opened the proceedings with a promise of $500 million, matching last year’s donation. The U.S. won the number one position with an offer $507 million, but many participants offered little more than good will. Overall the conferenc...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 21, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
MENA’s Misery Indices, a Story of Economic Failure
Steve H. Hanke
In my misery index, I calculate a ranking for all countries where suitable data exist. The 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 108 countries. The table below is a sub-index of all Middle East and North African (MENA) 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.
Syria and Iran were the most miserable in the region. War and...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 9, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Steve H. Hanke Source Type: blogs
Frenemy Saudi Arabia Makes the World More Dangerous
Doug Bandow
Saudi Arabia is a medieval system whose horrid human rights practices match its antiquated political system. Official Washington breathed a sigh of relief at the smooth transition after King Abdullah died last week. President Barack Obama is visiting Riyadh to pay his respects.
Secretary of State John Kerry called the departed king a “man of vision and wisdom.” President Barack Obama declared that Abdullah “was always candid and had the courage of his convictions.”
U.S. officials long have celebrated their friendship with the Saudi royals, who sit atop vast oil reserves. Even more important, the Americ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 27, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
ISIS Aims to Occupy Mecca
As ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi reaches for control of the holy sites in and around Mecca and Medina and the wealth that comes with them, the U.S., NATO, and others should consider providing significant equipment and know-how to shore up the border defenses of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - January 19, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: RAND Corporation Source Type: blogs
Fraud in the Defense Department
Nicole Kaeding
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost more than $1 trillion with billions going to Department of Defense (DoD) contractors. All of that spending has led to a large uptick in waste and fraud.
As much as $60 billion has been wasted on U.S. operations in those two countries, according to analysis from the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Justice Department has brought more than 235 criminal cases since 2005.
The Associated Press highlights some examples:
In the past few months alone, four retired and one active-duty Army National Guard officials were charged in a complex bribery a...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 18, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Nicole Kaeding Source Type: blogs
Every Middle East Mistake Causes the United States to Intervene Again
Doug Bandow
Washington again is at war in the Middle East. Unfortunately, pressure for military intervention will grow with Republican control of the Senate.
The likely result of any new conflicts will be similar to America’s past interventions. The United States will be intervening again in a few years to try to clean up the mess it is creating today.
The United States is not bombing the Islamic State out of necessity. Rather, Washington is acting in response to past mistakes. ISIL exists only because the Bush administration invaded Iraq.
The Obama administration’s decision to attack the Islamic State makes no po...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - November 5, 2014 Category: American Health Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs
