GLOBAL OUTLOOK
Health and Medicine
Do medical advances, like stem cell research, promise eternal youth or an ethical quagmire? With skyrocketing medical costs and aging populations, will even rich societies be unable to assure decent medical care for all? Are millions needlessly dying in poor countries because they suffer from diseases that do not affect the rich? What will be the payoff of the mapping of the human genome?
...read more| RECENT COMMENTARIES | FEATURED COMMENTARIES | MOST READ COMMENTARIES |
-
The Non-Communicable Disease Paradox
Martin Tobias Series: Health and Medicine 2012-01-24The current debate about the global epidemic of non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer) has tended to focus on their growing prevalence. But measures of poor health are, in fact, declining, even as these diseases' prevalence is increasing.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 5185
-
Free to Be Fat
David William Haslam Series: Health and Medicine 2011-12-14
Today, when fat people outnumber the lean by two to one in many countries, obesity has become the last acceptable target of public discrimination. When it comes to the obese, Western societies tend to blame the victim.... read Comments: 4 Recommended: 0 Read: 14679
-
Hope or Hype for Personalized Medicine?
Henry I. Miller Series: Health and Medicine 2011-11-24During the past several decades, treatment for a variety of conditions has begun to shift from a “one size fits all” approach to a more personalized strategy that takes account of patients' specific genetic makeups. But, while this high-tech approach could be a boon to patients, it could be detrimental to drug companies’ bottom lines.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 9063
-
Dying to Grow?
Henry I. Miller Series: Health and Medicine 2011-10-25
Studies that show an association between a factor and a health effect should be regarded as no more than a preliminary result that points researchers toward further research and analysis. But even professional regulators, who should know better, sometimes don't, as a recent advisory about human-growth hormone shows.... read Comments: 2 Recommended: 0 Read: 9278
-
The Diabetes Watch
Martin Tobias Series: Health and Medicine 2011-09-21The world is currently in the grip of a diabetes epidemic, with the number of type 2 diabetes cases more than doubling since 1980, to 347 million in 2008. Unfortunately, epidemiological surveillance of non-communicable diseases like diabetes is woefully inadequate to the scope of the public-health threat.... read Comments: 3 Recommended: 0 Read: 10669
-
Tropics of Cancer?
Henry I. Miller Series: Health and Medicine 2011-08-03
Many people in poor countries die from cancers that are preventable or treatable in wealthier societies, but they often succumb to other scourges as well, such as infectious diseases. The bottom line is that, given limited health-care resources, we need to make hard decisions that will deliver high-impact outcomes for the most people at the least cost.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 11176
-
The Autism Generation
Allen Frances Series: Health and Medicine 2011-07-19Not long ago, autism was among the rarest of disorders, afflicting only one child in every 2,000-5,000. So why has it spread to one in 38 in less than 20 years?... read Comments: 16 Recommended: 2 Read: 22549
-
The Great Organ Bazaar
Susanne Lundin Series: Health and Medicine 2011-06-22
LUND, SWEDEN – The Web site 88DB.com Philippines is an active online portal that allows service providers and consumers to find and interact with each other. Naoval, an Indonesian man with “AB blood type, no drugs and no alcohol,” wants to sell his kidney. Another man says, “I am a Filipino. I am willing to sell my kidney for my wife. She has breast cancer and I can’t afford her medications.” Then there is Enrique, who is “willing to donate my kidney for an exchange. 21 years old and healthy.”... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 14161
-
Free-Market Babies?
Donna Dickenson Series: Health and Medicine 2011-05-24The UK, France, and India are currently embroiled in passionate debate about reproductive rights and obligations, and many other countries are likely to follow. So it is necessary to clarify what is at stake in how we regulate – or de-regulate – in vitro fertilization, egg sales, and surrogacy.... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 1 Read: 11438
| Can Radiation Be Good For You? | Henry I. Miller 
|
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 |
