President Obama announced a televised meeting for Thursday to discuss all options for health care legislation. Overnight, the White House released "The Obama Plan: Stability & Security For All Americans," which the President intends to be the focal point for the event. Although this Plan is short, the White House also released a one-page summary.
The January 22 Obama Plan is not accompanied by legislative text. Thus, it can only be analyzed in qualitative terms. We do that below the jump.
The federal government's reported figures for jobs "created or saved" by the "stimulus" bill (formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or "ARRA") are now known to be wrong. The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, which oversees these figures, apparently has decided not to correct them.
The US Preventive Services Task Force recommendation that women without any risk factors for breast cancer obtain mammograms less frequently has elicited furious complaints by both Republican and Democratic Members of Congress. We blogged on the report when it was released.
A scandal has erupted over the federal government's reporting of the number of jobs created or saved by the "stimulus" bill (formally the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009).
This scandal would have been avoided if the government had complied with the Information Quality Act.
The US Preventive Services Task Force issued a report with revised recommendations calling for much less frequent use of mammograms for screening women with no risk factors for breast cancer. The announcement triggered an extraordinary reaction, most of which was negative.
Few of those reacting had actually read the report. In many cases, the complaints were factually inaccurate -- by that we mean they objected to things that were not in the report.
We'e blogged here and here on H1N1 ("swine") flu. Saturday's Wall Street Journal includes a Page One story about the shortfall in supply, noting that the vaccine is cultured in eggs and the yield has been much lower than predicted.
After the jump to page A4 and near the end of the story, another explanation is provided: The federal government chose an inefficient vaccine delivery method in deference to the anti-vaccine movement.
The Washington Post's Rob Stein reports some interesting information useful for estimating the magnitude of this risk. Elsewhere in today's Post, others argue that people have a moral obligation to be vaccinated. The moral argument hinges on the fact that vaccination reduces risks to others, but this is complicated by the fact that most of the "others" in question are people who choose not to be vaccinated.
Whole Foods' CEO John Mackey published a commentary on August 11 opposing the health care legislation proposed by the Obama Administration and Democratic congressional leaders. The op-ed followed an interview with Wall Street Journal reporter Katy McLaughlin, These articles ignited several rounds of controversy. Some Whole Foods customers organized a boycott. Whole Foods created a discussion group on its web site. The Wall Street Journal editorial board criticized the boycotters and published multiple letters to the editor (here, here and here), then a long Saturday interview by Stephen Moore, a member of the editorial board, defending Mackey and giving him a platform to expand on his views. Another letters to the editor followed.
We draw readers' attention to Mackey's opinions about the American diet expressed in the second Journal interview. These opinions appear to have significantly informed Mackey's thinking on the issue, but it not clear how they relate to his proposed alternative and they have not been part of the controversy.
On June 11 the World Health Organization decreed that the recent outbreak of (A)H1N1 influenza ("swine flue") qualified as a "pandemic." According to reporters for the Washington Post, WHO delayed making this decision long after it technically met its established definition. The reason for delay is that policy officials no longer liked the definition and were concerned that a declaration of a pandemic could lead to panic.
Since 2002, federal information quality guidelines have required agencies to avoid disseminating scientific information that is not objective, and to have effective administrative systems for managing requests for the correction of information that a petitioner believes is incorrect. The burden of proof of error rests with the petitioner.
All information that is "disseminated" is covered by these rules, but information that is made public solely for the purpose of scientific peer review or public comment is exempt from the definition -- provided that it is accompanied with a specified disclaimer (p. 8):
“THIS INFORMATION IS DISTRIBUTED SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE OF PRE-DISSEMINATION PEER REVIEW UNDER APPLICABLE INFORMATION QUALITY GUIDELINES. IT HAS NOT BEEN FORMALLY DISSEMINATED BY [THE AGENCY] AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED TO REPRESENT ANY AGENCY DETERMINATION OR POLICY.”
The purpose of this disclaimer is to deter people from relying on draft documents. An empirical question is whether the prescribed language is strong enough.
An interesting test case has arisen with respect to the industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA). More...
The Wall Street Journal editorializes today against a longstanding Food and Drug Administration policy that values the benefits of drugs for terminal cancer patients solely in terms of life extension. Some visual aids may help make the issues easier to understand. More...
A recent study raised doubt about the benefits of Vytorin, a patented combination of two anti-cholesterol drugs, ezetimibe and simvastatin. Some cardiologists say the study is sufficient evidence to stop prescribing it as widely; others disagree.
The decision whether to take Vytorin or its component drugs rests with patients, but they rely heavily on the advice of their doctors? How can patients makes sense of this debate? More...
Consumer Reports has sponsored a poll on health care that yielded results characterized as "revealing a significant disconnect." But there is no disconnect at all if elementary economic analysis is applied. More...
New York Times reporter Denise Grady previews a research report due to be published in today's New England Journal of Medicine that says many hospitals do not respond quickly enough to cardiac arrest. Leslie Saxon, who wrote an accompanying editorial, delivered the money quote: “You’re better off having your arrest at Nordstrom, where I’m standing right now, because there are 15 people around me.” More...
