“Swine flu has killed 540 kids, sickened 22 million Americans,” screamed USA Today’s page 1 headline, sub-headed “CDC: Cases, Deaths are Unprecedented.” “Swine flu cases in the U.S. are rising at the fastest pace for influenza in four decades,” breathlessly declares a Bloomberg News article lede. Another article’s title referred to a “national swine flu spike.”
Scary stuff! Phony stuff! And a desperate effort to distract from an alarmist media’s greatest nightmare: That the epidemic has peaked, as I write in National…
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The health care “reform” bill drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid adds new tax increases, and costs twice as much as its promised $849 billion price tag.
The tax increases (in billions) include:
1. 40% excise tax on health coverage in excess of $8,500 (individuals) / $23,000 (families). . .
2. Additional 0.5% Medicare (Hospital Insurance) tax on wages in excess of $200,000 ($250,000 for joint filers) – begins in 2013 – $54 B tax increase
3. Impose annual fee on manufacturers and importers…
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There’s been much in the news lately about the brown pelican being delisted as an endangered species since its recovery from the effects of DDT. I happen to know people whose work I trust who disagree as to whether DDT actually thinned bird eggshells and thus led to declines in various species. That said, all of them are agreed as to the value in saving lives in poor areas – including parts of Africa today.
A poignant reminded comes in Rick Atkinson’s…
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The Dean of Harvard Medical School just gave the Obama health care plan a “failing grade,” saying it will harm America’s health and finances, and hamper the medical innovation needed to save patients’ lives. Dean Jeffrey S. Flier writes,
In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that, whatever its shape, the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will markedly accelerate national health-care spending rather than restrain it. Likewise, nearly all agree that the…
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David Michaels, a left-wing ideologue who supports junk science and seeks to restrict gun possession, has been approved by the Senate Health Committee to head the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Only two committee members, both Republicans, voted against Michaels.
The vote occurred with no discussion, and no hearing was even held on his nomination, although hearings have consistently been held on OSHA nominees in the past, even for far less controversial picks.
Lawyer and Second Amendment expert, David Kopel explains how Michaels…
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Remember the raw oyster ban from a recent Regulation of the Day? I am happy to report a partial victory (hat tip to Jacob Grier).
The ban, due to take effect in 2011, has not been repealed outright. But, in response to public outcry, it has been delayed:
The FDA announced it would commission a study to explore alternatives to reducing the illness vibrio vulnificus, and also do an economic analysis of how the ban would impact the oyster industry.
“Before proceeding, we will conduct…
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The healthcare “reform” bill backed by Obama “would reduce senior care,” and “could jeopardize access to care for millions,” report healthcare experts at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The bill also “increases medical costs” through inflation, increasing health-care costs to 21.1 percent of GDP by 2019.
The House of Representatives recently passed the bill by a vote of 220 to 215.
According to the federal experts, the bill would likely either cost much more than projected, or result in some “hospitals and nursing homes” deciding to ”stop taking Medicare…
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Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. These days, it often also contains up to 2% lead to make it more workable. That means it runs afoul of federal standards for lead in children’s toys.
Fortunately, it turns out that children handling toy cars or other toys with brass parts does not raise their lead concentrations to anywhere near harmful levels. No harm, no foul, right?
Doesn’t matter, say regulators. No exceptions.
Toymakers presumably choose brass because it is cheap, durable,…
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At a glance, though, the estimates look okay it’s the spin and the lack of perspective that I have trouble with. And while the media have missed it, they also show an extremely low case-fatality ratio compared to seasonal flu.
According to the CDC, seasonal flu causes 15 to 60 million infections yearly with 36,000 resulting deaths, for a fatality rate ranging from 0.06% to 0.24%. It now estimates that since the swine flu outbreak began there have been 22 million…
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In Japan, it is illegal for men to have a waist larger than 33.5 inches. The limit for women is 35.4 inches. Those in violation are forced to undergo counseling (Hat tip to CEI colleague Megan McLaughlin).
The law, passed last year, is part of an effort to keep obesity rates low and avoid related health problems.
One problem with using wasitlines as the primary metric is that results can vary among measurers. According to one article, “Satoru Yamada, a doctor at…
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With much of the health care reform debate still focused on the wisdom of including a government-run, “public” health insurance “option,” too many opponents are neglecting a far more insidious feature of the Democratic proposals: the mandatory purchase requirement. Under each of the bills moving through Congress, every person living in the United States would be required by law to have health insurance. And, if your employer doesn’t provide you with it, you’ve got to buy it yourself or pay…
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CEI’s champion of letter-writing, Alex Nowrasteh, has a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal today advocating removing the cap on H-1B visas to encourage more doctors to practice in the U.S. As Alex points out:
In 2005, a paltry 7,218 medical and health-care professionals earned H-1B visas, while many were denied. A cap on the number of doctors and medical professionals entering the U.S. discourages health-care access and raises costs. The H-1B visa cap should be removed along with…
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Well, what swine flu isn’t doing this week is apparently less than what it wasn’t doing last week. In other words, it appears to have peaked.
How do we know?
Here we see it’s going down the right side of the bell curve both in terms of deaths and hospitalizations.
And there’s both a massive decline in samples submitted to CDC surveillance labs and a small decline in those testing positive.
College infections have essentially gone flat.
And finally we see from the Australian swine flu data in…
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From a letter to the editor of the Washington Post:
It is ridiculous that The Post has dedicated so much of the A section the past several weeks to the swine flu outbreak. Being a young “survivor” of the swine flu, I have to say that it was the most anticlimactic experience I have ever had. No deathbed, no fever.
The way the media continue to portray the virus is creating unnecessary panic around the world. Many people infected with the virus don’t…
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It’s Halloween, and the monster at the door is swine flu. Or so we’re told. Yet again. And people respond accordingly. “I’ve never seen it like this,” an administrator at Dunwoody Pediatrics in suburban Atlanta told USA Today. “That name, H1N1, sends parents into a panic. We’ve had a lot of verbal abuse.” And yet there’s evidence the epidemic may have peaked!
The CDC reports that hospitalizations for the week ending October 24 barely increased while deaths are actually down from the…
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Emulating the Obama Administration, New York Gov. David Paterson has “declared a state of emergency, saying a recent rise in swine flu cases has created a ‘disaster,’” according to the Associated Press.
The executive order suspends state law and allows more health care professionals to administer vaccines.
The emergency? AP says at least 75 residents have died of swine flu in the last seven months. By comparison, given its population size we’d expect over 2,200 New York residents to die annually of seasonal…
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As I note in my Investor’s Business Daily article, swine flu cases in the last seven months, according to the CDC, equal about four days‘ worth of seasonal flu deaths during the season. There’s no medical emergency except that emergency facilities are swamped with the worried well and the mildly ill. Why? Because of the Obama administration’s first swine flu emergency declaration and the report from the President’s Council of Science and Technology Advisors predicting up to 90,000 deaths.
And guess…
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My colleague Richard Morrison brought to my attention a new FDA rule that requires oysters harvested between April and October to be sterilized before they are eaten. The goal is to prevent a rare – and sometimes fatal – bacteria from harming anyone.
An unintended consequence is that the state of Louisiana is up in arms. The sterilization rule essentially bans raw oysters, a local delicacy, for seven months every year. Sterilization also affects the flavor of cooked oysters, a common ingredient…
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In the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson explains in the “Public Plan Mirage” how the so-called “public option” contained in congressional health-care reform bills is just a gimmick: “It pretends to control costs and improve access to quality care when it doesn’t.” Steve Chapman wrote earlier about the “‘Public Option’ Health Care Scam.”
In other news, a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that the provisions in the Senate health care “reform” bill sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) would add $1,700 a year…
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It’s a bunch of hog droppings. Watch for my upcoming article. In the meantime, read here on why we should not panic.
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