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US Near Bottom In Life Expectancy In Developed World
Hugh Pickens writes "Louise Radnofsky reports that a study by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine has found U.S. life expectancy ranks near the bottom of 17 affluent countries. The U.S. is at or near the bottom in nine key areas of health: infant mortality and low birth weight; injuries and homicides; teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections; prevalence of HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and disability. Americans fare worse than people in other countries even when the analysis is limited to non-Hispanic whites and people with relatively high incomes and health insurance, nonsmokers, or people who are not obese. The report notes that average life expectancy for American men, at 75.6 years, was the lowest among the 17 countries and almost four years shorter than for Switzerland, the best-performing nation. American women's average life expectancy is 80.8 years, the second-lowest among the countries and five years shorter than Japan's, which had the highest expectancy. 'The [U.S.] health disadvantage is pervasive — it affects all age groups up to age 75 and is observed for multiple diseases, biological and behavioral risk factors, and injuries,' say the report's authors. The authors offered a range of possible explanations for Americans' worse health and mortality, including social inequality, limited availability of contraception for teenagers, community designs that discourage physical activity such as walking, air pollution as well as individual behaviors such as high calorie consumption. The report's authors were particularly critical of the availability of guns. 'One behavior that probably explains the excess lethality of violence and unintentional injuries in the United States is the widespread possession of firearms and the common practice of storing them (often unlocked) at home,' reads the report. 'The statistics are dramatic.'"
The rest of you would be working yourself to death too if you were making $7.25/hr., had no job security or benefits, couldn't afford a hospital stay, and were afraid you would get laid off if you took a vacation. No 3-hour lunches or month-long vacations here. We WORK for a living! Even the relatively affluent can get fired or laid off at the drop of a hat in the USA.
But don't worry. You'll learn what it's like soon enough. Greece has already started. No more free rides, fellow Athenians!
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Switzerland tops the list, yet the authors criticize gun availability in the US?
It's already been pointed out that the reason why the United States has "high" infant mortality is that we count ALL live births as a live birth. In some European countries, if the baby dies within a few minutes or a few hours it isn't counted as a live birth and therefore isn't part of the infant mortality numbers. In one country, I don't remember which one, if the baby dies with the first WEEK, it isn't counted as a live birth. So, yes, if you manipulate the numbers and redefine "live" birth, you can end up with a low infant mortality rate. On the other hand, if you count it as a live birth if the baby draws even a single breath or twitches, then your numbers do not mean the same thing.
#1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on earth.
#2 The United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.
#3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.
#4 The United States is tied with the U.K. for the most hours of television watched per person each week.
#5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.
#6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.
#7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.
#11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.
#12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.
#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
#14 Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else in the world.
#15 More pornography is created in the United States than anywhere else on the entire globe. Eighty nine percent is made in the U.S.A. and only 11 percent is made in the rest of the world.
#16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year. Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.
#17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does. In fact, U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.
#18 The United States has far more foreign military bases than any other country does.
#19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.
#20 The U.S. has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse. Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.
Switzerland is at the top and has tremendous amounts of gun ownership. Our life expectancy is due to our crappy healthcare system and even worse access to it, high infant mortality, rampant poverty, lack of safety nets, etc. Oh and our obsession with fast food doesn't help either.
obviouslt your agenda forbade you to read:
"even when the analysis is limited to non-Hispanic whites and people with relatively high incomes and health insurance, nonsmokers, or people who are not obese."
potentially, but this country's owners are just plain happy giving people the freedom to make life shortening choices.
They're using their grammar skills there.
The state of medical research today in the USA:
publishing a report where the conclusions are known in advance, and the conclusions are provided by your financial sponsors, and the conclusions meet with a pre-approved social agenda.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
This is the kind of analysis I have been wondering about. Since most of the previous studies done in this area don't seem to try to factor thing like the large number of American fat asses or smokers or other choice items. While it appears to do a better job of trying to factor out some of the issues it doesn't look like it manages to do all of them or I might need to read it in more detail. But it looks like there is some good evidence that our health care system does really kind of suck unless you can afford the Mayo Clinic or other premier hospitals.
Time to offend someone
18,735 - suicide by firearm
11,493 - murder by firearm
554 - killed from accidental firearm discharge
31,578 - accidental death from poisoning
All of these numbers pale in comparison to this:
108,000 - killed from adverse prescription drug reactions.
Clearly the firearms angle is over stated.We should be banning doctors.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Knowing several people in various states in the US, ranging from middle-aged to old... I'm anything but convinced. It seems to me that compared to Norwegians (and most likely to everyone in Northern Europe) you work harder for longer for less pay, and have less to show for it at the end of your life. I don't think that most people enjoys working 60-80 hours a week, knowing that they can't afford to retire... meaning they will work until they drop dead.
To quote a comment that arose over a Christmas dinner a few years ago; "What do you call retired people in the states?" "Greeters at WalMart."
The plural of "stuff I know" isn't data, but in this case it seems like the data is backing up the stuff I know. You don't "pack more into your years" - you're worn out faster by an system built to benefit the rich, and even the rich seems overall less happy than most people I see over on my end.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Interestingly though (and contrairy to your comment), most of the reasons why life expectancy is lower in the U.S. happens before the age of 50. So the probability of a newborn child to even come to an age of 50 is lower than in any other of the 17 countries. So it's not the last 5 years that are important here (if you ever get 75 in the U.S., your life expectancy is on par with the rest of the countries), it's the deaths occuring before the age of 50 that make the numbers so miserable.
The country's owners are the corporations. The citizens are clueless sheep who will do what the corporations tell them to do on fox nes.
This must be down to the corporate "death squads" who decide who will get treatment and who won't.
There's plenty of research, showing that high income inequality will lead to lower life expectancy, and not just among the poor.
The more economically unequal a society becomes, everybody gets more sick, even the 1%.
And it's not just physical health. There is more mental illness the more inequality grows. You know, craziness, like the kind that would make a 20 year-old kid kill his mom and 20 six and seven year-olds.
There are so many measurements of the health of a society that degrade as income inequality grow, it's not surprising that a growing number of very wealthy people are in favor of having their own tax rates go up and the social safety net made stronger. Some are even starting to take better care of their employees at the cost of stock price (the "market" hates it when workers get paid more). Costco is an example of this. Wages go up and employees get better health care and other benefits and the financial elite say, "What a chump. What's wrong with that guy, anyway, is he some kind of fucking commie?" (If you think I'm kidding about this, check out some of the stories about Costco in the Wall Street Journal or on CNBC. The CEO's name is James Sinegal, and he's decided to earn less than $500k. Wall Street hates the dude because they're afraid he's going to start some kind of trend where bonuses go down and then they won't be able to afford that new infinity pool in their houses in St Lucia.)
You are welcome on my lawn.
Most US companies have eliminated carryover of vacation time/PTO. Most companies no longer have the concept of sick time. Your situation is not the norm.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
That is simply not true for two reasons: First, this is appears to not be peer-reviewed, and thus does not count as "medical research" by any means.
Sorry. no. This is the National Academies of Science. This is pretty much the gold standard of peer review; you really can't do much better than that. And, yes, NAS reports are very extensively peer reviewed.
You're right about this not being "medical research." This is a review. Reviews are not original research, they are summaries of research done by others-- in essence, a review is the peer review of an aggregate of studies.
The report is here: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13497
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Mind explaining how "teen pregnancy" has fuck-all to do with health? Keep in mind that 18 and 19 are still part of your teenage years.
I'll field this one. "Infants of adolescent mothers are more likely than infants of older mothers to use a variety of health care services that suggest poorer health. A considerable proportion of this greater use seems to be attributable to specific characteristics of mothers, such as socioeconomic characteristics, rather than to an inability that is common among adolescents to promote infant health or to use health care appropriately."
Emphasis mine.
I really think you could have guessed this if you'd thought about it for just a few seconds.
I am not a crackpot.
Ever met a pregnant teenager? I have; They tend to be a bit... emotionally unstable.
And easy lays.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
And citizens influence the government in proportion to their campaign contributions.
I saw another summary of this report a day ago (in a German language publication) and they included a detail missing from this particular summary. Healthcare in the US costs almost $8000 per capita, the median in the other countries was around $3200.
Pretty much everything they measured (Diabetes, Heart problems, Lung problems, whatever) the US was way over at the wrong end of the table.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
There are some life-shortening choices we don't get to make. I would prefer stevia, an all natural sweetener in my drinks which have a long history of use in Japan, in my low-calorie drinks... somehow it's still not allowed.
And the presence and prevalence of cereal fillers in just about everything imaginable is a pretty tough thing to get around too.
And the current price of healthcare? Well, let's just say I live with a lot more [fear] than I would prefer. I simply don't think I could afford it if anything serious were to happen.
Link to the full 424 page paper is here.
Link to the (probably paywalled) WSJ article is here although the Yahoo version in the summary above appears to be exactly the same.
The analysis could probably be tailored to fit any assertion you wanted to make. A breakdown by state in the US probably reveals significant discrepancies.
And if the UK were split into constituent parts, no US state is likely to be worse than Scotland for general health and life expectancy.
From the summary: "The report notes that average life expectancy for American men, at 75.6 years"
From your link: "Men in Scotland are expected to live for 76 years"
As some one who has actual driven for and got change made min the government, it more appropriate to say:
You are a lazy SOB who would rather make false accusations then actual expend any energy trying to actually create change.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Mind explaining how "teen pregnancy" has fuck-all to do with health?
Teenage parents tend to smoke, drink, and use drugs to a greater degree than their peers. Children born while their mothers are teenagers have significantly lower scores on standardized IQ tests, do poorly in school, and have more health problems than children with older mothers.
But correlation is not causation. If a mother has her first baby while she is a teenager, and has more children later, the later children do just as poorly as the first. So the problem is not that teenagers have children, but that stupid people have children, and having a child while still a teenager happens to be highly correlated with stupidity.
Keep in mind that 18 and 19 are still part of your teenage years.
Keep in mind that having a kid when you are 18 or 19 is usually a pretty stupid thing to do.
Well, only if you only eat prepared foods really....
Easy way around this...next time in the grocery store, show ONLY around the outside edges of the store...where you buy fresh vegetables, meat, dairy....
For the most part, you avoid all the corn/wheat products within all the heavily processed foods.
Yes, I know...meats, and all are corn fed...and you do have to really go out of your way to get rid of all the cereal in your foods, but shopping the edges of the stores *IS* a good start.
Also...buy local and what is in season, you'll get healthier, fresher food products to cook with that way.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Maybe there is a god. Maybe it actually is Allah. Maybe he actually is punishing us for our infidelity..
Maybe. Or maybe it's because Americans on average eat too much, get too little exercise, and have a healthcare system that's setup only to treat the rich.
Not this crap again.
About 17 of them do. Your link shows a life expectancy of 80 for women and 76 for men. It doesn't give decimal places, or overall numbers, but 78ish is probably pretty close. According to wikis list of US States life expectance 17 (and DC) below 78. The US as a whole is 78.6, so Scotland's life expectancy is only a half-year or so below the US Average.
It should be noted those 17 are a) Southern states utterly dominated by the Conservative movement, b) the bit of the Rust Belt currently controlled by the GOP, or c) the District of Columbia. You can find a lot of narratives from the data to link these states, but the common denominator seems to be a) currently governed by people skeptical of government spending on health care, and b) large minority populations.
BTW, the list of top US States by life expectancy also supports their thesis. The top 6 are dominated by Democrats, with 6 Democratic Governors and 11 of 12 State Legislative Chambers being Democratic. Number 7 (North Dakota) is reliably Republican at the state level, but also likes to send Democrats, some quite left-wing on economic issues like universal health care, to the US Congress. You don't get a strong consensus that government should stay out of health care until you hit numbers 8 and 10.
The list of bottom ones supports their theory even better then I've implied. The bottom 12 or 13 states are Southern states, Oklahoma, and Appalachia. They don't have anything near universal health care in those states partly because they're poor, but mostly because the voters there refuse to vote for anyone who wants to spend tax money on anything. DC is smack-dab in the middle of that pack of mediocrity, but a) it's not technically a state, and b) it isn't really self-governing. Congress meddles in DC's internal affairs quite frequently, and except for a brief period (2009-2011) Congress has been remarkably hostile to universal healthcare.
Yes, and yet, if you try to tell them american's that their health care system (or lack thereof) sucks and that Obama is trying to take a step into the right direction, they'll yell at you:
Our health care system is the BEST IN THE WORLD!!!!
I've given up on trying to discuss with Americans about the problems in their society. It's aggravating just how clueless most of them are.
"Well I believe the puppet on the left has MY interests at heart, well I believe the puppet on the right shares MY beliefs...hey wait a minute, there is one guy working both puppets!" Bill Hicks.
ANY of you that believe that left/right bullshit is anything more than kayfabe put on by the rulers of this country to keep the peasants too busy arguing to notice they are ALL getting fucked should really try this little game i have, its called three card monty and I'm sure you'll find the lady!
Even though I'm a socialist and never cared for libertarians I recognize truth when I see it and urge all to watch the truth about voting and just remember you cannot change a corrupted system by working within that system, anymore than playing a game of three card monty a million times is gonna make you a winner. The game is rigged folks, you are given 2 pre-approved shills who'll make a LOT of noise about this program or that program that "the other side" is sure to hate when in reality the same power brokers that have been leeching off this country for decades still get to have their way. Why do you think that Mr "hope and change" kept or extended every single thing the left hated about dubya's watch? Because just like the wrestler he does what he's told and reads from the cue card.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
And if the UK were split into constituent parts, no US state is likely to be worse than Scotland for general health and life expectancy.
That's nothing. North Korea is even worse!
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I didn't say anything about crimes. But if you insist: The person most likely to kill you is yourself, followed by your mother, your stepfather, your biological father, your significant other, your siblings and your children. If you have weapons in your home, those weapons are easily available to the persons most likely to kill you. For some irrational reasons, people fear the weapons in the hands of strangers much more (and try to defend against them) than the weapons in the hands of people most likely to kill you.
This report is crap. For those of you who haven't read it, let me save you some time and summarize it for you:
"Health outcomes in the US are getting better and Americans are living longer. However, we're not getting healthier or living longer-er than other similar developed countries. Therefore: DOOM!
Although our own data, in fact even our own summary, indicates that for people under 50 the majority of this disparity can be explained by transportation related deaths and violence, we prefer to emote and thus offer the following list of things we don't like as the actual reasons for not getting better fast enough:
- fat people
- guns
- lack universal public health care, and
- not enough condoms
Since they raise uncomfortable questions about the ideological conclusions which we've emoted, we've left unexplored and thus unexplained such interesting questions as:
- Why do these outcomes suddenly reverse after age 75?
- Why do we assert that socio-economics do not have an impact on this trend then go on to demonstrate vast disparities within US regions that show significant differences in socio-economic status?
- When you can walk into any corner convenience store anywhere in the US and buy a condom for about the same cost as a bottle of soda, why are we fixated on a lack of access to birth control?
In summary: DOOM. Also, be more like Europe (we love you! call us!). Finally, spend a LOT more money on public health care (full disclosure: that means us).
My local store happens to be a Super Walmart. Based upon your shopping advice, my grocery list, going counterclockwise, is:
Drugs
Barbeque Grill
Hunting Equipment
Electronics
Dog Food
Milk
Vegetables
I would definitely enjoy eating meals at your house...about half the time.
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
If there were one type of vehicle that accounted for the vast majority of all the traffic deaths then this would make sense. Gang violence is a statistical outlier in that 99% of the people are unlikely to encounter it. And that 1% who do and perpetrate it are racking up huge numbers that influence the over all results.
If you took Europe and included the Balkans back during the Bosnian conflict, their rate would likely dwarf ours. Not because Europe as a whole was violent, but because the one part was extremely violent.
Same thing here and the report ignores it.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's all socioeconomic and Darwinism.
In today's first-World countries, having money means having access to nutrition, shelter, clothes, quality healthcare, education, and hence a greater chance to survive childhood and reproduce, and also a greater chance to end up with health habits that result in longer life. Young people don't have money, meaning that they are too reliant on the generosity of their parents. It is a sad truth that a large majority of teen pregnancies are in situations where the parents have no money either, and the neo-con approach to social responsibility and education would be laughably ridiculous if it weren't so horrific in its effects. Don't have sex, mkay? Abortions bad, why didn't those girls just shut that whole thing down? We shouldn't be supporting those lazy women who just stay home pumping out kids. Let's repeal Obamacare.
WTF do they think will happen with those policies? That all the poorly educated -lucky to get any mininum-wage job at all- members of society are going to refrain from sex until their thirties, when somehow they'll magically find themselves living the American Dream in a nice suburb, decorating the Christmas trees with their spouse whilst dressed in their best Mr Roger's sweaters, with money and ready to start a family? Like fuck.
Everyone should read Freakonomics.
If I live in a suburb in a mid-sized city in the Midwest that does not have a gang problem, then the fact that people in LA are slaughtering each other is not relevant to me.
The vast majority of gun crime in the U.S is drug/gang related and occurs in urban centers. The vast majority of U.S. is peaceful and pretty much safe...at least as safe as is your average European country.
When the Bosnian conflict was happening and people by the thousands were being killed, no one put out a report saying that Europe had a high death rate. Same thing here. You just can't sum up all the deaths and then make a general statement about the nation when the majority of the deaths are localized and do not affect the majority of the nation.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Easy way around this...next time in the grocery store, show ONLY around the outside edges of the store...where you buy fresh vegetables, meat, dairy....
MMM. Tasty stuff on the outside, a hole in the middle. Reminds me of a donut.
MMM. Donuts.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The United States has about six violent deaths per 100,000 residents.
Homicide, they noted, is the second leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults aged 15-24. The large majority of those homicides involve firearms.
OK, let's do the math. Let's assume that other countries have zero violent deaths per 100,000 and have a life expectancy of 80 years. Let's assume that all 6 per 100,000 deaths in the US happen at age 15. How much does that affect our life expectancy?
99994 * 80 = 7999520
6 * 15 = 90
90 + 7999520 = 7999610
7999610 / 100,000 = 79.9961
80 - 79.9961 = 0.0039
The life expectancy difference between the US and the top performer is 4 years for men and 5 years for women. The maximum possible effect of gun violence according to the statistics in this report is 0.0039 of those years.
The report's authors were particularly critical of the availability of guns
True enough, but it was because of their preconceived notions, not because the data in the study supports their view.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Admittedly it's a bit lacking in some food groups, but you could use the hunting equipment and barbeque grill to fill in the gaps.
Having been around the world a couple times, I can say, the food here has a couple issues. Mostly, we are served quantity over quality. Taste is replaced with salt, processed fat, and chemical enhancements. The only place that has food comparable to ours is the UK. Other places all the meals are about 1/2 or less of what you get here. You sit down at a table to eat. Soda has sugar, not chemically enhanced corn syrup. When I eat in the US, I get a headache for about 30 minutes after eating. Ive nver had that happen outside the US unless its eating fast food in the airport traveling.
Nearly a quarter of the workforce in Switzerland is foreign and, as far as the Swiss are concerned, effectively disposable. When unemployment goes up in Switzerland, the Swiss just lay off some foreign workers. Working conditions and pay are considerably worse for foreign workers, at least in my experience (I don't know whether they are supposed to be). And unlike the US, the Swiss are very efficient at keeping track of foreigners in the country (regular registration and "papers please") and presumably at getting rid of them when they are no longer needed. It's no wonder that with such a system, the Swiss themselves mostly end up with the secure, high-paying jobs.
How do I know? I was working as a guest worker in Switzerland for a few years. Someone even accidentally made me an offer for the same kind of job I was doing, thinking I was a Swiss citizen, which gave me a better idea of the job market for Swiss citizens, and then quickly retracted it when I told them that I was not.
Despite the differences in pay and conditions, Switzerland is still a nice country to work in for foreigners, and fortunately most Swiss are more modest and polite than you seem to be. But Switzerland doesn't have a magic solution to the problems of economic development, unless you consider using the rest of the world as a cheap and disposable labor pool a magic solution.
"Well I believe the puppet on the left has MY interests at heart, well I believe the puppet on the right shares MY beliefs...hey wait a minute, there is one guy working both puppets!" Bill Hicks.
ANY of you that believe that left/right bullshit is anything more than kayfabe put on by the rulers of this country to keep the peasants too busy arguing to notice they are ALL getting fucked should really try this little game i have, its called three card monty and I'm sure you'll find the lady!
I propose a slightly different twist. The peasants ARE noticing they're getting fucked, but the divisive us-vs-them tribalism mentality keeps people thinking it's the other guy that's screwing them.
Last time the citizenry was getting fucked from every which way and had only ONE source to blame, it resulted in the American Revolution. Even if the general public isn't learning from history, TPTB certainly are.
Because just like the wrestler he does what he's told and reads from the cue card.
I love your choice of words, because former governor Jesse Ventura often described politics as pro wrestling, where everyone pretends to hate each other during performance but then they go out drinking together afterwords.
More Twoson than Cupertino
I just skimmed a bunch of posts, and I'm wondering if more than 0.1% of you actually read any of the articles about it.
Let's see: it noted lack of access to medical care in mostly the below-median-income (i.e, half the country), due to cost.
But let's not create, say, a national medical system, like the UK's NHS, where they're all on salary, and so have no incentive to push all the newest, most expensive of everything, including what the drug co salesman left them samples of. No, we'd rather spend 25% to 75% or more of our medical dollars for multinational profits, as opposed to healthcare.
Oh, that's right, there was also an article I read yesterday, about a study showing that for-profit hospitals gave, overwhelmingly, worse care than non-profit, due to cost-cutting measures like fewer staff, and less one-on-one staff/patient care.
mark
Parent didn't say they didn't care. They just said it wasn't relevant.
Besides, patriotism is pride over your arbitrary location on a single, tiny blue planet divided by imaginary lines. In other words, it's completely shallow and nothing anyone should aspire to have.
More Twoson than Cupertino
And published in NAS does not necessarily mean peer review
Sorry, but you are wrong.
The NAS FAQ http://www.nationalacademies.org/newsroom/faq/index.html states:
So, yes, the fact that it's a report published by the National Academies of Sciences does mean peer review.
, or a good study.
First, the statement I was taking issue with was the statement "appears to not be peer-reviewed," which is incorrect.
The question as to whether it's a "good" study is a much harder one. Obviously, the purpose of peer review is to try to make sure that it is a good study, but peer review is not perfect. However National Academy of Sciences reports are quite meticulous; for the most part they are good studies. There are sometimes people who disagree with NAS reports for political reasons, and hence people trying to make a case that the studies are not good because they have an interest in discrediting them. These people, for the most part, are wrong.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
This country's owners are the citizens.
That hasn't been the case for a while now, IMO. The US is effectively an oligarchy at this point.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Well, if the health insurance companies exist for the purpose of generating a profit, and the auto insurance companies do and so on and so on, then we do exist to feed them money.
Look, if monetary exchange happened between holders instantly, wouldn't this "economy" thing all collapse as a giant shell game that is dependent upon one thing for survival, growth?
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Indeed. People seem to be accepting that health care is for a privileged few.
We have an American expat at work here in Australia. When he rolled his car on the highway he went home to deal with his own wounds. The neighbour called the ambulance when she saw him and despite some protests about not being able to afford healthcare he was shipped off to hospital. Quick overnight stay, xray, and a neck brace + follow up doctors visit later and he was amazed that it didn't cost him a cent.
And he's not even a citizen here.