As the Olympics draw near, is it time to reassess the Zika risks of holding them in Brazil, or even to initiate a travel ban on Rio? 100 “experts” seem to think so. On May 27, they released an open letter to the World Health Organization urging that the Olympics, scheduled for August, be postponed or moved “in the name of public health.” They are entitled to their opinion, but they have no special warrant to speak in the name of public health. Their letter is naked fear mongering, and their call to isolate Rio from the rest of the world should be ignored.
What can physicians do to increase empathy about the health of populations? | KevinMD.com
As physicians, we are charged with extending empathy to our patients. In addition to a professional responsibility, empathy is also a mechanism for improving patient care and professional satisfaction. It has been associated with better patient satisfaction, clinical outcomes, fewer medical errors and lawsuits, as well as provider happiness. However, while physicians can be expected to pursue the ideal of empathy towards individual patients, that of empathizing with populations is more challenging. As the old saying goes, a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.
Is bacon really bad for you? | Fortune
It is a familiar ritual. Periodically we are told that—for the good of our health—we must cut something out of our diet. Such pronouncements are often prompted by a new study; the message tends to be delivered in rather alarming tones and results in public anxiety when it is revealed that a hitherto beloved food product actually causes harm. The organizations that make these statements are clearly acting with people’s best interests at heart, but how effective are their communications at motivating healthy behavior? To what extent is spotlighting individual risk factors good for the promotion of wellbeing?
Leaving Behind "Methadone Mile" | HuffPost
A video report released last week by WCVB portrays “methadone mile”—the stretch of road in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts, where the effects of the nationwide opioid crisis are on full display. Running by Boston Medical Center, one of the city’s main hospitals, the street is home to a number of drug treatment facilities, a homeless shelter, and, yes, a methadone clinic.
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How to Make Cities Healthier Places to Live | The Wall Street Journal
Your Healthy Lifestyle Won't Necessarily Make You Healthier | WIRED
Before you read this, take a moment to Google “lifestyle and health.” If you do, you will be confronted by over a half-billion results. That figure is mind-boggling—but it’s not surprising when you consider how central the notion of “lifestyle” is to our conception of health. From diet books to fitness programs to government initiatives like the First Lady’s “Let’s Move!” campaign, our society is strongly invested in the belief that you can safeguard your wellbeing—if only you take personal responsibility for it.
Equity, Almost: Justice, Gender and the Health of Populations | HuffPost
As we contemplate a potential Hillary Clinton presidency, it would be easy to think that we live in a new era of equality between the sexes. How, after all, could one woman be on the verge of cracking what she once called the “highest and hardest glass ceiling” if things were otherwise? How could we see women operating at the top levels of the corporate and political world if real progress had not been made? Here in in the U.S., after all, we’ve seen women serving as frontline soldiers, running Harvard University, and sitting on the Supreme Court.
Zika virus is not Ebola | The Boston Globe
Just last week, the World Health Organization last week announced that the Zika virus was “spreading explosively.” Today, it declared Zika “a public health emergency of international concern.” The political pressures on the WHO to take this action have been strong. The shadow of Ebola also looms large, and the WHO seems, perhaps understandably, motivated by the worldwide conclusion that it was ineffective in responding to the Ebola epidemic in 2014, waiting to designate that disease as an “emergency” until it was far too late for this designation to matter. It did not want to make this mistake again. The problem is that Zika is not Ebola, or anything like Ebola, and declaring Zika an emergency will simply stoke fear, and even panic, in a public that deserves to have public health decisions made on the basis of facts and science, rather than on politics and fear.