Two Psychological Illusions are Fueling Our Differences On the evening of September 11, 2001, hours after the terrorist attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead, Republican and Democratic senators stood on the steps of the Capitol to participate together in a moment of silence. When that moment of silence came to a close, the senators — who had engaged in plenty of partisan politics days before — spontaneously began to sing “God Bless America.” On…
Comments closedCategory: Costs vs Benefits
The tricky balance between saving lives and protecting the economy Faced with the possibility of their healthcare systems being overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients, most developed countries implemented some form of “locking down.” Citizens were told to stay home except in the case of emergencies or to buy food or medicine. Restaurants and bars were closed. The use of face masks was sometimes deemed mandatory. Schools had to learn how to operate online. Sweden took a…
Comments closedThe other day I heard one side of a conversation about the zika virus and pregnancy. My doctor pal was talking to a world-class athlete who’s decided to skip going to the Olympic games in Brazil over fear that he’d infect his young wife. They’re not planning on having any more kids right away, but he didn’t want to take the chance. What We Know… And What We Don’t The zika virus is plenty scary, and it…
Comments closedThere’s lots of heat but little light when it comes to the issue about how best to handle volunteers returning to the US after caring for Ebola patients in West Africa. Front and center right now is Kaci Hickox, a nurse who recently returned from Sierra Leone after a three-week stint taking care of Ebola patients. Officials say her temperature was elevated on arrival at New Jersey’s Liberty International airport, and that landed her in…
Comments closedAfter Thomas Eric Duncan inadvertently brought the Ebola infection to the US, CDC director Thomas Frieden confidently announced, “I have no doubt that we’ll stop this in its tracks.” Two weeks later, after a nurse caring for Duncan contracted the disease, Frieden acknowledged that the CDC needed to rethink its approach to infection control. Flip-flopping by a public official in the face of a high-stakes issue is nothing new, and we shouldn’t be too tough…
Comments closedThere’s a lot of heat but not much light in most of the discussions around measles and whether or not to make vaccinations mandatory. It turns out that’s not the real question; all fifty states currently require the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine for admission into public schools. The problem is that some schools allow exceptions based on “philosophical” and religious grounds. Even more troubling, sometimes the exception process can be pretty easy (e.g.,…
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