Listing Details
| ID: | 1454 |
| Title: | California Medicine Man |
| URL: | http://califmedicineman.blogspot.com/ |
| Category: | Health: Medicine |
| Description: | Devoted to furthering the dialogue about healthcare delivery and medical issues on the World Wide Web. |
| Trouble at Domino's Pizza - Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:54:00 +0000 |
| Via theInstapundit, people arecomplainingabout Domino's online "Pizza Tracker". I for am appalled about the possibility that one of our most stalwart institutions may be attempting to deceive us. My 7-year-old loves keeping tabs of it when we order a pizza. How am I ever going to explain to her that maybe,maybe, this example of modern technology may be a fraud? Well, at least I can console her that unlike big business, government would never engage in such duplicity.  |
| Protecting the Lowly Pedestrian - Tue, 05 May 2009 19:06:00 +0000 |
| This articlementioned bythe instapunditcaught my eye. Apparently, Cranfield University in England has prototyped a novel airbag technology to protectpedestrianshit by cars. From the photograph, it looks to have a somewhat Rube Goldberg flavor to it. To my unpracticed eye, it also looks to be somewhat expensive although a spokesman for the project reassures us that, "it would add little to the cost of the vehicle." Why does this seem unlikely to me? There is essentially no limit to the features that can be added to automobiles to make them safer. The problem is of course figuring out how to pay for them. There is also obviously a difference between technologies designed to protect innocent third parties (e.g. pedestrians or people driving other cars) and the cars' occupants. This is why all cars must have brakes but not bulletproof windshields. It's one thing for a consumer to be willing (or not) to pay for things that will directly benefit that consumer. On the other hand, it seems unlikely that he or she would be interested in voluntarily paying extra for something that will only be ofveryremote benefit to oneself. External airbags as described in the article seem destined to be a marketing and pricing nightmare. I wonder though, in our current atmosphere of government regulation, how far might the White House and Congress might go in mandating technologies such as this one? I also wonder what actual public health benefits might be realized. I can easily imagine such a device having only a marginal benefit in terms of morbidity and mortality. We will study this in a meaningful manner before broadly demanding its application? As an aside, I think it's ironic that this device was first tested on a Fiat Stilo. Fiat is of course a company soon to own 20% of Chrysler which is in the process of becoming nationalized by the U.S. How long before the powers that be declare that all Chryslers (and or Fiats) are required to have it installed?  |
| Natasha Richardson and Problems with Canadian Health Care - Sun, 22 Mar 2009 07:05:00 +0000 |
| When any young person dies of an intracranial hemorrhage, it's obviously a very sad thing. However, many people were uniquely touched by the death of Natasha Richardson owing to her popularity. There are nowquestionsbeing raised regarding the promptness of her care particularly regarding the lack of a Medevac helicopter system in Quebec. Will we be able to count on the mainstream media to investigate such possible inadequacies in the Canadian health care system? Wouldn't such debate be apropos given the Obama administration's commitment to implementing Universal Health Care, a system remarkably similar to Canada's?  |