Author: MarkH
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What is healthcare like in Germany?
What better argument for universal health care can you make than that of Germany? By far one of the most successful systems, it has had some form of universal health care for almost 130 years, and is currently one of the most successful health care systems in the world. It is again, a mixture of…
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Denying AIDS – A book by Seth Kalichman
Seth Kalichman is a better man than I. Kalichman is a clinical psychologist, editor of the journal Aids and Behavior and director of the Southeast HIV/AIDS Research and Evaluation (SHARE) product, and he has devoted his life to the treatment and prevention of HIV. Despite a clear passion for reducing the harm done by HIV/AIDS,…
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What is healthcare like in the Netherlands?
The Dutch really have it together on health care, they have a system that has been proposed as a model for the US to emulate. In stark contrast to many other European systems, it’s actually based entirely on private insurers, rather than a single-payer or entirely national system. Yet the Dutch system is universal, has…
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What’s health care like in Australia?
To start off some balanced discussions of what universal health care looks like around the world, I thought I would begin with Australia, a system that we could learn a great deal from. In the US system, we do not have universal healthcare, we have mostly employer-subsidized healthcare, private insurance and medicare covering people’s health…
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NHS has broken the cycle!
A few days ago I asked how do we break this cycle of news reports based on terrible misreading of the scientific literature literature. All these reports do is spread misinformation and undermine trust in scientific research. Well, the British National Health System has the answer! Via Ben Goldacre, I’ve found my new, favorite website,…
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Are Patients in Universal Healthcare Countries Less Satisfied?
A dishonest campaign has started against healthcare reform in this country and the first shot has come from Conservatives for Patients Rights (CPR), a group purporting to show that patients in universal health systems suffer from government interference in health care. To bolster their argument, they have a pile of anecdotes from people around the…
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The 111th Skeptics’ circle, featuring that creepy Sham-Wow guy
I have no idea what possessed Action Skeptics to use the Sham Wow guy to present this week’s entries, but it’s amusing. Check it! In particular I like ICBS everywhere on this thermography nonsense, and Living better skeptically on yet another cancer quack. It’s very upsetting when quack modalities defraud people of hard-earned money. It’s…
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How do we break this cycle?
I’m open to suggestions. Do we just need to kick our PR departments in the pants? To be fair, often the internets skips that step. H/T TR
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Denialism in the Literature
It’s good news though! A description of the tactics and appropriate response to denialism was published in the European Journal of Public Health by authors Pascal Diethelm and Martin McKee. It’s entitled “Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?” and I think it does an excellent job explaining the harms of deniailsm, critical…
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Nature Reviews “Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy”
Seth Kalichman has written a book on HIV AIDS denial and Nature has a book review that’s got me excited to get my copy. From the review: Inadequate health policies in South Africa have reportedly led to some 330,000 unnecessary AIDS deaths and a spike in infant mortality, according to estimates by South African and…