Healthcare

A medical test

The Political Co-Op’s leveraging of an early intervention story was cynical and gross.

By Justin Katz | November 8, 2021 |

First, let’s start with a thrilling observation of how wonderful our country and civilization are. Progressive candidate for the RI Political Cooperative, Mike Niemeyer’s daughter has severe brain damage, but as Katherine Gregg reports in the Providence Journal, modern life is full of miracles: In a telephone interview on Friday, Niemeyer described the invaluable help a team…

Landmark Hospital

Fining hospitals for failing to comply with COVID vaccination mandates is nuts.

By Justin Katz | November 6, 2021 |

We’ve reached the point of lunacy in the Ocean State.  Katherine Gregg reports for the Providence Journal: The Rhode Island Department of Health has slapped violation notices on Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket and the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital for failing to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate. If both Landmark and the state hospital…

A water drop and ripples

School closures hurt kids for nothing.

By Justin Katz | November 3, 2021 |

As noted in this space recently, most of the drop in the standardized test scores in Rhode Island was among students whose schools were mostly virtual during the pandemic.  Now a study out of Japan suggests all that harm was done with no benefit in controlling the disease: There is no evidence that school closures…

A brutalist building with a "We Care" sign

Politics This Week with John DePetro: A Need for People Who Care

By Justin Katz | November 1, 2021 |

John and Justin review various ways state and local government and officials raise doubts that the public they serve is their central focus.

A Waterfire performer

Fighting Wars Against Everything from Cancer to Economic Ignorance

By John Loughlin | October 30, 2021 |

Dr. Tim Shafman discusses breast cancer in women and men, Ed Cabral announces a special Waterfire to honor veterans, Attorney Mark Smith talks about the Second Amendment, and former Trump White House economic advisor Peter Navarro presents his new book.

A water drop and ripples

The numbers should be the story with many COVID studies, not a comparison of them.

By Justin Katz | October 30, 2021 |

I’m not sure whether pro-COVID-vax people or anti-COVID-vax people will be more enthusiastic about a finding in Israel that COVID vaccines become less effective over time.  Does that reinforce the need for regular boosters, or prove that they aren’t worthwhile? What strikes me is that such a finding is framed this way in the first…

Goya Attended by Doctor

Dr. Elizabeth Lang’s child-vaccine advocacy requires a critical eye.

By Justin Katz | October 29, 2021 |

The state and federal governments are preparing the country, with the help of the news media, to be pressured to vaccinate young children against COVID-19, despite the documented reality that children are not at great danger from this disease (see here and here, for starters).  As part of the performance, the doctor-advocates are making the…

A water drop and ripples

Always consider the complexity of any large-scale public policy, like government-funded vaccines.

By Justin Katz | October 29, 2021 |

Conservatives tend to emphasize reliance on the market not because it is a white patriarchal system designed to funnel money to them (which is so comical widespread belief in that proposition should be sufficient evidence that young adults are being maleducated).  Rather, the value of the market is that it is an independent mechanism to…

A water drop and ripples

Officials should factor in their own incompetence before imposing things like vaccine mandates.

By Justin Katz | October 28, 2021 |

Katherine Gregg frames her story about state health facilities’ challenges getting by without unvaccinated employees for the Providence Journal in terms of the government’s incompetence at replacing them: Despite promises made to the state Department of Health to bring in replacements for unvaccinated staff, neither the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital nor the Veterans Home has…

A water drop and ripples

Moderna side effects for under-30s are too much for Sweden.

By Justin Katz | October 27, 2021 |

It’s not alarming that different countries might come to different conclusions, but stories like this one paired with the zealous refusal to humor doubts about COVID vaccines in the United States make for a distrusting society: Sweden has extended its pause of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine for people aged 30 and younger due to heart-related…