Science Education & Policy
The United States Supreme Court recently ruled against the Obama administration requirement that all employers must provide birth control insurance for women. Administration lawyers knew they were on shaky ground going in, because there were no provisions for male sex lives, such as Viagra, and that meant the policy was discriminatory, and the Supreme Court might rule that all corporations have the same rights, regardless of size, which further weakens the long-term viability of the ACA.
Most employers have health insurance that covers birth control anyway, and those that did not presumably…
Hydraulic fracturing is emerging as one of the primary methods of drilling for natural gas, yet is equally controversial in its potential to induce harm to humans and the environment.
The uncertainties of the health risks associated with horizontal drilling using fluid pressure to break down shale formations for natural gas extraction has pushed countries worldwide to proactively regulate the use of this technology, such as a temporary ban in Germany in 2012 and a ban in France in 2011.
Where such decisions are hedged on a variety of metrics ranging from social resistance to the technology…
The 340B program, a federal program that provides billions in drug discounts to safety net hospitals and other health care providers, is expanding under health care reform, but there is uncertainty for safety net providers and drug manufacturers.
The federal 340B program began in 1992 to help health care providers extend services to vulnerable populations, including the indigent and uninsured. The program allows some hospitals, clinics and health centers to buy outpatient prescription drugs at discounted prices that are generally lower than the amount paid by state Medicaid programs.…
Funding agencies spend a great deal of money to try and recruit females into math and science-related careers and a new psychology paper underlines the importance of mentoring and other social support systems for women pursuing those research professions.
Various disciplines within the broad science field have different representation. In academic science, for example, the social fields are overwhelmingly female, the life sciences are about even while the physical sciences are primarily male. Are those differences due to barriers to achievement? If so, women face far fewer obstacles…
When it comes to elephants, the Wildlife Conservation Society does not believe in conservation. Or sustainability. Instead, existing ivory must be destroyed and legal ivory markets need to be closed. Otherwise, corruption, organized crime, and a lack of enforcement make legal trade in ivory the major contributing to the demise of Africa's elephants.
A new paper says that if we are to conserve wild populations of elephants across all regions of Africa, all domestic and international ivory markets need to be closed and any government stockpiles of ivory destroyed. According to the…
Europe is so far ahead of the US in its thinking on
antibiotics and antibiotic resistance that we should all be ashamed.
For the
last 15 years, Europe has led the way on the regulatory front making antibiotic
development a top priority for its regulatory body the European Medicines
Agency. None of the recent US
administrations going back to Bill Clinton nor the FDA itself ever made such a
statement nor have they acted in a way commensurate with this thinking.
In
mid-2012, the FDA announced that it would reboot its antibiotic development
guidelines to make them feasible and to target…
A variety of programs have been introduced in UK hospitals to reduce patient deaths over the past decade and Advancing Quality - imported from the United States - was first to demonstrate a significant reduction in patient deaths.
It was introduced in the North West region of England in 2008 and Advancing Quality was found to have reduced patient deaths by 890 in the first 18 months of the policy's introduction.
A new analysis funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research (NIHR HS&DR) Programme and conducted by The University of…
A pilot program intended to implement and test a cost-saving strategy for orthopedic procedures at hospitals in California failed to meet its goals, succumbing to recruitment challenges, regulatory uncertainty, administrative burden and concerns about financial risk, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
The outcome represents a disappointing effort to widely adopt bundled payments, a much-touted strategy that pays doctors and hospitals one fee for performing a procedure or caring for an illness. The strategy is seen as one of the most-promising ways to curb health care spending.…
Last week's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hearings in Atlanta on rules intended to "dramatically cut emissions" from coal-fired electricity generating stations were as contentious as expected.
The new rules are claimed to try prevent long-term climate change, including hotter summers and more intense storms - but the US has already done that, American energy sector CO2 emissions are back at early 1990s levels and coal is at early 1980s level. Yet global emissions have not gone down because China, India and Mexico, all exempt from climate treaty efforts, offset the reduction in…
A new study commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) estimates that the Obama Administration's new ozone restrictions could reduce GDP by $270 billion per year and carry a compliance price tag of $2.2 trillion from 2017 to 2040 - the most expensive regulation the U.S. government has ever issued.
In total, the study finds that letting the EPA revise the ozone standard for manufacturing from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 60 ppb - below what even exists at national parks, such as Yellowstone and Denali
- could:
- Reduce U.S. GDP by $270 billion per year and $3.…