June 20, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – A resolution affirms the moral goodness of new life, but not of all means to achieve it. The Southern Baptist Convention—whose nearly 13 million members make it the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.—is often described … Read More
June 20, 2024
(The Guardian) – Artificial intelligence is creating companions who can be our confidants, friends, therapists and even lovers. But are they an answer to loneliness or merely another way for big tech to make money? Could you fall in love … Read More
June 19, 2024
(The Atlantic) – So youth in English-speaking Canada are becoming sadder faster than those in French-speaking Canada, and measures of teen suicidality are rising in the Anglosphere but less so in similar less-English-speaking countries. What’s the deal with Anglosphere despair? Maybe … Read More
June 18, 2024
(STAT News) – I have spent my career studying infectious diseases that fall under the heading of neglected tropical diseases. Now I have a neglected disease — long Covid — an incurable (for now and for me) disease. As a medical anthropologist working in global … Read More
June 18, 2024
(Generation Tech) – Self-harm is much more common among girls than among boys, so we’ll focus on girls. The CDC keeps data on emergency room admissions for intentional self-harm, and the 2022 data were just released. The news is not good. ER admissions … Read More
June 18, 2024
(New York Times) – The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor. Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and … Read More
June 11, 2024
(The Baffler) – The stigma is not hard to understand: magazine features, books, and movies for two decades now have chronicled America’s drug problems, including the rapacious role of drug manufacturers like Purdue Pharma, which made OxyContin a household name … Read More
May 24, 2024
(MIT Technology Review) – This week, I wrote about an external stimulator that delivers electrical pulses to the spine to help improve hand and arm function in people who are paralyzed. This isn’t a cure. In many cases the gains … Read More
May 16, 2024
(Comment) – On July 5, 1978, a handful of activists rolled their wheelchairs in front of two buses at the Colfax and Broadway transit stop in downtown Denver. They held cardboard signs with “Freedom rider” and “Buses are for everyone” … Read More
May 14, 2024
(Ars Technica) – In a viewpoint published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, the researchers point out that many common—nearly unquestioned—practices in dentistry aren’t backed up by solid data. That includes the typical recommendation that everyone should get a dental check-up … Read More
May 14, 2024
(New York Times) – To embark on a career in medicine is like moving to a foreign country where you do not understand the customs, rituals, manners or language. Your main concern on arrival is how to fit in and … Read More
May 10, 2024
(The Conversation) – Moral injury is often associated with military veterans. It can also occur in health care, however, when providers are coerced to offer care that violates their conscience. In fact, moral injury plays an important role in a … Read More
May 10, 2024
(Undark) – For centuries, people have dreamed of a world without disease. The myriad medical breakthroughs in the 20th century — which included antibiotics and modern vaccines — made that utopian ideal feel tantalizingly close. Vaccination led to the global … Read More
May 3, 2024
(STAT News) – Millions of Americans rely on the internet to answer questions about their own health. The public release of powerful artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT has only accelerated these trends. In a large survey, more than half of … Read More
May 2, 2024
(The New Atlantis) – Real regulation is long overdue. But consumer protection is not enough. The confusion brings to light a fundamental conflict in how IVF has been regulated, and how it hasn’t. The effect of existing law for decades … Read More
April 26, 2024
(Comment) – Once in residency, time was fully commodified. As Neil Postman writes, “In the eternal struggle between God and Mammon, the clock quite unpredictably favored the latter.” As the pandemic made telemedicine routine, we were nudged to draw out … Read More
April 15, 2024
(MedPage Today) – Out of all of the many reactions I had — sadness, surprise, worry — what I found myself wishing for most was that she could just shut the lens down and no longer have the attention of … Read More
April 15, 2024
(STAT News) – Boys aren’t the only people who develop attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It also affects girls and young women and adults of both genders. Yet girls and women with ADHD are chronically underdiagnosed and undertreated. Individuals with this condition … Read More
April 15, 2024
(The Conversation) – A cornerstone of neurorights is the idea that all people have a fundamental right to determine what state their brain is in and who is allowed to access that information, the way that people ordinarily have a … Read More
April 10, 2024
(STAT News) – Compounding the problem is the average delay of 11 years between the onset of a mental health condition and its diagnosis. Think about it: a child exhibiting signs of mental health challenges at age 6 may not … Read More
April 8, 2024
(New York Times) – The shift to “sex assigned at birth” may be well intentioned, but it is not progress. We are not against politeness or expressions of solidarity, but “sex assigned at birth” can confuse people and creates doubt … Read More
April 8, 2024
(STAT News) – Anyone can now walk into a pharmacy in the United States and buy oral contraceptives over the counter without a prescription, thanks to the FDA’s approval of norgestrel (Opill). This change reflects the drug’s safety and the … Read More
April 8, 2024
(Wall Street Journal) – One of us (Mr. Pence) sought fertility treatment with his wife when starting a family in Indiana. Mr. Mize has worked in biobanking storage facilities in the state. We urge states to adopt basic protections for … Read More
April 5, 2024
(Undark) – Various commercial products known as “griefbots” create a simulation of a lost loved one. Built on artificial intelligence that makes use of large language models, or LLMs, the bots imitate the particular way the deceased person talked by … Read More
April 4, 2024
(The Atlantic) – While researching a story about lemon-lime flavor, I asked ChatGPT to give me an overview of the U.S. market for beverages with this ingredient, but had to do my own research to confirm the facts. In the … Read More
