I’ve long been struck by how consistently different methods find large health harms from air pollution. Most people seem to think we no longer have an air pollution problem, because we mostly don’t see much air pollution. But the particles that are too small to see continue to cause great harm.
The US Federal EPA standard for air pollution in the form of particles of size 2.5 microns or smaller is an annual average of 15, and a 24 hour average of 35, micrograms per cubic centimeter. Many places are not in compliance with these standards (check your area here and here).
These are huge gains, which could be achieved at a modest expense, especially compared to the vast costs we pay for tiny health gains via medicine. More should be done.
We [Alcor] are committing $10,000 towards the Evaluation Fund. … Although the Prize itself is fully funded, funds are needed to conduct the evaluation. Alcor’s contribution will make a big difference, since the tests are estimated to cost $25,000 to $50,000.
My thinking has evolved a bit over the last month. In chemopreservation [= plastination], one fills a brain with plastic-like chemicals, which make strong cross-links bonds between most everything they touch. So there are two times when brain info can be lost: before it is filled with plastic, and after.
So as far as I can tell, the main issue with plastination [= chemopreservation] is how quickly brains can fill with plastic after ordinary blood flow has stopped. If we can find ways to do that well, plastination just wins, I think, at least for the goal of saving the info that is you.
The [Brain Preservation] Foundation has declined [Alcor’s] donation because of concerns that it might be perceived as influencing the judges’ decisions.
Added 13Jan’13: They reached their $25K goal!
Here’s another idea for medical reform: consulate care. Let countries like Sweden, France, etc. with approved national health care systems have bigger consulates, and open them up to paying customers for medical services. For example, you could sign up for Swedish Care, and when needed you’d go to their consulate to get medical care as if you were living in Sweden.
Now we might not approve consulate care for say North Korea or Uganda, but surely most developed nations are good enough. We don’t issue travel warnings suggesting people not travel to Sweden, for fear of getting sick there. So why not let folks travel to a Sweden nearby for their medical care?
Since most other nations spend far less than the US on medicine, consulate care should be a lot cheaper. And since those other nations seem to suffer no net health loss from their cheaper care, consulate care should be no less healthy.
The media holds medicine to a lower standard than it holds alternative medicine, such as say crystal healing. No way would an article in a major paper complain that we aren’t subsidizing crystals enough for poor folks, based on the observation that rich folks buy more crystals and rich folks are healthier. But for medicine, that sort of correlation is enough.
“Nearly five black women die needlessly per day from breast cancer” because they don’t have information about the importance of breast screening and they don’t have access to high quality care.
But in fact, the study shows only that across 25 US cities, the ratio of the black vs. white breast cancer death rates correlates (barely significantly) with median city income and a measure of city racial segregation. It is a huge leap to conclude from these correlations that black women don’t have enough info or care!
The very robust health-status correlation predicts more health for higher status folks, and thus more race-health disparity when there is a higher race-status disparity. It seem quite plausible that the race-status disparity is higher in cities where races are segregated and incomes are low.
It would be nearly nine months before she told herself it was time to act. By then, the lump was the size of a small egg. … Doctors and advocates say the fear that kept her from acting quickly is all too common among black women. It is among the factors that contribute to a disturbing trend: Although they are less likely than white women to get breast cancer, black women are more likely to die from it. … Poverty and racial inequities are the primary factors driving the disparity, according to a study. … The study, which compared mortality rates between black and white women in the nation’s 25 largest cities, states that “nearly five black women die needlessly per day from breast cancer” because they don’t have information about the importance of breast screening and they don’t have access to high quality care. The authors … said genetics play only a small role in the disparity.
[In] the 25 largest cities in the US, … non-Hispanic Black : non-Hispanic White [breast cancer death] rate ratios (RRs) were calculated … Almost all the NHB rates were greater than almost all the NHW rates. … From among the 7 potential correlates, only median household income (r = 0.43, p = 0.037) and a measure of segregation (r = 0.42, p = 0.039) were signiﬁcantly related to the RR.
Note that white women may seem to “get” more breast cancer because they are tested more often for it.
In the US the top 5% of medical spenders spend an average of $40,682 a year each, and account for 49.5% of all spending. (The bottom half spend an average of $236.) Not too surprisingly, 60.3% of these people are age 55 or older. Perhaps more surprising, on their health self-rating, 28.9% of these folks say they are “good”, 19.9% “very good” and 7.5% “excellent”, for a total of 56.3% with self-rated health of “good” or better (source).
So, are these folks in serious denial, or is most of our medical spending on hardly sick folks?