health

Jan 7, 2015 ∞

Join the bone marrow registry

Drew Olanoff (@drew) is facing cancer for the second time. He is fighting it in public again, this time to bring greater awareness to the bone marrow registry.

Go sign up for a free registration kit. I did. It only took me ten minutes.

I did it on my iPhone.

Skip your next round of Twitter browsing or Facebook liking or email reading and do something really, really easy that brings you one step closer to saving someone’s life someday.

Feb 21, 2014 ∞

Get off your ass

It makes for funny headlines, like this one I came up with three years ago, but the science just keeps coming: sitting too much damages human health.

The troubling part is much of the onus for a solution is on businesses employing us all, who may not have much incentive to contribute to solving the problem if the consequences don’t affect workers until after retirement.

Jul 22, 2013 ∞

Stop taking multivitamins. Seriously.

I’ll be the first to admit I took multivitamins on and off for years, always assuming vitamins could only be good for you. But the overwhelming majority of scientific studies on the subject not only debunks the myth that they help, but strongly suggests that they may be harming us.

The article I link to above is longer than most I share here, but it’s also more important that you read the whole thing. It could (and, to be honest, should) change your mind on including multivitamins as a part of your daily diet, at least without your doctor’s advice.

May 8, 2013 ∞

The pressing need for hospital pricing regulation

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has published data on what hospitals charge for the most common procedures. There is much to look at, and other have done good reporting on it, notably Sarah Kliff and Dan Keating at the Washington Post and Barry Meier, Jo Craven McGinty and Julie Creswell at the New York Times.

The bottom line is that hospital pricing practices appear from this data to be arbitrary. I wouldn’t be surprised if pricing flucutated from year to year based on what revenue each hospital brings in. That’s unconscionable, and a failure of the free market in arguably the most important industry. Hospitals and canadian pharmacies would do well to get together and establish transparent and ethical best practices for pricing, because the alternative is onerous regluation to ensure they are not gouging insurance companies, government agencies, and individual patients without regard to actual costs.

Oct 18, 2012 ∞

Wireless attack could fatally turn pacemakers against patients

Patrick Gray, writing at The Register:

Jack also warned of a worst-case scenario in which a worm could infect multiple devices, spreading from patient to patient, re-flashing the devices with malicious code as it foes. This code could be programmed to deliver fatal shocks to patients implanted with vulnerable implants at a scheduled time.

So many lives depend upon the safe operation of a device like a pacemaker, including some of my dearest family. The good news here is that the researcher who discovered the vulnerability is ready and willing to work with manufacturers to design around the security weaknesses in these devices.

But perhaps more importantly, what about devices that have already been implanted in patients? I hope the corrections can be made via a software update so that even current patients can receive the fixes.

As an aside, this technology could also be used in the cyberwarfare arena for exceptionally clandestine assassinations.