Category Archives: Health
Travel Ban
One reason there is no Ebola travel ban is that it would lessen CDC’s ability to track the disease. So says CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden.
Now that we have a new Ebola czar a travel ban may soon follow.
Conspiracy Theory
It must be a conspiracy. The stock market lost all its gains for the year this past week. So naturally as I post this the markets are soaring.
Ebola in Akron
Democrats have learned the true source of the ebola virus – Republicans. Or more specifically sequestration, the scheme to hold federal spending in place. Sequestration was actually proposed by President Obama and later implemented by Congress as a way to climb down from the fiscal cliff.
The head of NIH says if not for sequestration we’d have an ebola vaccine by now. He didn’t say if it would cause autism.
IBD says CDC and NIH are doing just fine..
The CDC’s budget today is 25% bigger than it was in 2008 and 188% bigger than in 2000. The NIH budget has been flat for the past few years, but at a level that’s more than double what it was 14 years ago.
Plus, spending at both of these agencies has actually been higher than President Obama himself proposed (see chart). The 2014 NIH budget, in fact, is almost $1 billion bigger than Obama sought in his budget plan, released in early 2010.
Akron
AAAAAAAAAAiiiieeeee This just in: Ebola comes to Akron. I live in Akron! The victim traveled through Cleveland Hopkins airport this past weekend. I traveled through Cleveland Hopkins airport this past weekend! Damn Republicans.
Mad Mad World of Comic Genius
Jonathan Winters was a mentor to Robin Williams. Both were tormented comic geniuses. Russell Brand calls it a “divine madness” in this essay in The Guardian.
I was surprised to learn Jonathan Winters spent 8 months in a psychiatric hospital just before his brilliant performance in It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. He wasn’t doing research. He managed to outlast his demons and died of natural causes at age 87.
Update: Here are some thoughts from Ben Stein on comics, depression, and suicide.
Ebola Drug
Two Americans suffering from the Ebola virus seem to be responding to a new serum that works on monkeys. It’s called ZMapp. The FDA hasn’t approved it for general use.
Over 1,700 people in western Africa are suffering from Ebola. It’s fatal in most cases.
Ebola Oracle
Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general at the World Health Organization says,”We need to ask the medical ethicists to give us guidance on what the responsible thing to do is.”
