Category: Health

September 30, 2014

Interview with Dennis Rosen, author of "Vital Conversations"

The following is an interview with Dennis Rosen, author of Vital Conversations: Improving Communication Between Doctors and Patients: Question: So what is Vital Conversations about? Dennis Rosen: Vital Conversations is about why good communication between doctors and patients is so...

July 25, 2014

"The mind–body dualism has long overstayed its visit" — Concluding Thoughts from Shadow Medicine

“The mind–body dualism has long overstayed its visit. Western science needs to advance beyond the cur­rent reductionist model to some blending of the subjective and social aspects of healing.”—John S. Haller Jr. We conclude our week-long feature on Shadow Medicine:...

July 24, 2014

Conventional vs Alternative Medicine — An Excerpt from Shadow Medicine by John Haller

“In addressing the standoff between the dueling protagonists of conventional and unconventional medicine, the placebo has served as both mediator and judge….” —John S. Haller Jr. We continue our week-long feature on Shadow Medicine: The Placebo in Conventional and Alternative...

July 23, 2014

An Interview with John Haller, author of Shadow Medicine

“The question at hand is not only whether conventional and unconventional therapies can stand on their own self-authenticating authority, but whether it is possible to modify the context of these two opposing camps into something both can benefit from sharing....

July 22, 2014

The Medical Challenge — A Post by John S. Haller Jr.

The following post is by John S. Haller Jr., author of Shadow Medicine: The Placebo in Conventional and Alternative Therapies: “The placebo has undermined the positivist model of biomedicine by interjecting subjectivity, uncertainty, and ambiguity into the clinical encounter. It...

June 27, 2014

Interview with Alfredo Morabia, author of Enigmas of Health and Disease

The following is an interview with Alfredo Morabia, author of Enigmas of Health and Disease: How Epidemiology Helps Unravel Scientific Mysteries. You can also read Morabia’s blog post Michelle Obama and Epidemiology: An Inspiring Example Question Your book offers a...

June 26, 2014

Michelle Obama and Epidemiology: An Inspiring Example

“American children can learn from someone like Michelle Obama, who decides on the basis of scientific evidence, not on mere speculation.”—Alfredo Morabia The following post is by Alfredo Morabia, author of Enigmas of Health and Disease: How Epidemiology Helps Unravel...

May 21, 2014

Why Umami is Good For You and 12 Ways to Add it to Your Diet

In Umami: Unlocking the Secrets of the Fifth Taste, Ole Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbaek explain the health benefits of umami: Food with umami can often be prepared with significantly less salt, sugar, and fat without sacrificing the delicious taste of...

January 18, 2013

Read an Excerpt from our Book of the Week: Jonathan Kahn's Race in a Bottle

This week, we’ve brought you an interview and author post from Jonathan Kahn, Hamline Law Professor and expert on BiDil, the first race-specified drug approved by the FDA (click here for the story of BiDil). To wrap up our feature...

June 19, 2012

Henry J. Aaron on Health Care Reform

In the following excerpt from Henry J. Aaron’s “Systemic Reform of Health Care Delivery and Payment,” which appears in The Economists’ Voice 2.0: The Financial Crisis, Health Care Reform, and More, Aaron examines some of the challenges confronting the implementation...

April 5, 2012

Geoffrey Kabat Breaks the Bad News About the Good News About Chocolate

A recent report that got widely disseminated claimed that “that subjects who ate chocolate more frequently had lower body mass index compared to those who consumed it less often, and this was not affected by taking calorie intake or level...

March 21, 2012

Interview with Nicoli Nattrass, author of "The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back"

The following is an interview with Nicoli Nattrass, author of The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back Question: What is AIDS conspiracy theory? Nicoli Nattrass: The central AIDS conspiracy theory is that HIV was created in a laboratory (perhaps with the...