Prevention advocates like to tell the story of the town next to a river where drowning people keep floating by. The town stations boats and an EMT crew on the river to save as many as they can. Sometimes they succeed; often they fail. But no one thinks to go up river and see why all these people are falling in. The preventionist does.
In the case of health care reform, it is as though America has decided to move its rescuers half way to the spot where people are falling in. (more…)
According to CBS’s Sixty Minutes, the new Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland cost $8 billion over twenty years. When asked why it was worth spending $8 billion, American physicist, Bob Stanek told Steve Kroft, “It’s in humans’ interest to know everything, right? And why wouldn’t you want to know that?” He went on to say that the research could lead to our ability to tele-transport people.
That’s nice.
Given the resistance to funding science, I don’t want to suggest that we shouldn’t have a super collider. But it got me to thinking about what would happen if we invested a similar amount in behavioral science solutions to our most pressing problems. (more…)
Acceptance is a key to healthy living and loving relationships. While I could cite the science of this to the nth degree, I think illustration is useful.
As I write this I am waiting at the Arizona Cancer Center; it is my 15 month checkup, after the amputation of my right ring finger for what is called, subungual melanoma—a very rare cancer under the fingernail. The Center has only had five cases, and this
is one of the world-class places for the treatment of melanoma.
(more…)
