Viruses, Always the Easy Scapegoat
One of the problems with the current and evolving discussion within within the global health community and the media about the Zika virus (… Have you seen all those cockeyed, sensationalistic headlines?) is the assumption that the virus is dangerous and we should all be worried about its spread. This is similar to what has occurred with the poliovirus. The fact is that…
America’s ‘Good Medicine’ Mindset
The idea that you can give someone a disease, or something worse than that disease, by giving them a medicine designed to cure that disease or prevent the patient from contracting it and spreading it to others is so counter-intuitive, so unethical, so downright insane that it is unthinkable, unconscionable, unbelievable. After all, isn’t the first principle of medicine to “first, do no harm”? And yet… I think one of the greatest songs of all time is the one by…
CDC Foundation Ties to Industry Raise Conflict of Interest Concerns
Earlier this year, an article published in the British Medical Journal by the associate editor, Jeanne Lenzer, revealed that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accepts funding from industy. Lenzer highlights that pharmaceuticals and other types of companies have the ability to fund CDC projects via the CDC Foundation.