Mark Leibovich’s NY Times Magazine piece focuses on how politicians tip-toe around the challenge that arises when they change a position on a high-profile issue. These sorts of changes lead to “framing wars”...
Too much of anything – good, bad, or otherwise – can be a big problem. This editorial from the NY Times is a solid reminder to fifty bits designers: don’t overshoot when using the “Get in the Flow”...
There’s a lot of heat but not much light in most of the discussions around measles and whether or not to make vaccinations mandatory. It turns out that’s not the real question; all fifty states currently require the MMR...
The NY Times reports a growing concern that women may be overusing statins, the go-to class of medications for lowering the bad type of cholesterol (LDL). Although there were early concerns about whether statins did more harm...
Russia’s response to the political turbulence in Ukraine was surprisingly swift and aggressive. In a blink, Crimea was swarming with “plainclothes” military personnel, and a referendum on Crimea’s...
Numbers are tough, and when numbers meet breast cancer they don’t get any easier. A recent study in JAMA was nicely summarized in the Wall Street Journal. I created the following charts to summarize the main outcomes for...
A giant, lengthy study of screening mammography concludes that the test offers no benefit to women regardless of age… and may do more harm than good. In a 25 year follow up of nearly 90,000 Canadian women randomized to...
A recent article in Health Affairs reports that Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) improved medication adherence slightly, but cost more money than it saved. Note: VBID is geek speak for cutting copayments for medications that...
The FDA’s new anti-smoking campaign is getting kudos for a savvy approach that proponents say is likely to be more effective among teens than previous attempts. The campaign seems to leverage three key psychological...
A study recently published in the February issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that subjects who fully confess after a moral misstep feel better than those who only come partially clean. In addition...
