Jim McVeagh
Licensed to Kill - MacDoctor
Apr 16, 2010 •
Yesterday Steven Joyce finally announced he was raising the driving age. Unfortunately, he is only raising it to a timid 16 years. Still, at least we won’t have the lowest driving age in the developed world and one of the highest youth fatality rates. I find it hard to believe that there is so much [...] Related posts:
Fit To Drive - MacDoctor
Apr 10, 2010 •
Once more the media appear to be wading in to the campaign to lower the legal driving limit for blood alcohol to 0.05%. Strangely, they quote the recent spate of road traffic fatalities as if this somehow bolsters their argument. This is simply lazy journalism. There is plenty of evidence that lowering the legal Blood [...] Related posts:
Organ Recitals - MacDoctor
Apr 08, 2010 •
There seems to be quite a lot of debate around the subject of organ donation at the moment. The Herald today warns people off looking for “bootleg kidneys“. The university of Victoria ran a conference yesterday on the issue and Eric Crampton at Offsetting Behaviour has run a series of articles here, here and here. [...] Related posts:
Spam Journalism #72 - MacDoctor
Apr 06, 2010 •
Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. After having been too tired to spot that yesterday’s “Black Easter” post was yet another example of spam journalism, I thought I had better redeem myself. There is nothing like a quick flick to the health articles to find sensationalist spam. Journalists [...] Related posts:
Speed Kills? - MacDoctor
Apr 03, 2010 •
Freakonomics cites a recent paper on road fatalities: According to a recent paper by Lee S. Friedman, Donald Hedeker, and Elihu D. Richter, the lifting of the federal 55 mph speed limit in 1995 was responsible for 12,545 deaths between 1995 and 2005. That’s about 45 percent more American fatalities than we have suffered in 9/11, Iraq and [...] Related posts:
Starving to Death - MacDoctor
Mar 25, 2010 •
I might have known that the case of Margaret Page, the woman who has decided to starve herself to death, has been taken up as a cause célèbre by the euthanasia lobby, notably Lesley Martin. It seems to me, however, that there is a substantial difference between actively participating in the ending of another person’s [...] Related posts:
Obamacare Myths - MacDoctor
Mar 24, 2010 •
Unfortunately, I have been too busy to comment on Obama’s “historic” healthcare bill, up until now. Somehow, congratulating Obama on his first real achievement seems somewhat hypocritical, considering I think the bill is the usual socialist mix of paternalistic pseudo-concern and a distressing disregard of both taxpayer’s pockets and obvious consequences. The fight to reverse [...] Related posts:
Out of Control - MacDoctor
Mar 18, 2010 •
Two US surgeons have offered some commentary on Why US Healthcare Costs Are Out of Control. It is a highly revealing read. They cite six reasons: The Building of Shrines for Hospital Administrators – buildings constructed out of desire to make a mark rather than out of necessity. Unnecessary Duplication of Services – Often added under the aegis [...] Related posts:
Shoehorning - MacDoctor
Mar 16, 2010 •
It looks like the Democrats are going to attempt to shoehorn the Obamacare bill through on the thinnest of margins. Considering the controversial nature of some parts of the bill and the partisan sentiment it has generated, one can only say that this is a foolish and dangerous thing to try and do. Time has [...] Related posts:
Incentives - MacDoctor
Mar 15, 2010 •
New Zealand is now contemplating using the same set of incentives to boost immunisation rates that Australia used to boost it’s rates from 50% to 91%. The MacDoctor is not convinced that New Zealanders will respond quite as well as Australians to the incentives. The incentives were: Cash payments to parents for completing immunisations at 6 [...] Related posts: