There’s absolutely no denying that the UK has an alcohol problem. The rates of binge drinking are amongst the world’s highest. A far higher proportion of Brits are addicted to alcohol than almost anywhere else. The result is a huge strain on the NHS, higher fatalities due to drink driving, and in some cases higher …
Brendan O’Neill is perhaps one of my least favourite British columnists. I disagree with him on almost everything, from Brexit to student politics and the populist right. But his article this week is really interesting. O’Neill laments the effect of legalised cannabis on the culture of Los Angeles. He decries how it has become all …
The Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland are the three European countries that permit assisted suicide for non-terminal illnesses that cause unbearable suffering, taken to include mental suffering. A 2007 independent survey found that 80 per cent of people supported assisted dying for the terminally ill, but only 43 per cent did for those who are not …
The statistics on deaths caused by medical error in the United States are very troublesome: Heart disease: 614,348 Cancer: 591,699 Medical error: 251,454 Respiratory disease: 147,101 Accidents: 136,053 Strokes: 133,103 Alzheimers: 93,541 Flu/pneumonia: 55,227 Kidney disease: 48,146 Suicide: 42,773 (Figures from John Hopkins University, National Center for Health Statistics amd BMJ, published in the Washington …
Epidemiologist Loretta DiPietro of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University has worked on health for baby boomers and older people. You would think it was obvious and that the middle-aged would be aware of it by now, but DiPietro says that being immobile for hours each day does more than …
