A couple of weeks ago, the government announced that, from 2013, all nursing staff would have to be graduates. “Degree-level education,” said Health Minister for England Ann Keen, will provide new nurses with the decision-making skills they need to make high-level judgements in the transformed NHS. I’m not so sure of this. […]
Category: Blogosphere
Knowing the Enemy in the “War on Drugs”
If you’re going to fight a war, you need to know whom you’re fighting. You also could do with knowing when to stop fighting. Johann Hari is eloquent in this piece on the so-called “war on drugs”: the time to stop is now. Yes, it is shocking that he was ditched for pointing out the […]
“Ethics” and PEA Soup to Link
Reproduced from the PEA Soup blog: We are very pleased to announce a new partnership between PEA Soup and the distinguished journal, Ethics. In addition to our regular postings, PEA Soup’s editors will select one article from each issue of Ethics to be the focus of a featured discussion on our blog. Ethics, in turn, will make an on-line […]
In Defence of Ethicists (Or: Dr No’s no-no)
If you look at the comments thread in the post about Kerrie Wooltorton, you’ll see that there’s been an interesting debate between me and someone who calls himself “Dr No”. I don’t think that No and I will ever see eye-to-eye on quite a lot of stuff, but, then again, I don’t see eye-to-eye on […]
More on Science Journalism…
This thought hit me over the weekend in Tesco’s car-park; I was still mulling over the reliability, or lack thereof, of science reporting in the media. I was also thinking about the PCC and how powerless it is, largely because it’s simply a boys’ club for editors. However, in my finding-a-trolley reverie, it occurred to […]
Night Thoughts on Journalism
There’s an illuminating item that’s recently been posted on Enemies of Reason about the way that the press has been handling H1N1, and the way in which the distinction between deaths from and deaths with the illness has been blurred. And it’s very easy to look at the newspaper stands and laugh at the manner in which […]
Incentivising Healthy Lifestyles, the Tough Love Way
At least the Trolley Problem has been solved. (Hat-tip to Brian Leiter for the pointer.) […]
Mental Illness – even if it’s Gordon Brown’s – is not Interesting.
Dependably right-wing blogger Paul “Guido Fawkes” Staines has been circulating the idea that Gordon Brown may be taking anti-depressants – specifically, Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitors – under the touching and understanding heading “Is Brown Bonkers?” and making some sniggering schoolboy allusions to Malcolm Tucker-like tantrums. This allegation – and quite why it’s an allegation is beyond me […]
Healthcare costs: NHS vs US.
At risk of flogging a dead horse, there’s still quite a lot being said about the NHS as a comparator for American healthcare. With that in mind, there’s an interesting little piece on Liberal Conspiracy at the moment comparing the UK and US systems in terms of cost per head. Do these numbers, and what’s […]
Rhetoric Fail
Thom Brooks on facebook has pointed out this hilarious rhetorical fact checking fail from Neo-conservatives debating the public provision of health care in the US: […]