I’ve been tutoring some students in online MPH programs for a few weeks. We started talking about 95% confidence intervals. All you need to know when reading a confidence interval is that it is used for telling you (the reader) where we (the researcher) are 95% confident that the true measure is located. Here, let me explain… This is why…
Epidemiology is the basis for much of the work that goes into public health. From the research that gives us the evidence we need to conduct good public health policy, to the work that is done investigating outbreaks, we use epidemiology to help us understand what we are seeing. It’s a scientific branch (or a branch of medicine) that helps…
If I tell you that I want to do something to save the lives of cops, am I in some way offending the people who want justice when it comes to police-involved shootings/homicides?
I’m at the annual conference of the American Public Health Association (APHA) in San Diego, California. I generally don’t like to go to conferences because they sometimes devolve into “look at me” sessions of people just blowing their own horn. What I do like, however, is the ability to see what people are putting out there in terms of science…
Someone on the radio was saying the other day that we humans are not biologically ready for all the technology that we’ve developed in the last couple of hundred years. They said that this is especially true of technologies like the internet, where a ton of information is available at our fingertips, but our brains are nowhere near ready to…
Before I begin, I need to clarify something that, sadly, needs to be clarified. When I write “pharmaceutical companies,” I don’t mean all pharmaceutical companies. Just like when I write “people,” I don’t mean all people. In the following paragraphs, I’m trying to reason through the actions (and words) of pharmaceutical companies and the systems in place to encourage some…
I went to listen to Dr. Offit speak about his latest book the other night. Unfortunately, the whole thing devolved into a discussion about vaccines and their safety. Or, rather, there were 30+ people there who were there to question the safety of vaccines, and to hold Dr. Offit accountable for the perceived dangers of vaccines. Why him? Because he’s…
There isn’t a week that goes by where someone doesn’t call me a “Pharma Shill.” They claim that I must be getting paid by “Big Pharma” because I dare say that vaccines say lives and counter the claims of antivaxxers on social media. (“Claims” is a gentler way of saying “outright lies.”) As of the writing of this blog post, I…
My wife and I went to a cupcake store and were a little surprised when we saw a sign for “Keto Cups.” The “keto” or “ketogenic” diet is the latest diet fad that’s actually been around since the days of the Atkins Diet. The idea is to deprive the body of simple carbohydrates, like refined sugar or even fructose (the…
I’m sensing that the general mood of my friends on the Left is much like when the sentient cheese product* was elected back in 2016. They’re in a bit of a panic. The confirmation of Brett “Hold My Beer While I Grope Her”** Kavanaugh has made them really scared of the very real possibility of things regressing when it comes…
