Good news! Yesterday the California State Assembly passed the California Health Insurance Reliability Act by a substantial margin—basically along party lines. This is the single payer health care legislation I’ve discussed before, legislation referred to in shorthand as SB840 for which State Senator Sheila Kuehl has been principally responsible. It’s now on its way to Governor Schwartzenegger for his signature. [Read more…]

The basic criterion that the FDA uses in approving a pharmaceutical is that it must be shown to be safe and effective. The maker of a pharmaceutical demonstrates that a drug is safe and effective by conducting clinical trials—the so-called gold standard for biomedical research. Until the 1970s, about 90% of those clinical trials were conducted on prison populations. [Read more…]

You’ll find a good example of bad science journalism in the latest issue of The New Scientist. There’s a teaser on the cover that says “The Antioxidant Myth: How we fell for a medical fairy tale.” [Read more…]