Category Archives: Health Care Costs & Delivery
Do Ask. Do Tell
January 16, 2018
In public health, contact tracing is the identification and diagnosis of people who may have come into contact with an infected person. Historically contact tracing has been the mainstay for controlling epidemics caused by infectious agents regardless of the means of spread. However, contact tracing for HIV has not been universally employed to prevent the …more»
Truth In Advertising. Global Health Implications.
August 12, 2016
Perhaps it is not advertising in the strictest sense of the term but when WHO puts out their five-year goals for ending the HIV epidemic it is communicating two things— a sincere call to bring the largest sexually transmitted infectious disease epidemic in modern history under control and, the need for funding to do it. …more»
Too Many Research Products. Too Few Research Volunteers. Ethical Implications
August 3, 2016
The financial and infrastructure investment in clinical research over the past several decades has resulted in major benefits to the health of individuals in both wealthy and poor countries. The ability to identify the cause of disease and develop treatments to control and even eradicate disease is a testimony to the investment in clinical research …more»
The VRC01 Study Must Be Stopped Now
April 11, 2016
Modified April 24, 2016 First Tuskegee, then Guatemala, and now VRC01 In April, 2016 NIH initiated a study of the HIV broadly neutralizing monoclonal antibody (bNAb) VRC01. The study mimics two infamous studies, Tuskegee and Guatemala, universally declared unethical for withholding effective treatment from sexually transmitted infections in disadvantaged populations. (1-3) As if the memory …more»
The Calculus of Human Value
March 23, 2016
How is it Determined? In the opening of the 1998 movie A Civil Action, John Travolta plays the protagonist, an aggressive Boston attorney. The film and a book of the same name are based on a true story of a court case about environmental pollution of water that took place in Woburn, Massachusetts, in the …more»