Topic: Healthcare

Masking: A Careful Review of the Evidence

– February 11, 2021

“The predominant conclusion is that face masks have a very important role in places such as hospitals, but there exists very little evidence of widespread benefit for members of the public (adults or children) as well as evidence that masking is truly an ineffectual way to manage pandemic-related spread of viral disease. Our view is that masks as they are worn now, and the masks that are in use, offer zero protection. They can be viewed as ineffective while others consider them as being better than nothing but without evidence to support that view.” ~ AIER Contributing Authors

Crisis, Healthcare, Science

Are Mask Mandates in Violation of Federal Law?

– February 10, 2021

“The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was established, in part, to put forth uniform standards based upon scientific justification for use. There are no uniform standards when it comes to mask mandates, just as there is no scientific justification. But, since most of the actions that have been taken since March of 2020 have been in violation of the US Constitution itself, why should we expect that to change now?” ~ Roger W. Koops

Crisis, Healthcare, Science

How a Virus Was Used To Transform a Free Country — Part 2

– February 9, 2021

“As Americans grow increasingly more desperate, the government continues to restrict peoples’ options. The CARES Act epitomized the tenet of redistribution of wealth, growing the numbers of Americans dependent upon the government, and vastly increasing the size and power of government.” ~ Sandy Szwarc

Crisis, Healthcare, Science

I Can’t Stop Wondering About Covid-19

– February 8, 2021

“Why on all matters Covid do so many otherwise sensible, appropriately skeptical, and numerate people – people who understand the necessity of trade-offs, the reality of unintended consequences, and the dangers of government power – lose their judgment and remain in the ranks of the hysterical masses who treat Covid as the existential threat that it most certainly is not? I can’t stop wondering why.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Authoritarianism, Crisis, Healthcare

Imagine If the Virus Had Never Been Detected

– February 4, 2021

“The virus didn’t suddenly start spreading in March of 2020 just because politicians decided it had. 2019 is the likelier beginning. Early 2020 too. Life was pretty normal as a virus made its way around the world then. Politicians made it abnormal. Let’s never forget the sickening carnage they can create when they find reasons to ‘do something.'” ~ John Tamny

Government, Healthcare, International

In the Midst of Covid-19, Pakistan Continues Its Fight Against Polio

– January 15, 2021

“The nation’s health authorities have realized that Covid-19 mitigation is only one component of holistic public health practices. Public health must take all epidemiological factors into account. Tunnel vision only serves to create new kinds of misery, scrapping hard-earned progress.” ~ Fiona Harrigan

Authoritarianism, Healthcare, Science

Lockdowns Don’t Prevent Coronavirus Spread

– January 12, 2021

“What the new study from Northern Jutland shows is that an extreme form of lockdown didn’t work in one of the most law-abiding societies in the world. Why, then, should we expect lockdowns to be effective anywhere else?” ~ Joakim Book & Christian Bjørnskov

Crisis, Healthcare, Science

New Study Links Lockdowns to Potential Long-Term Increases In Excess Deaths

– January 7, 2021

“Regardless of your position on lockdowns, addressing the economic damage these policies have created is just as important to preventing excess death as containing the virus. Failing to heed this lesson will simply be fighting one disease by creating another.” ~ Ethan Yang

Crisis, Economic Education, Healthcare

Your Trauma and Mine: A Retrospective on 2020

– December 25, 2020

“The many layers of trauma we’ve all experienced this year are awesome to contemplate. But if you are reading this, you are like me, a survivor. We are wounded but in other ways stronger than before, more dedicated to truth, more committed to the ideals of freedom, less naive and ready to go forth in battle not to let civilization be dismantled. Rather we must defend it with everything we have to offer.” ~ Jeffrey Tucker

Crisis, Healthcare, Science

Is Covid a High Risk to Younger Adults?

– December 18, 2020

“Using actual data – and even assuming that all excess deaths in the 25-44 cohort are caused by Covid, and even if we annualize the authors’ excess-death figure to get excess deaths in this cohort of 28,800 – the chance that Covid will kill any randomly chosen member of this cohort is a minuscule 0.0329 percent.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

Healthcare, History, Science

Herbert Spencer’s Critique of the Board of Health in 1851

– December 7, 2020

“Although Snow’s work revealed the answer to the Cholera problem in 1854, the biggest obstacle to operationalizing this knowledge into fighting the disease was the public health bureaucracy itself and the entrenched political interests it had come to represent. Snow’s experience, in effect, proved the reality of Herbert Spencer’s assessment. Rather than improve public health, the government had only distorted and politicized the necessary scientific processes.” ~ Phillip W. Magness

Crisis, Government, Healthcare

Scaring Ourselves to Death

– December 7, 2020

“People thinking that, regardless of age, they are liable to die if they get Covid, leads to panic if they become ill or get a positive test. In turn, panic likely leads to some unnecessary Covid deaths among all age groups, accelerates the death rate in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, and fuels chronic or ‘long-haul’ coronavirus illness. We need to turn down the fear.” ~ Keith Gandal