Dr. Richard Fogoros of the Covert Rationing blog has a series of posts listing the most overblown stories of the decade. The stories are listed below with my commentary.
- The Pandemic of the Century: This is the only area where I disagree with Dr. Fogoros. SARS, Avian Flu and H1N1 (Swine) Flu were all less serious than initially feared. Dr. Rich accurately points out that having a ‘pandemic of the century’ every 3.3 years risks desensitizing people to the risk. However, a pandemic is one of the few things that can truly bring down society, and ex ante, no one knows if a serious infectious disease will end out quickly or kill millions of people. It is right to be fearful and cautious.
- Demonizing Obesity: Although my own research shows that marriage causes an increase in weight, the health threats of obesity are likely overblown.
- Preventive Medicine Saves Money.
- Uninsured Patients Cause ER Overcrowding: The truth is overcrowding is caused by insured Americans who cannot get in to see their primary care physicians.
- Vaccines and Autism: Not true.
- Healthcare Reform Will Lead To Rationing. The Truth: we’re already rationing.
- Crocodile Tears For Primary Care.
- An Epidemic of Epidemics: Are heart attack epidemic, an obesity epidemic, a hypertension epidemic, crime epidemic really epidemics? They are not contagious and all things that are bad are not ‘epidemics’.
- Health Insurance Companies Are Against Healthcare Reform.
- Mad Cow Disease: Did we clean up the food supply or was there never truly a link between eating beef and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD)?
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