Humanize From Discovery Institute's Center on Human Exceptionalism
Topic

Public Health

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New Yorker Editor: (Right-Wing) Political Violence Should Be Considered a “Public Health Threat”

The medical/scientific intelligentsia and the political Left seemingly want every political controversy and cultural problem transformed into a public-health threat. Let us count them: Climate change, racism, gun control, a dearth of left-wing economics policies, even war. Now, a column by Michael Luo, an executive editor at the New Yorker, urges that political violence be categorized in the same way. From, “Should Political Violence be Addressed Like a Threat to Public Health?”: The principal aim of public health is prevention. It takes its scientific cues primarily from epidemiology, which studies the prevalence of diseases and their determinants to shape control strategies. In the mid-nineteen-sixties, public-health practitioners began to incorporate these methods into a nascent discipline known as injury science, taking on problems such as children falling from windows, residential fires, childhood Read More ›

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a hand in a medical glove draws liquid from an ampoule from a syringe with a needle

Suicide Is a Problem. Left-Wing Policies Disguised as “Public Health” Aren’t the Solution

Suicide is at a crisis level in the United States and around the world. According to the World Health Organization, more than 700,000 people committed suicide in 2019. In 2022, there were 49,476 self-inflicted deaths in the U.S. alone, or 14.2 per 100,000 people.

At the same time, assisted-suicide activism enjoys ever higher visibility, continually promoted in the media and popular culture as the best way to “die with dignity,” resulting in an increasing toll. Each year, well over 20,000 people around the world die by assisted suicide or euthanasia — which are generally not included in suicide statistics.

It is into this disturbing and paradoxical paradigm that The Lancet Public Health medical journal devoted an entire issue to suicide prevention. This should have been a welcome boost to saving lives. Instead, the mostly facile articles focus substantially on expanding government and promoting liberal policies as the best means of reducing suicides. Indeed, taken as a whole, the edition reflects the latest trend in medical-journal advocacy to transform political controversies — i.e., climate change, racism, and the like — into public-health crises to enable increased regulation and the imposition of left-wing public policies.

That is not to say that public health doesn’t have a significant role to play in suicide prevention. Of course it does. But the authors advocate shifting primary responsibility for suicide prevention from normal public-health activities and patient-centered clinical settings to an “all population approach” in which “all parts of government” will be “accountable” for the “social and commercial determinants of suicide risk.” In other words, everything government plans and executes would become ultimately about suicide prevention.

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Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Kamala_Harris_at_July%2C_3_2017_healthcare_rally_5.jpg

Scientific American Harms Science by Endorsing Harris

The science establishment continues to politicize “science” — and that ain’t good for science.

In July, Nature — supposedly the most respected science journal in the world — endorsed Kamala Harris. Now, following the ideological leader, so has Scientific American.

And what a sad joke the endorsement is. For example, the editorial repeats the lie that Trump told people to inject bleach to fight Covid. From the editorial:

Trump touted his pandemic efforts during his first debate with Harris, but in 2020 he encouraged resistance to basic public health measures, spread misinformation about treatments and suggested injections of bleach could cure the disease.

No. He. Did. Not.

How can an editorial in a supposedly factually based scientific publication be trusted as dispositive when it pushes a lie that has repeatedly been debunked — even by Snopes? This alone should discredit SA as a reliable guide to voting.

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Various groceries in shopping cart

Medical Journal Article: Replace SNAP Benefits with Cash

Continuing my discussion of how ideological medical and science journals strive to redefine almost every public policy controversy into matters of public health to push leftwing agendas: An article in the notoriously woke New England Journal of Medicine argues that rather than give SNAP benefits to poor people — what used to be called food stamps — cash transfers should be provided to improve the “health” of the recipients. Read More ›
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A scene showing activists and scientists presenting evidence of environmental damage caused by government negligence to a panel of government officials.

Get Ready for “Public Health” Authoritarianism

If you want to see what is going to go wrong with society next, read the professional journals. Many of our most notable publications no longer restrict their content to technical descriptions of new scientific advancements or the outcomes of experimental medical treatments. They also energetically promote progressive authoritarian ideological agendas. Read More ›
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Unrecognizable doctor with stethoscope listening to hearbeat of

Universal Infant Genetic Screening Pushed in Science Journal

The European Journal of Human Genetics just published an article that advocates universal — and perhaps even mandatory — genetic screening of all newborns. How to justify this proposed massive usurpation of parental decision-making? Read More ›
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Silhouettes of crude oil pumps at sunset

Medical Journal Editorial Urges Lawfare Against Oil Companies

A Perspectives editorial penned by law professors in the New England Journal of Medicine enters the fray again, this time, advocating lawfare by governments against fossil fuel industries. The authors take heart from a legal settlement between a Louisiana parish and oil companies. But this case is not the same thing at all as paying damages for climate change. Read More ›
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Image from Guilhem Vellut at Wikimedia Commons

The Lancet: You Are ‘Hardly Human’ If You Don’t Believe in the International Community

The Lancet's editor in chief, Richard Horton, is furious at people who don't believe in the international community. The "system" is failing, he says — and it's the fault of evil right-wingers. Why, oh, why, Horton moans, are people so unwilling to docilely follow the lead of international institutions? Read More ›
WHITE HOUSE VISIT TO THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
Public domain image (NIH)

How Collins and Fauci Shattered Our Trust in Public Health

The Covid pandemic was devastating, not only for society generally, but also to the reputations of our once-trusted health agencies. Two of America's once-leading public-health officials bear great responsibility for this debacle — former National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases between 1984 and 2022. Read More ›
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Group of modern doctors standing as a team with arms crossed in hospital office. Physicians ready to examine and help patients. Medical help, insurance in health care, best desease treatment and

Say No to ‘Public Health’ Imperialism

COVID-19 mandates and lockdowns opened the door. Now, the medical establishment is redefining our most contentious political controversies as “public health emergencies” so as to circumvent public resistance and impose policies on society unobtainable through normal democratic means. Read More ›