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Category Archives: Medicine

The Anxious Generation and an Epidemic of Mental Illness

This is not a promotion and I have no association with the author, Jonathan Haidt,  or the book. The data is noteworthy. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental IllnessIn the summer of 2022, I was working on a book project — Life After Babel: Adapting to a world we can no longer share — about how smartphones and social media rewired many societies in the 2010s, creating conditions that amplify the long-known weaknesses of democracy. The first chapter was about the impact of social media on kids, who were the “canaries in the coal mine,” revealing early signs that something was going wrong. When adolescents’ social lives moved onto smartphones and social media platforms, anxiety and depression surged among them. The rest of the book was going to focus on what social media had done to liberal democracies. I quickly realized that the rapid decline of adolescent mental health could not be explained in one chapter—it needed a book of its own. So, The Anxious Generation is Volume 1, in a sense, of the larger Babel project…I begin The Anxious Generation by examining adolescent mental health trends. What happened to young people in the early 2010s that triggered the surge of anxiety and depression around 2012?”

See also The Atlantic [no paywall] – “Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent…”

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 9, 2024

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, March 9, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on the increasingly complex… Continue Reading

Free COVID-19 test program to be suspended for now

The Hill: “The federal government’s free at-home COVID-19 test program will be suspended beginning Friday in response to a drop in respiratory diseases. The Biden administration brought back the free test program last year ahead of the respiratory viral season. By going to COVIDtests.gov, households could order a free pack of four at-home COVID-19 tests.… Continue Reading

Fetal personhood laws, explained

Vox: “The Alabama Supreme Court touched off a nationwide furor in February when it ruled that frozen, fertilized embryos legally count as “children.” The ruling upended the lives of patients undergoing IVF in Alabama and opened up a new front in the post-Dobbs battle over abortion rights. It also revived interest in — and concern… Continue Reading

U.S. prescription drug market in disarray as ransomware gang attacks

Washington Post via MSN: “A ransomware gang once thought to have been crippled by law enforcement has snarled prescription processing for millions of Americans over the past week, forcing some to choose between paying prices hundreds or thousands of dollars above their usual insurance-adjusted rates or going without lifesaving medicine. Insurance giant UnitedHealthcare Group said… Continue Reading

Wyden Reveals Phone Data Used to Target Abortion Misinformation at Visitors to Hundreds of Reproductive Health Clinics

“U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., revealed today that an anti-abortion political group used mobile phone location data to send targeted misinformation to people who visited any of 600 reproductive health clinics in 48 states. In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission, Wyden urged the government to act quickly to… Continue Reading

Atrocious Air

First Street: “Since the middle of the last century, the United States has witnessed significant changes in air quality, driven by industrialization, technological advancements, regulatory measures, and public awareness. The most important of these interventions was the Clean Air Act of 1963, which served as the first federal legislation addressing air quality concerns. While air… Continue Reading

Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 11, 2024

Via LLRX – Pete Recommends – Weekly highlights on cyber security issues, February 11, 2024 – Privacy and cybersecurity issues impact every aspect of our lives – home, work, travel, education, finance, health and medical records – to name but a few. On a weekly basis Pete Weiss highlights articles and information that focus on… Continue Reading

UnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit alleges

Ars Technica: “Health insurance companies cannot use algorithms or artificial intelligence to determine care or deny coverage to members on Medicare Advantage plans, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) clarified in a memo sent to all Medicare Advantage insurers. The memo—formatted like an FAQ on Medicare Advantage (MA) plan rules—comes just months after… Continue Reading