by Alison Bass | Aug 5, 2009 | Uncategorized
At a conference I attended yesterday in Boston on Reinventing Journalism, the talk was all about how online social media tools are introducing new models of sharing information and helping journalists do their jobs better. The panelists made scant reference to the...
by Alison Bass | Jul 24, 2009 | Uncategorized
Since Congress isn’t going to pass a health care reform bill any time soon, this looks like a good time to take some vacation. I will resume blogging the week of August 3. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new...
by Alison Bass | Jul 21, 2009 | Uncategorized
In response to my blog on Frances Collins last week, a reader pointed out that the kind of data image manipulation that Collins belatedly discovered in his own lab is more common than many scientists would like to admit: as much as 25 percent of scientific papers...
by Alison Bass | Jul 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
When the news broke last week that President Obama had selected Francis Collins to be the new director of the National Institutes of Health, I didn’t immediately think of this noted geneticist in connection with a case study in ethics that a visiting scientist...
by Alison Bass | Jul 8, 2009 | Uncategorized
Just yesterday, Senators Charles Grassley and Herbert Kohl announced that language requiring the public disclosure of payments to doctors from drug and medical device companies has been included in the draft bills for health care reform now being debated in the House...
by Alison Bass | Jun 29, 2009 | Uncategorized
With the Congressional debate over health care reaching a crescendo, I find myself particularly baffled by the behavior of two influential Senators. Why, I wonder, would Sen. Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, and Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa,...
by Alison Bass | Jun 19, 2009 | Uncategorized
We’re taking advantage of the end of school to do some traveling to Philadelphia and Washington to scout out colleges for our son. And speaking of the nation’s capital, it was good to see that a robust majority of Americans support a government-run health...
by Alison Bass | Jun 17, 2009 | Uncategorized
Caty Simon was 15 when she tried to kill herself by swallowing some pills. A smart, precocious student at an Orthodox Jewish day school in the Boston area, Simon says the pressures on her — to succeed academically and fit into a culture where women were not...
by Alison Bass | Jun 11, 2009 | Uncategorized
As Congress steps up its efforts to craft a comprehensive health care reform bill, Senator Edward Kennedy (in absentia) is leading the charge for a public health insurance option that can compete with private insurers. As far as I can tell, this would not only involve...
by Alison Bass | Jun 1, 2009 | Uncategorized
Much has been written about prominent doctors who fail to disclose their lucrative financial ties with pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Yet there has been less focus on hospitals and other leading institutions who have similar conflicts of interest —...
