262
The gist of it is true
Health Care System in Japan
"100% of Japanese people have their healthcare regardless of income"
This is partially true. All are mandated to have coverage, but that coverage is not 100%, and not all have the mandated coverage.
The health care system in Japan provides healthcare services, including screening examinations, ...
116
Does the US spend more public money (i.e. tax/capita) on Health Care than other developed countries?
Based on data published by the OECD, the claim that the United States spend more public money on health resources than other developed countries is true. The figures given there for the 35 OECD member states and a selection of additional countries report expenditures on
health care goods and services (i.e. current health expenditure) including personal ...
54
That new report (Effects of health and social care spending constraints on mortality in England: a time trend analysis) is absolutely in line of prior research. The mortality rises across the board with causes ranging from neglect to infectious diseases and to suicides. Like:
Austerity and old-age mortality in England: a longitudinal cross-local area ...
53
The number originates from a Rolling Stone article titled Bug Chasers by Gregory Freeman:
Cabaj estimates that at least twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men fall into that category.
Cabaj disputes having said this:
That's totally false. I never said that. And when the fact checker called me and asked me if I said that, I said no. I said ...
52
Yes.
(Photo by James Gathany, Public Health Image Library (PHIL), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
But it could be worse.
Most blood-sucking insects urinate while they feed so they can avoid
filling up on fluid and get more nutrients out of their meal
But some species of mosquito also do what is called preurination — they excrete drops ...
48
Does the US spend more public money (i.e. tax/capita) on Health Care than other developed countries?
The level of state funded healthcare spending in the USA is similar to the levels of spend in comparable countries despite not covering the majority of the population
Britain's Office of National Statistics provided a useful summary of international health spending in G7 countries in 2016. This includes the data shown in the following chart (The data is ...
30
Cases of measles in the US, 1960-2001, CDC, via Science Based Medicine
"Measles Elimination in Canada", from Journal of Infectious Diseases (2004)
As you can see from the curve the number of cases dropped when vaccinations became available. I don't think hygiene can be the cause here.
30
Summary:
The main point of these claims is that the death rate for some diseases was declining before vaccines. While that is true, it misses the fact that even though the death rate was declining, plenty of people (mostly children) were still getting and suffering from these diseases. Vaccines dramatically decreased both the number of total cases and the ...
29
Electronic cigarettes may not be harmless but they are clearly much less harmful than cigarettes
Public Health England (PHE) produced a review of e-cigs in the middle of 2015 which came to this conclusion:
The role and impact of electronic cigarettes has been one of the great debates in public health in recent years and we commissioned this independent ...
27
There is an article from the CDC on this titled "Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the United States Compares with Europe". They show the different reporting requirements, and the US is indeed one of the countries with the strictest reporting requirements. But 14 out of 19 European Countries have the same reporting requirements as well.
...
20
Cleaning your hands
The UK NHS has a write up of a 2012 review of the evidence in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. They note that the papers reviewed reported different results, probably due to factors such as the type of hand drier and washing and drying techniques. The review concludes:
Most studies have found that paper towels can dry hands efficiently,
...
20
This NPR article puts it in perspective. Indeed, the US is not among the top gun-death countries in the world. However, when you look at the countries with higher death rates, you do not find any of the prosperous countries. They include countries like El Salvador, Columbia, Venezuela and other Latin American countries, as well as a few African countries. ...
18
The study of male birth control is publicly available and lists the reasons for the cancellation:
[The decision to cancel] was based on RP2’s review of study AEs [adverse events] and conclusion that the risks to the study participants outweighed the potential benefits to the study participants and to the increased precision of the study outcome findings ...
18
In short, yes. Picking one of the first recent publications to come up in my search for "honey wound healing", I give you Honey and Wound Healing: An Update (DOI 10.1007/s40257-016-0247-8), which "outlines publications regarding honey and wound healing that have been published between June 2010 and August 2016".
The "key points" listed in the electronic ...
17
Anyone with $345 can make ice with holes in it with this Portable Commercial Ice Maker Under Counter Built-in Ice Maker Machine with Freezer (and this isn't even the cheapest one out there by a long shot). This appliance doesn't seem to have a filter (because none is advertised). Whether the ice is safe to have depends on whether or not what you pour in is ...
16
In 2009, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did a chemical analysis of several products from two leading brands of electronic cigarette.
What they found was disturbing. Here are some excerpted points:
DPA's analysis of the electronic cigarette samples showed that the product contained detectable levels of known carcinogens and toxic chemicals ...
16
Statistics in the UK are presented separately for England and Wales, and other regions. Salmonella infections in particular are covered here. The latest published statistics are from 2016 and say that (page 11) there were zero deaths from "Foodborne outbreaks of non-typhoidal Salmonella in England and Wales in 2016".
From The CDC website,
CDC estimates ...
14
Since the question refers to a college campus in the USA, I will quote information from UC Berkley.
DO NOT GENERALIZE TO OUTSIDE THE USA.
[Question] The only tap water source available to me is the restroom sink. Is it okay to drink water from there?
[Answer] Drinking fountains and sinks are all part of the same plumbing system. Drinking fountains, ...
14
Yes.
From the abstract (highlighting is mine):
Harmful microorganisms can be transferred to hands from contaminated surfaces people come into contact in daily life. Contaminated hands can transmit disease to one self as well as to others. A study was done to determine the extent to which hand hygiene practices and toilet door knobs contribute to the ...
14
Does drinking more than 3 glasses of milk a day double your risk of death?
The study was not designed to answer this question
The claim in your question title and in the headline of the Cleveland Clinic blog you linked ("Can Drinking Too Much Milk Make Your Bones More Brittle?") are both about causality. The study your question and this blog post are about ...
13
Heart disease kills over 17 million people each year. According to a 1991 study, sudden death accounts for 28% of heart disease deaths for men and 14% for women, about 20% of all heart disease deaths. By reducing these figures in half through early detection, it would save many more than 100,000 lives per year, as Larry Page suggests. Can data mining do ...
12
In 2005, a study was done comparing a number of hand drying methods:
Yamamoto Y, Ugai K, Takahashi Y. Efficiency of hand drying for removing bacteria from washed hands: comparison of paper towel drying with warm air drying. Infect Control Hosp
Epidemiol. 2005;26(3):316–20.
The abstract explains the study supports the use of UV light on hand dryers:
Log ...
11
I tried to follow the trail, but was unsuccessful.
In 1994, an (not peer-reviewed) letter by was published in the British Medical Journal by G Winstanley (representing an organisation that represents a number of UK drinks producers). It claimed:
In 1979 a special committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists stated that the absolute upper weekly limit ...
11
Avery gave you a list of "yeses" by moving the goal posts to an issue of organics vs non-organic modern agriculture. Here's a peer-review no to the actual question of historical decline: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfca.2016.11.012 It's a study by an employee of Canada's Bureau of Nutritional Sciences
Mineral nutrient composition of vegetables, fruits ...
10
This article claims that you should wash your hands, for two reasons: Yes, washing hands works
It's based on interviewing experts, not based on studies:
I took these objections to three experts: Stephen Luby, a researcher with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Judy Daly, a Salt Lake City microbiologist and spokeswoman for the ...
10
Depends on what you mean by "better", and what you mean by electronic cigarette.
The FDA report that Oddthinking links to addresses the question of whether e-cigarrettes are useful as an aid to kicking nicotine, and I think that the fair answer to that is probably not: e-cig marketing doesn't seem to focus on ceasing to inhale nicotine into your lungs, it ...
10
The Claim I'm challenging:
this article claims that an "expert" says it's fine.
Sasa Mutic is a PhD in radiooncology and the chair of the radiation safety committee at Washington School of Medicine. So his credentials as an expert check out, and I can't find any sources indicating he didn't say it's fine. So I'd say the article's claim is true.
But I ...
10
Summary
In short: minimal protein intake requirements are unknown to this level of precision. But if high-protein is equated with animal-protein, then no, animal-protein is not really needed.
Animal protein is of excellent quality and high bio-availibity, and is not undesirable in the right amounts. To maintain adequate protein in a diet, diets which ...
9
Key assertions here are, at best, out of date. According to a 1997 study:
Until ongoing case-control studies of indoor radon are completed and
the data are pooled and analyzed, the studies of underground miners
remain the best source of data to use to assess risk from indoor
radon. This meta-analysis provides support for their general validity.
...
9
No. But for the simple reason that the UK in 1979 did not have a country wide guideline. Yes, in the sense that in 1979 one such guideline was proposed. From that starting point the trend for a constant lowering of these values was to be observed. Most strikingly, individual benefit for any of these guidelines seem to have been a target value of near zero ...
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