Daily Yonder – The distance rural women must travel for abortion care increased since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, with new ballot measures set to shape the future of abortion access. Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Health Care
Librarians Face a Crisis of Violence and Abuse
The New York Times [unpaywalled] – As libraries become public stages for social problems – homelessness, drug use, mental health – the people who work there are burning out: “…Like Mr. [Mychal] Threets. [a supervisor at the Fairfield Civic Center Library in Solano County, Calif], librarians around the country are struggling to reconcile their desire… Continue Reading
Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election
ProPublica: Reporting Highlights Deceptive Political Ads: Eight deceptive advertising networks have placed over 160,000 election and social issues ads across more than 340 Facebook pages in English and Spanish. Harmed Users: Some of the people who clicked on ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges or lost health coverage, among other consequences.… Continue Reading
What is Causing Our Epidemic of Loneliness and How Can We Fix It?
Harvard Graduate School of Education – Researchers share what Americans have to say about social disconnection and potential solutions – “U.S. surgeon general Vivek Murthy placed a spotlight on America’s problem with loneliness when he declared the issue an epidemic last year. Murthy explained, in a letter that introduced an urgent advisory, that loneliness is… Continue Reading
LinkedIn sued for tracking user health data
ALM Benefits Pro: “Business-focused social media platform LinkedIn has been slapped with three digital privacy class actions contending that it illegally intercepted users’ sensitive health care information to use in targeted advertising. All three cases, filed by Bursor & Fisher in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and the Santa Clara County… Continue Reading
AI-powered transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said
AP: “Tech behemoth OpenAI has touted its artificial intelligence-powered transcription tool Whisper as having near “human level robustness and accuracy.” But Whisper has a major flaw: It is prone to making up chunks of text or even entire sentences, according to interviews with more than a dozen software engineers, developers and academic researchers. Those experts… Continue Reading
“Not Medically Necessary”
ProPublica: Inside the Company Helping America’s Biggest Health Insurers Deny Coverage for Care: “Every day, patients across America crack open envelopes with bad news. Yet another health insurer has decided not to pay for a treatment that their doctor has recommended. Sometimes it’s a no for an MRI for a high school wrestler with a… Continue Reading
Stress in America 2024 A nation in political turmoil
American Psychological Association (APA) latest Stress in America™ poll revealed a populace dealing with multiple stressors as the country braces for the 2024 U.S. presidential election. In the new survey, conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of APA, the most commonly reported sources of stress centered on the election or were political in nature.… Continue Reading
Spreadsheet of the longer-term implications of #COVID19 infections
Augie Ray @[email protected] – My spreadsheet of the longer-term implications of COVID19 infections has now reached 1,100 studies. Recent additions show COVID and Long COVID causes fatigue, heart arrhythmias, reduced white blood cell count, T-cell exhaustion, lower quality of life, cognitive impairment, insomnia, erectile dysfunction, and persistent liver damage. Continue Reading
Inside US Government-Bought Tool That Can Track Phones at Abortion Clinics
404 Media: “On a computer screen a map shows the movements of smartphones around the globe. Zooming into an abortion clinic in the south of the United States, the online tool shows more than 700 red dots over the clinic itself, each representing a phone, and by extension, a person. The tool, called Locate X and… Continue Reading
How to Actually Understand What You’re Buying on the Healthcare Exchange
Lifehacker: “I’m convinced that the luckiest people in America are those who have a decent health insurance plan paid for by their employer—but just one, so there’s nothing to choose. For the rest of us, each November’s open enrollment period starts anew the painful process of choosing the least worst plan offered by your employer.… Continue Reading
The United States of Abortion Mazes
In 1973, Roe v. Wade granted a nationwide right to abortion and helped create a path to access. But, abortion access has rarely been a straight line — it’s full of twists, turns, and roadblocks. And these barriers have only gotten more complicated since the US Supreme Court gave states the power to ban abortion… Continue Reading
