Healthcare is Still on the Table

Who watched the President’s speech last night? I have to hand it to him for taking on so many of these huge issues at once—the economic problems alone are mind-boggling, but he’s going for healthcare and education as well while he still has political capital.

In response to President Obama’s speech, there are some good reads regarding healthcare reform by professionals online at the New York Times. I thought a couple of them provided good food for thought to the general public.

Some folks think that the President’s desire to support science should begin with vaccinations. If you haven’t picked up the current Newsweek, the magazine has a couple of interesting articles on the current debate over vaccines and autism. Online, the issue also includes an essay by Louis Z. Cooper, MD, professor emeritus of pediatrics at Columbia University, which argues the Obama administration should tackle the fallout from the rigorous vaccine debate.

There was more than a little bit of irony this morning on CNN during the discussion of the use of Facebook and Twitter during the Obama speech when John Roberts jokingly commented about societal ADHD. Susan Greenfield, an Oxford University professor of pharmacology, has made the news this week by declaring that technology is contributing not only to poor attention spans, but is creating an environment that prevents children from developing real social skills.

The technology debate is starting to resemble the autism—vaccine debate in some ways, in that sides are polarizing around science and personal experience. I saw some real venom in the comments posted on the Daily Mail website over Professor Greenfield’s statements. Dare we question the use of technology in the Nintendo generation?