Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Something odd

What if we discovered something odd by accident. If boys between the ages of 9 and 13 are starved (not to death, just reduced food intake), then not only do they do better, but so do their children (if any) and their grandchildren (if any).... In fact, three generations have one quarter the chance of death by heart attack. And, what if we had a single payer health system (like Austrailia), so that effectively, everyone pays for health issues, not just the victim. And, let's say that heart attacks are painful to have, and incredibly expensive to treat. Wouldn't it make sense to starve boys between the ages of 9 and 13? Wouldn't it be the ethical imperitive? How would one go about explaining it to Americans?

Is there anything to this? Here's the podcast.Radiolab

1 comment:

Stephen said...

It is also known that giving school age kids influenza vaccines saves the lives of the elderly in large numbers. Think about it. School kids are the super spreaders, trading viruses around even more than baseball cards. And then, they meet their grandparents. How does one teach Americans about such things?