» Posted by Martin Weil on January 04, 2008

From a UC Santa Cruz study

» Posted by Martin Weil on November 15, 2007

My son just turned 21 (Happy Birthday, Cole!) and received the large cash payment I had promised him back at the age of 12 or 13 if he could honestly say that he had never tried smoking. Apropos of my blatant bribe to affect another person's behavior, comes this:

If you're a smoker, the pack of Marlboro Reds or Camel Lights you're inhaling might only be around $8, but the cost to your life could be many times more. ... Every pack of cigarettes that an adult male smokes knocks off $222 from the value of that man's life, estimate W. Kip Viscusi and Joni Hersch of Vanderbilt Law School in a new NBER working paper. For women the results are slightly more muted but sizable at $94 per pack in 2006 dollars. The reason for the discrepancy is that men earn more than women over their lifetimes and are at greater risk of dying from smoking-related illnesses.

From Portfolio.com

» Posted by Martin Weil on August 27, 2007

One of twenty patients acquire a secondary infection while hospitalized, infections that are increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics. Asking that hospital staff clean their hands before treating you, and asking visitors to clean their hands is the number one way patients can reduce infections during a hospital stay. The entire list of fifteen recommended steps for hospital patients can be found here.

» Posted by Martin Weil on August 21, 2006

CNN Online explores the growing trend of medical tourism - from dental work in Hungary (Yes) to organ transplant in China (No), with stops in Costa Rica, Brazil, Malaysia, the Philippines and India.

Interestingly, businesses are slowly starting to recognize the savings of having elective surgeries in these far-off locales and are reimbursing employees for the costs.