The Guardian carried a story about a ban on toy guns in the federal district of Brazil. The law was intended to help reduce violent crime. The penalties for selling such replicas are steep: from $2000 to 44,000; closed for 30 days; or loss of trading license. The rising homicide rate in Brazil is part […]
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Would you drive blindfolded?
I hope you said ‘no’ in response to that question! If you didn’t, maybe you shouldn’t be sharing the road with the rest of us sane people! To me, driving whilst distracted is just like driving blindfolded. In either scenario, you cannot and do not see the road in front, to the side, or behind […]
When the Right to Bear Arms Includes the Mentally Ill
Also in the New York Times a short while ago was a piece describing what advocates of gun control have to contend with when even mental health checks are challenged. This is an edited version of that article: Last April, workers at Middlesex Hospital in Connecticut called the police to report that a psychiatric patient […]
A small step toward gun control
A New York Times alert just appeared stating that the New York Gun Law Is Largely Upheld by a Federal Judge A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that New York’s expanded ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines was constitutional, but struck down a provision forbidding gun owners from loading their firearms with more than […]
Cell phones and driving
I am struggling with trying to decide what the most effective preventive strategy might be to help control the epidemic of driver crashes associated with cell phone use. One possibility is more Public Service Announcements like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0LCmStIw9E Go to it and tell me what you think. […]
The festive season or the injury season?
I thought as my final blog for 2013 that I would ponder the question: the festive season or the injury season? I recall spending a Christmas Eve some 20 years ago in hospital as my then fiancée had to be treated for dreadful scalds on his stomach. Needless to say, despite the sweltering heat and ridiculously-high humidity, he […]
Guns or cars?
Mother Jones recently posted a fascinating but disturbing map of US states showing the number of deaths by cars vs deaths by guns. In light of the Newtown anniversary I wanted to share it with blog readers. The lead was the Bloomberg News study “ suggesting that by 2015, guns would kill more Americans than traffic accidents […]
Nobel prize-winner criticizes elite journals
Writing in the Guardian, (Nobel prize winner) Schekman raises serious concerns over some journals’ practices and calls on others in the scientific community to take action. “I have published in the big brands, including papers that won me a Nobel prize. But no longer,” he writes. “Just as Wall Street needs to break the hold of […]
Beware evidence-based evangelists
A colleague recently sent me a link to this piece in JAMA by RS Braithwaite, MD, MS that cautions against placing too much weight on some ‘evidence based’ decisions. When the term became popular (was it really 20 years ago) I often referred to many of its more vocal proponents as evangelists. I still think […]
12 o’clock boys
There is a documentary that premiered at the South by Southwest film festival in the United States about a renegade dirt bike group in Baltimore city called the 12 o’clock boys, a group that I saw riding around when I lived in Baltimore during my graduate studies. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/opinion/riding-with-the-12-oclock-boys.html?_r=0 I haven’t had an opportunity to see […]