‘Vision’ for development practice education
In 2009 UC Berkeley received a grant from the Macarthur Foundation to establish a professional Master degree in development practice (MDP) and after overcoming all of the bureaucratic hurdles, the...
View ArticleThe NAACP and the politics of race and regulation
There’s a bit of a kerfuffle going on about the NAACP’s defense of over-sized soft-drinks. In an amicus brief challenging New York City’s new ban on the super-size, the NAACP (joined by the Hispanic...
View ArticleWe’re # last!
If you ask young Americans how good their health is, they’ll tell you it’s great. The U.S. ranks #1 among 17 affluent, western countries in that regard, in the percentage of people aged 5 to 34 who...
View ArticleSan Francisco plastic-bag ban associated with 46% increase in foodborne...
In my role as Health Officer of San Francisco I received a flurry of concerned calls about a research study that claimed that the 2007 San Francisco ban on plastic bag resulted in an immediate, very...
View ArticleOral contraceptives should be in vending machines and cigarettes on prescription
I am continuing my weekly blog built around the large undergraduate class I co-teach on Poverty and Population. The philosophy of the class has been well summarized by the economist Partha Dasgupta in...
View ArticlePublic health
The health of the American people has risen and fallen with fluctuations in the health of its poorest. Although more vulnerable in the past, the affluent have generally managed, major epidemics aside,...
View ArticleEco-Puritanism
For years, political divisions over the environment have had the seemingly odd feature that Americans farthest from the open country have tended to be most supportive of protecting the environment,...
View ArticleLessons from an epidemic
Ebola’s natural reservoirs are animals, if only because human hosts die to too quickly. Outbreaks tend to occur in locations where changes in landscapes have brought animals and humans into closer...
View ArticleBerkeley’s proposed soda tax would cut sugar intake, and that’s a good thing
The bottom line is that the proposed one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages sold in Berkeley would reduce sugar consumption, and that would be good for the health of the population. Were...
View ArticleWhen epidemic hysteria made sense
As I write this post, it has been about three weeks since Thomas Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola in Texas. The media and political hysteria that has ensued in this country is amazing, statistically and...
View ArticleSix things to know about measles
Q. I thought measles was all but eradicated in the United States. Why is it back? A. There are two main reasons. First, though significant progress has been made in reducing global measles incidence,...
View ArticleGood science gone wrong?
Most scientists want to tell the truth. We want to help people by answering important questions, and sharing what we learn. But the research endeavor is big and messy. And as we’ve learned from the...
View ArticleWe’re # last!
If you ask young Americans how good their health is, they’ll tell you it’s great. The U.S. ranks #1 among 17 affluent, western countries in that regard, in the percentage of people aged 5 to 34 who...
View ArticleSan Francisco plastic-bag ban associated with 46% increase in foodborne...
In my role as Health Officer of San Francisco I received a flurry of concerned calls about a research study that claimed that the 2007 San Francisco ban on plastic bag resulted in an immediate, very...
View ArticleOral contraceptives should be in vending machines and cigarettes on prescription
I am continuing my weekly blog built around the large undergraduate class I co-teach on Poverty and Population. The philosophy of the class has been well summarized by the economist Partha Dasgupta in...
View ArticlePublic health
The health of the American people has risen and fallen with fluctuations in the health of its poorest. Although more vulnerable in the past, the affluent have generally managed, major epidemics aside,...
View ArticleEco-Puritanism
For years, political divisions over the environment have had the seemingly odd feature that Americans farthest from the open country have tended to be most supportive of protecting the environment,...
View ArticleLessons from an epidemic
Ebola’s natural reservoirs are animals, if only because human hosts die to too quickly. Outbreaks tend to occur in locations where changes in landscapes have brought animals and humans into closer...
View ArticleBerkeley’s proposed soda tax would cut sugar intake, and that’s a good thing
The bottom line is that the proposed one-cent-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages sold in Berkeley would reduce sugar consumption, and that would be good for the health of the population. Were...
View ArticleWhen epidemic hysteria made sense
As I write this post, it has been about three weeks since Thomas Duncan was diagnosed with Ebola in Texas. The media and political hysteria that has ensued in this country is amazing, statistically and...
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