William Baumol, an economist at New York University, argues that while health care costs are destined to increase, they’ll never bankrupt us. My review of his new book, “The Cost Disease: Why Computers Get Cheaper and Health Care Doesn’t,” originally published at LSE Review of Books. The move last summer from the United States to…
Russell and Ivory left the theatre silent, the way people always do after seeing great movies, subdued into contemplation by those initial moments when you think you might actually change your life because of what you’ve just experienced. They hadn’t seen each other for a few months – not since a subtle month-long courtship had…
Is the anti-vaccine movement flawed and dangerous? Yes. Is it evidence of an “unscientific culture”? No. My review of Paul Offit’s book, Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All, originally published at LSE Review of Books. The question of the safety of vaccinating children has undergone a wild ride in public opinion over the course…
I, Jack Beaufort, had the world by the balls for the first 22 years of my life, until I entered the “real world,” where I failed to adapt and almost immediately fell into joblessness and poverty. A lot of my friends from college assumed that I must have had a mental breakdown. It’s a narrative…
Is medicine set to undergo a “creative destruction”? Maybe not quite yet, but in the long run, bet on it. My review of Eric Topol’s recent book, The Creative Destruction of Medicine, originally published at the LSE Review of Books. Every once in a great while, amidst the doomsday predictions about the percentage of GDP…
Below is my first review for the LSE Review of Books. I’ll be reviewing social science books, with a focus on health policy, economics, and technology. I’ll link them as they become available. We shouldn’t pit technology and philanthropy against each other when it comes to overcoming global health problems. My review of the Jeremy Youde’s…
Definite messengers from indefinite clouds, twirling to earth, cast from the kingdom, a pale grey mouth. The trauma that must happen on a microscopic level when a raindrop finally finishes its descent and hits a remorseless pavement; the total destruction necessarily involved. Bent necks and quickened paces, coats pulled slightly over heads more in allusion…
