The spanish flu, a century later

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World

Laura Spinney has made a great job with her latest book "The Pale Rider". For those that are interested on the largest recent epidemy and public health crisis -the spanish flu of 1918,- this is the book to read. I enjoyed specially the details of what should be avoided, and nobody cared about it. The conflict between religion and medicine. You'll not get the precise number of deaths, but it was an enormous tragedy in social terms.
The book also explains how physicians were exposed to the disease without any tools and how it was arriving to the remote and less inhabited places of the world.
It is specially helpful to recognise how vulnerable are all of us, still now. Highly recommended.

PS. You'll find it also in spanish, "El jinete pálido"

Theranos: a massive fraud and epic failure

The Theranos deception on CBS News 60 Minutes

The weirdest health financing system of the world (2)

Tracking Universal Health Coverage: 2017 Global Monitoring Report

If I had to summarise the best outcome of health policy in the last century in western countries, I would say mandatory health insurance. No doubt. And the joint report by WHO and WB reminds us that there is still a long way to achieve such goal for the whole population in the world.  Mandatory insurance is the most efficient way to solve the failures of the health insurance market. We al know the details and difficulties that arise as a result of information asymmetries and opportunistic behaviour.
Therefore the recommendation is clear, for those that already have a mandatory system, keep on it. This is precisely what hasn't happened here. In 2012 the system changed from universal towards a social security based membership funded by taxes. The weirdest health financing system of the world.

Maya Fadeeva with Club des Belugas