DouDNA

The Code Breaker. Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race

An absolute must read!

Data & Society

 A Primer on Powerful Numbers: Selected Readings in the Social Study of Public Data and Official Numbers

This publication is intended to be a non-exhaustive syllabus organized around a series of teachable or debatable claims concerning  the influence institutions of authority have on how data and numbers are created, as well as how that information is used by the datafied state to make fundamental decisions about democratic policy and process. 

Official numbers are the foundation upon which modern societies trust data. An official number is different from any other number because it’s given with authority and always there for the taking. Official data sets come out of bureaucratic and corporate offices and are imbued with the authority of those in power.

Six key arguments that center on the authority of data:

1. Modern societies are built to trust in official numbers (they even let official numbers make key decisions);
2. Official numbers are made, not found;
3. We forget that official numbers have to be made even when things are going well;
4. Institutions make public data and they make data public;
5. Official numbers are political; and
6. Consensus on official numbers requires work.

 

 

We are all behavioral economists right now (3)

 Social Preferences. An Introduction to Behavioural Economics and Experimental Research

AI everywhere (11)

A Human Algorithm. How Artificial Intelligence Is Redefining Who We Are 

Platforms, a business model (5)

 The Economics of Platforms. Concepts and Strategy

Insurance economics

 Insurance Economics

Moral machines

 Technology Is Not Neutral. A Short Guide to Technology Ethics

We are all behavioral economists right now (2)

 Psychology and Behavioral Economics. Applications for Public Policy

Chapter 5. Health behavior and decision-making in healthcare  

Addiction goods and innovation failure

When Innovation Goes Wrong: Technological Regress and the Opioid Epidemic 

The medical use of opioids to treat pain will always involve costs and benefits, and the optimal level of opioid prescription is unlikely to be zero. The mistake that  doctors and prescribers made in recent decades was to assume overoptimistically that a time release system would render opioids non-addictive. Thousands of years of experience with the fruits of the poppy should have taught that opioids have never been safe and probably never will be. The larger message of the opioid epidemic is that technological innovation can go badly wrong when consumers, professionals, and regulators underestimate the downsides of new innovations and firms take advantage of this error. Typically, consumers can experiment with a new product and reject the duds, but with addiction, experimentation can have permanent  consequences.

A must read, by Cutler et al.

 Robert Doisneau

We are all behavioral economists right now

A Course in Behavioral Economics

Companion website

Practical negotiation strategies

SPLIT THE PIE. A Radical New Way to Negotiate

A practical approach that identifies what’s really at stake in any negotiation and ensures you get your half—so you can focus on growing the pie

 

Pharma, big pharma (7)

 Owning the Sun. A People's History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to COVID-19

Free our genes (2)

 Biopatent Law: European vs. US Patent Law

The current health labour market fiasco

 Informe Oferta-Necesidad de Especialistas Médicos 2021-2035

In 2028, in Spain there will be 196.347 physicians, according to estimates, so from that year to 2035 18.098 physicians will be incorporated. However, there are currently 192.484 professionals, so in the next seven years only 3.863 will be hired.

The total number of active physicians in Spain currently represents a ratio of 406,13 specialists per 100.000 inhabitants. Private employment would concentrate 30 percent of the total number of physicians, with an increase of 7 percent since 2018, while the fall in public employment is 1.7 percent (?).

2027 will be a turning point. In that year there will be a global deficit of about 9.000 physicians at least, which is mainly due to a lack of Primary care physicians.

We are closer to the great fiasco, now it is time to make decisions to avoid it.

PS. There is a "minor" issue, the estimates are wrong.   The report takes into account only physicians, and there are specialties where most positions are filled by health professionals, biologists, chemists, ....  and the report forgets it. The mismatch is larger and the coming crisis a chaos.

Can you imagine that after 5 reports, after 15 years!, nobody cares about it?

The dark future health labour market