I just want to endorse Linda Bergthold's recent HuffPo column about Bill Maher. Maher is a funny guy who often displays a sharp intellect. On matters of public health, however, my view of him parallels President Obama's opinion of Kanye West.

As Bergthold notes, there is a...

I spent hundreds of hours working to elect Barack Obama president. Working even harder alongside me were thousands of college students and 20-somethings who used their social networks, taught me the name "Will.i.am," nudged parents and grandparents, knocked on doors, and got out the vote. President Obama would still be...

Can positive thoughts about someone else help to heal them? Love and support matter. But the thoughts themselves? Sadly no, much as we wish they would.

I, Michael O'Hare , and Mark Kleiman have been having a running debate over at the Realty-Based Community over what...

In 1965, civil rights leader and thinker Bayard Rustin wrote a classic essay, "From protest to politics," that described the disorienting change brought about by the movement's own classic victories. (For the youngsters, 1964-65 was the brief but glorious political season that brought us Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act,...

"A liberal," Robert Frost famously said, "is someone who refuses to take his own side in an argument." During the Bush years, many of us internalized that stereotype. Many progressives hated Karl Rove with a passion that, at least partly, seemed to arise out of fear that he was a...

To my knowledge, I have never met Michelle Obama. This is actually surprising. She was in my Princeton graduating class, but I was ensconced in the engineering quadrangle, and she was in another department. I might have introduced myself, but I suspect she was the sort of shiksa goddess I...

Last year, my wife got sick and ended up taking in an unexpected vacation in a cardiac ICU. After a scary week, I brought her home. We called the academic medical practice where her internist and asked for an appointment. The telephone gatekeeper, apparently finding no computer data field for:...

I've had a bad week. Conservative and moderate senators are trying to strip key public health measures from the House stimulus bill. I've gotten cranky about the way critics disparage sound public health measures that, in the current climate, could provide needed employment. In the middle of an economic...

Like virtually everyone else in the public health community, I strongly support needle exchange as an essential strategy to prevent HIV infection. I thus disagree with Representative James Ramstad's comments on this issue and on other matters such as medical marijuana. I agree with many of the arguments laid out...

Faithful readers may recall that back in April, I raised a lot of money for mosquito nets to mark World Malaria Day.

Well it's that time again. Trick or Treat!

Back then, before I knew Barack would do so well, widespread public interest in global health was one...

On Friday, Governor Palin spoke in Pittsburgh about children with cognitive disabilities. This was her long-awaited "serious policy speech" about matters that touch her personally. As a caregiver myself, I wish her and her family the best. I'm sure Governor Palin will be an excellent parent, role model, and...

Before my present gig, I taught public health at University of Michigan. I and my colleagues were involved with several ventures to address that state's urban poverty and related health ills. It's not news that Flint, Detroit, and other urban centers have struggled. Despite serious economic challenges, Michigan was relatively...

Stuck in a hotel room in Florida, I will be live blogging the debate. The pregame consensus is that he must do something dramatic. The age issue works against him. He's battling the sense that he's lost a step and is erratic against the younger more glamorous challenger. This may...

This year, I've been writing a lot about cognitive disability and about health reform. It goes with the territory that I come into contact with many people, usually mothers and sisters, caring for loved ones. Some of their missives are heartrending. Many express simmering anger about schools, medical and social...

My week started with an elegant lunch at our faculty club, at which our university president detailed practical consequences of the current financial crunch. I'm not revealing a confidence to say that we'll feel some pain. Across the country, university endowments are down. The credit crunch creates countless logistical problems....

Are you baffled by Team McCain's behavior in recent weeks? I certainly am. I'm not talking about the candidate himself. His irresponsible selection of Governor Palin and his bailout grandstanding reduced the prospects for surprise. I mean the adults around him, people I had presumed might know better. What's the...

Greg Sargent at talkingpointsmemo.com made another excellent catch from today's Washington Post.

It seems that the McCain people want to go negative, and to change the subject from the economic crisis:

"We are looking for a very aggressive last 30 days," said Greg Strimple, one of...

Multiple sclerosis is a challenging illness that raises difficult issues in every area from basic stem cell research to insurance reforms, to disability policy, to clinical research and care. Not surprisingly, then, the MS community is anxiously watching the health reform debate.

A friend recently sent me the National...

The other night, I watched Castaway with my daughter. In case you've been stuck on a Pacific Island, Tom Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a FedEx executive left by a plane crash in the same predicament.

Desperate for company, Chuck paints his likeness in blood on a Volleyball whom he...

Forgive this departure from the presidential campaign.

On my day job, I supervise a student who catalogues every Chicago homicide that involves a young perpetrator or victim. There are many of them. He recently compiled the story of Nequiel Fowler. Only ten years old, Nequiel, died at our own...