EYE OPENER…

Julia Belluz created the infographic below to compare how much money is donated to fight various disease and how many people in the USA die from those same diseases for an article in Vox. Read more HERE.

The Demilitarization of Homeland America: Lessons From Ferguson and WWII

DDT spaying beach area, 1950’s Mike Magee In tracking the events in Ferguson, Missouri, last week, I was reminded of the words of environmentalist, Edwin Way Teale, some 70 years ago, as WWII was drawing to a close. That war, and arguably the Allied success, was the result of our ability to mobilize and redirect […]

Why I Smoked “L&M’s”.

Mike Magee An editorial in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine asks, “Is it time for a tobacco-free military?”(1) The article nicely summarizes the arguments for (few) and against (many) the promotion of cigarette tobacco on bases, in the commissaries, and on the battle field. It also lays out accurately that previous attempts to […]

“Medical-Industrial Complex” Feels The Summer Heat

Mike Magee It’s been quite a week for the “Medical-Industrial Complex”. This interwoven series of governmental, non-profit, academic and corporate relationships rivals the countries “Military-Industrial Complex” in its relentless consumption of America’s human treasures and financial capital, its’ non-transparency, its’ capacity to resist reform in an orderly and responsible manner, and its’ wide range of […]

Why The VA Isn’t An Easy Fix.

Mike Magee The recent controversy over the performance of the Veterans Administration hospital and health system network isn’t the first, and certainly won’t be the last. With fresh casualties over the past decade of war overwhelming the system, the knee jerk reaction goes like this. In a nation whose non-VA hospitals are frequently running at […]