Both bans on unhealthful foods and warning label requirements face strong legal opposition from industry and ignite furious public debate about the role and limits of government intervention in American lifestyles.
Doctors and hospitals must stop being bystanders to food-related illness and begin to become role models and educators in the transition to healthful eating habits, just as they did in tobacco cessation.
Until healthful food is widely affordable and accessible to all people, any discussions of how policy might infringe on the right to choose may be misguided.
One of the major driving forces for migration by women is the availability of caregiving work in wealthier nations, so improving working conditions for migrant women and ensuring that elderly and other persons in need of care receive good care are intertwined goals.
Patients who have been encouraged to think of themselves as consumers and a medical system that is driven by individual demands rather than big-picture planning can undermine fairness in the distribution of vaccines.
The U.S. federal and state governments are taking steps to ameliorate the physician shortage by offering scholarship and loan-repayment options to medical students interested in primary care practice in designated underserved areas.
The Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine seeks candidates with an increased probability of practicing in rural Wisconsin, delivers the curriculum in collaboration with rural partners, and encourages students' interest in rural practice and living.
Karen Uhlenhuth, Angira Patel, MD, and John Lantos, MD
A statin drug will not give a 10-year-old a high level of energy, the freedom to interact with peers without fear of being bullied, or a generally happy outlook on life.