All Articles by Nicole Obert
Mrs. Obert is a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University with over ten years of professional experience in an institute of higher education, including the University of Illinois and Texas A&M University.
When Entertainment Encourages Epidemics
The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a press release calling for ABC to cancel its pilot episode of a new drama Eli Stone. Renee R. Jenkins, MD, President of the AAP, accused ABC of "reckless irresponsibility" in screening a television program that may give parents the false impression that vaccines cause autism. She goes on to say that, "If parents watch this program and choose to deny their children immunizations, ABC will share in the responsibility for the suffering and deaths that occur as a result."
Emotional Vitality May Protect Against Heart Disease
While a number of studies have shown that negative social behaviors and emotional states tend to correlate with a lower overall level of physical health, few have sought to illuminate a link between emotional vitality and physical well-being. A recent study provides evidence that there may, indeed, be a connection.
Publication Bias in Reporting Drug Efficacy
Most of us rely on the pharmaceutical industry to some extent for our health and well-being, whether it's for an occasional round of antibiotics, a flu vaccination, or medication regularly taken for a chronic condition. The industry is regularly under fire for inflating drug prices, misleading or inappropriate advertisements, and concentrating research efforts on drugs that will elicit the highest profit, rather than on lifesaving treatments for rarer conditions.
Expensive Wine Just Tastes Better
A recent study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates that marketing can have a significant effect on the neural mechanisms governing decision-making. The study measured the "experienced pleasantness" of three different wines, both by subjective reporting of the test subjects' perceptions of the wines, and by measuring activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex, a known "pleasure center" in the brain. Test results indicated that even when wines were identical, subjects' levels of experienced pleasantness differed according to the reported price of the wine; the same wine tasted better when the subject believed that it was a sample from a $45 bottle of wine than when she was told it was from a $5 bottle.
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