Health Care Costs

Interesting article in the current issue of the Harvard Business Review about the escalating costs of health care. The Big Idea: How to Solve The Cost Crisis in Health Care has a very simple core concept. We can't reduce the cost of health care because we're measuring the wrong things in the wrong way. It would at least be a place to start.

Obesity Epidemic

There's been a lot of noise in the media for quite some time about the obesity epidemic in America. All sorts of fingers are pointed at possible culprits like the over-sized portions served in restaurants, our lack of exercise, etc. But there's one issue that's been completely ignored and that's what's been done to us.

To preserve freshness in the food chain bisphenol-A, or BPA for short, was added to many commonly used products like food and beverage containers, baby bottles, dental sealants, even the lining of food cans. Research done by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recently showed BPA present in 95% of the people studied. Yet the media has ignored how BPA can cause obesity as demonstrated in experiments done at Duke University with the Agouti Mice.

How much of America's obesity epidemic is caused by industry's use of BPA? More important, why isn't the media talking about it? Since the food industry is one of the biggest advertisers today could the media be concerned about alienating their client?