Tag: Pew Research Center

Medical Posted on

How Corporations and Politicians Use Numbers to Lie — and How Not to Be Fooled

Do 8 out of 10 dentists really prefer Colgate? Americans, as P.T. Barnum once noted, are not all that difficult to fool, and our nation’s somewhat weak math skills don’t help. A Pew Research Center report issued last year, which studied test results of 15-year-olds, ranked the United States 35th in the world in math. Not only has this weakness in understanding numbers created opportunities for mass exploitation by Big Pharma and other industries, it has led to needless and mostly unwarranted fear. While Americans don’t understand math, be assured that corporations do, and they happily use it to mislead and obfuscate in the name of selling their products. Big Pharma doesn’t only target consumers with its misleading advertising; it also targets your doctor. And […] Read More

Marijuana Posted on

GOP-Controlled House Votes to Block Feds from Interfering in States with Legal Medical Pot

Drug law sanity from a place where usually there is none. The GOP-controlled House showed signs of sanity when it voted early Friday in favor of blocking the federal government from interfering with states that permit the use of medical marijuana. The 219-189 vote came about as the House debated a bill funding the Justice Department‘s budget, AP reported. Conservative GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, the first state in the country to legalize medical marijuana, was among those behind the amendment, pointing out that, “Public opinion is shifting.”  This is true even among Republicans. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 61 percent of Republicans support the legalization of medical marijuana. And in general, Pew found nearly three-in-four Americans (72%) believe that efforts […] Read More