LA Times put out an article a few days ago that caught the attention of everyone who has a uterus or has depended on one:

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-maternal-mortality-20110426,0,3749537.story

The title is sensationalist:

Caesarean sections are a major factor in pregnancy-related deaths, report finds

The title makes it sound like C-Sections are the culprit-but reading the article closely, the real culprits are increasing obesity, and poverty (poor women typically have more health problems).

The article’s data is based 90 extra deaths in 2002-2003 due to pregnancy complications. While each death is sad, it is a tiny, tiny fraction of the total. There were 551,000 births in California in 2008, so 2002 can’t be lower than 500,000. Of those 500,000, 90 extra deaths represents a .001% increase, which is statistically insignificant.

A live birth can only happen in two ways: traditional and C-section. Anyone with complications has to go C-section, therefore it is inherently more dangerous.

The report would have been much better if it had compared whether the mortality rate of the C-sections had increased for C-section procedures that had the same risk.

I would wager that C-sections were SAFER in 2002 than in 2001 if you take into the account the increased risk.

The link to the article says about 30 people participated in this review. They are all highly credentialed individuals. I wonder how many of them are going to put out a clarification.

Experts Panel for Maternity Mortality Study

This professor at University of Pavia (why couldn’t an American do this?) analyzed the NYTimes from 1946 to 1997 and found that during Presidential campaigns, the NYTimes focuses more on topics that benefit Democrats.

http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/vol11/iss1/art20/?sending=11376

I am outraged at all the ineffectual surveys on the Internet. The best types of survey is the Facebook ‘Like’ button. In one quick click, you can give your opinion.

At the other end of the usability spectrum is this survey from surveys.com. They ask trivial, ridiculous questions, and have horrid user design. Do they really expect someone to go through a ton of screens?

As a final insult, in the example below, they have checkboxes-as if someone could work in “Oil or Petrol” AND “Journalism”.

Badly designed Nokia survey