Michael Specter
Michael Specter
Michael Specteris an American journalist who has been a staff writer, focusing on science and technology, and global public health at The New Yorker since September 1998. He has also written for The Washington Post and The New York Times...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
CountryUnited States of America
built carbon despite emissions globe interest nearly nuclear power produce renewed suffocated united unlikely
Humanity has nearly suffocated the globe with carbon dioxide, yet nuclear power plants that produce no such emissions are so mired in objections and obstruction that, despite renewed interest on every continent, it is unlikely another will be built in the United States.
attach commonly disease illness itself left needs prescribed tick weeks
If left untreated, Lyme disease can be crippling, yet it is a difficult illness to contract: a tick needs to attach itself to your body for at least twenty-four hours. Even then, two weeks worth of commonly prescribed antibiotics will kill the bacterium.
america freed lives people pursue
Industrial agriculture freed many people to pursue lives their parents and grandparents could never have. It made America modern.
ancestors battles believe dinosaurs guess nature people riding useful warming
If people want to believe that our ancestors were riding around on dinosaurs or that the protracted, increasing, and devastating warming of the Earth is just nature doing its thing - I guess I feel I have more useful battles to fight.
centers criteria diagnosis disease evidence highly laboratory prevention region specific tick
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has established highly specific criteria for the diagnosis of Lyme disease: an acknowledged tick bite, the appearance of a bull's-eye rash, and, for those who don't live in a region where Lyme is common, laboratory evidence of infection.
children boys years
Benjamin Franklin refused to have one of his children vaccinated against smallpox. The four-year-old boy died, and Franklin wrote later of how mistaken he was to expose him to the needless risk.
pennies accepting pharmaceutical-companies
I have never earned one penny from any pharmaceutical company. I will never accept one penny from them either. Ever.
vaccines sides side-effects
There are always potential side effects for every vaccine.
law sick people
Flu is easily transmitted, so if you are working with sick people - who are most at risk for getting seriously ill - you ought to be vaccinated. I am not really equipped to say whether it should be the law or not.
new-york children school
Vaccination is a public health issue because influenza is a highly contagious disease. If you don't vaccinate your child, his or her schoolmates are much more likely to become ill. That is why some places (New York, for example) are making the vaccine mandatory for school children.
believe age radio
In the Internet age, with the screaming on the radio, etc., it is hard to know what to believe and who is informed and who is not.
stupid believe sleep
I understand the horrors of having no insurance, but, believe me, eight hours of sleep and good meals are NOT going to prevent you from getting sick. Don't gamble with your life; it's a stupid bet.
thinking mcdonalds healthy
I think it is true that you can eat extremely healthy food at McDonald's, and you can eat amazingly badly at Chipotle.
thinking mcdonalds people
I think it's too soon to say that, and I think, basically - most of the people that I ran across and most of the studies that I saw suggest people don't go to McDonald's to eat healthy food. They go to eat fries and cheeseburgers.