Humanities & Society

In vitro fertilization can cost anywhere from $10,000 – $15,000 for each round of treatments. This means access to assisted reproductive technologies (ART) is generally limited to a relatively small portion of couples that seek it. Several state governments have turned to public policy in an attempt to make access to ART more widely available. But two professors from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis find that market competition can be as effective at expanding access as requiring insurance companies to cover infertility treatments. At the same time, competition appears to lower the rate of high-risk births and encourages the use of new technologies.

Cell phone radiation doesn’t stress human cells.Weighing in on the debate about whether cell phones have adverse health effects, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that the electromagnetic radiation produced by cell phones does not activate the stress response in mouse, hamster or human cells growing in cultures. The stress response is a cellular protection mechanism set into motion by various adverse stimuli, including heat shock, heavy metals, and inflammation. High levels of the stress response in cells are thought to result in changes associated with malignancy.

Sunlight promotes healthy teeth.As the days get shorter and colder, it gets harder to spend time in the sun, and that’s probably bad for your teeth. According to an article in the Journal of Periodontology from a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, our teeth may be light-sensitive, at least indirectly.

Women have different sports medicine needs than men.In sports medicine, it isn’t always true that what’s “good for the goose is good for the gander.” Reporting on issues unique to female runners in the journal Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinics of North America, Washington University physical medicine and rehabilitation specialists say women’s bodies adapt to athletic challenges differently. They say that when female athletes get injured, health-care professionals need to consider the anatomic, biomechanical, hormonal and functional factors that are unique to women.

Bernstein”Imagine an electrical appliance industry with plugs of 9,000 different shape and sizes that need one of 9,000 matching sockets to work. Preposterous as that is, that’s the “design” of American health insurance – tens of thousands of medical care providers must plug their billions of billings into thousands of differing insurance policies,” says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. “This wasteful design has its silver lining, though. Eliminating administrative costs through universal Medicare coverage, or Medicare-for-All, would save as much as $280 to $300 billion a year, enough to pay for covering the 45 million uninsured. ”

Also known as the World Year of Physics, 2005 is featuring worldwide events of interest to physicists and the general public.

His talk, titled “The Miracle of Religion in Modern American History,” will serve as the annual Thomas Fulbright Lecture.

De SotoNonpartisan promotion of public service and volunteerism is the goal of the new Gephardt Institute, which is being formally introduced on campus Sept. 19 with major event.

Over the past five years, corporate governance has undergone historic changes. In addition to new policies enacted by state judiciaries and attorneys general, Congress adopted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enacted important securities law reforms, and the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ reformed listing standards. The world’s leading experts on corporate governance will come together to discuss the impact of these changes during a conference at Washington University in St. Louis Sept. 29 – Oct. 1.

What does the U.S. Constitution mean to you, and is it relevant today? These and other questions will be covered at “We the People: The Constitution and You, a conversation led by former Congressman Richard A. Gephardt and professor emeritus James Davis from 2-3 on Sept. 19 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. The event is free and open to the public.