IQ2US: The FDA'S Caution Is Hazardous To Our Health

The Food and Drug Administration, the oldest comprehensive consumer protection agency in the U.S. federal government, is charged with protecting the public health.  Under this mandate, it regulates drugs and medical devices for their safety and effectiveness.  But is it a failing mandate?  It’s long been argued that the FDA’s long and costly approval processes stifle innovation and keep life-changing treatments from the market.  But the question remains: when it comes to public health, is it ever okay to sacrifice safety for speed?

B.S. Report: Joe House and Andy Greenwald: 5/7

Seek to 44min.  Bill calls Joe House to talk NBA playoffs, then Andy Greenwald joins to talk 'Game of Thrones.'

PM 453: What Causes What? (Retry)

PM 453: What Causes What?

What causes what? The human brain is programmed to answer this question constantly. This how we survive. What made that noise? Bear made that noise. What caused my hand to hurt? Fire caused my hand to hurt.
We are so eager to figure what causes what — that we often get it wrong. I wore my lucky hat to the game. My team won. Therefore, my lucky hat caused my team to win.
On today's show we dive deep into the world of correlation and causation with Charles Wheelan, author of the new book, Naked Statistics.

PM 452: How Much Should We Trust Economics?

Three years ago, Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff published a study that quickly became one of the most famous, most talked about economics papers since the financial crisis. It got so much attention because it answered a basic question everybody was asking: How much debt is too much?
Reinhart and Rogoff looked at what had happened in many different countries over many years. And they found a what looked like a clear debt threshold: 90 percent. Average growth was much, much slower in countries with debt-to-gdp ratios over 90 percent.
The paper got a lot of coverage in the press. Politicians cited it in the U.S. and Europe.
Then, this week, a 28-year-old grad student and his professors published a startling finding: Reinhart and Rogoff had made a simple Excel error in one part of their study. The authors of the new critique also questioned other elements of the study and argued that, in fact, there is no debt threshold.
On today's show, we hear from the grad student who found the error. And we ask: How much should we trust economics?

PM 356: The Surprisingly Entertaining History Of The Income Tax

The U.S. has a really conflicted history with the income tax. For most of American history, there was no income tax at all. At one point it was ruled unconstitutional.
Today, income tax is the federal government's main source of revenue. That raises a question: How did something that was once so strange to us become so central?
The answer includes a few wars, a Supreme Court justice on his deathbed, and Donald Duck.