Dutch marijuana: where a legal market must purchase from an illegal black market

 The Dutch (legal) market for marijuana seems as confused as the legal American markets in (now) 30 states, but in different ways.
The NY Times has the story:
Solving the Dutch Pot Paradox: Legal to Buy, but Not to Grow
By CHRISTOPHER F. SCHUETZE

"While licensed coffee shops have the right to sell small amounts of recreational cannabis and hash to buyers older than 18, they have to rely on the black market to acquire their wares in bulk.

“Right now, you are allowed to buy the milk, but you can’t know anything about the cow,”...
...
"Last month, the national police union, Politie Bond, released a stinging report warning of the growth of organized crime in the country, fueled by the drug trade.

“The Netherlands fulfills many characteristics of a narco-state. Detectives see a parallel economy emerging,” the report stated, noting that while crime over all had decreased, those producing and trafficking drugs were becoming ever more sophisticated.
*********

The situation in the U.S. is at least as conflicted.  After a long history as a popular illegal drug, thirty states and Washington D.C. have legalized marijuana in some forms and for at least some uses. But marijuana is still a banned Schedule I drug under Federal law, even though marijuana (spelled “Marihuana” in Schedule I) seems no longer to fit the legal definition of a Schedule I drug.
(See Title 21 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 1308 — Schedules Of Controlled Substances, https://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/21cfr/cfr/2108cfrt.htm )


See, earlier,

Saturday, December 9, 2017

The gray market for marijuana in Holland

Headlines that could have been dated April 1

A woman tried to board a plane with her emotional-support peacock. United wouldn't let it fly.

Hundreds of Canadian doctors demand lower salaries

Academic Conferences May Save Lives — by Keeping Big-Name Doctors Busy

French waiter says firing for rudeness is 'discrimination against my culture'
Guillaume Rey filed a complaint after being dismissed from a Canada restaurant for being ‘aggressive, rude and disrespectful’

Science in society at the Exploratorium (video of a panel discussion)

In late February I took part in a panel discussion about Science in Society, at the Exploratorium. Below is a photo, and the video of the discussion (about half an hour--the introductions go 'til 8:50, and the panel starts then).

On stage: Moira Gunn, Saul Perlmutter, Elizabeth Blackburn, Alvin Roth, Brian Kobilka

Kidney dialysis on the California Ballot?

An Orange County Register op-ed discusses a likely referendum to control dialysis costs, and some better proposals...

How to help the 18,000 Californians who need kidney transplants
By KURT SCHULER and MARC JOFFE

"The Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection Act, which is likely to appear on the state’s November ballot, is a well-intentioned but inefficient way for California voters to help dialysis patients.  The initiative would try to restrain kidneMy dialysis costs by limiting the profit margins of dialysis corporations to 15 percent. The group has collected more than 450,000 signatures to put the initiative on the ballot and will soon submit them to election officials. A much better policy option, however, is to encourage more kidney donations, which save lives and get patients off dialysis once and for all..."

"Kurt Schuler, a kidney donor, lives in Virginia and belongs to the Organ Reform Group and Network. Marc Joffe is a senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation."


HT: Frank McCormick

Early admissions to competitive colleges

The WSJ updates us on early admissions (they continue to be a big deal):
 The Decision That Hurts Your Chances of Getting Into Harvard
Dartmouth College expects early-decision admits to make up nearly half its first-year class in the fall

"The admission rate for early-round candidates, who typically learn their fates in December, is often two or three times that of regular applicants. Harvard last year admitted 14.5% of early-action applicants and about 3.3% of regular-decision applicants. At Yale, those rates were 17.1% and 5%, respectively. Many institutions fill 40% or more of their incoming classes with early applicants.

"Dartmouth College expects students admitted through its early-decision process to make up nearly half its first-year class next fall. The school received 2,270 early applications, compared with roughly 20,000 in the regular cycle. Early-decision applicants make up 53% of Northwestern University’s current freshman class, and just over half at Vanderbilt University."
**********
And here's the view from Harvard:
Record-Low 4.59 Percent of Applicants Accepted to Harvard Class of 2022

"The College notified 998 students of their acceptance in the regular decision cycle at around 7 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. These accepted students make up 2.43 percent of the total 36,119 regular decision applicants, plus the 4,882 students deferred in the early action process. The accepted regular decision students join 964 students who were offered admission through Harvard’s early action process in December."
***************

Update: the Stanford story...
University admission rate drops to 4.3 percent for Class of 2022
"Stanford announced on Friday the admission of 1,290 students to the Class of 2022. These students, joined by the 750 who were accepted under the restrictive early action program in December, make up a total of 2,040 total students admitted to the incoming class."

An anthropologist (Dr. Elham Mireshghi) looks at the market for kidneys in Iran

Elham Mireshghi completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at UC Irvine in 2016. Her dissertation is
Kidneys on Sale? An Ethnography of Policy, Exchange, and Uncertainty in Iran

Here's the abstract:
"Since 1997, Iran has implemented the world’s only program for living paid kidney donation. The program has been developed and administered by a non-profit NGO – the Kidney Patient Foundation (KPF). Though sanctioned by Shi‘a Muslim jurists and celebrated in the West as the “Iranian Model,” the program has been rife with moral unease and uncertainty in Iran. While organ donation after death is valorized, undergoing transplantation for cash is stigmatized. Furthermore, there is little agreement among policy actors that facilitating paid organ giving is a good idea. In this dissertation, I examine kidney “selling” both at the level of the exchange – where I analyze the experiences of kidney givers and recipients – and at the level of institutional and bureaucratic process, legal and scientific reasoning, and practical and ethical negotiation, to explain how Iran came to uniquely sanction and bureaucratically routinize kidney selling. I disentangle the dense threads of moral reasoning and experience among a range of actors - from donors and recipients to doctors, policy activists, and Islamic jurists – that undergird the policy’s development and implementation. I have conducted ethnographic field research (2011-2013), including observation inside medical and Islamic institutions in Tehran and Qom, and indepth interviews of kidney givers and patients, KPF personnel, doctors and legal scholars and jurists. I have also analyzed Islamic legal texts, as well as visual and textual media.

"My analysis brings together analytic approaches within the anthropology of public policy, medicine, morality, and exchange, while also contributing to a growing interest in Iranian Studies to venture beyond themes of repression and resistance. I consider Iran’s living kidney giving program within the context of Iran’s post-revolution medical modernization projects, its haphazard economic liberalization, and ongoing commitment to social welfare, alongside an examination of the role of Islamic jurists and other “experts” in policy making. I elucidate the socio-economic conditions and aspirations that motivate kidney givers, and the “medical imaginary” that facilitates their decision as well as the legal reasoning of jurists. Lastly, I offer an alternative to the “commodity paradigm” in examining exchanges involving money that can contribute to bioethical discussions of organ sales."



Here's a paragraph describing the reduction in waiting time for a kidney transplant resulting from the market:

"The culmination of these regulations has resulted in a much shorter wait for kidney transplants in Iran than is the case in, for example, the United States, where paid donation is prohibited and most organs from unrelated donors come from cadavers and brain-dead individuals. This has often been touted as one of the most important outcomes of permitting kidney sales. In the US, if one does not find a donor among family or friends or an “altruist” living stranger, then the wait can take nearly four if not more years. In Iran, the wait can be a little over a year, if not less; though celebratory reports on what is now called the “Iranian Model” often claim that there is no waiting list at all .... If a patient chooses non-living donation, then much like the US the wait can take much longer than a year. "

Much of her interaction was with a social worker who was reluctant to enroll kidney sellers:
"Management was not unaware of Ms. xxx’s principled opposition to kidney selling and her attempts at talking people out of it. Ms. xxx explained to me once that she framed her activities as a benefit for the organization in the form of counseling for sellers. It would garner legitimacy for a program that had frequently come under domestic and international scrutiny, she argued. So management and Ms. xxx shared an interest in counseling prospective donors while assuring that a certain number made it to the list. For management, the interest had to do with protecting the organization’s credibility while also assisting in the treatment of suffering kidney patients. For Ms. xxx, it had to do with ensuring that fewer young men and women fell into what she called the “sick cycle of disease and poverty” (what she deemed to be the likely result of kidney selling) while also maintaining her employment."

One aspect of her work concerns the religious rulings that permit the Iranian kidney market.

Here's a quote from Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi  about what can be sold:
“The severing of an organ from a living person and the transplantation of that to someone whose kidneys have both decayed (fasid) is permissible on the condition that the owner (sahib) of the organ consents, and his life (jan) is not put into danger; and caution requires that if money is received in exchange, that it be in exchange for the permission to proceed with the taking (giriftan) of the organ, and not the organ itself.”

 I blogged about this part of Dr. Mireshghi's work earlier here:

Friday, June 5, 2015

The Shi'a religious jurisprudence behind Iran's legal market for kidneys

French university admissions

The World View has a story on what I take to be ongoing attempts to reform university admissions in France in response to sometimes conflicting concerns.

The Reform of French University Admissions
by Stephanie Mignot-Gerard , March 13, 2018

"After months of extensive consultations, the French Minister of Higher Education and Research, Frederique Vidal, disclosed her bill for a reform of the French public universities admission system on October 30. The reform was rushed due to the turmoil of the random enrollment of 3000 bacheliers at 169 university programs. The randomized procedure concerned the fields of studies where student applications exceeded the seats available (especially in sport studies, psychology and law). The new system had been in place for a couple of years, but remained unnoticed until massive numbers of students were affected this year. A glitch in the software—Admission Post Bac (APB)—allowed 2016 bacheliers to re-start their first year in university in a different field. The result spurred student union protests throughout the summer.
...
"Prior to 2008, when APB was put in place, students had to rank 24 degree choices and university seats were allocated through a complex algorithm that took into account high school grades and the geographical location of student’s home. With the 2017 reform, students can only make 10 non-ranked program choices at any university within the national territory. But the major innovation is twofold. First, high school teachers now have responsibility for providing orientation and offering recommendations based on the choices a student has made. Second, even if the decision about where to apply remains with the student, universities still have the autonomy and right to reject them.

"Student unions remain divided on the government proposal. The reformist association, the FAGE, now a leader at the national level, sees the government’s decision to allow students to decide where to study as a victory. On the other hand, the leftist UNEF claims that the government project undermines the French legal principle of higher education for all and calls for demonstrations. Surprisingly, high school and university students are not easy to mobilize; the UNEF actually—likely deliberately—seems to ignore that the selective admission taboo ended a long time ago. A survey by the magazine L’Etudiant in 2016 of 2500 high school and university students indicated that more than 57% were in favor of some selection."

Surrogacy becomes legal in the state of Washington

Above the Law has the story:

Washington State Flips Its Anti-Surrogacy Stance
"Following the trend of jurisdictions named after our first president, Washington State just enacted into law a comprehensive new Uniform Parentage Act, effective January 1, 2019. While the state had previously allowed altruistic surrogacy — the type where you don’t get paid and where it’s really hard to find a very nice person willing to be pregnant for you for free — the Super Surrogacy-Friendly New Law (not its official name), eliminated the previous state ban on compensated surrogacy."
***********

And here's the Act itself (although not in a format that makes it easy to read...)
Chapter 26.26 RCW UNIFORM PARENTAGE ACT

The demand for blue eyed babies (from American sperm donors) in Brazil

The WSJ has the story:
Demand for American Sperm Is Skyrocketing in Brazil
Explosive growth spurred by more wealthy single women and lesbian couples turning to U.S. donors

"Over the past seven years, human semen imports from the U.S. to Brazil have surged as more rich single women and lesbian couples select donors whose online profiles suggest they will yield light-complexioned and preferably blue-eyed children.

"is one of the fastest-growing markets for imported semen in recent years, said Michelle Ottey, laboratory director of Virginia-based Fairfax Cryobank, a large distributor and the biggest exporter to Brazil. More than 500 tubes of foreign semen frozen in liquid nitrogen arrived at Brazilian airports last year, officials and sperm-bank directors said, up from 16 in 2011. Complete data from Anvisa, Brazil’s health-care regulator, isn’t yet available for 2017.
...
"Money is also a factor setting parameters for the DNA import boom. Carefully categorized and genetically vetted sperm from U.S. providers has to be procured from Brazilian fertility clinics at a cost of some $1,500 a vial, often as part of an in vitro fertilization procedure that costs roughly $7,000 an attempt. Whites are more likely able to afford that in a country where about 80% of the richest 1% are white, according to Brazil’s statistics agency.

"Imports are rising in part because many Brazilians simply don’t trust the national product. Unlike in the U.S., it is illegal to pay men to donate their sperm here, so domestic stocks are low and information about Brazilian donors sparse.

“It basically says ‘brown eyes, brown hair, likes hamburgers’ and what their zodiac sign is—that’s it,” said Alessandra Oliva, 31, of the information available on local donors. She has 29 pages of information on the American father of her 14-month-old son, from a photo of him as a child to genetic tests for cystic fibrosis."

The NCAA cartel

The March 2018 issue of the Review of Industrial Organization is devoted to a Symposium: The NCAA Cartel

In the Introduction, Roger Blair begins by noting
"Becker (1987) once characterized the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as a “cartel in Sheepskin clothing,” which seems to be an apt description. Under the organizing umbrella of the NCAA, the member institutions collusively exploit both monopolistic and monopsonistic power. "

Here's the table of contents

1. Symposium: The NCAA Cartel—Introduction

   Roger D. BlairPages 179-183
   
2. 

   OriginalPaper

   The National Collegiate Athletic Association Cartel: Why it Exists, How it Works, and What it Does

   Allen R. Sanderson, John J. SiegfriedPages 185-209
   
3. 

   OriginalPaper

   Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics

   Brian Mills, Jason WinfreePages 211-229
   
4. 

   OriginalPaper

   Modeling Competitive Imbalance and Self-Regulation in College Sports

   Rodney FortPages 231-251
   
5. 

   OriginalPaper

   Rent Sharing and the Compensation of Head Coaches in Power Five College Football

   Michael A. Leeds, Eva Marikova Leeds, Aaron HarrisPages 253-267
   
6. 

   OriginalPaper

   State of Play: How Do College Football Programs Compete for Student Athletes?

   Jill S. HarrisPages 269-281
   
7. 

   OriginalPaper

   Strategic Interaction in a Repeated Game: Evidence from NCAA Football Recruiting

   Brad R. Humphreys, Jane E. RuseskiPages 283-303
   
8. 

   OriginalPaper

   The Role of Broadcasting in National Collegiate Athletic Association Sports

   Allen R. Sanderson, John J. SiegfriedPages 305-321
   
9. 

   OriginalPaper

   The NCAA and the Rule of Reason

   Herbert HovenkampPages 323-335
   
10. 

    OriginalPaper

    Whither the NCAA: Reforming the System

    Andrew ZimbalistPages 337-350
    
11. 

    OriginalPaper

    The NCAA Cartel and Antitrust Policy

    Roger D. Blair, Wenche WangPages 351-368
    

Organ donation in Singapore: mandated choice?

Here's a commentary on deceased organ donation controversies in Singapore:

Mandated Consent – Not a Viable Solution for Organ Transplant in Singapore
Jing Jih Chin, Annals Academy of Medicine, February 2018, Vol. 47 No. 2, 71-73.

The final paragraph:
"While there is no denying the ethical value of a properly administered mandated consent policy, the practical solution for Singapore’s low rate of cadaveric organ transplant in the immediate and near future is unlikely to be found in such a system. What is critical to sustaining organ transplantation as a collective societal institution is to step up the efforts to change mindsets through sharing of knowledge and promotion of altruism and social compact between citizens. Ultimately, we need to negotiate an appropriate and sustainable balance between an individual’s right of autonomy and his obligation towards communal interests."

The next radio spectrum frontier?

The allocation and reallocation of radio spectrum for modern uses has reorganized how spectrum is used.  But the growth of mobile computing, communication, entertainment, and whatever else continues to make presently usable, unassigned spectrum scarce.

Commercial satellite company Intelsat owns the rights to a lot of C-Band spectrum, and are seeking more flexibility in using it, or re-licensing it.
Here's their current proposal, probably not the last word.

Expanding Flexible Use in Mid-Band Spectrum between 3.7 and 24 GHz, GN Docket 17-183
*********

Update on 3.7-4.2 GHz (May 31, 2018)
CTIA Calls for FCC Vote on CBRS Band at July Meeting
"Baker also urged the commission to set an aggressive timeline to clear "hundreds of megahertz" between 3.7 GHz and 4.2 GHz, as well as establish a plan for future spectrum auctions."

More, from Bloomberg:
Intelsat Soars as Proposal for New Airwaves Uses Progresses
By Todd Shields, June 1, 2018

Kidney donor/sellers in Iran face social stigma--2 papers

The first of these two recently published papers is a report compiling interviews taken some time ago:

Coercion, dissatisfaction, and social stigma: an ethnographic study of compensated living kidney donation in Iran
Sigrid Fry‑Revere,  Deborah Chen,  Bahar Bastani,  Simin Golestani,  Rachana Agarwal, Howsikan Kugathasan, and Melissa Le
International Urology and Nephrology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11255-018-1824-y, Online, February 2018

Abstract: "This article updates the qualitative research on Iran reported in the 2012 article by Tong et al. “The experiences of commercial kidney donors: thematic synthesis of qualitative research” (Tong et al. in Transpl Int 25:1138–1149, 2012). The basic approach used in the Tong et al. article is applied to a more recent and more comprehensive study of Iranian living organ donors, providing a clearer picture of what compensated organ donation is like in Iran since the national government began regulating compensated donation. Iran is the only country in the world where kidney selling is legal, regulated, and subsidized by the national government. This article focuses on three themes: (1) coercion and other pressures to donate, (2) donor satisfaction with their donation experience, and (3) whether donors fear social stigma. We found no evidence of coercion, but 68% of the paid living organ donors interviewed felt pressure to donate due to extreme poverty or other family pressures. Even though 27% of the living kidney donors interviewed said they were satisfied with their donation experience, 74% had complaints about the donation process or its results, including some of the donors who said they were satisfied. In addition, 84% of donors indicated they feared experiencing social stigma because of their kidney donation."

Here's an excerpt from the discussion of social stigma:  

"Some donors had a general sense that people had negative impressions of donors. One donor pointed out, “When people find out that you have donated, they start looking at you in a different way. They start keeping their distance.” Another donor explained what he thought was going through
people’s heads: “Oh, he sold his kidney, he’s not a good person.”
***********
and here's a paper with reports from an internet survey:

The Social Stigma of Selling Kidneys in Iran as a Barrier to Entry: A Social Determinant of Health
Mohammad Mehdi Nayebpour  Naoru Koizumi
World Medical and Health Policy, Volume10, Issue1, March 2018,
Pages 55-64
"Abstract
Iran is the only country in the world currently with a legalized compensated kidney donation system, in which kidney sellers are matched with end‐stage renal disease patients through a regulated process. From a practical point of view, this model provides an abundance of kidneys for transplantation as opposed to the American model that relies on altruistic donation. The major concern about adopting the Iranian model is the possibility of exploitation. A large body of literature exists on this topic, but few have focused on its cultural aspects. This paper sheds light on the cultural implications of the Iranian model by providing empirical evidence on the social stigmas against kidney sale in Iran. We claim that these stigmas act as barriers to entry to the supply market of kidneys. Due to the conditions created by social stigmas, kidney sellers are forced to consider not only monetary rewards but also cultural factors. Thus, they tend to be more cautious and try to avoid impulsive decisions. Such social stigmas act as unofficial regulatory forces to keep kidney sale as the last resort for the poor, to diversify the supply market by age, and to stretch the decision‐making process in the absence of a mandatory waiting period for transplantation."

from the discussion:
"Our survey demonstrated that an immense amount of negative stigma is directed toward kidney sellers in Iran from society. Comparison of our findings to those reported by Ghods et al. (2001), who studied the actual characteristics of kidney sellers, reveals stark differences between perception and reality. Ghods et al. interviewed 500 kidney sellers in Iran in 2001 (Ghods et al., 2001). The study reports that only 6 percent of them were actually illiterate (while 71 percent of our respondents thought kidney sellers are illiterate), 88 percent had elementary to high school degree (while only 22 percent of our respondents thought kidney sellers have a high school education), and 6 percent had university degrees and above (6 percent of our respondents thought kidney sellers have above high school education). This gap between the actual profile and the perception of kidney sellers indicates that while Iranians benefit from the current policy, they have a grave stigma against it. The other important gap between perception and reality appears in question 5. About 15 percent of people consider that kidney sellers are drug addicts and 56 percent are not sure whether kidney sellers are drug addicts or not. This particular perception is stunning, since by law kidney sellers undergo a series of strict medical tests before becoming eligible for selling. "

Bar Ifrach on market design at Airbnb

Here's a talk today at the Harvard Kennedy School that caught my eye:

Bar Ifrach (Director of Data Science, Airbnb): 'Search, Pricing and Marketplace Dynamics at Airbnb'

Date: 

Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Location: 

Darman Room, Taubman Building, Harvard Kennedy School

Join us for a Behavioral Insights Student Group lunch with Bar Ifrach.

Bar Ifrach is a Director of Data Science at Airbnb, leading a group of over 60 data scientists who cover Airbnb's core business unit -- Homes -- across analytics, inference, and algorithms. In addition, Bar is a member of the Homes business' leadership team that designs strategy and oversees execution across Airbnb's main product. Bar begun his academic studies at Tel Aviv University, where he completed a BA in economics in 2007. Following that, Bar completed a PhD in operations research and economics from Columbia Business School in 2012, researching learning and pricing in online marketplaces and game theory. After a postdoc at Stanford University, Bar joined Airbnb as a data scientist in the marketplace team in 2013, where he focused on optimizing matching through personalized search and marketplace design. In 2014 Bar founded Airbnb's pricing team that currently provides prices suggestions to millions of hosts. In 2015 and 2016 Bar managed Airbnb's Marketplace data science team, fueling Airbnb's rapid growth through multiple efforts, including scaling Instant Booking to the majority of the business.

Topic of talk: Search, Pricing and Marketplace Dynamics at Airbnb

In his 2016 book Who Get What -- and Why, Nobel laureate Alvin Roth defined three general principles for successful marketplace: thickness, congestion-free, and safe and simple. In this talk, we will illustrate these principles using unique examples from Airbnb's two-sided marketplace and tie them back to Airbnb's success. In addition, we will discuss challenges and solutions in measuring the efficacy of marketplace design changes in light of these principles.

Market design and kidney exchange: Public lecture at USC

I'll be speaking at USC today:

March 19

Al Roth

Stanford

*IEPR Distinguished Lecture Series Location: University Club, Scriptorium Time: 4:00 PM Title:  "Unusual markets: the case of kidney exchange"

Child marriage in the U.S., and in India

Is 13 too young to marry?  If pregnant??

Not yet in Kentucky.
Vote on bill to outlaw child marriage in Kentucky delayed after opposition from conservative Family Foundation

"A bill outlawing child marriage in Kentucky had been expected to receive a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, but that vote has been delayed due to last-minute opposition by the conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky, according to the bill’s lead sponsor.

"Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, filed Senate Bill 48 on the first day of this year’s session of the Kentucky General Assembly, which would prohibit anyone under the age of 17 from marrying and only allow 17-year-olds to marry with a judge’s approval.

"Under the current law in Kentucky, 16 and 17-year-olds can marry with their parents’ permission, and a girl of any age under 16 can marry as long as they are pregnant and marrying the expectant father. Likewise, a boy of any age can marry a woman that he impregnates under the current law.

"Adams filed the bill after media reports detailing how Kentucky has the third-highest rate of child marriage in the country — with more than 10,000 children married from 2000 to 2015"
**********

And from Tennessee
Child marriage in Tennessee: Lawmakers take action to close legal loophole

"Two Democratic lawmakers have introduced bills to prevent marriages in Tennessee where a party is under 18 years of age, after a national nonprofit cited three cases in the state where 10-year-old girls were married to adult men.

"Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, who is sponsoring the legislation with Rep. Darren Jernigan, D-Old Hickory, said at a press conference Monday that while many Tennesseans believe the minimum age to marry is 18, a loophole in state law actually allows a judge to waive the age requirement and does not state a minimum age.

"The State Department views child marriage in other countries as a human rights abuse, yet it’s something that happens with frequency in Tennessee and across the country," Yarbro said"
**********

And India: Uphill Battle Against Child Marriage Is Being Won in India, for Now
"Data released by Unicef on Tuesday found that a girl’s risk of marrying before her 18th birthday in South Asia fell by more than a third in the last decade, from nearly 50 percent to about 30 percent, in large part because of progress in India.

Child marriage here is finely threaded with other practices, including the exchange of a dowry from the bride’s family to the groom, and sometimes with sex trafficking, making it difficult to tackle any one issue without addressing others. Social workers said there are no easy solutions.

...

"Though India’s numbers are promising, a recent analysis of census data highlighted another disturbing finding. In pockets of India, incidents of child marriage are decreasing in rural areas, but increasing in urban settings.

Researchers involved with the study say it is unclear what is causing that phenomenon. One hypothesis is that an uptick in migration from villages to cities could mean that these weddings have simply been redistributed."

When an academic conference can save lives (market for interventional cardiologists)

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has the story:
Academic Conferences May Save Lives — by Keeping Big-Name Doctors Busy

Here's the medical paper on which it is based:
Acute Myocardial Infarction Mortality During Dates of National Interventional Cardiology Meetings
Anupam B. Jena, Andrew Olenski, Daniel M. Blumenthal, Robert W. Yeh, Dana P. Goldman, John Romley,
Journal of the American Heart Association. 2018

"Thousands of physicians attend national scientific meetings annually. Within hospitals, the composition of physicians who attend scientific meetings may differ from nonattendees who remain behind to treat patients, potentially resulting in differences in care patterns and outcomes for patients hospitalized during meeting dates. A quasi‐experimental evaluation of outcomes of patients hospitalized with acute cardiovascular conditions during the American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) annual meetings compared with identical nonmeeting days in the surrounding weeks found that, within teaching hospitals, patients admitted with cardiac arrest or high‐risk heart failure during meeting dates had lower adjusted 30‐day mortality compared with similar patients on nonmeeting dates"

Match Day for medical residents--NRMP results announced

Today is Match Day: later today, graduating American medical students, and quite a number of other young doctors will learn where they will work next year.

Here's one description: The Final Countdown: Match Day 2018.

Here's another:
NRMP Match Week will Reveal Future for Thousands of Resident Physician Applicants
NRMP Main Residency Match continues to grow, with 2018 Match expected to be largest in history.

And here's my all time favorite, courtesy of Hogwarts.