The other day, I returned from the pharmacy aghast and stunned at the price of Gardasil, the vaccine my doctor prescribed to protect me against HPV, the cervical cancer-causing virus. My insurance covers only .5 ml of the miracle-drug (or so pharmaceutical giant Merck would call it), and it turns out I need 5 ml, which comes with it a $900 price tag. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone knows McDonald’s food isn’t healthy, but is it really any worse than other fast food? A friend of mine told me about an experiment Morgan Spurlock did for Supersize Me comparing McDonald’s food to a place that made homemade burgers and fries. (The experiment wasn’t in the movie but it’s one of the DVD extras.) Spurlock let food from both places sit out for weeks in order to see see how McDonald’s use of preservatives and other additives affected the way the food broke down. Read the rest of this entry »