Podcast: Trouble with Rapid Drug Tests; Fabricating COVID-19 'Health Disparities'

By Cameron English and ChuckDinerstein and Josh Bloom — Oct 30, 2023

Roadside drug tests are unreliable, so why are they so widely used in the U.S.? Meanwhile, researchers who make "health disparities" the focus of their work sometimes misrepresent their results. Here's a textbook example from a study that used pulse oximetry to measure disparities in COVID-19 treatment.

Image by lovingimages via Pixabay

Join host Cameron English, Dr. Chuck Dinerstein and special guest Dr. Josh Bloom as they break down these stories on Episode 53 of the Science Dispatch podcast:

Laws Based on Rapid Drug Tests Are Unscientific and Unfair

Are impending drug DUI laws scientifically justified, accurate, or fair? If you're pulled over for a traffic violation in certain locations and asked to take a roadside saliva test, you may learn they're anything but. Drs. Josh Bloom and Henry Miller discuss this in an opinion piece published in the law journal Law360.

Debunking the Pulse Oximetry Study

Another week, another disparity of care. In this case, it's attributable to a measure known to be flawed: pulse oximetry. Does the flaw lie solely in the tool – or how it is used? Let’s take a deeper dive into the latest study of healthcare disparity.

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Cameron English

Director of Bioscience

Cameron English is a writer, editor and co-host of the Science Facts and Fallacies Podcast. Before joining ACSH, he was managing editor at the Genetic Literacy Project.