The Orlando Sentinel reports that prescription info is now off-limits for data-mining firms:

A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld the constitutionality of New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation law restricting drug-company access to some information about doctors’ prescription-writing habits.

The ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston overturns a lower-court decision that said the confidentiality law unconstitutionally infringed on free speech.

Among other things, drug-company sales representatives use the information to target particular doctors and tailor their sales pitches. Patients’ names are not included in the data.

The United Nations has provided a snapshot of data regarding child accidents in their World Report on Child Injury Prevention 2008:

Top five causes of injury death
Road crashes: 260,000 children a year
Drowning: 175,000 children a year
Burns: 96,000 children a year
Falls: 47,000 children a year
Poisoning: 45,000 children each year

95% of injuries are said to be in developing countries, with Africa cited as the highest unintentional injury death environment for children. Europe has the lowest rates.

Although it is tempting to focus on terrorism in the news, this data is much more telling and useful in terms of actually improving global security.

Ironically I was recently asked to join a gift-giving drive and I found children asking for safety gear this Christmas (helmet and pads for skateboarding). I was more than happy to donate something I knew would help increase joy, while at the same time reducing the risk of injury.