Association of Sociodemographic Characteristics With US Medical Student Attrition

This is a rather stupid academic article -- stupid for poltical correctness purposes, most probably. It is from JAMA, a top medical journal.

Its most surprising finding is that the dropout rate from medical school is not surprisingly high among blacks. Given their dismal performance in the rest of the educational system, one would expect blacks to show a high dropout rate from medical school. About a third of them drop out from High School. So what is going on?

Perhaps unfortunately for the authors, I used to teach research methods and statistics at a major university so I can see where the bodies are buried in their highly technical article

At the outset of the analysis, the data were "adjusted" to remove the influence of the test used to admit students in the first place -- undoubtedly a type of specialized IQ test. So the findings do NOT reflect the raw dropout among blacks: Only the dropout rate that would have occured if the black and white students had been of equal IQ.

But because there is a great push to get blacks into high-quality positions, blacks would have been accepted into medical school on the basis of much lower qualifications. So the "adjustments" greatly distorted what actually happened. The findings reported were highly theoretical rather than real

The dishonesty about race is pervasive. Is dishonesty ever beneficial in the long run?

Mytien Nguyen et al.

Abstract

Importance Diversity in the medical workforce is critical to improve health care access and achieve equity for resource-limited communities. Despite increased efforts to recruit diverse medical trainees, there remains a large chasm between the racial and ethnic and socioeconomic composition of the patient population and that of the physician workforce.

Objective To analyze student attrition from medical school by sociodemographic identities.

Design, Setting, and Participants This retrospective cohort study included allopathic doctor of medicine (MD)–only US medical school matriculants in academic years 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. The analysis was performed from July to September 2021.

Main Outcomes and Measures The main outcome was attrition, defined as withdrawal or dismissal from medical school for any reason. Attrition rate was explored across 3 self-reported marginalized identities: underrepresented in medicine (URiM) race and ethnicity, low income, and underresourced neighborhood status. Logistic regression was assessed for each marginalized identity and intersections across the 3 identities.

Results Among 33 389 allopathic MD–only medical school matriculants (51.8% male), 938 (2.8%) experienced attrition from medical school within 5 years. Compared with non-Hispanic White students (423 of 18 213 [2.3%]), those without low income (593 of 25 205 [2.3%]), and those who did not grow up in an underresourced neighborhood (661 of 27 487 [2.4%]), students who were URiM (Hispanic [110 of 2096 (5.2%); adjusted odds ratio (aOR), 1.41; 95% CI, 1.13-1.77], non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander [13 of 118 (11.0%); aOR, 3.20; 95% CI, 1.76-5.80], and non-Hispanic Black/African American [120 of 2104 (5.7%); aOR, 1.41; 95% CI, 1.13-1.77]), those who had low income (345 of 8184 [4.2%]; aOR, 1.33; 95% CI, 1.15-1.54), and those from an underresourced neighborhood (277 of 5902 [4.6%]; aOR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.16-1.58) were more likely to experience attrition from medical school. The rate of attrition from medical school was greatest among students with all 3 marginalized identities (ie, URiM, low income, and from an underresourced neighborhood), with an attrition rate 3.7 times higher than that among students who were not URiM, did not have low income, and were not from an underresourced neighborhood (7.3% [79 of 1086] vs 1.9% [397 of 20 353]; P < .001).

Conclusions and Relevance This retrospective cohort study demonstrated a significant association of medical student attrition with individual (race and ethnicity and family income) and structural (growing up in an underresourced neighborhood) measures of marginalization. The findings highlight a need to retain students from marginalized groups in medical school.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2794197

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More Workers than Ever Are on the Sidelines

Making the official unemployment rate highly misleading

A new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that over the last two decades the labor force participation rate of the U.S.-born has declined dramatically, particularly for men without a bachelor’s degree. Labor force participation measures the share of working-age people working or looking for work. The unemployment rate, which has returned to the pre-Covid level, only includes people who have looked for a job in the prior four weeks, and does not reflect the huge number of people who are not even looking for a job.

“The increase in people on the economic sidelines across the country is extremely troubling because non-work is associated with a host of social problems, from crime to opioid addiction,” said Steven Camarota, the report’s lead author and the Center’s Director of Research. He added, “tolerating widespread illegal immigration and allowing in so many legal immigrants to fill jobs makes it so easy for our country to largely ignore this huge problem.”

Among the findings, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Covid-19 exacerbated the long-term decline in labor force participation among U.S.-born Americans to some extent, but the falloff predates the pandemic.

The share of working-age (16-64) U.S.-born Americans in the labor force — working or looking for work — in every single state was lower in the first quarter of 2022 than in the first quarter of 2000.

But the falloff in work pre-dates the pandemic. In 40 states, plus the District of Columbia (D.C.), labor force participation of the U.S.-born (16-64) was lower in the first quarter of 2007, before the Great Recession, than it was at the peak of the expansion in the first quarter of 2000.

Comparing the peak in 2007 and the peak in 2019, before Covid hit, shows a decline in labor force participation of the U.S.-born (16-64) in 43 states.

Immigrants (legal and illegal), or the foreign-born, do not show the same decline in labor force participation.

Of U.S.-born adults (18-64), without a bachelor’s degree, labor force participation was lower in the first quarter of 2019, even before the pandemic, than in the first quarter of 2000 in every state plus D.C., with an average fall-off of 5.5 percentage points.

Among “prime age” men (25-54), who traditionally have the highest rates of work, labor force participation among the U.S.-born without a bachelor’s was lower in 2022 than in 2000 in 49 states plus D.C.

If we go back to 1979, it shows that the decline is extremely long-term among prime-age men. From the peak of the expansion in 1979 to the peak in 2000, labor force participation for less-educated prime-age men declined in 47 states plus D.C.

Among less-educated U.S.-born women, the picture is somewhat different, with labor force participation generally increasing until 2000. But since 2000 it has fallen in almost every state in a manner similar to men.

Comparing 2000 to 2022 for U.S.-born prime-age women without a bachelor’s shows labor force participation declined in 47 states plus D.C.

cis.org press release

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‘Rationality Itself Is Under Attack’: CEO of The Babylon Bee

Seth Dillon, CEO of the satire news website The Babylon Bee, said the company’s goal is to show the irrationality of the popular narratives that pervade modern culture by making jokes about the issues of the time, from Roe v. Wade to the fact that a Supreme Court nominee could not define the word “woman.”

“Rationality itself is under attack. It’s not just free speech. There are people who have abandoned rationality on purpose, and are trying to get you to go along with agreeing with them that two and two make five,” Dillon said during a recent interview for EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

Dillon’s goal with The Babylon Bee is to make people laugh and question their own thinking, he said, but he’s found the company taking on a more important role.

“The goal was to make people laugh, and to make them think a little bit, to be subversive the way that satire is supposed to be subversive, to poke holes in the popular narrative,” said Dillon. “The goal wasn’t to be on the front lines of some kind of big battle but that is where things are at.”

Although clearly satire, The Babylon Bee has been attacked as being fake news, banned on some platforms, and subjected to “fact-checks.”

“The issue that we’ve had with the fact-checkers is that if they had just gone to our pieces and said, ‘Hey, this is a viral piece of content, you may have seen it going around. This is satire. Laugh, it’s satire,’ that wouldn’t have been detrimental to our business,” Dillon said.

“The problem was that they were out there saying, ‘Oh, these guys have managed to pull off these tricks before. They’re duping you. They’re presenting you with fake news. They’re pretending to be satirists, but they’re really deceivers, and it’s a hub for disinformation.'”

One of the fact-checking companies told Dillon they only fact-check an article if they get hundreds of people asking the company if a headline is true.

Dillon said when he questioned this fact-checker about where they were getting their complaints about The Babylon Bee articles, the fact-checker could not give him an answer and stopped responding to his emails.

“There’s no question in their mind that we are legitimately satire,” Dillon said about the fact-checkers, “but they use the fact-checking as an excuse to try to vilify us as being someone who’s out there trying to mislead the public.”

“This is not merely innocuous content moderation where they’re saying, ‘This is lewd or indecent content, we’re taking it down,'” said Dillon. “It’s viewpoint discrimination under the guise of benign content moderation.”

What Is a Woman

In order to poke fun at Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson for saying she couldn’t define the word “woman” during her confirmation hearings, The Babylon Bee produced a video in which a young boy is asked to spell the word “woman” during a spelling bee. He asks the judges for the definition, and they can’t give it to him.

“When you play it out, what a sketch like this allows you to do is take the absurdity of the absurd position that someone holds and put it into a practical context, like an everyday context where it’s exposed for how absurd it really is,” said Dillon.

“She said, ‘I’m not a biologist,’ but what’s a biologist got to say about it? You know, as far as gender ideology goes, your sex, your biological makeup has nothing to do with your gender at all,” he said.

Dillon has found that the public is hungry for The Babylon Bee’s type of humor. “I think that comedy that pushes back, and is willing to make jokes that you’re not supposed to make, is really refreshing right now,” he said.

Comedians who push back on the “woke” narrative, like Dave Chappelle, are the ones audiences want to listen to and that are gaining popularity, but they’re attacked for “punching down.”

“Punching down is a derogatory term to describe jokes made at the expense of people who have less power than you,” said Dillon. Included in this way of thinking is that these groups should not be made fun of because they are weaker and more victimized in society, said Dillon.

“I think it’s the most absurd thing in the world to try to put yourself in the mindset when you’re writing a joke, stopping yourself and thinking to yourself, ‘You know what, I can’t joke about those people, they’re beneath me.’ That’s just a ridiculous condescending thought to have,” said Dillon

https://www.theepochtimes.com/rationality-itself-is-under-attack-ceo-of-the-babylon-bee_4579189.html

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Gun Makers Go South

Of all the businesses that are moving out of blue states, those in the gun industry lead the pack.

Storied firearms manufacturers, some of them having operated in northern states for centuries, are now heading South. Remington, founded in 1816 and America’s oldest gun maker, announced in November it was moving its headquarters from New York to Georgia.

In announcing the move, which will include a $100 million investment in a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and create 856 new jobs, Remington CEO Ken D’Arcy said, “the decision to locate in Georgia is very simple. The state of Georgia is not only a business-friendly state, it’s a firearms-friendly state.”

Also exiting New York is Dark Storm Industries, a gun manufacturer and retailer. They will be moving to Titusville, Florida, where they have begun construction on a new manufacturing plant, bringing up to 75 jobs to Florida.

“If you’re in the gun industry and you have the opportunity to move to Florida, you’re figuring it out, that’s where you want to be,” Dark Star Communications Manager Kevin Elder told The Epoch Times. When the company asked its employees if they would consider moving south, they didn’t hesitate, Elder said, “they were ready to go.”

Dark Star was founded to make firearms that are compliant with New York’s strict regulations, “but they just keep adding on more and more restrictions and more hoops to jump through,” Elder said. “Our clientele is very friendly, and our community, and we try to give back as much as we can. We do a lot of charity work and local law enforcement loves us. But as far as the state itself, they don’t want that kind of stuff up here.”

Elder said that Dark Star’s problems in New York went beyond state regulations to also include banks and payments companies. “We had to change credit card processors,” as well as the company’s bank, he said, because they were denying service to firearms companies, despite their strong creditworthiness.

Tennessee has been another popular destination, attracting Smith & Wesson in September and Troy Industries last May, both from Massachusetts. Even before these moves were announced, Tennessee was already home to more than 20 firearms manufacturing companies.

Smith & Wesson’s move to Maryville, Tennessee, will include a $125 million investment and create 750 new jobs. Among the many reasons cited by CEO Mark Smith were new laws proposed by Massachusetts’ Democrat-led legislature banning the sale, possession and manufacture of “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines” for civilian use. Smith noted that these products comprised 60 percent of his company’s revenue.

Steve Troy, CEO of Troy Industries also cited the “changing climate for firearms manufacturers” in Massachusetts, which “determined the need for our relocation to Tennessee.” Troy Industries will invest $7 million in Clarksville, Tennessee, adding 75 jobs.

Other firearms companies leaving blue states include Kimber Manufacturing, which left New York for Alabama; Winchester Centerfire, which left Illinois for Mississippi; Stag Arms, which left Connecticut for Wyoming; and Magpul Industries, which left Colorado for Wyoming and Texas.

The migration of the firearms industry is part of a wider movement by American firms to escape high-tax, high-regulation states like California, New York, Illinois, and New Jersey. But gun makers are in a particular hurry to exit these states in response to new laws and regulations seemingly intended to drive them out.

What all of the destination states have in common is that “they are respectful of the contributions that these businesses make to state economies,” National Shooting Sports Foundation Managing Director Mark Oliva told The Epoch Times. “And they are respectful of the Second Amendment rights of consumers who are buying these firearms.”

The firearms industry is a rapidly growing business. “Our last economic impact report showed that we have grown 270 percent since 2008,” Oliva said, “and it’s an industry that continues to grow every year.” About 20 million firearms were purchased in 2021, the second-highest year on record after 2020, when nearly 22 million were sold. Firearms owners are an increasingly diverse group, with women and minorities comprising the fastest growing percentage of new gun owners.

American small-arms makers also supply police and the military. According to the 1933 Buy America Act, the federal government must buy from American companies whenever possible. This has caused many foreign arms makers, including Austria-based Glock, Italy-based Beretta and Czech-based CZG to set up manufacturing in the United States. Beretta initially set up manufacturing in Maryland, but moved to Tennessee in 2016. Glock manufactures in Smyrna, Georgia, and CZG bought Colt Manufacturing in 2021, giving it production facilities in the United States and Canada.

However, efforts to put the gun industry out of business are continuing, both at the federal and state level. Last June, New York State passed a law making it easier for the state and its residents to sue gun makers for injuries caused by the guns they make. New Jersey and California are looking at similar legislation, and in February, grieving parents of elementary school children who were shot in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre successfully sued Remington, the manufacturer of the rifle used in that tragedy, on the grounds that it was marketed improperly under a Connecticut consumer protection law.

President Joe Biden has called for nationwide bans of semi-automatic rifles and magazines with more than 10 rounds, has spoken out against the use of 9mm ammunition, and has demanded the repeal of the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which protects the gun industry from lawsuits regarding “criminal or unlawful misuse” of firearms. Biden claimed, falsely, in April 2021 that “the only industry in America, billion-dollar industry, that can’t be sued, exempt from being sued, are gun manufacturers.”

“President Biden stood on the campaign stage in one of the early debates and said that firearms manufacturers are the enemy; not an adversary, not an opponent, an enemy.” Oliva said. “That is compelling when our commander in chief views the industry that provides the means to protect our nation, protect our communities, and protect ourselves, as the enemy.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/gun-makers-go-south_4575623.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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