Insights

<p>Dr. Carl Elliott, a University of Minnesota bioethicist, has spent much of the last two years doggedly pursuing the case of Dan Markingson, a 26-year-old who killed himself during a UM clinical trial meant to prove the superiority of AstraZeneca’s Seroquel over its competitors.</p>

<p>Here’s the latest in health and health journalism news from Reporting on Health. Our hearts also go out to the people of Japan after today’s catastrophic earthquake – here’s <a href="http://yourlife.usatoday.com/mind-soul/doing-good/kindness/post/2011/03… to help</a> the victims.</p>

<p>If you have ever been a freelance journalist, you know how hard it can be to break into a new outlet. That's why opportunities like those offered by HealthyCal.org are golden. The site focuses on health policy and how it connects to communities around California, an apt topic for editor Daniel Weintraub who spent nine years as a public affairs columnist at the <em>Sacramento Bee</em>. When Weintraub launched HealthyCal.org just over a year ago, he was the main content producer. Now, he's looking for new contributors from all over the state to connect Sacramento politics with ground realities.</p>

<p>I'll admit it: I am a South by Southwest newbie. But since the megaconference is expecting over 14,000 participants in the Interactive portion alone, I'm going to guess I won't be the only one. But I've done my homework, downloaded the (indispensible) mobile app, and scoured the schedule for new ideas in health. Here are the panels that caught my eye.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ahc.umn.edu/bioethics/facstaff/elliott_c/">Dr. Carl Elliott</a> is a brave man. A bioethicist with an MD, Elliott took on powerful interests at his own university on behalf of a woman he barely knew and a patient he could not save.</p>

<p>Why is the controversial pesticide methyl iodide set to be used in California strawberry fields? Answers and more in our Daily Briefing.</p>

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<p>How did human penises evolve without spikes? Stanford researchers suggest one explanation, plus more from our Daily Briefing.</p>

<p>Picture a honey sunrise glistening across the Pacific. A wave rises up, lifting a golden surfer, hair flapping in the wind like a flag as he negotiates a perfect turn and glides toward the beach. He steps onto the sand and his smile falls. Among the women in bikinis and men playing volleyball is a horrible scene of human suffering: a throng of senior citizens in wheel chairs, their bellies distended from malnutrition, flies landing on their eyelids, which are too sapped of any strength even to blink them away.</p>