Where Does It End?
In the early 90’s a movie called Demolition Man was released. It starred Sylvester Stallone as John Sparton, a cop who was taken out of suspended animation to find it was about one hundred years later. The society had totally changed, it was peaceful and overly healthy and safe. Eating meat, using salt, swearing, and even having sex was banned. There was one scene where they took Sparton out to eat at the only restaurant in town and that was Taco Bell. It was considered a fancy restaurant but Sparton was shocked when he tried to order meat and use salt because they were illegal.
I bring this up because these recent bills, laws, and moratoriums that have cropped up recently remind me of the future portrayed in that movie. It makes me wonder where the line will be drawn that gives us the freedom to make bad choices.
Los Angeles wants a moratorium on fast food restaurants saying that, in that area the health of the lower income residents is being affected by not having better choices for eating. There are more fast food restaurants in the area than restaurants that can offer healthier sit down meals or fresh produce stores. While a big mac or whopper with fries can be a poor choice, these fast food restaurants also sell salads, plain hamburgers (without cheese and special sauces), and grilled chicken sandwiches, plus who forces people to get a side of french fries? Also you can’t tell me there are no grocery stores in the area that sell fruits and vegetables. The problem with buying produce is that it’s expensive. The point is that people have choices for better diets the way things are without the government coming in to manipulate the choices we have.
This kind of thing creeps up on a society slowly and the majority of people go along with it because it’s for our own good, not realizing that it will keep going till the day comes we have virtually no freedom of choice left. By that time it’s too late.
Schwarzenegger Terminates Trans Fats
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill into law this past week to outlaw trans fats that are served in restaurants and fried bakery goods such as doughnuts. It goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2010 for restaurants and Jan. 1 2011 for bakeries. As of those dates they are not allowed to have more than one half gram of trans fats per serving. Any more than that and the establishment will be fined. This ban does not include packaged goods.
Most people are applauding this bill because trans fats clog arteries and cause diseases like diabetes, and heart problems. Some restaurant owners say they welcome the ban because consumers are starting to pay attention and be health conscious and they look for restaurants and bakeries that can offer them healthier choices.
MedPedia
MedPedia is a new website that will become the Wiki for medical information. It’s being put together right now, with contributors having no less than an MD or PHD. Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley are all involved and the project is getting support from the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, and the FDA, among other research groups. They plan to open the site late 2008.
The information will be presented in two ways, first the front page will have the information in a way that’s easy for the general public to understand, and then there will be a more technical page for medical professionals.
Even though there is already medical information on-line, they believe that because contributors will be specialists in their fields, and not just general doctors entering the information it will have an advantage.
I think this site is a great idea because it will have information on so many topics like diseases, drugs, and research results and it promises to go more in depth on these issues. The information will be overseen by a very qualified board of Directors.
Survival of Cancer Depends On Where You Live
A new study has revealed that your surviving cancer has a lot to do with where you live and what color you are. This is all about how accessible health care is and how effective your health services are where you live.
The Concord Studied viewed data on over 1.9 million patients with cancer in 31 different countries. They compared survival rates over a five year period of people with prostate, breast, rectal, and colon cancers.
It turns out if you have breast or prostate cancer, the United States is where you want to be, but men with rectal and colon cancers do way better in Japan. Woman with the same cancers may want to move to France.
Australia and Canada have high survival rates for all, and the lowest belongs to Algeria.
Within the United States, New York City had the lowest survival for all cancers, except for Wyoming where a woman with rectal cancer does worse than all. If you’re in the United States and you have cancer Hawaii is the best place to be. The highest rate for survival of prostate cancer is Seattle, and Idaho is no couch potato having a very high survival rate for rectal cancer.
White people in the United States survive at a rate of 7% higher for prostate cancer and 14% higher for breast cancer. Researchers believe this results from early vs. latter stage diagnosis.
The countries with the worst cancer survival rates were Poland and Slovakia. France ranked highest for colon and rectal cancer survival, while Sweden had the highest for breast cancer. Austria had the highest survival rate for prostate cancer.
Overall the United States had a 10% higher survival rating with breast cancer then did Europe, and a 34% higher rate of prostate cancer.
It’s hoped that this information will help countries and areas to find where they are lacking and fill in those gaps.
Bush Forces His Religious Beliefs On The American People
“Go forth and multiply” or so the bible says, and President Bush has found another way to force woman to do just that.
He is redefining some birth control methods as abortions, among those methods is the pill and IUD’s.
He is saying that any termination of life between the moment of conception and birth is abortion. Now understand that it usually takes between 3 or 4 days, after the sperm meets the egg for implantation to occur. The birth control methods that he mentions all interfere with that implantation.
This redefinition is important because it means that federal funding for hospitals and states that are obligated to supply birth control, will have that funding cut off. It will also protect those doctors that will not give birth control to patients that ask or need it.
His proposed actions are an outrage! As much as I do not care for Clinton, she has vowed to fight this and has some kind of petition on her website where you can go and help to stop this.
Why do the Bush’s only have two daughters from one birth? Why haven’t they bred like the cattle he is treating the American woman as. Is he also going to propose more programs so that women can pay to support all these babies he wants them to have? Or are we doomed to become like some third world countries that spew out baby after baby with no way to even feed them?
It’s fine it you don’t support a woman’s right to have an abortion. Remember, this is about the definition of abortion. I guess women that have ectopic pregnancies must just carry them till they burst and both die. This guy has gone way too far with this and for our health, protection, and personal freedom of choice ( even his God gives us free will ), this must be stopped.
Another Pitch For Wellness Clinics
A new study had determined that hundreds of millions could be saved in health care costs if clinics started including preventative and wellness care into their programs.
A nonprofit advocacy group called the Trust for America’s Health discovered that clinics that encouraged quitting smoking, proper eating, and exercise, proved to be a better investment than those that didn’t.
The results were better than expected because they showed savings immediately and not just 20 years down the line.
They suggest that if you make it easy for people to make better and healthier choices they will.
Diabetes is one disease that can involve many complications and can eventually lead to death. For a lot of type 2 diabetics, if they just get more exercise and good nutrition they can live a healthy life without insulin injections or other diabetes medication.
They say the focus needs to be on maintaining good health, and I agree with them.
Surgeon Tatoos His Patient
Elizabeth Mateo is suing Dr. Steven Kirshner over a temporary tattoo he place below her panty line on her stomach after surgery.
The doctor operated on a disc in her back and had to have placed the red rose tattoo on her afterwards. There were no witnesses.
He fully admits to putting the tattoo there and he says he meant no harm, that he did it to make her feel better. He goes on to say that he’s done this with other patients and no one has complained till now, in fact they seemed to like it.
Elizabeth discovered the tattoo when her husband was helping her to get dressed to leave the hospital, and became very upset.
The doctors lawyer is ridiculous in saying he did nothing wrong. This so called doctor is a whack job and I hope she wins this case.
Why did he put it below the panty line on her abdomen, and what else might he have done while she was unaware and he was in the area. If it was as he said, why didn’t he put it on her arm, which in my opinion is still not OK. He should have just left it by her bedside if his intent truly was to make her feel better.
I believe he is assuming his other patients didn’t mind because they were probably too embarrassed or ashamed to say anything. Furthermore, how many male patients is he tattooing in this manner?
I think this doctor needs a doctor himself. He abused her trust and his power over her while she was unable to protest. How dare he!
Eight Year Old Hailed As A Hero
This is part of what’s wrong in our society, and I’m sure some people are going to blast me for this but here it goes…
An eight year old boy is being honored as a hero, complete with being on TV, a news press, and a plaque. What he did was call 911 when his mother started having seizures. He also got his younger siblings dressed and ready to go to the hospital and called family members to let them know what happened. Dispatchers said he was calm and gave critical information.
Good boy! He did a great job, but a hero? The mom started having these seizures after his younger sibling was born a few years ago. The parents wisely had him practice on a broken phone if it should happen while he was alone with mom during one of these episodes. She has had many seizures over the years and he has had to do this more times than anyone can count.
I’m guessing that an 8 year old is in about third grade. By third grade or the age of 8 I would expect the boy to remember a few important numbers, but the public and press act like he just walked on water. Do they think most kids his age are retarded or something? If he had done this so many times before I would expect him to be calm and not panic. I would expect him to do just what he was trained to do.
Kids are not as dumb as most people think and he did what he was supposed to do, I don’t believe it was above and beyond. His behavior should be considered average.
Thank the boy? Yes! Treat the boy? Yes! However being hailed as a hero for doing what is expected of anyone his age is ridiculous. The article I read on this, ended with his mom showing off to the press that he knew her cell phone number. I would expect this from any first grader, but that’s just my opinion.
Cholesterol Drugs For Eight Year Olds?
I’m sure there are cases where young children who are genetically predisposed to having high cholesterol, need the intervention of a statin, a cholesterol lowering drug. My own mother, while not a child has had a big problem with high cholesterol despite both my parents efforts to only buying and preparing low cholesterol and cholesterol lowering foods. The point is that I know sometimes eating right does not solve the problem in all cases.
Having said all that we come to the recent debate about young children and teens who follow such poor eating habits and inactivity that they have cholesterol readings that are so high their doctors are prescribing pills to lower it. It’s to this segment of our population that I speak to now. Young children don’t have jobs so where are they getting the money to buy fast food and junk food? How are they getting there? I assume they are not driving themselves. I doubt very much that they are doing the cooking and grocery shopping in the home as well. So who is responsible for their poor nutrition and eating habits and their inactivity? Could it be their parents?
It seems a real shame that a child has to take the same kind of drugs some elderly people take because they have parents who not only cannot set a good example but that can’t say no to treats being regular meals.
Is the attitude of the American people really “just take another pill”? If so we have a lot of parents that need some parenting themselves, before their children grow up to pay the price with their lives.
New Study Reveals That…
Mark Purdue from the National Cancer Institute discovered from government data on white men and woman from the ages of 15 to 39 that between the years of 1980 and 2004, yearly cases of melanoma increased in the young woman only, by about 50%. The numbers went from 9.4 cases to 13.9 cases per 100,000.
They also determined that the melanomas themselves were thicker and tended to be metastic which means it easily spreads to other parts of the body. Once a cancer does that it’s extremely difficult to treat or cure.
Young men did not show an increase in the skin cancer. The researchers right now don’t have an answer for why this occurred other than the suspicion that young woman do more sunbathing to get summer tans and also frequent tanning booths which are both risks for the deadly cancer.