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DECEMBER 14, 2009 - DECEMBER 27, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE CT SCAN RADIATION RISK
People should realize that a CT scan involves a few hundred individual X-rays taken from all around the patient. These are "columnated" so only a narrow slit gets exposed, but the tissue within that "slice" does get a lot of radiation. Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/CT scans linked to cancer <> We have a 1 in 3 chance of getting Cancer if we live to age 70. We have a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting cancer per 1 REM (radiation unit) received. A typical head CT is 2 REM. So the the absolute risk when added to our non radiation risk of getting cancer is a small additional risk. The risk benefit ratio of using CT should always be considered. Over use of too many CT's is both costly in $ and slightly risky. CT scans can diagnose and provide more effective treatment and surgical options in which case the risk is well worth it. Its a matter of balance. The fact that CT scans (and for that matter any radiation above backgroud dose) can (but not necessarily will ) cause cancer is not new news. It has been known since the 1950's. Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/CT scans linked to cancer <> A point from a radiologist: Everyone should recognize the pervasive influence that defensive medicine has on the practice of medicine. It multiplies all testing performed from stem to stern; biopsies, blood tests, MRI's, CT scans, follow-up studies, etc. Of the remarkable increase in CT usage from 1980 to present, much certainly is due to availability of the technology. But, one must consider the spector of trial attorneys. For example, virtually anyone comiing to the E.R. with a headache or belly pain is getting a CT scan hands down. No matter what the likelIhood of the presence of disease based on history and physical exam, an E.R. physician always wants to be able to say in case of any potential litigation "Look, I ordered every test. What else could I have done." He wants to build a fortress of test results against the seige of ambulance chasers- for EVERY patient. This of course is not limited to just emergency medicine... ABC NEWS/CT scan radiation may lead to 29,000 cancers, researchers warn AN EXTRA CUP OF JOE MAY HELP AGAINST PROSTATE CANCER
"I wouldn't recommend that people change their coffee-drinking habits based on this study," said Kathryn M. Wilson, a research fellow in epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, and lead author of one report. Huh? Study after study shows the benefits of coffee, but somebody involved in each study always says the above. If the study had indicated that freeze-dried yak poop MIGHT have a health benefit, the experts would be encouraging us to add it to our salads, mix it into our milk, and cover our meat and vegetables with it. But, because it's coffee, we always get some idiotic disclaimer. Get with the program, guys - the stuff is GOOD for you! Read the article U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT/Coffee, exercise fight prostate cancer
<> These data did not come from controlled "experiments." Therefore, any causal claims can only be weak, at best. Correlation does not equal causation. Even if the researchers statistically "controlled for" many variables in their analysis, they haven't demonstrates a causal relationship between coffee consumption, exercise, and prostate cancer. All that can be said is that the two predictor variables are negatively associated with the incidence of cancer. It is not appropriate to say that drinking more coffee or getting more exercise "reduces" the risk of cancer in a causal sense. It only means that men who drank more coffee and exercised more were less likely to get prostate cancer, for reasons unknown. Undoubtedly there are many other variables, possibly interacting in complex ways, that could be the true "cause" of a reduced cancer risk. Read the article U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT/Coffee, exercise fight prostate cancer
THE SICKENING STATE OF MANY INTENSIVE CARE UNITS
As a nurse, it is obvious to me many times that our high tech ICU's overall actually endanger people more than actually help them. And YES, it is nice to at last find an article that illustrates how ICU's help grow antibiotic resistant bugs through their overuse of antibiotics. This is deadly to society long term. Simply using technology automatically to keep dying people alive can endanger the population as a whole, so it is simply unwise to automatically use this technology just because it can be done. The system we have now has no real checks and balances other than what the insurance plan will pay for.... or not? Because of that, there is little scientific or rational about the delivery of medical care and the bugs that evolve take advantage of this chaotic decision making to make themselves more deadly to us rather blind humans. Read the article ABC NEWS/Half of world's ICU patients have infections <> My father and many other of the ranchers that were around when I was growing up maintained that unless you were going to die if you didn't go to the hospital, it was always best to stay away. Turns out they were right and that hospitals are to be avoided except as a last resort and as an only semi- viable alternative to immInent death.
Read the article CBC NEWS/51% of ICU patients infected DECEMBER 7, 2009 - DECEMBER 13, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION WORLD AIDS DAY 2009: "WHAT IF THEY LIVED?" -- A SAD RECALL OF FALLEN FRIENDS
They were young journalists, two straight, one gay, all dead from AIDS long before their time. One contracted HIV from a tainted blood transfusion and died from what was then an undiagnosed case of pneumonia. He left a wife and two little kids. One was a Ugandan, who came down with what was then known as "slims" disease, and literally wasted away. One was the son of devout Catholics in Las Crusas who denied everything even as he lapsed into a coma from which he never woke up. There were others I knew, but these were three men I was close to and considered friends. What if they had lived? Two little kids would have grown up with a dad. One of the best reporters Uganda ever produced would have been around to chronicle his country's recovery from the nightmare of Idi Amin. A family in New Mexico might have eventually come to terms with their son's identity. These are the incalculable costs of the aids epidemic, the lost lives, the lost opportunities, the absences that can never be filled. Thanks for your article, which provoked this short reverie, the sad recall of fallen friends. Read the article THE ROOT/What if they lived? <> I am curious that many posters here seem to think that Africans just don't care about the risks of AIDS. The high rates of HIV infection in Africa are not due to fecklessness - they actually, in large part, reflect poor education, poverty and weak women's rights. To say that Africans should simply sort out their own problems is outrageous, considering the 400-year European plundering of Africa. AIDS is the world's problem; and those who think Africa doesn't need help are part of that problem. Read the article BBC NEWS/HAVE YOUR SAY/Are we becoming complacent about the risks of Aids?
SPREADING THE BLUES: LONELY HEARTS CAN BE CONTAGIOUS
As a lonely person I can tell you that others are frightened and put off by my loneliness. People don't want to be around me because they are afraid life will turn out this way for them and because it is too difficult to look at. They are right. Being lonely is the most awful fate. I can't believe my life has ended up this way and I would not wish this horror on anyone. I crave human contact but I am more isolated than ever. Read the article WASHINGTON POST/Loneliness is transmittable from person to person, study finds <> I do not buy this. I think that it is not loneliness that people feel, but isolation. The isolation is caused by many factors, one being the inability to articulate their feelings. Another isolating condition is medication. Many people have very flat affects when on certain anti-depressants. I do think that morose people can bring a group down. I do think that is contagious. That is why I avoid them like the plague. I also think that people need to start understanding the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. Changing the way we view things can have a huge impact on our feelings of isolation. People could also start to realize there is really no such thing as “normal”. We all have our little odd peculiarities. Instead of dwelling on them and feeling “different” from the crowd (and therefore isolated) it may be wise to understand that we are all in the same boat. Life is indeed messy. Real connections with people require you to put yourself out there. Too many of us hold back. No wonder we feel lonely. We isolate ourselves. Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Why loneliness can be contagious <> I am sure it is true in some obscure way. But the answer lies in helping someone in worse shape. someone lonelier, more depressed, poorer, whatever. Go pluck a kids wish from one of those Salvation Army trees, and fill the wish. Stop taking your emotional pulse for ten minutes. I do not mean don't seek professional help if you need it. But put a foot out there and do something for someone. You will feel a lot less lonely, and so will they. Read the article WASHINGTON POST/Loneliness is transmittable from person to person, study finds
<> I completely agree with the findings.
There was a loneliness to my, well… being alone among friends, which I found to be terribly contagious - bringing those in proximity down and dulling their good times. I refused to go after two more years of infecting people.
But yes, you can be among friends and be lonely. Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Why loneliness can be contagious NOVEMBER 30, 2009 - DECEMBER 6, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION DYING IN THE U.S.A.: THE SAD BUT TRUE PRICE OF END-OF-LIFE CARE
My mother was taken to the ER last Christmas Eve. She was 90 and diagnosed with pneumonia and had had a mild heart attack. Five years earlier she had congestive heart failure and at 85, quit smoking but was told then she had an enlarged heart and COPD. With medication, she had another fairly happy 5 years but she knew she was at the end and told us so. The ER stabilized her and moved her to a floor and then a rehab. She did not want to go to the rehab and wanted to die then but we convinced her she had to try. Less than a week later, she was back in the ER. The Drs. wanted to intibate her and take her to ICU. She had a living will and had told my sister and I that she wanted to die and yet, the procedure was still to get her to ICU. My sister and I asked for other options. They were not presented to us...we had to ask...and sure enough, hospice was an option. We got her to a beautiful facility and 3 days later, on Jan 8, she passed. Her last words to me were, "Thank you...this is so much better" Read the article CBS NEWS/60 MINUTES/The cost of dying <> It is hard to count the number of ways this story shaded the facts with half-truths. The patient, Charlie, might have wanted a double organ transplant but it is unlikely he would have been put on the list ... his chronicities would have disqualified him. At every stage of training and treatment it advances profit for all players (except the patient) in a way that ADDS hugely to cost. If you compare national healthcare costs in Canada and the US--or the US and members of the EU--this becomes evident. Should the issue be cost the answer isn't turning off the fragile and sick. It is in a reformation of a system that treats healthcare as a commodity that builds income rather than serves citizens. Read the article CBS NEWS/60 MINUTES/The cost of dying <> The senseless pain and suffering that patients endure in ICU is criminal. Don't believe me? Spend some time in one. In the meantime, I'll continue to provide futile care to the dying to the tune of several hundred-thousand dollars per patient. Then, I'll send the bill to their loved-ones and bankrupt them, because according to some Americans, it's the right thing to do. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Do some research. See what life is like after 6 months in an ICU on mechanical ventilation and continuous dialysis, being repositioned every 2 hours,numerous injections, CT scans, 4 blood draws a day. Then tell me, was it worth a few extra months of life? Read the article CBS NEWS/60 MINUTES/The cost of dying NOVEMBER 16, 2009 - NOVEMBER 29, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION MAMMOGRAPHY GUIDELINES SPARK NEW DEBATE ON TESTS FOR WOMEN IN THEIR 40S
Where is NOW and other women's right groups? This is an outrage and signals out treatment of women for a disease that for years was the "silent killer". I know because it almost took my wife at 49. She had a particularly aggressive form and because she had faithfully had her yearly mammograms it was detected, she underwent aggressive treatment and is alive today, 14 years later. There was no history in her family, sisters, mother nor maternal grandmother. This report smacks of cost savings and not what is right for women. I encourage women to protect them selves. DO NOT give up mammograms in your 40s. if medical insurance refuses to pay, organize protests all over the country. This is an important issue and no government group should be allowed to undermine progress that has been made so far. Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/U.S. panel jolts medical community by recommending fewer mammograms <> NOW and other women's rights groups SHOULD be outraged but not for the reason listed above. They should be outraged because women have been over screened and exposed to dangerous radiation since their 30's. A lot of women who claim mammography saved their lives had go-nowhere cancers, similar to prostate cancers, that could have been left alone and would have caused zero problems. I've been subjected to two surgical biopsies (benign) and numerous callbacks thanks to the wonders of mammography and now at the age of 59, I'm done. I'm just plain done until they figure things out and stop using women as guinea pigs. Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/U.S. panel jolts medical community by recommending fewer mammograms <> Why do I feel like there is a foul play here? Never trusted for profit care, that's why. I am a breast cancer survivor, and my case was not detected through mamo. But that is just one case. Either, mamos were oversold to start with (most likely), or insurance companies are now trying to cut corners. The so called government panel is in the pocket of the private insurance companies, just like so many congressman and senators. Trust your common sense. If you are at higher risk to get cancer, than demand to get mamo; you may have to pay for it - that's the whole point in the for profit care.As far as personal examination, by all means do it!! I can not believe that "panel" is recommending against it - we are the joke of the industrialized world when it comes to health care, and that "advice" just adds to the whole circus. Read the article CBS NEWS/New mammogram advice sparks concerns <> Why all the fuss. Radiation causes cancer, everyone knows that. Beginning annual mammograms at 40 is estimated to result in one extra death from breast cancer for every 2000 women screened. Each mammogram is estimated to increase the risk of breast cancer by 2%. Screening annually between 40 and 50 will save about one life in about every 1900 women screened. Then you have to factor in the false positives resulting in unnecessary surgery and complications, the anxiety false positives cause, the hassle, and yes, the expense. Many people, especially many women, would argue that it is not worth it in the younger age group. After age 50 the saved lives by screening goes to 1 in 1300. The risk of mammograms causing cancer becomes less that 1 in 2000 because there is less radiation exposure over a woman's lifetime. The risk vs benefit clearly favors benefit. Peter Sherris MD MPH Read the article ABC NEWS/Mammogram recommendations meet widespread rejection
GREAT AMERICAN SMOKEOUT — SECRETS OF QUITTING FOR GOOD
I quit about 20 years ago and it was the best thing I ever did for myself. I didn't do anything special, I just did it. No theatrics or histrionics... just stopped smoking. I didn't gain weight, have cravings or any of that stuff. It also wasn't the first time I had quit, but the other times I just wasn't serious about it. After that I realized that all that jazz they tell you about the horrors of quitting is "in your head" and probably promoted to sell quit-smoking schemes. Now, that doesn't mean you can just continue as before. Quitting smoking means becoming a non-smoker, not an ex-smoker. After a bit most newly minted non-smokers start to hate cigarettes, especially those who smoked for many years, so keep going. At some point you won't go back and you'll effectively forget you ever smoked in the first place. Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/The Great American Smokeout 2009
<> I will give you, in a nutshell, the simple so-called "secret" to stopping smoking, overeating, or changing just about anything in your life. Not one person in 100 will apply the method because almost everyone prefers to maintain their age-old habits and to complain to anyone who will listen about how hard they've tried, but how helpless is the situation in which they find themselves. I read the "secret" about 45 years ago, have applied it to my life ever since, and am continually amazed at how simple it is. Here goes: "In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits." - John Lilly- It's that simple. As long as you continue telling yourself (i.e. believing and reinforcing) how difficult it is, you will never be able to control whatever aspect of your life you're talking about. On the other hand, as soon as you adopt the belief that it's easy and actually a trivial problem, you'll be able to change. [Boa Fides:1. Ph.D. in Psychology, 1974 Univ of Houston 2. Mensa Member (previously) 3. U.S. Marine Corps four years 5. Time in Grade; 66 years of life experience. 6. Retired and living in heaven (Mazatlan, Mexico) 7. Heavy smoker for 40 years. Quit last time 10 years ago.] Read the article U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT/On Smokeout day: What we know about how to quit
I wish that I could smoke again. I truly do. But I watched my father die a long (19 years) agonizing death from emphysema. Toward the end unable to walk 5 feet without struggling to breathe as if he'd just run up 50 flights of stairs. The slightest cold turned into pneumonia and put him in the hospital - at times on a ventilator. He had retired at 55 and had 1,000 acres to enjoy, but was not able. I enjoyed smoking so much. It was part of my identity, but seeing what happened to him, I had no choice but to quit. Read the article ABC NEWS/U.S. adult smoking rate rises slightly SWINE FLU -- PUTTING THE CDC ESTIMATES IN PERSPECTIVE
I love all of the conspiracy theorists...it's a biological weapon, the drug companies don't want to supply adequate amounts of vaccine, it's Bush's fault, it's Obama's fault. Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/Swine flu kills 545 children CDC estimates <> A few salient points: Read the article USA TODAY
NOVEMBER 3, 2009 - NOVEMBER 15, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION MOM'S THE WORD: NEWBORNS CRY WITH AN ACCENT
I have French ancestry, but haven't spoken French since college classes, yet my firstborn son started speaking with clearly recognizable French words. I also have Cornish ancestry and my second son started speaking in pre-school with a Cornish accent with rolled R's, such as girrl (gurul) and worrld (wuruld). They were born and live in the States and never heard these language patterns. Read the article U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT/Newborn babies may cry in their mother tongues. <> Having lived in such diverse areas as Westmorland, Devon, West Midlands and Worcestershire, and been involved in raising a large family including grandchildren, in these areas, I have never heard such tripe, let alone regional bawling accents. Mind you, we were raised to speak BBC English, so our babies just mildly protested, accent less. Read the article U.K DAILY MAIL/Ee wah gum: Babies cry with regional accents <> Hence the age-old term, "Mother Tongue." Read the article U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT/Newborn's cries mimic mom's language <> I'm assuming the physical traits drove the linguistic differences, language having developed later than physiological feature differences among peoples, but I'd like to hear more. -- I could ask my father, whose academic field is linguistics, but I'll get more answer than I want from him! It doesn't surprise me that babies cry with an accent. One of the most fascinating linguistic studies I remember reading had to do with Pentecostal types from different countries who spoke in "tongues." When linguists studied these people's fervent ramblings, they discovered the tongues unfailingly comprised only the phonemes from their native languages. Which indicated that these were nothing more than familiar syllabic ramblings, not God-instilled linguistic capabilities as the speakers themselves claim. Babies must get an early start on the same sort of thing. They've heard dialect-specific vowels and consonants from their parents through native "ears" since their days in utero. Makes sense that their infant vocalizations would be thus influenced. Read the article ABC NEWS/Newborns cry with an accent, study finds
"THE GREATEST HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD"
As a medical student, the most common questions I get from friends and family are "What do you think of this reform business? Are we going to have to wait in lines and become communist/socialist/Canadian? I dont want to lose my good health care and have to get in line" To which I always reply "If you don't have insurance in this country, we don't even let you get in line." What most people don't understand is that health care is already rationed in this country, and in many cases needlessly so. Its an embarrassment that we treat our fellow citizens this way. Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Nicholas Kristoff on "Unhealthy America." <> You have pointed out one of most Americans' worst conceits: If something is American, it must be the best in the world. We refuse to acknowledge that a minor surgery in a hospital setting that takes one or two hours can't possibly be worth forty thousand dollars. And this in a non-profit hospital.
Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Nicholas Kristoff on "Unhealthy America."
THE OPT-IN OPT-OUT PUBLIC OPTION A public option will do three wonderful things for Americans: First of all, it will provide a viable option for people who earn too much for Medicare/Medicaid, but don't earn enough to purchase individual insurance. Secondly, It will also be a great option for those who cannot afford insurance offered by their employer or who are in small business. Thirdly, an affordable public option will provide the much-needed competition in the health insurance industry to bring prices down across the board. Critics complain that a public option takes away choice for the average American. The truth is that the inability to pay due to job loss or ludicrous premiums (such as the price of COBRA) is already stealing options from many hard-working, tax-paying, law abiding citizens. Read the article CNN/Reid backs public health care option <> I do not understand what all the fuss about a "public option" is all about. Congress, our Federal Government Employees, our current military, our Veterans, and of course our Seniors (Medicare) have all been enjoying a "public option" for years. Do you hear them all complaining? And as far as all the cost concerns for this healthcare reform, it pales in comparison to all the off-the-budget deficit spending that has been going on for years now to fund the "conflicts", (yes I used the same reference word we used for Vietnam), the first Gulf War, the current Iraq war, and the never-ending war to train Afghani's to kill fellow Afghani's (aka the Taliban). Yes, this is a second reference to the Vietnam "conflict" where Vietnamese people killed fellow Vietnamese people. Will we ever learn to stay home and offer charity, care, and comfort to our own, our American people who get the wash out each and every day, who have been the most productive workers in the world for a long time? Why will we not learn that bombing other countries into the stone age and then pouring trillions down a black hole in an effort to re-build & re-make them is not cost effective? Did I hear anyone say we cannot spare a few dimes for healthcare for our uninsured? Read the article NPR/Reid gambles on public option in health care bill <> This is a terrible, terrible plan. I live in Alabama, a state which will undoubtedly opt out of the public option. Now, I am naturally upset at the prospect of my taxes paying for a program that is only going to cover people in other states. But my real concern is that I want the public option. Right now I have an awful individual Blue plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, a company that dominates more than 90% of the insurance business in Alabama. My plan covers very little, is expensive, and the alternatives are even worse. What’s more, there are MANY people in Alabama poorer than I am, and they need the public option that much more desperately. The opt-out is just a way of pulling the teeth from this bill. Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/The opt out <> First, one should realize we're not talking about health insurance any more. What is being discussed is a health care cost allocation system. Insurance is designed to protect against catastrophic loss but all of these proposals are aimed at covering "first-dollar" costs. This leads to the situation were everybody wants every service as "they're paying for it" and nobody is cost conscious. This obviously can't go on long as it would bankrupt the system and so a government bureaucracy to control usage will spring up. Long term, the costs will be controlled by rationing care (such as being proposed by the Commonwealth's panel on health care expenditures) and raising premiums and taxes on those that still pay federal taxes. This proposal can only end badly with the English and Canadian systems looking like Nirvana compared to what will be inflicted on US residents in a few years. Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/ Senate's bill has public option <> As reported in the Washington Post the other day, despite the disinformation campaign run by the insurance companies who stand to lose their bureaucratized monopoly on American health care, the majority of Americans (57%) want a public option. I guess conservatives are okay with that - they must be doing some kind of mental trick where they are able to just assume that all those 50 million people are ALL like the loud and obnoxious woman from New Orleans demanding her handout after Katrina. As if the reason that they are in the straits they are in is because they are slackers and welfare queens, so they "deserve" to not have coverage. Pathetic and disgraceful, really, to turn your back on babies and young mothers and school age kids and people who've recently lost their jobs... Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/ Senate's bill has public option OCTOBER 26, 2009 - NOVEMBER 2, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION
You know what Baby Einstein does do? It exposes your kids to classical music when they may not have the patience to listen to an entire Beethoven Symphony. Of course it doesn't make your child a genius and any parent who believed so was so far down in the gene pool that even with regression to the mean it's unlikely their child would have much of a chance. So would you rather have your kids listen to classical music or would you rather blare JayZ, Britney, Christina, Miley and a ton of rap and pop offal out of your speakers (jazz, fusion, blues, prog rock fans excepted, of course). Further, since classical music is musically complex, it's likely to cause more synaptic connections to form than a 4/4 groove. The same reason Little Einsteins is a far better TV show for kids than Dora or Hannah Montana. Read the article SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/Baby Einnstein didn't make your child a genius? Get a refund. <> My wife and I have bought several Baby Einstein videos but neither one of us ever bought into the idea that they would make our child smarter. We bought them because they are a good distration for him and he seems to enjoy them, although much of the time they just end up providing background noise while he is playing or exploring. It seems to me the only problem with these videos is when parents use them as their main or only tool to try to help their child develope and learn. Read the article WASHINGTON POST/Anti-TV forces decalre victory over Baby Einstein <> All three of my young children have watched educational dvd's and television programmes - some not so educational, but fun. All three have excellent vocabularies and my two 5 year olds are, after their first half term at school, way ahead of their peers. Read the article U.K.DAILY MAIL/Disney's refunds for Baby Einstein DVD's Baby Einstein Home Page on Refund CANCER SOCIETY RETHINKING AGGRESSIVE SCREENING
"Geez, that guy/woman was cruising along just fine until his/her doctor insisted they have a colostomy/colectomy/radical mastectomy/ prostatectomy." As an RN of 25 yrs, I can't tell you how many times I've said that to another RN or MD.
Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/In shift, cancer society has concerns on screenings <> I am a scientist by profession (a mathematician). As such I believe that rejecting or ignoring new knowledge is, by the norms of scientific behavior, something like unethical. In this sense the idea that screening is bad is absurd. It is nor the screening that is problematic but rather how the information derived from it is processed. What is needed is new protocols and diagnostic categories based on the results. After all there is no reason that the discovery of a small stable nodule in a prostate should result in a massive surgical intervention. If the medical profession can't figure out how to deal with this information there is something deeply wrong with how it does things. Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/In shift, cancer society has concerns on screenings A recent study over a long period of time and tens of thousands of patients looked at actual deaths from breast cancer. It round that 75% of the deaths occurred in the 20% of women who did not have regular mammograms. That’s compelling. It is clear that you can significantly cut your risk of dying from breast cancer with screening mammograms. It’s no guarantee but it is very effective. Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/HEALTH BLOG/Evaluating mammograms for breast cancer and PSA tests for prostrate cancer OCTOBER 19, 2009 - OCTOBER 25, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION CLEARING THE AIR ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA
Many, many studies have been done on cannabis. So far there has never been fatal overdose amount recorded. No one has ever died or even been significantly harmed physically from smoking pot. Smoking is bad in itself. Bringing smoke into the lungs is not healthy, and probably leads to a lot of the same issues a tobacco smoker might experience. (although I can't imagine ANYONE smoking 1-2 ounces of the stuff that is out there now per day!!!). Pot should have been legalized decades ago. Reagan's including and persecution of pot smokers in his war on drugs was totally irrational. Read the article NPR/Government issues medical marijuana guidelines <> How can a substance be okay in one state but criminal in another? Are we one country or are we not? I can't imagine how many people are in jail for possession of a few grams of something that grows wild, while there are hordes of people with arsenals of illegal weapons in their cellars? This country doesn't address crime adequately--real crime, you know, when there is a victim--all because in America the prisons are full of people who just smoked a little marijuana rather than guzzled down a pint of Jack. Read the article DAILY BEAST/Pot-smoking patients safe from Feds
MATH SCORES FLAT-LINE AFTER 20-YEAR CLIMB
Why should anyone be surprised. Almost Every Child Left Behind is aimed toward mediocrity rather than to bring out the best in every student. Worse, some genius decided that you can use standardized tests to measure performance and, thereby, rewards for educators. So now they teach not the fundamentals but how to score well on standardized tests. What a colossal blunder. This is followed up by a system that has determined the most important facet is ensuring that teachers know how to teach and are "certified" to prove it; more time should be spent ensuring they actually know the subject matter. A smattering of math courses among the education courses does not make a math teacher. That is particularly true when math and science courses, dominated by Liberal Arts Departments, teach math and science as a theoretical objective rather than a tool to be used by everyone else. Read the article WASHINGTON POST/ Fourth-graders' maths scores stall after two decade climb <> Nobody cares if Peyton Manning knows his multiplication tables. Nobody cares if Hannah Montana knows the numerator from the denominator. Why should our kids care about real life stuff when we spoon feed them so much worthless junk? Suggesting to them that you can be successful, rich and popular just like them and not once mentioning anything about education. Why would they want to improve on math? How will that make them more popular in school? Really that's a lot of kids greatest concern once they leave home for school. Its time we went from "going to school" (which then becomes a large social event), to "working at school". Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Sluggish results seen in maths scores
OCTOBER 12, 2009 - OCTOBER 18, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION POPPING THE QUESTION: A TAX ON SODA?
Obesity is a national problem. I don't think there is a simple answer, such as a soda tax, that is going to solve that problem. Most of the reports I have seen don't seem to differentiate between sugar sweetened sodas and diet sodas. How about taking part of that money and lowering the cost of diet sodas. At the same time we could reduce the subsidies and price supports enjoyed by big sugar and other sweetener products such as high fructose corn syrups. My doctor told me to start looking at food labels as ingredients are listed with the largest by volume first, next largest second, etc. You would be surprised how many products list high fructose corn syrup as the first or second ingredient. My doctor suggested that I not buy any product where sugar or syrup was listed as the first three or four ingredients. Why not tax unhealthy foods in the same manner we tax tobacco, alcohol, and other unhealthy products? Read the article NPR/Soda tax could shake up industry <> So we citizens are willing to subsidize the overproduction of corn to produce cheap high fructose corn syrup for beverages, buy the soft drink, and now pay a tax on these same health destroying drinks that we originally subsidized? Wouldn't that be paying for the soda THREE times? Why don't we just directly subsidize fruit and vegetable juices to make THEM cheap and pay the real price for empty calorie fizzy chemicals which would naturally lower demand and place sodas back where they belong: special occasion treats and not all day/every day occurrences. Read the article NPR/Soda tax could shake up industry SCHOOL STIMULUS FUNDS DON'T ADD UP
I live in Massachusetts and in our district and others here, the special education money from the stimulus has been moved into regular education accounts via a shell game. How did they do this? They made a new account and put all the specialists (speech pathologists, OTs, etc. ) and sped teachers salaries into this account. Then they used the stimulus funds to pay this staff. This freed up funds to pay regular education teachers in the regular account. Now they have no extra money to actually spend on the special education students, as Congress and the President intended. In our case, the district is now trying to eviscerate our son's special education program for autism because they have no money for it, having used the stimulus funds for regular education. So the stimulus funds are not being used to improve special education at all! Read the article NPR/School stimulus funds not used as intended. <> Twenty-one thousand dollars for a milk cooler and a refrigerator?
OCTOBER 5, 2009 - OCTOBER 11, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION AUTISM RATE OF ABOUT 1 IN 100 CHILDREN HIGHER THAN THOUGHT
The CDC has been sitting on similar numbers for quite a while, they used children born in 1996 and this is considered a "study" not a survey and their numbers of this one age group, reach 1 in 100. However they only quietly admitted this on Friday. There is no disputing the rise in numbers, in every study trying to find increases due to better diagnosing they can only find 1/4 of the rise due to better diagnosing and diagnostic changes, so 3/4 is due to some environmental influence because there is no such thing as a genetic epidemic. It's time to stop hiding behind the ridicules excuses of better diagnosing, etc. I don't think Doctors ever missed children who lost all of their speech, began running around in circles and stop responding to their names, etc 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Autism in my house could not be missed when it arrived, and for my son it's an entire body immune dysfunction/inflammatory condition that effects the brain. Not something he was born with, a medical diagnosis he acquired. The tens of thousands of children that fit the same profile as my son deserve answers and don't have the time to wait while everyone continues with the denials and sits on their hands. We cannot discard an entire generation of children. They need physical, medical, relevant research for treatment of their multiple system failures. Read the article ABC NEWS/Autism estimates double in U.S. kids] <> I can't help but wonder at anyone that keeps saying.. no news here, just move along.. Really. If we had 1 out of every 100 adults coming down with a debilitating condition, people would be hysterical. In fact, we have the medical community trying their best to drum up hysteria about a type of flu that even the CDC says on its website "Most people with 2009 H1N1 have had mild illness and have not needed medical care or antiviral drugs, and the same is true of seasonal flu." We need to shut down everything we think we are doing correctly for children and start again. Get rid of the sacred cow that is the childhood vaccination schedule and actually do in depth testing to see if they are really the problem -instead of citing old figures and criticisms, lets really do jump in and try to figure out what is causing this like we actually mean to find out, instead of giving excuses and delays! Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/Kathleen Sibelius: Autism now hits 1 in 100 children.
<> As a special education teacher, I have watched with increasing concern this trend for a number of years. I don't think we can pinpoint specific causes - environment, vaccines,etc - just yet. We need to be very careful about creating a panic over one possible cause or another before it's investigated. There are no easy answers. Read the article DAILY BEAST/Autism rates may have doubled]
CAN LOTS OF CANDY MAKE KIDS GROW UP TO BE WILD?
Lets go back to the times when sweets and chocolate were a once a week treat, on pocket money day.
We appear to be turning into a race of grazers.! Read the article U.K. DAILY MAIL/Giving in to pester power can make your child a thug. <> As a parent, playgroup manager and now practicing Analytical Psychotherapist, I am pretty sure that bursts of sugar in children's diets brings out the worst in them. Our two kids rarely got sweets, but when they went to other children's parties and ate lots of sweeties with the other kids, they came home ratty and ill behaved for a day or two after the party. It was incredibly obvious to us the effect of sweets. In our playgroup, we observed the same phenomena. Read the article BBC NEWS- HAVE YOUR SAY/Does eating sweets daily as a child lead to becoming a violent adult?
SEPTEMBER 28 , 2009 - OCTOBER 4, 2009 HEALTH/EDUCATION GLIMMER OF HOPE IN HIV VACCINE TEST
Thanks for not making things look overly rosy, and for highlighting the complexities of HIV and the difficulties in engineering effective vaccines. Too many people might otherwise look at the headline and think, (as too many of my foolish younger gay friends do) "A cure is just around the corner!" Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/For first time, AIDs vaccine shows some success in trials.
ARTIFICIAL NOSES -- SNIFFING OUT THE FUTURE
Michio Kaku, a Japanese physicist and a possible soul friend to Isaac Assimov, has written about a large number of things that are "star trekky" and are in the process of being studied with hopes for application at various future dates. Personally, I still swear that the idea for the music CD came from the 1960's version of "The Time Machine" and those "talking rings" that Yvette Mimieux shows the traveler.
Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/Artificial noses have the scent of promise.
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ARCHIVES -- JULY, 2009 — SEPTEMBER, 2009