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Archive for the ‘US healthcare system’ Category
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
With the signing of the Healthcare Reform Bill, millions of Americans of Americans (47 million uninsured, not 32 as has been tossed around in the final throes of the process) now have some measure of hope for medical care, and all of us have some added sense of security.
The noose of the insurance companies has been removed from our necks. Our insurance coverage cannot be canceled because we’ve reached the maximum payable due to a catastrophic illness. If you’re alive and over 20 yo you probably have pre-existing conditions—it will take four years before that limitation is removed for adults—but immediately youngsters cannot be denied coverage for pre-existing conditions.
And our young adults entering the workforce, many earning minimum wages or in jobs not providing health insurance, can remain on their parents’ policy until age 26. The group ages 19-29 have been one-third of the population without insurance coverage; many will be helped by this new law.
Despite all the posturing and rhetoric in the Capitol, having protection for our health isn’t a matter of which party you vote for. When you have to declare bankruptcy because you cannot pay the medical bills, nobody asks whether you’re Democrat or Republican. And medical expenses are the biggest cause of bankruptcies. Health care is a universal right, even in nations with far less resources than the United States.
Necessary to Improve How we do Health
With the insurance industry being reined in, it should now be in everybody’s interest—the patients, government, and the even the for-profit insurance industry—to improve how Americans do health. And very few health consumers/patients are knowledgeable or responsible in managing their own health.
Just 11 percent of Americans over age 50 are not using daily doses of pharmaceutical drugs. In senior communities I’ve observed, visits to various physicians two and three times/week seems to be the social calendar. Yet a friend in her 30s, who seeks natural routes of practicing health, reports that her colleagues are all regularly using pharmaceuticals and are surprised that their (one) colleague isn’t “taking anything”.
Americans haven’t been taught any methods of taking care of their health, other than pharmaceuticals, and neither have our M.D.s. Here’s my recommendations on reforming how we do health:
Consumer/patient education & responsibility
The foundation of the WMB reform is to educate the consumer/patient and hand them responsibility for their well-being. Good health—wellness—requires a wide variety of healing modalities, and few Americans know anything except pharmaceutical drugs. “Ask your doctor if any/every drug is right for you.” That’s what heavy daily television advertising has been telling us since 1998. And we do ask—or demand! In a survey of MDs, 37 percent complained that their patients insisted on prescriptions—and they usually relented whether or not it was advisable.
Ban Drug Advertising to Consumers
If we’re going to improve the population’s health and dramatically lower costs, reliance on pharmaceuticals must be reduced—dramatically. With the exception of New Zealand, the U.S. is the only country that allows direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Being a part of the British Commonwealth, New Zealanders already use homeopathy, herbs, and a wide variety of medical treatments. For the past decade Americans have been told there’s a drug for every twitch, inconvenient menses and—the latest—to improve our eyelashes. Earlier in this decade 40 percent of broadcast advertising revenue was from pharmaceutical advertising. At least two bills have come up in Congress to end it, but to no avail. Perhaps with new cost figures on the nation’s health bill, Congress will see that this advertising folly has to end. But the advertising works! (And higher drug prices pay for it.) We’re four percent of the world’s population using 50 percent of the world’s drugs.
Are we any healthier than others with this reliance on drugs? On the contrary, the latest World Health Organization (WHO) survey of nation’s health outcomes didn’t even consider the U.S. among the 19 industrialized nations. We’re ranked 37th in the world, two notches above Cuba and below such countries as Colombia (22nd), Morocco (29th), and Dominica (35th). Congressmen proclaiming on TV during this health reform debate, “We have the greatest healthcare system in the world” are about 25 years behind in their facts.
Public Health Promotion on Natural Medicines
Maybe this is “counter advertising” paid for by Big Pharma if Congress can’t muster the votes to ban drug advertising. The ideal would be to ban drug advertising, and to broadcast public health messages as Public Service Announcements (PSAs) required by the Federal Communication Commission for stations to maintain their licenses. Television advertising of cigarettes was banned decades ago due to the impact on the public’s health. The annual death toll of 100,000 due to pharmaceuticals and 700,000 visits to America’s ERs due to contraindications of drugs should qualify as a public health menace worthy of banning advertising of the substances.
Reform Medical Education
As many other nations do, the government should provide free medical education for primary care physicians (in return for n years of service). Eliminating the quarter million dollar debt for the medical students should influence medical students’ choice of whether to specialize (and make more money to pay off the school debt) and reduce the nation’s shortage of primary care physicians.
Expand medical education to include nutrition (more than the current one course); according to the CDC, 73 percent of deaths are diseases of (nutritional) deficiency. Our doctors need to learn more about nutrition. Introduce homeopathic treatments to medical students; in the European nations 20 to 40 percent of MDs refer patients to homeopathic doctors or recommend homeopathic remedies (prescriptions aren’t necessary for routine treatment).
These reforms won’t be welcome by Big Pharma. You can bet funds for buildings, programs, departments will be withheld from medical schools if curricula are revised to teach any healing modalities besides pharmaceuticals. Great!
To improve the nation’s health, we need the pharmaceutical companies TO GET OUT of medical education. One university is changing its name from Faculty of Medicine to Faculty of Health! Presently, over 90 percent of continuing education seminars/workshops of the nation’s doctors are sponsored by drug companies. They’re not teaching nutrition, herbs or homeopathy!
Limit Medical Malpractice Awards
A significant cost of medical care based upon drugs is liability insurance for all the death and harm the chemical medicines cause. Healthcare practitioners not using drugs (Naturopaths, Homeopaths, Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors) don’t have the legal liability issues of members of the AMA because they’re not using deadly medicines.
Vola! With patients educated on ALL OPTIONS of treatment and physicians trained in healing modalities other than drugs, the patient (and her family) takes more responsibility in making choices.
Since this is a proposal not accountable to political or business interests, I will add a single-payer system as the most efficient mode of health delivery (Office of Budget Management studies have already shown this to be true). Electronic medical records and patient medical diaries (they’re now responsible for their own health) will reduce costs and improve efficiency.
In the end, the WMB mantra, “You’re an Experiment of One (with anything you take) and the Only One that Matters” is always true.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, advertising and medicine, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, media and health, medicial science, nutrition and politics, science, technology and health | Comments Off
Monday, February 1st, 2010
Now there are going to be millions who refuse to believe that there were any intentions other than the public’s best interest behind the World Health Organization’s calling the H1N1 (swine) flu a PANDEMIC. Americans don’t like being deceived, lied to, and put in danger, so we scream, ”Say it isn’t so.”
German epidemiologist and chair of the health committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg has watched closely the evolution of the H1N1 virus since its “introduction” last March. The motion on the EU’s agenda for an urgent degate on “Faked Pandemics–a Threat to Health” was signed by 14 members from ten countries represented on the Health Committee.
Redefining “Pandemic”
The Europeans are angry that governments have spent scarce resources on a contrived pandemic, accusing makers of flu drugs and vaccines of influencing the WHO’s decision to declare a pandemic. There are two kickers here–before the safety and effectiveness of vaccines are even considered.
First, governments have contracts in place with pharmaceutical companies to produce vaccines should any government agency claim”pandemic”. In the U.S. these contracts also shield the drug companies from liability should the vaccines cause harm (the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program). And due to the urgent nature, they’re rarely tested adequately and often do have dire consequences.
Second–the clincher–is that the WHO changed its definition of pandemic in May 2009 when the body count from the new flu wasn’t happening. A pandemic has always been commonly understood to mean heavy loss of life. Since that wasn’t happening, the WHO dropped six words from the definition: enormous numbers of deaths and illness. Now all that it took for a pandemic was a virus spreading across borders to which people had no immunity. (Question–wouldn’t a measure of immunity be the number of deaths and infections?)
CDC halts tracking H1N1 cases
Two months later, in July 2009, our own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention knew that there was no pandemic and advised the state health officials to stop testing patients for H1N1 and to stop counting cases of the influenza. When CBS News asked the CDC to explain this, there was no response. CBS checked with state health officials directly and learned that the cases of H1N1 were one or two percent of the flu cases tested. Regardless, the vaccines had been ordered, so roll up those sleves for the fall flu season!
But with WHO yelling, “Pandemic!” the floodgates were opened for the drug companies to open those sealed contracts and start cranking out vaccines (even bringing out stored Tamiflu and Relenza–and extending their expiration dates!) and raking in the mega bucks and euros. Who was behind this decision at WHO is what the Europeans will be asking.
The motion brought to the full Parliament reads:
“In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and offical agencies responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide. They have made (governments) squander tight health care resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.
“The ‘birds-flu’ campaign (2005/06) combined with the ’swine-flu’ campaign seem to have caused a great deal of damage not only to some vaccinated patients and to public health budgets, but also to the credibility and accountability of important international health agencies.”
Needless to say, the WHO response is, basically, ”irresponsible hogwash”. But the committee hasn’t even raised the question of the origin of the hybrid virus that has elements of strains of varied viruses that have never formed in nature. So, if it’s not found in nature, it was most likely generated in a laboratory. Being a very unstable virus that could unravel and mutate in any host body, the effects of this hybrid virus on the populace’s health is unknown.
We’ll watch what happens in Europe. In the U.S. only the Iowa state senator Chuck Grassley is asking federal authorities questions about the H1N1 vaccine. Americans really don’t cope with lies and deceit from our government–point of fact, half of Americans believe (erroneously) that we DID find WMD in Iraq, the reason we were led into war.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, global health, medicial science, planetary health, science, technology and health | 1 Comment »
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
The ERs at hospitals across America are reporting overcrowding as panic over H1N1 flu spreads this fall. As I watched the TV news report of the crunch on the hospitals in Tucson—and runs on the ERs are happening everywhere– my first thought was that for the sake of the public’s health, the ER staffs should be handing out packets of Oscillococcinum by Boiron, instructing the patients on how to take homeopathic medicine (dissolve the medicine under the tongue) and sending them home.
That my imagined scenario isn’t being played out during in any U.S. hospitals is a good indicator of much of what is wrong with American health care. People run to the doctor for any and every ailment, and Americans (and their physicians) know of no medical system except pharmaceuticals. Homeopathic flu medicines never, ever fail to cure the flu. It’s takes only a day or two to completely recover, and there’s never been nasty (much less toxic or fatal) side effects with use of homeopathic medicine in 200 years of use. Most other nations of the world know this—except Americans.
Not having to win the votes of Congressional representatives or to fend off the lobbyists of vested interests trying to preserve their profits, my proposed health plan is simpler. Focusing on patient education, the WMB health reform plan reduces dependence on MDs and makes drugs the medicine of last resort (the “alternative”). Surely the results will be a healthier population and at considerably less cost than the nation is spending now.
Consumer/patient education & responsibility
The foundation of the WMB reform is to educate the consumer/patient and hand them responsibility for their well-being. Good health—wellness—requires a wide variety of healing modalities, and few Americans know anything except pharmaceutical drugs. “Ask your doctor if any/every drug is right for you.” That’s what heavy daily television advertising has been telling us since 1998. And we do ask—or demand! In a survey of MDs, 37 percent complained that their patients insisted on prescriptions—and they usually relented whether or not it was advisable.
Ban Drug Advertising to Consumers
If we’re going to improve the population’s health and dramatically lower costs, reliance on pharmaceuticals must be reduced—dramatically. With the exception of New Zealand, the U.S. is the only country that allows direct-to-consumer drug advertising. Being a part of the British Commonwealth, New Zealanders already use homeopathy, herbs, and a wide variety of medical treatments. For the past decade Americans have been told there’s a drug for every twitch, inconvenient menses and—the latest—to improve our eyelashes. Earlier in this decade 40 percent of broadcast advertising revenue was from pharmaceutical advertising. At least two bills have come up in Congress to end it, but to no avail. Perhaps with new cost figures on the nation’s health bill, Congress will see that this advertising folly has to end. But the advertising works! (And higher drug prices pay for it.) We’re four percent of the world’s population using 50 percent of the world’s drugs.
Are we any healthier than others with this reliance on drugs? On the contrary, the latest World Health Organization (WHO) survey of nation’s health outcomes didn’t even consider the U.S. among the 19 industrialized nations. We’re ranked 37th in the world, two notches above Cuba and below such countries as Colombia (22nd), Morocco (29th), and Dominica (35th). Congressmen proclaiming on TV this summer, “We have the greatest healthcare system in the world” are about 25 years behind in their facts.
Public Health Promotion on Natural Medicines
Maybe this is “counter advertising” paid for by Big Pharma if Congress can’t muster the votes to ban drug advertising. The ideal would be to ban drug advertising, and to broadcast public health messages as Public Service Announcements (PSAs) required by the Federal Communication Commission for stations to maintain their licenses. Television advertising of cigarettes was banned decades ago due to the impact on the public’s health. The annual death toll of 100,000 due to pharmaceuticals and 700,000 visits to America’s ERs due to contraindications of drugs should qualify as a public health menace worthy of banning advertising of the substances.
Reform Medical Education
As many other nations do, the government should provide free medical education for primary care physicians (in return for n years of service). Eliminating the quarter million dollar debt for the medical students should influence medical students’ choice of whether to specialize (and make more money to pay off the school debt) and reduce the nation’s shortage of primary care physicians.
Expand medical education to include nutrition (more than the current one course); according to the CDC, 73 percent of deaths are diseases of (nutritional) deficiency. Our doctors need to learn more about nutrition. Introduce homeopathic treatments to medical students; in the European nations 20 to 40 percent of MDs refer patients to homeopathic doctors or recommend homeopathic remedies (prescriptions aren’t necessary for routine treatment).
These reforms won’t be welcome by Big Pharma. You can bet funds for buildings, programs, departments will be withheld from medical schools if curricula are revised to teach any healing modalities besides pharmaceuticals. Great! To improve the nation’s health, we need the pharmaceutical companies TO GET OUT of medical education. One university is changing its name from Faculty of Medicine to Faculty of Health! Presently, over 90 percent of continuing education seminars/workshops of the nation’s doctors are sponsored by drug companies. They’re not teaching nutrition, herbs or homeopathy!
Limit Medical Malpractice Awards
A significant cost of medical care based upon drugs is liability insurance for all the death and harm the chemical medicines cause. Healthcare practitioners not using drugs (Naturopaths, Homeopaths, Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors) don’t have the legal liability issues of members of the AMA because they’re not using deadly medicines.
Vola! With patients educated on ALL OPTIONS of treatment and physicians trained in healing modalities other than drugs, the patient (and her family) takes more responsibility in making choices.
Since this is a proposal not accountable to political or business interests, I will add a single-payer system as the most efficient mode of health delivery (Office of Budget Management studies have already shown this to be true). Electronic medical records and patient medical diaries (they’re now responsible for their own health) will reduce costs and improve efficiency.
In the end, the WMB mantra, “You’re an Experiment of One and the Only One that Matters” is always true.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Tags: health care reform, health care reform bill, health reform bill, obama health care plan
Posted in US healthcare system, Uncategorized, advertising and medicine, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, food supply, media and health, medicial science, nutrition and politics, science, technology and health | 2 Comments »
Saturday, October 3rd, 2009
Doctors often neglect to tell us patients the full scoop on our medical problem or the potential consequences of taking a particular drug. Sometimes they’re honestly clueless–in areas such as nutrition or methods of healing other than drugs–but sometimes they know info on a “recommended treatment” that leads them to decide THEY’RE NOT TAKING THIS MED, even if they’re pushing it on their patients.
This is the case with this season’s H1N1 flu vaccine. The government’s alarms this year–since March–bolstered by the irresponsible media frenzy was brought on by the World Health Organization very early declaring this hybrid flu strain a pandemic. No such pandemic is happening, and several reports now indicate that this seasonal flu will be not much different than other seasons’. Reports of 36,000 deaths “from flu” in an ordinary flu season are misleading; all but less than 2,000 of that number are attributed to pneumonia, an opportunistic infection caused by the flu virus.
Facts about the flu vaccine
Each season’s flu vaccine is a re-mix of previous years’ formulas. This year’s strain is somewhat different in that it’s a genetic mix of swine, avian, and human flu, a hybrid never seen in nature and suspected of having been developed in a lab. (The lab that announced a vaccine for this hybrid the same week that the flu was “discovered” in Mexico.)
Because the influenza virus mutates through the season and in varying locales, the vaccine–every year–is credited with being effective only about one-quarter of the time. The elderly, usually a prime target for vaccination campaigns, haven’t benefited statistically. While the number of elderly vaccinated has climbed steadily during the past quarter of a century, their flu-related death rate has held steady (Archives of Internal Medicine, Feb. 14, 2005) Now, in fairness, a government agency disputed this study’s method, but their statistics weren’t any better–just get your shot anyway, they advised!
Poisons in that Flu shot
The vaccine contains chicken embryo injected with live flu viral strains. Then it has to be treated: formaldehyde is added to kill the viruses, thimerosal (a mercury derivative banned in every other vaccine but flu) is the preservative, aluminum is added to promote antibody response, ethylene glycol (bought as antifreeze for your auto) and phenol are disinfectants in the formula. And these poisons are suppose to keep you well! While the season’s virus will keep mutating through the months so that the vaccine can’t provide viral protection, these toxins will surely make you ill!
Government has Vaccine stocks to Push
Maybe due to the WHO predicting a pandemic, and governments’ financing stockpiles of drugs for the event, state and local governments have ordered their health care professionals to take the flu shot or be fired. Only about half of health care professionals routinely get annual flu shots, but when they’re being threatened with the shots, the positions of the professionals become known. And they’re balking–they’re not going to get this shot.
Half of Hong Kong’s health care workers said they would refuse the H1N1 vaccine due to doubts about its efficacy and concerns about side-effects. The same reasons the rest of us should have! Physicians in England are declining to be vaccinated. With New York city and state ordering health care professionals to be vaccinated or be fired, union reactions should be expected.
With the panic to produce enough vaccine, safety trials are truncated, and neither will drug companies be held liable for injuries or deaths due to the vaccine. However, in this age of the Internet and much more public discussion of all issues, the US government is also revving up a “defense databank” to counter claims of the (expected) side-effects of the vaccine.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is racing to compile a list of the usual numbers of health events: 25,000 heart attacks weekly, 14-19,000 miscarriages weekly, etc. In another government-sponsored project, the Harvard Medical School is linking large insurance databases that cover up to 50 million people; the project will check whether people who’ve had the vaccine go to a doctor in the weeks after a flu shot and why. At Johns Hopkins University the Institute for Vaccine Safety will direct emails to at least 100,000 vaccinated individuals to track how they’re feeling, including complaints that may not lead to a doctor’s visit.
Perhaps the Internet–and the new media’s very public discussions- have driven the government’s new-found concern for public safety as we launch a new season of vaccine experimentation. There is even a campaign to Wash Your Hands frequently, a public health message that is elementary, effective for disease prevention, not profitable for any company, and rare in government health campaigns.
Strong Immunity is only good defense
Instead of vaccination, the emphasis for the individual’s and public’s health in face of flu season should be stregthening one’s immunity. The most elementary rules for supporting your immunity to ward off disease are what your mother always told you: get plenty of sleep; eat sensible balanced meals (we have to add REAL FOODS, not packaged or processed foods or drinks); and exercise regularly. Since our foods don’t the nutrient value they did years ago, nutritional supplements are necessary to boost immunity; vitamins C & E (d-alpha, NOT dl-alpha, a synthetic), beta-carotene. The herb echinacea and isatis root (Ban Lan Gen) bolster the immune system tremendously.
Ban Lan Gen, a Chinese herbal tea, Young Living’s Oil of Thieves, and Pflueger’s Immuno-Support product (in the WMB Shop) are my family’s favorites. Whenever I’m in a crowd, and especially on airplanes, I’m sniffing Oil of Thieves. Ban Lan Gen is great for adjusting to seasonal weather changes, and Pflueger’s Immuno-Support puts an end to on-going struggle with sniffles and every other lingering ailment.
During the flu season, the each member of the family has her own vial of Influenzium 30c and takes a dose once a month for flu prevention, and another dose/s if flu symptoms occur. Another homeopathic flu medicine that works miracles is Boiron’s Oscillicoccinum, knocking off a flu attack in less than 24 hours.
Strengthen your immunity and use herbs and homeopathy to stay well through this autumn and flu season. It’s a safer route than a flu shot.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Tags: swine flu, swine flu info, swine flu symptoms, swine flu vaccines
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, media and health, medicial science, science, technology and health | 7 Comments »
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
The most common argument against the “alternatives” to what is deemed by the AMA to be “legitimate” treatment is that nothing else is “evidence-based.” When the U.S. is, at last, considering overhauling the health care system to reduce costs and improve health outcomes, this premise of “evidence-based” medicine needs to be carefully examined.
What evidence is there for the medicines and methods practices by the AMA? Whose evidence is considered? The following is from WMB’s Articles “Research & Regulation” section; nothing much has changed since this was written in 2002.
“Editors of the New England Journal of Medicine (September 1998) and Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, November 1998) have both proclaimed that there cannot be two kinds of medicine–conventional and alternative, that there is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not been tested. The imminent physicians aruge, in effect, that only orthodox medicine has been tested and proven effective.
In reality, only an estimated 10 to 20 percent of all conventional medical intervention have been proven empirically according to reports of the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment in 1978, again in 1990, and it is true today. The editor of the British Medical Journal also found about 15 percent of medical interventions to be supported by solid scientific evidence. The only known controlled test of the effectiveness of surgery was recently done by a Houston surgeon, Dr. Bruce Moseley, who “pretended” to perform knee surgery on a number of patients; the outcome was that there was no difference in satisfaction (patient reports of improvement) whether knee surgery had actually been performed or not. (Reported in New England Journal of Medicine, July 2002)
Threatened by a proposed law to make vitamins and supplements controlled by prescription in the early 1990s, an outraged American public pushed Congress to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, which essentially eliminated the FDA from regulating herbs and vitamins. While we do not need the government (i.e., the FDA, AMA and pharma companies) granting us permission to take care of our own health, this law abdicated all responsibility from the FDA for the public’s health regarding actual product ingredients. The law prohibits medicinal claims not approved by the FDA and bans warnings about possible side effects. The result has been in the US “no rules, no standards, no analyses, and no oversight,” as reported by Joe and Teresa Graedon in The People’s Pharmacy.
Other countries, such as Germany, Australia, and Canada, treat healing herbs differently. In Germany, the production of herbs is standardized and regulated by the government. The German government accepts traditional medicinal claims of herbs and requires only cautionary labeling about potential side effects. As a result, mainstream German physicians are as likely to prescribe valerian-based sleep aids as pharmaceutical sleeping pills. Canada has established a Natural Health Products Directorate; over 50 percent of Canadians consume traditional herbal products, vitamins and mineral supplements, traditional Chinese, Ayurvedic and other medicines, and homeopathic preparations.”
Expand Research Sources
The sources for “evidence” of the usefulness of herbs and supplements needs to be expanded to beyond American shores. Other nations carry out double-blind studies of the efficacy of the traditional medicines their populations use, and we need to track their research. The U.S. government–rather than pharmas–should sponsor research on supplements and herbs, and the researchers should know the difference between natural and synthetic vitamins (such as E)!
Educating the public to take better care of themselves cannot be training them to “ask your doctor” about another drug. The data on the value of nutrition and herbs IS KNOWN, despite the FDA disclaimers, and public knowledge of these “alternatives” to take care of their health needs to be expanded. Improving our nation’s health (and reducing costs) absolutely requires using alternatives to the drugs. With nearly one million Americans every year either killed or sent to ERs due to use of pharmaceuticals, our lives and our national well-being depends on knowing and using alternatives.
Until then, the WMB mantra is so very true: You are an Experiment of One with everything you take, and you are the Only One that matters!
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Tags: evidence-based medicine
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, media and health, medicial science, science, technology and health | 4 Comments »
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
Years ago on a radio talk show regarding health, the host asked the guest, an M.D., “What is pain?” The doctor’s response, “Whatever the patient says it is.”
Hallelujah! Only the patient is experiencing the pain and knows his/her body. Likewise, only the patient, that is you and me, know–or at least have a clue–when we’re well or not, in other words if we’re feeling “healthy.”
H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth, wrote an essay in the NY Times this week (7/28/09) on the need to redefine what is “health”. Professor Welch, who is an MD, writes that what constitutes “health” for years has been defined by health professionals who have a financial interest in the answer.
These are health professionals who are invested in or are on the payroll of the pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, manufacturers of medical devices and diagnostic technologies, labs, surgical centers, clinics, hospitals, etc. The editor of The New England Journal of Medicine labeled this some 30 years ago as the “medical-industrial complex”. I will call the band of them MIC.
This band, MIC, now defines health as the absence of abnormality as ever-new technologies are developed and ready to measure us. Dr. Welch writes that people use to seek health care because they were sick. Now MIC seeks patients so every little ache or twitch should be checked out and “labs are needed”.
Doctors and public only know drugs
A major contributor to drawing in the patients has been direct-to-the-consumer (DTC) advertising, especially on television. There were years of heavy pharmaceutical ads, and who couldn’t eventually identify some little twitch or pain they could use that drug for? New Zealand is the only other country that allows DTC advertising of drugs, but the education of our MDs in drugs being the sole healing modality and the American public’s lack of alternatives to drugs has resulted in our four percent of the world’s population using 50 percent of the world’s pharmaceuticals.
But MIC also defines what is “normal” so this potential patient can fit into the “abnormal” category, of course. When I was having my children in my thirties, as many Boomers did, my obstetrician commented that the statistics of “high-risk age” for maternity would be changing with my generation. And it’s these statistics of what is “normal” that MIC manipulates. If over half the population is living quite well with blood pressure above the “norm” of 120/80, common sense would indicate the statistics should be revised. Since cancer cells are our own cells gone haywire, couldn’t we all be labeled by MIC as in pre-cancer condition? And if those babies were born a hefty 8 pounds plus or you have an extra 10 pounds, you’re surely pre-diabetic. (Following this logic, we’re all pre-deceased!)
Tests are costly and ineffective
This definition of health only serves the financial interests of MIC. The irony is that often the tests they do use–and then prescribe drugs to treat the phantom ailment–aren’t measuring anything significant. If half of those who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol, then what does managing cholesterol have to do with cardiovascular risk and why would you take a drug to reduce cholesterol? A new radiology test that captures internal views of every blood vessel in the body has found patients with lifelong very high cholesterol didn’t have a pinhead of plague in their vessels. (It’s dislodged plague that causes cardiovascular “events”.)
For the most part, the tests done by MDs don’t measure excesses or deficiencies until we’re in critical condition. They fail to keep us even close to optimal health. A friend who has occasional wakes-me-up pain in the kidney (and she’s had kidney stones so she knows PAIN) and scant blood in urine (she’s a nurse so observes things), went to the doctor for tests. His test indicated “everything’s normal”, and to quit complaining was his advice. She needs to seek nutritional and herbal support for her kidneys.
Another individual did just that. A complete physical and blood tests didn’t indicate causes for slightly swollen ankles or lower than normal energy. That was the MD’s assessment. “Everthing’s fine,” was the diagnosis. The TCM naturopath, in a 90-minute visit vs. 10-minute exam, through examining the six pulses and the tongue, saw that her heart was sluggish. With a herbal complex prescribed, within two days the ankles were no longer swollen and energy levels boosted so that an afternoon nap wasn’t a necessity.
Open system to all practitioners
So while the MDs and the medical-industrial complex manipulate the definition of health, and resulting costs have skyrocketed, their medical devices and lab tests also fail to detect non-optimal health conditions. To improve individuals’ and the nation’s health all the varied health practitioners must be brought into the health system. The education of our MDs has to be expanded beyond pharmaceuticals, and the population needs education in nutrition, herbs, and medical systems other than drugs.
The WMB mantra stands: You are (indeed) an Experiment of One with everything you take, and you are the only one that matters!
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, advertising and medicine, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, media and health, medicial science, nutrition and politics, science, technology and health | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
Giving birth in Germany is like entering an altered universe. Imagine having a midwife counsel you through the months of pregnancy, guide you in making decisions before the birth in case of emergency, deliver the baby, then make home visits daily as long as necessary.
Healthier Outcomes with Midwives
Midwifery in the U.S. has been so hounded by state legislators (who were besieged by AMA lobbyists) and eventually banned in many states so that we don’t even know what this health practitioner does. And we should know. All the research shows that births conducted by midwives have a more positive outcome for maternal and infant health, physical and emotional, than do MD-directed, in-hospital births. Other nations’ healthcare policy-makers know this.
In Germany, where I have been for the past few weeks, the law requires a midwife to attend to every mom and to deliver the babies. Having an M.D. present in the delivery room is optional, though some hospitals have them stop by “to witness” the birth.
Training of Midwives
Women training to be midwives have three years’ of classes and residency in a university hospital. The training focuses on gynecology and obstetrics, and they’re paid for their training. The German professional midwives association, with about 18,000 members, is organized by the 15 states or provinces. The majority of midwives work in hospitals and are paid similarly to nurses, and about 80 percent of moms only work with midwives after the birth.
My niece is one of the 20 percent of German moms who chose to work with an independent, consultant midwife (not associated with a hospital) who counsels the mom (and dad) throughout the pregnancy and through the first year of the newborn’s life. And private insurors pay 100 percent of the costs.
“You have so many questions, and the doctor has no time. Most important to me was the midwife’s emotional support. The doctor can do much of the other (exams, etc), but not the emotional support,” Danya said. Having her first child at 42, she was considered medically high-risk only due to her age. Knowing that, the midwife discussed with Danya and her husband contingency plans in case of complications. There were none, but having made the decisions in advance created a more relaxed delivery environment.
With phone consultations with the midwife being usual, Danya called her when contractions started. The move to the hospital was put off for several hours because home is a more comfortable environment, emotionally and physically. She had used a homeopathic remedy to facilitate an easier delivery, and she checked into the hospital two hours before the birth.
Midwives’ services
Massaging the abdomen to realign organs displaced by the fetus? Only a midwife provides such care. Danya’s midwife, a mom of a 2-yo herself, made home visits twice daily after Mom and baby returned home (2-day hospital stay). She gave instructions in breast feeding, showed Dad how to give the newborn a bath, answered questions of all manner of emotional and physical issues.
When his two-week (paid) paternity leave ended and her husband returned to his job, and Danya was having a tearful day, the midwife assured her this was the usual helplessness all moms felt on this day. After the first week the midwife’s visits were daily for about another week. When the baby wasn’t gaining enough weight, she directed the new parents to add formula to his diet and to pump breast milk so that the amount he ate could be measured.
After the first month a scheduled visit to the home is made every three months. Wearing only a shirt, baby is put into a small, white sheet with straps that is hung onto a hand-held scale (picture the stork’s delivery sack). Reflexes are tested. Any other concerns of Mom are discussed. Periodic visits to the pediatrician are made, but the midwife will be called first about a rash.
The best health care brings into the practitioners’ arena all manner of health modalities that focus on wellness. And these practitioners–midwives, chiropractors, herbalists, body treatments such as Bowen and shiatsu, nutrition counselors–will improve the health of Americans AND lower costs.
Other German friends were complaining that insurance wasn’t paying 100 percent of a three-week spa stay for an elderly woman who was the sole caregiver for her husband suffering from alzheimer’s. Insurance was paying for a one-month stay (perhaps longer) for him in a nursing home, and giving the caregiver/wife a health treatment at the spa in the nearby mountains. I just shook my head in disbelief that they were disgruntled with this care, which is unheard of in the U.S.
This is wellness for all, and it’s the expectation of the Germans and the French.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, http://www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
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Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, medicial science, science | 4 Comments »
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
With one in six Americans without any health insurance and costs so astronomical that millions more are underinsured and with medical costs the largest cause of bankruptcy, still the Republicans are trying to scare Americans from supporting a government-supported health insurance option. Either Republicans are living on a different planet than the rest of us or they’re indebted to insurance companies for campaign contributions. Well, this is a no-brainer.
Please, Takeover health care!
Here’s the language they’re spreading all over the media, and it actually works for us (the public).
TAKEOVER! It’s a takeover! Now usually that term has the adjective “hostile” in front of it. It’s presumed to be an unwelcome takeover. In the case of government TAKEOVER of health care, BRING IT ON! The employment-based, market system clearly has not worked.
The AMA has fought against a universal health program in the USA for over 100 years, and with health coverage always based on employment, the nation’s retirees were left medically destitute until the establishment of Medicare with Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s. That medical program literally pulled our nation’s seniors out of the gutter and provided health care.
Rationing? Any would help millions
RATIONING! That usually means receiving less than you’re accustomed to. With nearly 50 million without ANY health coverage we need rationing. BRING IT ON!
Government oversight is needed in many areas of health care. According to a former editor of JAMA, 80 percent of lab tests are unnecessary and only serve to enrich the MDs who are shareholders of the labs.
The shortage of primary care physicians and millions without insurance has brought out shysters in the medical profession. One young female MD in Alexandria, VA, advertises $60 for an office visit then my daughter listened to her demand the patients’ credit cards for lab tests costing $1000, $1200, etc.
Laura had a lingering cold after a visit to Germany last winter, and the young MD exclaimed, “Oh, there’s a virus going around in Germany. We need to do a lab test.” Laura looked at her as if she were crazy (she was actually unscrupulous, greedy, and unethical), and said, “No, we don’t.” But very few consumers are educated enough to question their doctors’ judgments.
Bureaucrats–with a new purpose
BUREAUCRATS! Government bureaucrats will be in charge of making decisions on what medical care we receive. Who do they think is making those decisions now? The decisions are being made by thousands of bureaucrats (aka administrators) on the payrolls of the health insurance companies. And the objective at the insurance office is to find a reason to deny coverage or payment. (This is documented–I’m not making this up.) BRING ON THE (GOVERNMENT) BUREAUCRATS! The government bureaucrat’s objective will be PROVIDE, not DENY, health coverage.
A consumer-owned coop has been tried
One alternative plan that’s being floated by Sen. Ken Conrad (ND-Dem) is a non-profit consumer-owned cooperative. That’s the model that Blue Cross-Blue Shield was built upon (for teachers) some decades ago. Then the Blues turned for-profit in states that allowed them to and began the same practices of every other health insurance company which has dropped to nation’s health quality to 37th in the world according to the World Health Organization.
The USA isn’t even measured anymore among the world’s 19 developed nations, and we’re two notches above Cuba (39th) where, you can bet, the per capita cost is nowhere near $5,000 + in America, and no bankruptcies have occurred in Cuba due to health costs.
President Obama had the best response to the uproar the insurance companies are making (and their Republican lackeys) over the public insurance option. He told the NY Times, “If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care, if they tell us they’re offering a good deal, then why is it that the government—which they say can’t run anything—suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That’s not logical.”
A public health insurance option is necessary not only to save America’s health but it will go a long way in rescuing our spirit and our economy.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, media and health, medicial science, science, technology and health | 3 Comments »
Friday, May 15th, 2009
This week in the UAE the government launched a full assault on the fast-food industry (all American companies) and (rightfully so) blamed their menu and promotion of it for the population’s rate of diabetes. The diabetes toll here is second in the world only to Saudi Arabia, about 24 percent of the population.
POW! Take that on your fat chops, KFC, Hardee’s, Pizza Hut, and McDonald’s! I had to smile. Sometimes it’s refreshing to live in a brand new country where the government’s primary concern ACTUALLY IS the population’s welfare, the corporate interests haven’t banned into interest groups to lobby the government for their profit interests, and there are no democratic branches of government to lobby, anyway!
But then, France and Germany are two democracies that do put the population’s health ahead of corporate interests, and government is on the side of the people. That the US government has been sitting on the side of corporate profit interests and not the population’s well-being, became more apparent this week.
Tax code favors paying for sickness, not staying well
Those of us championing wellness have said for years that this isn’t a health-care system the US has, but a sick-care system. Just how true and accurate that is becomes apparent as the new administration is determined to radically improve the health of the nation.
HEALTH is the operative word, not MEDICINE. And herein lays the crux of how the system has been set up. The current tax code treats expenses for medical care and treatment of disease favorably but has varied hurdles, blocks, and dis-incentives to employers supporting wellness among their employees.
The National Business Group on Health, which represents over 270 large employers providing health insurance to 55 million Americans, reports, “The current tax treatment of wellness, fitness, health promotion, nutrition, and weight management programs poses a disincentive for employees to participate in employer-sponsored wellness programs and an administrative barrier for employers to offer them.”
Currently employers can deduct as a business expense what they pay for employee wellness programs, but the IRS comes back and bites the butt of that employee using the gym by considering the benefit as taxable income. Only a doctor’s order to exercise, for example, submitted to the HR office like an excuse for being absent would allow the employee to use pre-tax dollars or have the wellness program excluded from his taxable income. This raises questions of privacy and puts a heavy administrative burden on the employer.
The position of the National Business Group is that extending favorable tax treatment for employer contributions for employee health and wellness programs would remove a major barrier to more widespread adoption of these programs by employers and greater participation by employees. The result would be a healthier America.
Congress considering tax credits for Wellness
One of President Obama’s eight principles for health legislation is that it must “invest in prevention and wellness.” The New York Times reported this past week, “Congress is seriously considering proposals to provide tax credits or other subsidies to employers who offer wellness programs that meet federal criteria.”
Okay—code yellow—caution. Who is going to set the “federal criteria”? To date, federal criteria have been the problem due to the lobbying influence of the profit-interests of the troika, Big Pharma, the AMA, and Insurance industry. (I choke to call it the “health insurance” industry but that’s been the misnomer.)
Put the USPS Task Force on it
Congress and the President’s office would be wise to put the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) front and center in developing the criteria. This task force isn’t a government office or program but the leading independent panel of private-sector experts in fields of preventive medicine and primary care. And the US is in sore need in both areas. They conduct “rigorous, impartial assessments of the scientific evidence for the effectiveness of a broad range of clinical preventive services.”
I first noticed the work of the USPS Task Force when they announced early in this decade that routine cardio tests—electrocardiograms, stress tests, etc.– were no more accurate or useful in measuring or predicting cardiovascular health than simple questions regarding lifestyle and family history. Having just done that battery of tests with no answers but suffering “tightness” in the chest that was quickly resolved with CoQ10, the work of the Task Force confirmed my independent thinking.
See http://www.womensmedicinebowl.com/articles/conditions_women_heart.php
The independent thinking of the USPS Task Force could go a long way in establishing federal criteria for wellness programs. Their work is testing evidence of effectiveness of medical tests and treatments, and it’s not tainted with commercial (read: profit-making) interests. Still, WMB’s mantra, is the only evidence that’s valid, is whether the treatment or remedy works for you. You are the only experiment that matters!
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, medicial science, science, technology and health | Comments Off
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Last April (2008) we reported that the U.S. Supreme Court would be deciding in the next term whether drug companies could claim “pre-emption” from lawsuits for the consequences of their products. The concept lays all responsibility on the federal agency that approved the product, in this case the FDA. (See “FDA as final authority? U.S. courts may exempt pharmas from liability” April 15, 2008)
The court, by a 6-to-3 vote, upheld a Vermont jury verdict of $6.7 million in favor of a musician whose arm had to be amputated eight years ago after she was injected with an anti-nausea drug. Wyeth, the drug’s manufacturer, had argued (and lost in two state courts) that it had complied with FDA labeling requirements and, therefore, should be exempt from injury suits.
And the prognosis wasn’t looking positive for the patients/consumers. State and federal court decisions had been ruling in favor of corporations, not consumers. Last year, in Riegel v. Medtronic, the Supreme Court ruled by 8-1 that many state suits concerning injuries caused by medical devices were barred by the express language in a federal law. This case, Wyeth v. Levine, implied pre-emption, a different legal standard. The court’s decision said state juries may award damages for harm from unsafe drugs even though their manufacturers had satisfied federal regulators.
Supported by the Bush administration, drug companies and other businesses had hoped this Vermont case would establish broader protections, relying on implications from federal regulatory standards and policies. (Apparently, the Republican party doesn’t want Big Government –unless it protects their profits from injured consumers.)
Historically, the FDA has regarded state injury law suits as a useful complement to federal regulation until a recent change in policy under the Bush administration. Justice Stevens wrote in the majority opinion that the agency reversed that longstanding policy not withstanding the agency’s “limited resources to monitor the 11,000 drugs on the market.” Apparently knowing the shortcomings of the agency, Justice Stevens called this shift “a dramatic change in position” in 2006.
Why the FDA can’t be trusted
Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Michigan) advised the Obama administration not to fill the FDA Commissioner position with any current senior FDA employees. Stupak should know. From his position in the House Committee on Energy & Commerce he reported in PharmaTimes (a U.K. publication, which gives the issue some balance not found on the American side of the Atlantic): “The subcommittee’s investigations revealed how the current FDA senior management blocked clinical trials, drove dedicated medical professionals out of the agency and lined their pockets with outrageous bonuses.” CBS News reported the last point.
According to the NY Times, “A series of independent assessments have concluded that the agency is poorly organized, scientifically deficient and short of money.” FDA commissioner, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, acknowledged in February (2008) that the agency faces a crisis and may not be “adequate to regulate the food and drugs of the 21st century.” No kidding.
Lawsuits reveal pharmas lie to the FDA
“In the last decade,” the NY Times reports, “suits over Zyprex, the withdrawn pain pill Vioxx, the withdrawn diabetes medicine Rezulin, the withdrawn heartburn medicine Propulside and several antidepressants have shown that companies played down the risks of their medicines and failed to disclose clinical trials to the public even as they have aggressively marketed their drugs.”
A spokesman for Merck, disappointed at the Wyeth v. Levine decision, told the NY Times, “We believe state courts should not be second-guessing the doctors and scientists at the FDA.” Indeed, it’s usually in the discovery process of those court cases that the obscured, fudged, and massaged data on the safety of drugs are brought to light. Too late for the injured and deceased patients.
One million annually injured or killed by pharmas
If any other industry wrecked as much havoc on the nation we would surely shut it down. The figure of 100,000 deaths annually due to the contraindications of drugs is widely known. When I first reported that in 2002, I asked what was the figure for those injured by drugs but who survived (maimed or not). My answer was provided by a study published in JAMA in October 2006. A study of American hospital ER visits found that 700,000 emergencies annually were due to interactions or contraindications of pharmaceutical drugs, and the researchers suspect that number is significantly underestimated because most ER visits are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. These were just the known drug related cases.
Consumer Alert to next pharma move
Industries as varied as producers of antifreeze, fireworks, popcorn, cigarettes and light bulbs have argued that federal regulatory oversight should be their shield against consumer law suits. After this Supreme Court decision this argument is likely to work only if there is express language in a Congressional statute or a specific regulatory action that makes compliance with state requirements impossible. I can see the pharma lobbyists sharpening their pens to draft Congressional statutes to press on Congressional representatives. There probably is at least one whose sympathy isn’t with the one million annual victims.
As I always say, make drugs the medicine of last resort, the alternative medicine, after using homeopathic, herbs, etc. so that you or your loved ones aren’t among the one million headed to the ER or to the grave.
Salud!
Beverly A Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, medicial science, science, technology and health | Comments Off
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