Popular Stop-Smoking Drugs to Carry Mental Health Risk Warnings
Behavioral Changes, Depressed Mood, Hostility, Suicidal Thoughts Reported With Drugs
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it will immediately require boxed warnings about the risk of serious neuropsychiatric symptoms on the packaging of two popular smoking cessation drugs -- varenicline (Chantix) and buproprion (Zyban, Wellbutrin and generics).
Reports of behavioral changes, depressed mood, agitation, hostility and suicidal thoughts and behavior associated with use of the drugs have been submitted to the FDA's adverse event reporting system.
Throughout the marketing history of the drugs, there have been 98 suicides and 188 attempted suicides in varenicline users and 14 suicides and 17 attempted suicides in buproprion users, the agency reported. The FDA is not recommending discontinuation of the medications, which have been shown effective for quitting smoking, according to Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, director of the agency's Office of Drug Evaluation II. But the FDA is recommending that clinicians monitor their patients for neuropsychiatric symptoms after initiating treatment.
The FDA has been conducting a safety review of varenicline since receiving preliminary reports of problems in 2007.
Rosebraugh said it was somewhat surprising that a similar danger signal turned up for buproprion. Because the reports of symptoms are sent to the FDA, the agency cannot make effective estimates of rates of the problems, but Rosebraugh said he thinks they are very low.
In many cases, but not all, the symptoms stopped after discontinuing treatment.
Patients who experience these symptoms while taking the drugs should be monitored, even after stopping treatment, until the symptoms resolve, Rosebraugh said. Although some neuropsychiatric symptoms could be the result of nicotine withdrawal, there have been reports of problems in treated patients who were still smoking. The manufacturers of the medications will be required to conduct a clinical trial to evaluate the occurrence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients using varenicline and buproprion to quit smoking. The study will include patients with pre-existing psychiatric disorders.
DOCCROW comments: Ok, so the medic’s method of stop smoking isn’t working. Instead, it’s killing people and whacking-out their minds.
Treat one drug addiction (cigarettes & nicotine) with other drugs. That doesn’t make much sense to me. There are better ways to stop smoking.
I watched both my parents die of lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking. They were terrible deaths. Recently, I lost my buddy Chuck to lung cancer. He went quick, once the diagnosis was made.
The STOP SMOKING program I put together for my patients is based on years & years of research, studying what was workable for the patient. Dr. Crow sits down for an hour on the first consultation and outlines the plan for the STOP SMOKING process. We teach & include multiple therapies for the patient, to help them easily overcome the smoking (drug) addiction. We teach the patient the multiple psycho\social issues necessary to quit. We teach nutrition, and how to recover it post cigarettes. We teach herbology, the herbs necessary to block nicotine receptor sites in the brain. We teach detoxification, the flushing of the nicotine drug out of the body. We teach hydrotherapy, the use of water to clear the body of waste. We teach acupuncture, the methods used for centuries to assist a patient with the mental blockages and to support lung tissue. There are so many aspects to the STOP SMOKING process.
Doc Crow is dedicated to patients who want to successfully get-over their cigarette addiction.
If you choose to stop smoking, contact Dr. Page Crow for an appointment and to discuss your options for STOP SMOKING process. You need to get out of your drug addiction before it kills you with cancer.
page crow DC July 2009
Posted on Thursday, July 02, 2009 at 05:47
DOCCROW web blogs
Panel Recommends Ban on 2 Popular Painkillers
GARDINER HARRIS-reporter
Published: June 30, 2009
ADELPHI, Md. — A federal advisory panel voted narrowly on Tuesday to recommend a ban on Percocet and Vicodin, two of the most popular prescription painkillers in the world, because of their effects on the liver.
The two drugs combine a narcotic with acetaminophen, the ingredient found in popular over-the-counter products like Tylenol and Excedrin. High doses of acetaminophen are a leading cause of liver damage, and the panel noted that patients who take Percocet and Vicodin for long periods often need higher and higher doses to achieve the same effect.
Acetaminophen is combined with different narcotics in at least seven other prescription drugs, and all of these combination pills will be banned if the Food and Drug Administration heeds the advice of its experts. Vicodin and its generic equivalents alone are prescribed more than 100 million times a year in the United States.
Laureen Cassidy, a spokeswoman for Abbott Laboratories, which makes Vicodin, said, “The F.D.A. will make a final determination and Abbott will follow the agency’s guidance.”
The agency is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisory panels, but it usually does.
The panel’s 20-17 vote to recommend a ban on the combination drugs was one of 11 it took at a meeting called to advise the F.D.A. on problems arising from the extraordinary high use of acetaminophen. In 2005, American consumers bought 28 billion doses of products containing the ingredient.
While the medicine is effective in treating headaches and reducing fevers, even recommended doses can cause liver damage in some people. And more than 400 people die and 42,000 are hospitalized every year in the United States from overdoses.
In hopes of reducing some of these deaths, the committee voted 24 to 13 to recommend that the F.D.A. reduce the highest allowed dose of acetaminophen in over-the-counter pills like Tylenol to 325 milligrams, from 500. And members voted 21 to 16 to reduce the maximum daily dosage to less than 4,000 milligrams.
But they voted 20 to 17 against limiting the number of pills allowed in each bottle, with members saying such a limit would probably have little effect and could hurt rural and poor patients. Bottles of 1,000 pills are often sold at discount chains.
“We have no data to show that people who overdose shop at Costco,” said Dr. Edward Covington, a panel member from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
Dr. Lewis S. Nelson, a toxicologist from the New York University School of Medicine who served as the panel’s acting chairman, said experts had been warning of the dangers of combination painkillers like Percocet, which is made by Endo Pharmaceuticals, and Vicodin for years.
Still, the recommendation is likely to come as a shock to many patients, who may be unaware of the dangers of high doses of acetaminophen — even if they know the drugs contain the ingredient.
Some doctors already avoid prescribing pills that combine acetaminophen with narcotics like oxycodone (found in Percocet) and hydrocodone (in Vicodin).
“It ties the doctor’s hands when you put the two drugs together,” said Dr. Scott M. Fishman, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of California, Davis, and a former president of the American Academy of Pain Medicine. “There’s no reason you can’t get the same effect by using them separately.”
Dr. Fisher said the combinations were prescribed so often for the sake of convenience, but added, “When you’re using controlled substances, you want to err on the side of safety rather than convenience.”
Still, some doctors predicted that the recommendation would put extra burdens on physicians and patients.
“More people will be suffering from pain,” said Dr. Sean Mackey, chief of pain management at Stanford University Medical School. “More people will be seeing their doctors more frequently and running up health care costs.”
In a statement, Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol’s maker, said it “strongly disagrees” with the proposed restrictions on acetaminophen, adding that they would be likely to “lead to more serious adverse events as consumers shift to other over-the-counter products,” like Advil and aspirin.
Linda A. Suydam, president of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, said the committee had ignored studies showing that doses sold by her members — two pills of 500 milligrams, up to four times a day — were safe. “I think this is a very effective dose and one needed for individuals who experience chronic pain,” she said.
The committee also turned its attention to over-the-counter children’s medicines containing acetaminophen, voting 36 to 1 to limit them to a single formulation. Right now the liquids are sold in two different concentrations, leading to confusion among doctors and parents.
“I don’t think it’s safe to have two formulations out there,” said Dr. Nelson, the acting chairman.
The members were divided over which formula to recommend, the concentrated or the less concentrated one. F.D.A. officials suggested that they would likely settle on the less concentrated formula so that if parents make a mistake, they would be less likely to overdose.
Acetaminophen is included in a vast array of over-the-counter cough and cold products, including Nyquil, Excedrin and many others. A small share of accidental poisonings result when people take two or more of these combination products without understanding the risk.
The F.D.A. asked the committee whether it should ban combination products that include acetaminophen. The vote was 24 to 13 against such a ban, with many members saying consumers saw the products as valuable.
“Based on the data provided, the combination O.T.C. medications really contributed very little to overall poisonings,” said Dr. Osemwota A. Omoigui, a panel member from the Los Angeles Pain Clinic.
A 2005 study found that most poisonings resulted from patients’ taking Vicodin and similar products that combine a narcotic with acetaminophen.
“I think this is the one place where we can engineer in safety,” said Dr. Judith M. Kramer, a panel member and an associate professor of medicine from Duke University Medical Center who voted to ban the combination prescription medicines. “We’re here because there are inadvertent overdoses that are fatal, and this is our one opportunity to have a big impact.”
Consumers need to be better educated about the risks of popular medicines, most panel members agreed.
“If you keep track of what you’re taking, none of this is an issue for you,” Dr. Jan Engle, a panel member and head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at the University of Illinois in Chicago, said in an interview after the meeting.
Donald G. McNeil Jr. contributed reporting from New York.
DOCCROW comments: We've been saying this for years-these drugs are dangerous and hard on your liver. I grew up in a family that didn't take over-the-counter medicines and pharma-drugs. I learned that as a kid. I witness my friends and patients taking drugs like FOOD.
Bottles with 1000 pills in them??? OMG! Folks eat this stuff like candy. Later, when they die of a liver-related failure, no one is talking about their cause of death.
When cigarettes kill people, the government taxes the tobacco manufacturers to death and puts smoking bans on every bar & club.
Get off pills. Learn to live without drugs. This is a black & white issue. Your body does not need drugs, it needs nutrition.
page crow DC July 2009
Posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 03:21
DOCCROW web blogts
FARRAH FAWCETT DIES OF ANAL CANCER
Farrah Fawcett, a reigning symbol of American pop culture who never quite managed to escape the one electrifying role that made her that symbol - as one of "Charlie's Angels" - has died. She was 62 and had been suffering from anal cancer, which had recently spread to her liver.
DOCCROW comments:
How does a woman get anal cancer? Answer: from anal sex
Problem is: anal sex is not workable for a woman. The anal sphincter and rectum is not designed to create lubrication for sex, like vaginal tissue.
Repeated friction events on the anus and rectum, like in anal sex acts, causes tissue abrasion, inflammation and degeneration. This tissue damage combined with daily feces passing over injured internal tissue causes terrible damage and can probably lead to anal cancer.
Don't subject your woman to anal sex. Her body is not made for this act. It hurts and can kill a woman.
Don't even talk about heavy or mucho lubricants to prevent injury. Just don't go there. It's not worth the medical risk to your woman.
Anal cancer is caused by repeated anal sex. Don't do this.
page crow DC June 2009
Posted on Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 19:15
DOCCROW web blogs
My Duck is Dead > > > > > > A woman brought a very limp duck into a > > veterinary surgeon. > > > > As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. > > > > > > > > After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed > away." > > > > The distressed woman wailed, "Are you sure?" > > > > > > > > "Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," replied the vet. > > > > > > "How can you be so sure?" she protested. > > > > "I mean you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something." > > > > > > The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the > room.
> > He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever.
> > As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the > > dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to > > bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out ofthe room. > > > >
A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and > > strolled out of the room. > > > > > > The vet looked at the woman and said, > > > > "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, > > 100% certifiably, a dead duck." > > > > The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit > > a few keys and produced a bill, which he > > handed to the woman. > > > > The duck's owner, still in shock, took the > > bill. "$150!" she cried, "$150 just to tell > > me my duck is dead!" > > > > The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry. If you > > had just taken my word for it, the bill > > would have been $20, > > > > But with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, > > it's now $150."
Posted on Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 08:34
DOCCROW web blogs
In Minnesota, a mother of four children was recently fined $1.9 million dollars for illegally downloading music from the internet--$80,000.00 per song time the total of 24 songs. These songs usually cost 99 cents each.
By comparison, Cleveland Browns receiver, Dante Stallworth will serve a scant 30 days in jail for pleading guilty to DUI manslaughter. He killed a person while driving drunk.
Is our justice system working properly?
Posted on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 05:12
DOCCROW web blogs
MINNISOTA TEEN SAYS HE'S ANGRY ABOUT CONTINUING CHEMOTHERPY
Teen with cancer who fled Minn. says he's angry judge ordered him to continue chemotherapy
By AMY FORLITI Associated Press Writer
NEW ULM, Minn. June 23, 2009 (AP) The Associated Press
A 13-year-old boy with cancer who fled Minnesota last month to avoid chemotherapy says he's angry that a judge has ruled he must continue getting the treatment.
Thirteen-year-old Daniel Hauser returns to the family van with his sister Mary Ann and mother Colleen, after a court hearing on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 in New Ulm, Minn., where a judge ruled that the 13-year-old boy who fled the state last month to avoid chemotherapy must continue getting the treatment.
Daniel Hauser told The Associated Press he had hoped he would instead be able to stop chemotherapy, which he says makes him dizzy and gives him headaches.
A judge had ruled earlier Tuesday that the teen must continue chemotherapy after court documents showed Daniel's tumor had shrunk significantly following a recent round.
Daniel wasn't in court Tuesday but spoke with the AP at his family's Sleepy Eye farm. He says he believes his tumor's improvement comes from alternative treatments such as supplemental drinks and pills he's taking.
The teen and his mother had previously fled Minnesota for about a week to avoid chemotherapy.
DOCCROW comments: The boy doesn't want to take chemo. The judge orders him to do so. In another case, a women wants to die, but the judge makes the medics put in a feeding tube and keep a woman alive.
In america, you are confused if you think you live in a land of liberty and freedom. We don't. The courts, the medics, your public schools; force you to do things you may not want to do. These institutions are forcing their idea of health care on the public and using FORCE to get their way. Schools lie to parents and tell them they MUST get vaccinations before their kid goes to school. Here we see a judge, who has no education in health care, deciding the health care path for a child, despite the parent's objections.
When will YOU be forced to take drugs by the state? When will YOU be controlled by big brother, the government, your medics & nurses?
This is sick.
page crow DC June 2009
Posted on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 05:01
DOCCROW web blogs
June 17, 2009
WHAT, THE FDA WORRY? (Health or lack of it.)
Filed under: Announcements, News — Red @ 1:24 pm
The American Journal of Psychiatry published a study on Monday suggesting a link between the use of stimulant drugs used to treat ADHD and sudden death, but don’t worry. The FDA says it isn’t a big deal.
Yeah, I’m talking about the same FDA that wants Cheerios classified as a drug.
According a recent story from the Associated Press, “Federal health regulators are urging parents to keep their children on attention deficit drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, despite new evidence in government-backed study that the stimulants can increase the risk of sudden death.”
While it’s already known that stimulant drugs increase the risk of heart problems in children with underlying and preexisting heart conditions, “Healthy children taking the medications were six to seven times more likely to die suddenly for unexplained reasons than their peers.”
But like I said, the FDA isn’t worried about it. And for God’s sake, whatever you do, the FDA wants you to “keep children on the treatments.”
Likely because times are tough, and if the roughly 2.5 million children in this country who take medication like this were to suddenly quit because their parents are worried about their children dying, well . . . profit margins for some would end up more depressed than a high school kid off his meds. Sales of the popular ADHD treatment drugs topped $4.8 billion last year.
To be fair, the FDA is justifying its usual noncommittal, wishy-washy response by pointing out the information used in this study (a study the FDA partially funded) is unreliable–and it is a little murky. Kind of makes you wonder why the FDA helped fund it in the first place since it’s hard to believe they didn’t know the methodology before they wrote a check, but those folks at the FDA are great at keeping us guessing, eh?
The findings are the result of a matched case-control study, a method of research that involves, frankly, a bunch of additional research and a lot of phone calls.
Researchers compared a sample of 564 children that died of sudden and mysterious causes between 1985 and 1996 to another 564 children who died in car accidents during the same time period.
If stimulant drugs had nothing to do with those deaths, the number of victims on stimulant drugs who suffered said deaths and the number of victims on stimulant drugs who died in traffic accidents ought to have been about the same, but it wasn’t.
The study uncovered 10 children that died had been on the meds, while only two children who died in an accident were on the meds.
So, what does that mean for the layman? It means that, even though this is a handful of worst-case scenarios, that ADHD meds could be less understood than we had originally thought.
And what does it mean for the FDA? Not much, and certainly not enough to cause alarm or justify scuttling potential revenue. The FDA has said they are conducting an in-depth study, which I assume will be different and even more in-depth-ier than the one they performed in 2007; billed on the FDA’s press archive as the “Largest Study Ever of Possible Heart Risks With ADHD Medications.”
But that’s the FDA’s motto, I guess: keep trying ’till you get it right.
In the meantime, the FDA’s panel of psychiatric experts has just approved three new drugs to treat bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia in children, so we’ll see how that goes.
The FDA also recently advised consumers to stop using Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel because it can cause loss of smell, which is a serious enough reason to condemn a product.
Nobody died, though.
–Joey Alfino, Red Editorial Staff
Posted on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 04:41
DOCCROW web blogs
RICH AND FAMOUS GUYS DON'T NECESSARILY GET GOOD HEALTH
Apple boss 'had liver transplant'
Steve Jobs had taken medical leave until the end of June Apple boss Steve Jobs received a liver transplant about two months ago and is expected to return to work later this month, a US newspaper has reported.
The Wall Street Journal said the Apple chief executive would be returning to his job on schedule, but may initially work part-time.
Neither Mr Jobs nor a company spokeswoman confirmed the report, the newspaper said.
Mr Jobs ceased his normal management role more than five months ago.
In January, he announced that he was being treated for a "hormone imbalance", and had been losing weight throughout 2008.
Mr Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976. He left in 1985, before returning in 1997 and becoming full-time chief executive in 2000.
He is seen to have played a crucial role in Apple's growth.
The company's share price has recently risen and fallen in step with rumours or news about his health.
He has already survived a pancreatic cancer that was diagnosed in 2004.
DOCCROW comments: Steve Jobs is a top-guy. But even with all the money, fame, fortune and good things that come from financial success, his body is IN TROUBLE. And he could have prevented liver and pancreatic failure. He's only alive right now because he can afford to pay for these incredible organ transplants.
But he's on immune system suppressing drugs to keep him alive now. He has to be. When you replace any organ, your body's immune system wants to attack and destroy the foreign tissue. So medics give pts drugs that suppress (wipe out) your immune system. But now you can get sick real easy from anything, because you need your immune system to stay alive and healthy. Immuno-suppressed is like having AIDS.
Steve's pancreas has failed him too. He got pancreatic cancer. What this means really is that he did not take care of his body one bit as he was growing up and living in his teens, 20s & 30s. So his body started rotting from the inside out. That is what the most common kind of cancer really is: internal body rot.
So rich & famous people can screw up too. But even now, with all his money and ability to get to good doctors, he's got a body that is really screwed-up. He's not really gonna live a lot longer with these kinds of problems. He's bought himself some time.
The only way to keep from getting killer diseases that will not only kill you early, it will wipe out your finances, wipe out your family to pay for your health care expenses & death expenses, wipe out your spouse and family emotionally, is to take better care of your body with routine maintenance self-help self-body practices.
You do this with showering and brushing your teeth. But you have to do MUCH MORE than that to take care of the inside of your body.
Medics tell pts their health problems are "genetic". This excuse is far too often used on pts. Then pts roll over and whine because they are sick and don't know how to get well.
Take a lesson from the Chinese people, who live longer than americans and don't die of various killer diseases. They eat better. They move their bodies. They walk and exercise. They stress less. The Chinese people mostly die of old age, in their 90s.
Money might buy you fancy medical surgeries to keep you alive longer. But there is a better and cheaper way to live.
peace
page crow DC June 2009
Posted on Saturday, June 20, 2009 at 05:16
DOCCROW web blogs
"The public health community has convinced the public the only way to improve poor health in developing countries is by throwing a ton of money at it," Stevens said. "It is perhaps not coincidental that thousands of highly paid jobs and careers are also dependent on it."
$196 BILLION SPENT; LITTLE PROOF UNITED NATIONS HEALTH CARE PROGRAMS WORK AT ALL.
By MARIA CHENG – June 18, 2009
LONDON (AP) — In the last two decades, the world has spent more than $196 billion trying to save people from death and disease in poor countries.
But just what the world's gotten for its money isn't clear, according to two studies published Friday in the medical journal Lancet.
Millions of people are now protected against diseases like yellow fever, sleeping under anti-malaria bed nets and taking AIDS drugs. Much beyond that, it's tough to gauge the effectiveness of pricey programs led by the United Nations and its partners, and in some cases, big spending may even be counterproductive, the studies say.
Trying to show health campaigns actually saved lives is "a very difficult scientific dilemma," said Tim Evans, a senior World Health Organization official who worked on one of the papers.
In one paper, WHO researchers examined the impact of various global health initiatives during the last 20 years.
They found some benefits, like increased diagnosis of tuberculosis cases and higher vaccination rates. But they also concluded some U.N. programs hurt health care in Africa by disrupting basic services and leading some countries to slash their health spending.
In another paper, Chris Murray of the University of Washington and colleagues tracked how much has been spent in public health in the last two decades — the figure jumped from $5.6 billion in 1990 to $21.8 billion in 2007 — and where it's gone. Much of that money is from taxpayers in the West. The U.S. was the biggest donor, contributing more than $10 billion in 2007.
They found some countries don't get more donations even if they're in worse shape. Ethiopia and Uganda both receive more money than Nigeria, Pakistan or Bangladesh, all of whom have bigger health crises.
Some experts were surprised how long it took simply to consider if the world's health investment paid off.
Richard Horton, the Lancet's editor, labeled it "scandalous" and "reckless" health officials haven't carefully measured how they used the world's money.
Experts said that in some cases, the U.N. was propping up dysfunctional health systems. "If you've got rotten governments, no amount of development aid is going to fix that," said Elizabeth Pisani, an AIDS expert who once worked for the U.N., citing Zimbabwe as a prime example.
Murray and colleagues also found AIDS gets at least 23 cents of every health dollar going to poor countries. Globally, AIDS causes fewer than 4 percent of deaths.
"Funds in global health tend to go to whichever lobby group shouts the loudest, with AIDS being a case in point," said Philip Stevens of International Policy Network, a London think tank.
In WHO's study, researchers admitted whether health campaigns address countries' most pressing needs "is not known."
When Cambodia asked for help from 2003-2005, it said less than 10 percent of aid was needed for AIDS. But of the donations Cambodia got, more than 40 percent went to diseases including AIDS.
WHO acknowledged change was necessary, but insisted it needed even more money, warning fewer donations would jeopardize children's' lives.
U.N. agencies, universities and others working on public health routinely take from 2 to 50 percent of a donation for "administrative purposes" before it goes to needy countries.
Others said there is little incentive for health officials to commission an independent evaluation to find out what their programs have achieved.
"The public health community has convinced the public the only way to improve poor health in developing countries is by throwing a ton of money at it," Stevens said. "It is perhaps not coincidental that thousands of highly paid jobs and careers are also dependent on it."
DOCCROW comments: American tax dollars and donations into health care programs get funneled into other countries, while americans go without decent health care themselves. Furthermore, those tax dollars and donations end up becoming salaries for big-shot executives and keeping payrolls up for groups who take our money. This is insane.
All these money-raising efforts to "find a cure..." for (name any disease). Have ANY diseases or any cancers been cured yet by medical research? No. They have no intention of curing any disease. They make too much money off of treating, "researching", and collecting americans donation dollars. Folks, you are being ripped-off royally. Wake up. No one is better off after 100 years of "medical research" and "trying to find a cure".
The cures for most diseases come from STOP doing unhealthy things to your body and START doing many healthy things. It's pretty simple. Eat better, poop more.
I witness groups of well-meaning peoples getting into walking marathons for breast cancer research, or walk the dog for some children's disease research. Little of those funds collected ever make it into real purpose. Most of that money goes into politicians and corporate master's pocketbooks.
Americans are being lied-to and ripped-off like crazy.
The worst offender is organ donation. There are groups, like our government and AMA who challenge us to actually give up our own body organs for donation. But do you think the recipient gets those organs for FREE? Heck no! Hospitals make MILLIONS\BILLIONS of dollars swapping body parts out on expectant patients. THEY don't donate their time to put organs back into people. That side of it cost the patients dearly. Organ donation is a scam.
Wake up folks. The only way you are gonna get decent health care is if you take care of yourself. Good food, good water, good sanitation, exercise, keep your mind open and clear, stay away from all forms of stress... These are the methods of good personal health care.
Medicine as a business sells drugs, chemo, surgeries. Stay away from this stuff if you want to stay out of debt. Drug-based health care is a scam.
The only good stuff in medical-based health care is emergency trauma methods and sophisticated (expensive) diagnostic services. Medics and nurses have become dope salespersons for the pharma industry.
page crow DC June 2009
Posted on Friday, June 19, 2009 at 06:09
DOCCROW web blogs
AMA objects to calling obesity a disability
CHICAGO (AP) — The American Medical Association has taken action to support doctors' ability to discuss obesity with their overweight patients.
Under a new policy adopted Tuesday, the AMA formally opposes efforts by advocacy groups to define obesity as a disability.
Doctors fear using that definition makes them vulnerable under disability laws to lawsuits from obese patients who don't want their doctors to discuss their weight.
Doctors took the action at their annual meeting in Chicago.
In other action Tuesday, the AMA agreed to lobby for legislation to ban selling tobacco in pharmacies.
Health care reform issues are slated to come up later at the meeting, which ends Wednesday.
DOCCROW comments: This is the first time I have ever agreed with the American Medical Association on anything.
Obesity is NOT a disability. Advocates for obese people are trying to get this human disorder catagorized as a disability for various reasons. Obese people can then apply for disability tags so they can park up front. Obese people are not disabled, but they are encumbered by their over-weight condition. They need to walk.
When obesity leads to ankle\knee degeneration with arthritis, then their is disability.
Obesity has many causes. It is NOT genetic.
Obese people must STOP eating refined sugars, most of all. Carbohydrates (rice, chips, grains) are complex sugars that cause the body to release insulin. Diabetes is commoen with chronic obesity.
I have a couple that are friends that very successfully lost a LOT of weight both of them by practicing eating discipline, mild physical exercise (walking) to burn weight off, and they read the book, "THE pH MIRACLE", (author unkown). Greg was amazed how easy and how well he could lose weight following this man's instructions.
Go for it. If you are obese, you are NOT disabled.
dr. page crow June 2009
Posted on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 05:58
DOCCROW web blogs
AMERICA: A BANK-OWNED STATE
In my last column I introduced the idea that America's handling of the financial crisis, and in particular the way it has refused to deal with the banks, is more in keeping with how an "emerging" economy might behave and act.
So this week, I will say that America has become a bank-owned state, allowing its banking oligarchs to suffocate the economy so they can survive at any price.
As a development economist, what always made developing and poorer countries stand out was the level of inequality between individuals.
That is, the difference between how a small percentage, usually the country's capitalists, oligarchs and those close to people in power, were overdosing on wealth as the rest struggled to make ends meet, or even survive.
Read more columns Money and power makes for a toxic bond Everyone in the country knew it, from the poorest farmer on the street to the richest oligarch. It was in your face, unashamed, unabated and highly discomforting.
Discomforting because it made all of us who witnessed it feel crippled at the power of the status quo, ruing the unfairness of life when merit always comes last, relative to who you know and who you are.
We took some relief from believing that this only happens because these countries were authoritarian, and not so accountable to their electorate.
Yet, if we look closer at the leading capitalist economies such as those of America and the UK, we will find that inequity raises its ugly head equally, and as starkly, when you look at the numbers.
Kept in the dark
Here too, a small percentage have the lion's share of national income in their hands, while the rest of the population experience stagnant incomes, all within a democratic, rather than an authoritarian, political regime.
Yet the real difference here is that, away from the numbers, the wider population and the electorate were mostly kept in the dark about this.
In 2006, the top one per cent of American households' share of all disposable income amounted to almost a quarter of all households' disposable income, according to Robert Hunter Wade, professor of political economy at the London School of Economics.
Signs that the crisis would become a great recession were apparent for a long time [EPA] In crude terms, one per cent of the population have a quarter of all the wealth.
Moreover, Wade found the average income of the bottom 90 per cent of the population remained almost stagnant after 1980, although consumption kept rising thanks to the build-up of private debt.
This means that 90 per cent of the American economy were financing their American dream on debt.
In the UK, Wade found the pay gap between the highest and average earners had widened alarmingly.
Back in 1989, chief executives pocketed 17 times more than average earners.
By 2007, those same "captains of industry" were earning 75 times more than the average worker.
That is one enormous leap and I wouldn't mind that happening to my salary!
What's good for Wall Street ...
Warning signs that the financial crisis would become the great recession were there for all to see for a long time.
But where were the alarms in the system itself to say that these countries and the individuals in them were pursuing an unsustainable way of life?
Where were the signs that things were going to end disastrously and, worse still, that the most vulnerable might end up paying the heftiest and most disproportionate price than anyone else?
I believe the status quo was allowed to go unquestioned because banks were benefiting obscenely from the interest on our debt, and governments were in cahoots with these banks.
"... this warped and unjust way of operating was not questioned because the electorate was kept in the dark in the most subtle way possible"
Let's not forget that governments conveniently moved away from the provision of affordable healthcare, free university education and affordable housing while the banks entered our lives, aggressively, to fill that void.
In addition, I think that this warped and unjust way of operating was not questioned because the electorate was kept in the dark in the most subtle way possible.
The whole issue was made invisible. It was kept off the radar screens of electoral politics.
The American electorate were made accomplice to this because they were convinced that what was good for Wall Street, was good for America as a whole.
It was a political sleight of hand of the highest order. And this explains the bipartisan agreement to the ill-designed deregulation of the finance sector that we have seen over the years.
America has become a bank-owned state.
Ann Pettifor, a fellow development economist who works for the New Economics Foundation, says the US administration has been hijacked, and democracy has been pushed aside in favour of what is good for the bankers, by what Abraham Lincoln called "the money power".
And how right she is. The way the banks are being bailed out is a clear example of this political edifice.
Sucking the life out of tax-payers
The fact some of these failing banks have been thrown a lifeline is a testament to the hold they have over Barack Obama's administration.
Some of the banks should be allowed to die because they are so insolvent and holding so much in toxic assets that they will forever need to be on taxpayer-funded life support.
The problem is, this life support is sucking the life out of the taxpayer in the process, as it weighs them down with ever-increasing debt.
On top of that, the money could be used to restructure the economy in a way that is less reliant on the financial sector.
Underlying this refusal to kill those banks in poor health is a faulty and, dare I say, convenient assumption, that is not backed up by reality or fact, that the banks are facing a liquidity crisis as opposed to them facing a solvency crisis.
A liquidity crisis means the banks are facing a credit shortage, and once that is sorted, all will be well.
Geithner's 'stress tests' were meant to tell which banks would not be able to survive [EPA] A solvency crisis means that the assets of many banks, firms and households are worth less than their debt.
And this means that these banks have to be completely nationalised.
Which leads us to Timothy Geithner, the US treasury secretary, and his "stress tests".
The tests were meant to give a clear and final assessment of these banks' balance sheets, telling us which were healthy and which would not be able to survive and would need more cash if the recession deepens.
As in any induced test, like the ones we undergo when we have our hearts tested, the "stress tests" were meant to simulate worse-case scenarios. Well, that was the promise at least.
The hope was that some would be declared so bad, they would have to go under once and for all.
Unfortunately, the tests turned out peculiarly lacking in stress.
Nouriel Roubini, professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, says: "The government used assumptions for the macro variables in 2009 and 2010 that are so optimistic that the actual data for 2009 are already worse than the adverse scenario.
"As for some crucial variables, such as the unemployment rate – key to proper estimates of default and recovery rates for residential mortages ... and other bank loans – the current trend shows that by the end of 2009 the unemployment rate will be higher than the average unemployment rate assumed in the more adverse scenario for 2010, not for 2009."
The unemployment rate used in the worse-case scenario was assumed to average 8.9 per cent in 2009 and 10.3 per cent in 2010. But unemployment has already reached 9.4 per cent this year, and looks likely to overtake 10.3 per cent by next year.
So, there is nothing really challenging about these worse case scenarios at all.
Posted on Sunday, June 14, 2009 at 04:38
DOCCROW web blogs
Senate Approves Tight Regulation Over Cigarettes
By DUFF WILSON Published: June 11, 2009
WASHINGTON — More than four decades after the surgeon general declared smoking a health hazard, the Senate on Thursday cleared the final hurdle to empowering federal officials to regulate cigarettes and other forms of tobacco for the first time.
The legislation, which the White House said President Obama would sign as soon as it reached his desk, will enable the Food and Drug Administration to impose potentially strict new controls on the making and marketing of products that eventually kill half their regular users. The House, which passed a similar bill in April, may vote on the Senate version as soon as Friday. “This is a historic step changing the nature of tobacco in society forever,” said Clifford E. Douglas, the director of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network, which has extensively studied the health effects of smoking and was one of many groups that have long pushed for tobacco regulation.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the new law would reduce youth smoking by 11 percent and adult smoking by 2 percent over the next decade, in addition to reductions already achieved through other actions, like higher taxes and smoke-free indoor space laws. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, as it is called, stops short of empowering the F.D.A. to outlaw smoking or ban nicotine — strictures that even most antismoking advocates acknowledged were not politically feasible and might drive people addicted to nicotine into a criminal black market. But the law would give the F.D.A. power to set standards that could reduce nicotine content and regulate chemicals in cigarette smoke. The law also bans most tobacco flavorings, which are considered a lure to first-time smokers. Menthol was deferred to later studies. Health advocates predict that F.D.A. standards could eventually reduce some of the 60 carcinogens and 4,000 toxins in cigarette smoke, or make it taste so bad it deters users.
The law would also tighten restrictions on the marketing and advertising of tobacco products. Colorful ads and store displays will be replaced by black-and-white-only text. Beginning next year, all outdoor advertising of tobacco within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds would be illegal.
And cigarette makers will be required to stop using terms like “light” and “low tar” by next year and to place large, graphic health warnings on their packages by 2012.
“This is a bill not for a one-year or two-year splash, but for a long-term impact,” said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington advocacy group that took a lead in coordinating support for the legislation. Industry analysts say that the imposition of fees on cigarette companies to pay for the creation and administration of a new F.D.A. tobacco oversight department, which could eventually reach 6 cents a pack, could further raise the cost of smoking.
Industry analysts, though, predict that federal regulation, like higher taxes, will be manageable for the tobacco companies. As long as they have a market of addicted customers, even if that clientele is dwindling, they can raise prices to remain profitable.
The law would be the first big federal step against smoking since the 1971 ban against tobacco advertising on television and radio and the 1988 rules against smoking on airline flights — but potentially much more sweeping than either of those moves.
The law might also address the perceived shortcomings of the $206 billion “master settlement” agreement that seven tobacco companies reached with 46 states in 1998 to resolve lawsuits and change their marketing practices. Afterward, cigarette companies nearly doubled their marketing spending and increased their advertising in stores.
Although the nation’s smoking rate has gradually declined in recent years, an estimated one in five people in this country still smoke. And more than 400,000 of them die each year from smoking-related disease.
For decades, though, despite influential studies in the early 1950s linking smoking to cancer and even after the surgeon general’s report in 1964, Congressional efforts to regulate tobacco met stiff opposition from lawmakers from tobacco-growing states and their political allies. And when the F.D.A. tried on its own to start regulating nicotine as a drug, the Supreme Court struck down that effort in 2000, saying the agency could not take such a step without Congressional authority. Cigarettes remained less regulated than cosmetics or pet food. But this time the antitobacco forces came into alignment, with broad bipartisan support in Congress, where Mr. Obama — himself a smoker who has acknowledged his trouble in quitting the habit — had been a sponsor of the legislation when he was still in the Senate. The Senate passed the bill Thursday by a vote of 79 to 17. The only Democrat voting against it was Kay Hagan of the North Carolina, the leading tobacco-growing state. Another political factor was the willingness of the nation’s biggest tobacco company, Altria Group — owner of Philip Morris and its industry-leading Marlboro brands — to accede to federal regulation. No other tobacco company supported the legislation.
Publicly, Altria pushed the legislation for “the greater predictability and stability we think it will bring to the tobacco industry,” as a spokesman, Brendan J. McCormick, said this week.
But the impulse dates to the 1990s, when according to Philip Morris documents released during lawsuits, the company decided to remake its image as a responsible corporate citizen. Part of that strategy was to advocate legislation to reduce the risks in cigarettes, and avoid smoking’s being outlawed outright.
Moreover, as the industry’s richest company, with profits last year of more than $3 billion, Altria, based in Richmond, Va., has built an extensive scientific research operation. It may thus be the company best equipped to deal with the F.D.A.’s new review process for new, ostensibly safer tobacco products.
Under the law, new smokeless tobacco and other products pitched as having lower health risks could be approved only if makers could demonstrate health benefits to society as a whole — meaning the products would not induce too many nonsmokers or would-be quitters to try them, rather than abstaining.
As Altria’s competitors have repeatedly argued in opposing the legislation, Altria stands to retain more market share if the advertising crackdown makes it harder for other companies to improve their sales standing.
Yet, even Altria said Thursday the legislation, while “an important step forward,” was “not perfect.” The Association of National Advertisers says the act’s “unprecedentedly broad advertising restrictions” violate First Amendment protections for commercial speech. Legal experts say a court challenge on that ground is virtually certain.
DOCCROW comments: Just think...when big government makes cigarette tobacco illegal, folks will be growing their own. I guess big tobacco has run out of lobby (bribe) money for politicians. Why else would our government make tobacco illegal? American medicine kills millions every year with pharma drugs and nobody says anything about it, yet tobacco takes the hit. Interesting. How long will it take to make pharma drugs illegal and under government control?
