Fact
In 2006, health-care spending in US reached two trillion dollars.
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July 31, 2007
Cancer: the Blind Leading the Blind
An advance copy of an article in the September 1st issue of Cancer was just released detailing the results of a survey that explored some of the cancer “myths” that many people naively believe in. "A substantial proportion of people have some inaccurate beliefs about cancer risk," said lead researcher Kevin Stein, the director of the Behavioral Research Center at the American Cancer Society.
Let’s explore some of those “inaccurate beliefs.”
According to the survey, about two-thirds (67.7 percent) of people said the risk of dying from cancer was increasing -- even though statistics show that the five-year cancer survival rate has been steadily improving for the last 30 years.
I find this particularly fascinating since they use two entirely unrelated statistics to negate each other. The question was if people believed the risk of dying from cancer was increasing – not whether people were living longer after diagnosis? And the answer to the question that was actually asked is that absolutely the risk is increasing. In the last hundred years it’s up some 1700%. Even when you adjust for more people and an aging population, it’s still up over 800%. While it is true that over the last ten years deaths from cancer have declined 2.7%, it still means that you’re looking at close to an 800% increase. And it should be noted that virtually all of the improvement in the last ten years is the result of people smoking less and not using hormone replacement therapy. It has nothing to do with better care.
Pesticides and Chemical Fertilizers Linked to Premature Births
The use of pesticides and nitrate-containing fertilizers is almost certainly responsible for rising rates of premature birth in the United States, according to research presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Toronto, Canada.
The Pediatric Academic Society is a gathering of the American Pediatric Society, the Society for Pediatric Research, the Ambulatory Pediatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The research, performed by Paul Winchester, a medical doctor and a professor of clinical pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, showed that premature births were highest in the months of April through July -- May and June in particular -- and lowest in August and September. This correlated precisely with the seasonal variation in surface water concentrations of nitrates and pesticides. This correlation was independent of the mother's age, education, marital status, age, substance use and area of residence (rural, urban or suburban). The study population consisted of 27 million live births between 1996 and 2002.
Continue reading "Pesticides and Chemical Fertilizers Linked to Premature Births" »
July 30, 2007
Fact
As of July 22, 2007 there are 2207 reports of adverse reactions to Gardasil. This is an increase of 2125 new reports in 5 ½ months since February 6th, 2007, where only 82 adverse reactions were reported
- 31 were considered life threatening.
- 1385 required the girls to go to the emergency room
- 451 females at the time of the report had not recovered
- 51 females were disabled when the report was filed
- 5 girls died. Their ages were 12, 15, 19 and two the age was unknown at the time of the report
July 29, 2007
The Truth About the Drug Companies
Every day Americans are subjected to a barrage of advertising by the pharmaceutical industry. Mixed in with the pitches for a particular drug—usually featuring beautiful people enjoying themselves in the great outdoors—is a more general message. Boiled down to its essentials, it is this: "Yes, prescription drugs are expensive, but that shows how valuable they are. Besides, our research and development costs are enormous, and we need to cover them somehow. As 'research-based' companies, we turn out a steady stream of innovative medicines that lengthen life, enhance its quality, and avert more expensive medical care. You are the beneficiaries of this ongoing achievement of the American free enterprise system, so be grateful, quit whining, and pay up." More prosaically, what the industry is saying is that you get what you pay for.
Is any of this true? Well, the first part certainly is. Prescription drug costs are indeed high—and rising fast. Americans now spend a staggering $200 billion a year on prescription drugs, and that figure is growing at a rate of about 12 percent a year (down from a high of 18 percent in 1999).[1] Drugs are the fastest-growing part of the health care bill—which itself is rising at an alarming rate. The increase in drug spending reflects, in almost equal parts, the facts that people are taking a lot more drugs than they used to, that those drugs are more likely to be expensive new ones instead of older, cheaper ones, and that the prices of the most heavily prescribed drugs are routinely jacked up, sometimes several times a year.
July 28, 2007
Farmers Now Spraying MSG On Crops!!!
Among the newest horror stories making the rounds on the web is a report that an agribusiness is now promoting monosodium glutamate (MSG) to farmers as a crop growth enhancer.
The product, AuxiGro, is made by Emerald BioAgriculture in Lansing, Michigan. According to the report, this stuff is showing up now in fertilizer, fungicide, pesticide and plant growth enhancer products.
The company web site promotes its product and reveals that AuxiGro has been secretly getting mixed in our food chain since 1999. The promotional material suggests that the product enhances flowering, produces larger fruit size and greater yields in farm products. We also are told that AuxiGro helps suppress disease.
Fortunately, the recommended dosage is relatively light at just four ounces of liquid application per acre. What we do not know is the concentration of chemicals in those ounces, or just how much of the product is MSG.
From what I know about the effects of MSG to human brain cells, I don't want to be consuming any of it. And yet I know MSG has been secretly slipped into most prepared foods we buy at the supermarket. If you don't believe me, start reading the labels. It is in canned soups, canned spaghetti sauce and even commercially sold salad dressings. My wife and I find ourselves searching long and hard to find food products that do not, or at least appear not to contain MSG.
