Wasting Time With Alex

Medicine

Monday, March 10, 2008

Talk about exagerations…

Alarmists are at it again. What is the big problem this time?

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Holy crap! This is some scary news. The consequences would be devastating on these poor people’s health and could have repercussions that would doom the same people for generations to come. Except…

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

At the risk of completely removing any seriousness from this argument - and that is exactly what should happen as this is plain and simple silly people hyping up a non-issue - let me point out that panicking about these below trace amount levels of contaminants is like panicking because you discover that there are minute traces of fart gas, at levels so small that you can’t even smell them, in the air we breath. Now, one could make the argument that farts are not toxic, but that’s a question of degrees. Farts are nothing but a nuisance precisely because the concentration of the chemicals is sow low that the worst it does when we get enough dosage is smell nasty and gross you out. But in a close room where the concentration gets increased the gas can become dangerous. The issue is that level of concentration needed to make it dangerous is enormous.

And that’s why this entire story is nothing but bull. Parts per billion or trillion? How many millions of gallons of this contaminated water would you have to chug in record time to even get enough of a level where these contaminants suddenly step up from “negligible” to “trace amounts”? I bet you will likely die from a water overdose - yes you can get too much H2O into your system and die from that - as your body chemistry goes bonkers dealing with the amount of water it needs to process as you try to drink enough water to make these contaminants an issue. Or even more obvious, you would drown long before you have ingested enough of these chemicals to make a difference. Coming back to the farts, I guarantee you that you would have a bigger & better chance of some adverse effect if you rode the elevator once with someone farting in it than if you drank a lifetime of this contaminated and supposedly dangerous water.

There is a real simple reason why nobody mentions what would be considered the minimum medical dose, or even what would be concidered the treshhold for a risky dosage. But I bet the people that led with this idiotic story will have everyone panicking over this crap and their names mentioned everywhere for their civic duty. Now that would not be too bad because stupid people deserve to be made fun of, but I am certain some politician will suddenly see a chance to score some cheap points, and we will all be made to pay with some legal idiocy that does absolutely nothing but cost the tax payer a fortune while expanding the death grip of big government. Talk about a bad smell…

Thursday, October 11, 2007

More joys of government run healthcare programs

The left loves to tell us how much better all those socialist nations government run healtcare programs are than ours because they supposedly cover everyone when our system does not. Of course this is plain bullshit. The USSR, one of the most brutal and evil empires ever, had one of the most beautiful Constitutions ever written. It was full of all the stuff that makes the left’s heart strings strum. Espoused all the values of humanity and citizenship. A grand work, but only on paper. The reality on the ground was very different, and the tens of millions were send into exhile for simply not agreeing with the political class and the millions that died or were killed for their beliefs, is ample proof of that. Everyone in the USSR was literate, had healthcare, a job, and was equal. Of course this was all a nice bunch of lies and of no real significance other than to liberal tools that are impressed by what is claimed on paper and not the truth as usual.

What does all of this have to do with healthcare you ask? Well one of the biggest slights of hand by those that want to stick us with socialist government run healthcare is that they are masters of the art of used car sales. They tout all the greatness of these systems, greatness that is usually just on paper of course, and especially the fact that supposedly everyone is covered equally, their paramount concern and fondest desire, in their attempts to make that sale. Of course, the reality is that while on paper everyone is covered, everyone is not really covered when they have to wait so long for service that so many end up dying long before they get to que up (a great cost savings vehicle if there ever was one). But this goes even further than just those that are terminal. Check out how even a simple, but important, thing like births has become a problem that necessitates travel to the evil US for a solution:

Mothers in British Columbia are having a baby boom, but it’s the United States that has to deliver, and that has some proud Canadians blasting their highly touted government healthcare system. “I’m a born-bred Canadian, as well as my daughter and son, and I’m ashamed,” Jill Irvine told FOX News. Irvine’s daughter, Carri Ash, is one of at least 40 mothers or their babies who’ve been airlifted from British Columbia to the U.S. this year because Canadian hospitals didn’t have room for the preemies in their neonatal units.

“It’s a big number and bigger than the previous capacity of the system to deal with it,” said Adrian Dix, a British Columbia legislator, told FOXNews.com. “So when that happens, you can’t have a waiting list for a mother having the baby. She just has the baby.”

Of course who cares if some old geezers, really sick people, or idiots die waiting for care. And it is not an indictment of the system when people have to run across the border to get the care they need. Everyone is covered so that system is better! When we get straddled with a Canadian system we can all go to Mexico for care I guess.

SCHIP LOGIC

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Before you buy into socilaist healthcare…

Check out how a Canadian PM had to come to the US for cancer treatment. Her people are now spinning to hide the fact it was done because she would have had to wait too long in Canada and claim that it was because this hospital was the best place to get this surgery at. Well in either case you lose. See if you had to come to the US for the best care it doesn’t bode well for your health care system period.

Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, who is battling breast cancer, travelled to California last June for an operation that was recommended as part of her treatment, says a report. Stronach’s spokesman, Greg MacEachern, told the Toronto Star that the MP for Newmarket-Aurora had a “later-stage” operation in the U.S. after a Toronto doctor referred her.

“Belinda had one of her later-stage operations in California, after referral from her personal physicians in Toronto. Prior to this, Belinda had surgery and treatment in Toronto, and continues to receive follow-up treatment there,” said MacEachern. He said speed was not the reason why she went to California. Instead, MacEachern said the decision was made because the U.S. hospital was the best place to have it done due to the type of surgery required.

Me, my bet is that she came here because she didn’t want the wait and feared pulling stings. I am also pretty sure they tried to keep it quiet and are just in damage control mode right now. But there isn’t anything you can say to make this look good. And this is the best proof of why the elite don’t mind straddling us with a cumbersome and dangerous socialist healthcare system: they will always be able to afford private care when the need is dire.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Can’t say I am surprised..

I have always believed that people that do drugs have to be insane, but it now looks like researches have found that marijuana - the stuff we get told by people that want to legalize it for casual use is harmless - really is not so safe:

LONDON — Using marijuana seems to increase the chance of becoming psychotic, researchers report in an analysis of past research that reignites the issue of whether pot is dangerous.

The new review suggests that even infrequent use could raise the small but real risk of this serious mental illness by 40 percent.

Doctors have long suspected a connection and say the latest findings underline the need to highlight marijuana’s long-term risks. The research, paid for by the British Health Department, is being published Friday in medical journal The Lancet.

“The available evidence now suggests that cannabis is not as harmless as many people think,” said Dr. Stanley Zammit, one of the study’s authors and a lecturer in the department of psychological medicine at Cardiff University.

Now before you go accusing this study of bias, take note that it was done in England where drug use, while not legal, is not frowned upon as much as it is here. In fact it was paid for by the British Health department. It could very well be that this study is done so that the NIS does not have to pay for marijuana prescriptions - the wonders of a socialist healthcare system which usually means restricting the care you provide to cut costs comes too mind - the druggies are likely to be demanding. Who knows. But there is a tidbid more to the story.

The researchers said they couldn’t prove that marijuana use itself increases the risk of psychosis, a category of several disorders with schizophrenia being the most commonly known.

There could be something else about marijuana users, “like their tendency to use other drugs or certain personality traits, that could be causing the psychoses,” Zammit said.

Maybe I am a medical genius too as it looks like they are saying drug users tend to be psychos and engage in idiotic risk taking that could be the cause (likely consequence) of their condition. Play it safe. As Mr(s). Garrison in South Park would say “Drugs are bad.. Hmmmkay”

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Check this out!

This story first caught my eye I have to admit because of the mention of the bin Laden name. But the thing that struck a key with me, especially considering my recent experiences which allowed me to learn about differences in our system compared to that in so called free healthcare country, was the following:

Jane Felix-Browne, 51, of Moulton-Cheshire, in northwest England, was in Egypt for medical treatment of multiple sclerosis, the Times and Sun newspapers reported. She told the newspaper she met the younger bin Laden while riding a horse near Egypt’s Great Pyramid.

How ironic that someone living in one of these countries blessed with a great socialist administrated healthcare system we keep getting told are so crucial for America’s health care by the lefties, has to travel to Egypt for treatment…

I mean if healthcare in GB is free and of such quality, why would anyone go somewhere else for it? And if one does chose to go somewhere else, why not to another socialist healthcare paradise like France or Germany? Aren’t we told how much better their system is? Michael Moore wants to, with some serious slights of hand and a real heavy dose of clever manipulated facts, convince you that even Cuba has a better system than we do. But reality is otherwise. So call me crazy for not putting a place like Egypt at the top of my list. But then again, I am not subjected to a horrendous socialized medical system that is forced to not just ration the care they provide, but is so devoid of the most recent advancements in medical treatments - for the same reason they are forced to ration care, which is simply the ridiculous increased cost medical care incurs when people believe that their care is free and show up at their doctors unnecessarily - that the care provided in a place normally not thought of as a haven for medical care, in this case Egypt, becomes a good choice.

The lesson here is that the liberal intelligentsia is all for breaking our system and forcing one of these disastrous socialist systems on us because they know they, like the person in this story, can pay for real & better treatment somewhere else. Maybe once we Americans are blessed with a “free healthcare” system - that was a heavy sarcastic dig at the fact nothing is free, and that anything labeled as “free” is likely to not be worth the paper it is printed on - those of us that can afford it will also travel to Egypt for care…

Friday, January 26, 2007

Universal Healthcare redux

The socialists dominating government in “The People’s Republic of Connecticut” are again agitating for Universal Healthcare and have a new plan that will cost $450 million the first year - nobody has a clue what it will cost after that but I am guessing it will double if not triple - and blow the state constitutionally mandated spending cap big-time to cover about 40% of the uninsured, mostly people that do not want to pay for healthcare since they can get it for free already anyway. I expect these shysters to simply break the law by ignoring the cap or moving it outside of the purveyance that subjects it to the spending cap anyway because they want to give themselves the power that comes with a beholden population that depends on them for everything.

Anyone here ever been part of an HMO - a Health Maintenance Organization, and the creation of another brilliant socialist: Ted Kennedy - and suffered through the mandates & restrictions? I have. It was horrible. The HMO decided who I could see and when, what procedures I could get, when I could get them, and if I could get them at all. Doctors made decisions based not on what was best for me, but what was the most cost efficient to the HMO parent company so they could get bonuses. The system basically was rigged against the patient, even though we paid for it. And Universal healthcare will not be free. We will all pay for it. What you get from an HMO is the best case scenario if government ever instituted Universal Healthcare. You heard that right. I said best case. It would likely get much worse as they were forced to limit what care is available and the wait for that care, to bring down the massive costs associated with such a system. And forget freedoms to choose things. Of course liberals are only concerned with keeping government free of conservatives and conservative principles, not really any rights. Government would again dictate what you can or can not do period. But idiot socialists, as is always the case, care more about what feels good than facts, costs, and consequences. That is why they keep fighting for it, despite the obvious shortcomings of Universal Healthcare and the disaster it will bring to Healthcare for all Americans.