Monday, August 31, 2009

System of Healthcare for Profit is Killing Americans Now and in the Future

Yes Art Hambach, http://bigart.blogspot.com, I saw Bill Moyers Journal on Friday. Finally a person that is willing to call a spade a spade. I plan to order Maggie Mahar's book and film http://www.moneydrivenmedicine.org/ "Money Driven Medicine". The film will be broadcast next week on Moyers. The only way to make a profit is to deny life extending treatment as a reformed Wendell Potter of CIGNA health insurance or not is now telling us. http://www.prwatch.org/node/8506

I listened to David Kessler talk about his book, "The End of Overeating," on Eugene's local NPR station. He talked about how children eat every day and already have diabetes at age SIX! They eat all through the day and night and in one case he said a mother was feeding her boy generously at age two and when she gave him only two hamburgers instead of three, he put on a tantrum!

Now with more obese Americans (greater than 30 pounds over normal) than just overweight ones, I can just imagine the huge burden they will impose on our healthcare system in the future. We don't fix healthcare now and fix it more in Obama's second term, we are doomed as a livable society and become still another Third World country with the rich and the rest of us.

Jim Kawakami, August 31, 2009, various blogs at http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

System of Healthcare for Profit is Killing Americans Now and in the Future By Heather Sunday August 30, 2009 http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/bill-moyers-journal-money-driven-medicine http://Crooksandliars.com For anyone that didn't watch it, check out Bill Moyers show from this past weekend featuring the documentaryMoney-Driven Medicine. Here's how Bill wrapped up his show. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08282009/profile.html

BILL MOYERS: MONEY-DRIVEN MEDICINE, a film produced by Alex Gibney, Peter Bull and Chris Matonti; directed by Andy Fredericks; and based on Maggie Mahar's book of the same name.

Log on to pbs.org and click on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL - Maggie Mahar will be there to answer your questions online. We'll link you to the Money-Driven Medicine website where there's more info about the book and the film. We'll also link you to some analysis of what advocates of reform are up against in taking on the health insurance industry, the drug lobby, and the Wall Street equity firms.

Take a look at this recent cover of BUSINESS WEEK. Reporters Chad Terhune and Keith Epsteinwrite that the CEO's of the giant insurance companies should be smiling - their lobbyists have already won. Quote: "no matter what specifics emerge in the voluminous bill Congress may send to President Obama this fall, the insurance industry will emerge more profitable."

And remember that television ad Barack Obama made as a candidate for president?

BARACK OBAMA: The pharmaceutical industry wrote into the prescription drug plan that Medicare could not negotiate with drug companies. And you know what, the chairman of the committee who pushed the law through went to work for the pharmaceutical industry making $2 million a year. Imagine that. That's an example of the same old game-playing in Washington. I don't want to learn how to play the game better. I want to put an end to the game-playing.

BILL MOYERS: Now look at this recent story in the LOS ANGELES TIMES. Lo and behold, since the election, the pharmaceutical industry's $2 million dollars a year superstar lobbyist Billy Tauzin has morphed into President Obama's pal. Tauzin says the President has promised not to pressure the drug companies to negotiate with the government for lower drug prices and has agreed not to allow cheaper drugs to be imported from Canada or Europe - contrary to the position taken by candidate Obama…

Each of these stories illuminates the scarlet thread that runs through Maggie Mahar's book - the story of how today's market-driven medical system gives Wall Street investors life and death control over our health care, turning medicine into a profit machine instead of a social service to meet human need. That's the conflict at the heart of next month's showdown in Washington.

I'm Bill Moyers. See you next time.

I am so thoroughly disgusted by what I'm watching now and the deals that are being cut on this sorry excuse for what is supposed to be health care reform that I am past the point of being fed up. Howard Dean had it right.

Howard Dean: You Don't Have Reform Without the Public Option:

My advocacy would be for this. If you're not going to have a public option, then don't call it health reform. Strip all the money out of the bill and just do something we did here in Vermont about fifteen years ago, guaranteed issue and community rating. Require insurance companies to insure everybody. Stop them from kicking people off and don't let them charge huge amounts of money for sicker patients.

That's not health reform. It's insurance reform. You won't do much for the uninsured but you will make the health insurance market work better for the people it does work for. And you know, that's an incremental step and I wouldn't want to throw that out, but I'd strip the money out of the bill because this is going to be and expensive bill and if you're not going to get reform then you shouldn't bother with the expense.

Amen Howard.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Amended: Young and Healthy People Getting Very Severe Form of Swine Flu Causing Great Concern

When the temperature cools down and humidity decreases such as in Alaska and Maine, the Swine Flu is rampant. A recent study has show clearly that during warm temperature there is more moisture in the air that seems to inhibit infection from breathing. In the winter which has less moisture in the air, the virus stays in the air and can be breathe in more easily. Although most reports say that the infection rate of Swine Flu is similar to Seasonal Flu, the data seem to indicate otherwise because I think the extent of Swine Flu infections is higher than reported because it is usually mild and not reported or leads to hospitalization.

I believe the seriousness of the Swine Flu in winter results from breathing in the virus verses hand contact through the nose or eyes. That is how it can get deeper in the lungs.

What makes this really dangerous is that unlike the seasonal flu which attaches in the upper respiratory system, this flu virus has surface chemistry that allows it to attach and grow deep in the lungs.

Because the Swine Flu does not especially target AIDS patients, I suspect their suppressed immune response may help them avoid the Cytokine Storm resulting from an Over-Reaction of their Immune System.

My out of the box thinking makes me more certain that since we cannot get Tamiflu, it seems very smart to use an immune suppressor such as Prednisone. Please consult your doctor and even give a copy of my analysis to your doctor and try to get them to prescribe Prednisone for your family, especially children and young adults to age 40 or so who have strong immune systems. I don't know the appropriate dose, but your doctors should alert you what is safe and may prevent an over-response of your immune system to Swine Flu.

Get a digital thermometer, better yet, buy a half dozen so you will always have one available anywhere your family travels. Fever is probably the best indicator. First find what your normal temperature is because people vary a lot. For me 99 degrees means I am pretty sick because my average temperature is in the 97 range. Anything over a hundred for most indicates danger and pre-arrange with your doctor what you should do.

Remember I am not a medical doctor so you should have a list of questions before you see your primary care doctor and even send a copy before you see him or her.

Go to http://www.webmd.com to see if you can get more information.

jim Kawakami, August 28, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Young and Healthy People Getting Very Severe Form of Swine Flu Causing Great Concern
New York Times Reuters August 28, 2009 Earlier, WHO reported that H1N1 had reached epidemic levels in Japan, signalling an early start to what may be a long influenza season this year, and that it was also worsening in tropical regions.

"Perhaps most significantly, clinicians from around the world are reporting a very severe form of disease, also in young and otherwise healthy people, which is rarely seen during seasonal influenza infections," WHO said.

"In these patients, the virus directly infects the lung, causing severe respiratory failure. Saving these lives depends on highly specialized and demanding care in intensive care units, usually with long and costly stays."

MINORITIES AT RISK

Minority groups and indigenous populations may also have a higher risk of being severely ill with H1N1.

"In some studies, the risk in these groups is four to five times higher than in the general population," WHO said.

"Although the reasons are not fully understood, possible explanations include lower standards of living and poor overall health status, including a high prevalence of conditions such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension." ...

"When anticipating the impact of the pandemic as more people become infected, health officials need to be aware that many of these predisposing conditions have become much more widespread in recent decades, thus increasing the pool of vulnerable people."

WHO estimates that more than 230 million people globally have asthma, and more than 220 million have diabetes. Obesity may also worsen the risk of severe infection, WHO said.

The good news -- people infected with AIDS virus do not seem to be at special risk from H1N1, WHO said. ... http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/08/28/world/international-uk-flu-pandemic.html


Young and Healthy People Getting Very Severe Form of Swine Flu Causing Great Concern

When the temperature cools down and humidity decreases such as in Alaska and Maine, the Swine Flu is rampant. Recent studies have shown that low humidity allows the flu virus to stay in the air a longer time. I believe the seriousness of the Swine Flu results from breathing in the virus verses hand contact through the nose or eyes.

What makes this really dangerous is that unlike the seasonal flu which attaches in the upper respiratory system, this flu virus has surface chemistry that allows it to attach and grow deep in the lungs.

Because the Swine Flu does not especially target AIDS patients, I suspect their suppressed immune response may help them avoid the Cytokine Storm resulting from an Over-Reaction of their Immune System.

My out of the box thinking makes me more certain that since we cannot get Tamiflu, it seems very smart to use an immune suppressor such as Prednisone. Please consult your doctor and even give a copy of my analysis to your doctor and try to get them to prescribe Prednisone for your family, especially children and young adults to age 40 or so who have strong immune systems. I don't know the appropriate dose, but your doctors should alert you what is safe and may prevent an over-response of your immune system to Swine Flu.

Get a digital thermometer, better yet, buy a half dozen so you will always have one available anywhere your family travels. Fever is probably the best indicator. First find what your normal temperature is because people vary a lot. For me 99 degrees means I am pretty sick because my average temperature is in the 97 range. Anything over a hundred for most indicates danger and pre-arrange with your doctor what you should do.

Remember I am not a medical doctor so you should have a list of questions before you see your primary care doctor and even send a copy before you see him or her.

Go to http://www.webmd.com to see if you can get more information.

jim Kawakami, August 28, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Young and Healthy People Getting Very Severe Form of Swine Flu Causing Great Concern
New York Times Reuters August 28, 2009 Earlier, WHO reported that H1N1 had reached epidemic levels in Japan, signalling an early start to what may be a long influenza season this year, and that it was also worsening in tropical regions.

"Perhaps most significantly, clinicians from around the world are reporting a very severe form of disease, also in young and otherwise healthy people, which is rarely seen during seasonal influenza infections," WHO said.

"In these patients, the virus directly infects the lung, causing severe respiratory failure. Saving these lives depends on highly specialized and demanding care in intensive care units, usually with long and costly stays."

MINORITIES AT RISK

Minority groups and indigenous populations may also have a higher risk of being severely ill with H1N1.

"In some studies, the risk in these groups is four to five times higher than in the general population," WHO said.

"Although the reasons are not fully understood, possible explanations include lower standards of living and poor overall health status, including a high prevalence of conditions such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension." ...

"When anticipating the impact of the pandemic as more people become infected, health officials need to be aware that many of these predisposing conditions have become much more widespread in recent decades, thus increasing the pool of vulnerable people."

WHO estimates that more than 230 million people globally have asthma, and more than 220 million have diabetes. Obesity may also worsen the risk of severe infection, WHO said.

The good news -- people infected with AIDS virus do not seem to be at special risk from H1N1, WHO said. ... http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/08/28/world/international-uk-flu-pandemic.html


Thursday, August 27, 2009

Diabetes and Obesity Causing Corn Sugar Ladened Processed Foods Started with Nixon's Sec. Earl Butz (IN)

Secretary of Agriculture Butts at the behest of large corporations decided to cause small farmers to go bankrupt by greatly increasing the production of corn and other grains and taking waste product from corn and convert that into high fructose sugar which started the huge jump in processed food made from junk food into palatable, but unhealthy food at a substantial increase in profits.

This unhealthy direction was especially enhanced when Reagan ignored the Anti-Trust monopoly laws and allowed substantial takeover of our food industry by five huge corporations. Money is Power. Reagan also got rid of the FAIRNESS law which made biased reporting like FOX and CNN possible. See videos or film King Corn and Foods, Inc. Also read the "Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan.

Bill Clinton talked liberal Democrat, but was actually what we call less conservative than Blue Dog Democrats from a Southern state and left Reagan's policies in place and was largely responsible for enhancing Reagan's policies of so-called free trade and signed bills prepared by the Republican House and Senate which seriously harmed the future income of the Middleclass.

Many families are forced to have their dinners at Fast Food restaurants because it is cheaper to eat there than buy food from the grocery store's processed and fresh foods at highly inflated costs. That is why the poor and middleclass tend to be obese while the affluent are typically not obese or over 30 pounds overweight. Read "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich who tried to live at the salary of Wall Mart, waitressing, and a cleaning woman.

She could not earn enough to afford the security for an apartment and had to live in very shabby, but high cost motels and eat at Fast Food restaurants. She also found that all the mentioned work was really hard and required unappreciated intelligence to do an acceptable job at very low pay. Even though Ehrenreich has a Ph.D. in microbiology at premier Rockefeller University, it was not such an easy thing to learn and do the different jobs efficiently enough.

Bush/Cheney accelerated the enhancing the riches of the top one percent who were the only ones who benefited from the eight years at the rate of increasing their average wealth by 11 percent per year each year on average while the rest of us could not keep up with inflating healthcare and other costs well beyond the increase of one percent added income.

Now the median income per family or half above and half below is $50,000, an amount that leaves half of American families with income barely able to feed and house their family without any frills unless they go into deep debt. With the banks canceling credit cards in mass and raising the interest rates and lower the amount of debt you can carry, many of these same families are in serious financial trouble. The "official" poverty rate set by Bush/Cheney of $19,000 is a big joke. Just renting a family apartment is a minimum of $10,000 a year.

Jim Kawakami, August 27, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Diabetes and Obesity Causing Corn Sugar Ladened Processed Foods Started with Nixon's Sec. Earl Butz (IN)

US News and World Report Sarah Baldauf, August 24, 2009

Added sugars, which are sprinkled on and processed into packaged foods and beverages, have become all too common in the American diet, says the American Heart Association. The group argues that sugar bingeing is helping drive the uptick in metabolic changes in the American population, including the exploding obesity rate, and has now recommended an upper limit on daily consumption.

Women should consume no more than 100 calories per day of added sugars, and men should not top 150 calories per day. There goes the soda habit: One 12-ounce can contains about 8 teaspoons or about 33 grams of added sugar, which equals approximately 130 calories, notes the AHA. (One gram of sugar serves up 4 calories, according to the American Dietetic Association.)

With math like that, it's not surprising that the average American rings up an average of 22.2 teaspoons, or 355 calories per day, of added sugars, mostly from sugar-sweetened beverages.

But those who shun sweet-tasting drinks are not off the hook. Part of the challenge of avoiding added sugars, argues the AHA, is that they have become far more prevalent over time; the amount of added sugars in Americans' food options increased 19 percent between 1970 and 2005. Here are 11 sneaky dietary sources that are surprisingly high in added sugars: [Corn sugar became a cheap source of sugar especially during the Reagan Administration on a larger scale because of their takeover policies with junk bonds. Jim)]

Fortune cookies. Just one fortune cookie packs about 3.6 grams of added sugar.

Flavored booze. Exercise good judgment when you drink: One ounce of crème de menthe has 14 grams of added sugar; 53-proof coffee-flavored liqueur has 16 grams of added sugar per ounce.

Baked beans. A one-cup serving of canned baked beans with no salt added will cost you nearly 15 grams of added sugar. [I buy organic canned beans for convenience which contains 2 gms per serving, but families should buy the beans and cook them. Good source of protein. Jim] ... http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/diet-fitness/2009/08/24/foods-surprisingly-high-in-added-sugar.html

How Our Current Health Insurance System Denies Us Coverage

Susie Madrak, who has been trying to get her broken ankle fixed for two years after she lost her journalism job in Philadelphia. She now has the hugely expensive Cobra Insurance due to expire which President Obama has included a provision to cut this cost to two-thirds and provide a cost savings government option instead of having to pay the salary of bonuses of greedy healthcare executives.

United Heath Insurance, now called United Health Group has bought the Lewin Group so they could have "official" studies done showing the non-viability of changing the healthcare system which the Republicans have gleefully quoted to us over and over again. I have noticed that the Republican politicians quote the Lewin group word for word to get the words that the propagandist want them to say. They can do this because these fanatics has purged the Republican Party of all non-believers or compromisers in the primaries where only a few voters go to the polls.

AARP has the contradictory role of trying to "balance" pushing for United Health Insurance for seniors and supporting healthcare reform which, I think, often slips into supporting their real income source of insurance companies!

Everyone knows someone in their family who either died of cancer, diabetes, or heart disease [Fast Food] which I believe are caused in part by weak regulations of chemical and pollution and death food exposures and by our brutal economic system which rewards the aggressive and heartless corporate executives who do all that is possible to increase profits each quarter and each year to increase their stocks and options worth which healthcare insurance executives and doctors exploit for their own profit. We are all human and adjust to a system to do what is needed to survive in such a system at great personal cost to themselves and their families along with superficial rewards.

During my ten years in and out of hospitals, they made at least two serious medical errors on me and almost gave me a medication which could have killed me. They did not have time to look at my medical records! At least 200,000 patients die each year from medical and medication mistakes. Another 100,000 die taking medications in hospitals as directed.

In contrast, the Veterans Hospitals set up by the Clintons with computerization and a model similar to the Mayo and Cleveland Clinic known for their superb medical care at reasonable costs provided healthcare so superb that they were often compared favorably with the Mayo Clinic. Infections, wrong drugs, and errors by doctors is virtually absent compared to what we normally encounter elsewhere. My accountant got infected at a famous Philadelphia hospital when he went for a heart valve replacement. He was still sick and tired more than a year after the operation. I guess the infection never really went away.

Because of the Healthcare industry's concern for making profits by limiting the number of doctors, and consolidating hospitals by corporate takeovers, we are not in good shape if a mutation occurs in the Swine Flu while in Asia where pigs and people are in intimate contact. Pigs incubate the virus and can get infected with Bird Flu, Swine Flu, and Human Flu and transfer RNA segments with abandon. One of the most serious potential problem with the current swine flu virus is that it attaches itself deeply in the lungs and needs to acquire only the cell death RNA which was present in the 1918 and the 1957 Swine Flu pandemic to kill lots of Americans which attacked and killed the young as I have repeatedly mentioned.

The current Bird Flu virus did not become a pandemic because it does not have the ability to get deep into the lungs because it did not have the ability to attach to humans easily. In Indonesia Bird Flu passed easily among family members because they had receptors in their throat area that Bird Flu could attach to and reproduce using human DNA because they lack the DNA which is needed to reproduce.

I think the experts have reached the wrong conclusion that the current Swine Flu is not more infectious than the ordinary flu virus. It is simple commons sense that if a Flu is infectious when other flu virus is not, it must be more infectious. It makes sense because we all have less resistance to it except possibly for seniors over 65 who may have been exposed to the 1957 Swine Flu pandemic.

I also need to look at their conclusion that immune compromised people such as myself is more susceptible to serious illness. A pregnant women becomes immune compromised so she would not reject the fetus which is different than her genetic makeup. Why very little reports about the widespread deaths of HIV infected people. Do the drugs they are taking make them normal? Sure the numbers indicate that pregnant die more often than others who are infected, but I believe the numbers are small so their conclusions may be statistically wrong.

Jim Kawakami, August 27, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

How Our Current Health Insurance System Denies Us Coverage

... Oh no, Democratic Congress! No, President Obama! Please don't throw me in that briar patch of evil socialized medicine!

I might die of happiness. ...

Madrak: Today I had an appointment with the surgeon who I expected to do the surgery on my ankle. I presented him with the second opinion from one of his colleagues, and he agreed with it.

"Yes, you really do need this surgery," he said. "But you need someone who can do an arthroscopic exam for bone fragments and a ligament reconstruction at the same time, and I can't do that. There's only a handful of people
who do."

Is there any reason why I couldn’t have those surgeries separately? I asked.

Well, no, he said. But it really didn’t make sense to separate them and the insurance company would probably dispute it. The thing is, he knows the other orthopedic group with whom I have the appointment - one of the best in the city, he hastened to add - and he knows they have a lot of restrictions about what insurance they’ll take. He said they probably wouldn’t accept the open car insurance claim in payment.

At this point, I was almost in tears. “What are my options?” I said.

There’s this one guy over at Jefferson who does both, and he might take the insurance, he said. “And there’s another guy up in Princeton, but that’s it as far as I know.” (And by way of passing, told me he had a patient that week from 100 miles away who drove to his office with a badly broken arm because he couldn't get anyone closer to accept his Medicaid.)

So I came home and called the doctor at Jefferson. The office assistant informed me they’re no longing accepting New Jersey car insurance cases. “No, no, my health insurance is Jersey. My car insurance is Pennsylvania,” I said, desperate to get a break.

Finally, I got one. The office assistant took all my information and said she had to verify my coverage and the open claim. I told her I was on COBRA, running out of money and really needed to get this surgery done ASAP.

She said she would try to help me. She called back in five minutes and now I have an actual appointment - in three weeks. (I still have another appointment I made two months ago for the week after this new one, but that's with the guy who won't take my car insurance.)

Let's recap, boys and girls. Keeping in mind the slogans of health care reform opponents (waiting lists, not getting to choose your doctor, not getting the tests you need, etc.), of course:

1) The original injury? Almost two years ago.

2) Because the original claim went through my car insurance as required by law, my health insurance company had no record of the three months of physical therapy. Because they had no record, they would not authorize the MRI until I went through physical therapy. It took me months to straighten that out.

3) Finally get an MRI authorized a year later. Former employer changes his health insurance plan (because the premiums are too high), which affects my COBRA. MRI authorization is no longer valid. Return to "Go," start over.

4) By this time, developing painful cysts in the back of my knee from hobbling everywhere. Doctor advises me to ignore it "because it wasn't in your original accident report and the insurance companies might get confused and deny payment." ...

There are five medical schools in Philadelphia and at least two of the teaching hospitals are in the nation's Top 10. I can't even count how many hospitals we have - 20 or more. Out of all those experts, four doctors perform this reasonably common procedure - and it sounds like it's for insurance reasons.

Now, picture this whole thing with single payer. You get hurt, you go get treated. They send you where you need to go - and there are no worries about whether or not they take your insurance. They order the MRI when you need it, and they locate the right specialist to do the surgery. They send someone to check you at home after the surgery, and they cover the physical therapy - without a copay. ... http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/please-please-dont-change-our-crazy-h


Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Flu Facts: Knowledge Means Power to Do the Right Thing for Your Family and Friends

Take all preventive measures including buying the best mask affordable. They might not work perfectly in a closed environment such as planes where air is frequently re-circulated (Biden was smart). Being a senior, I took a chance to fly to New Jersey to an area where the Swine flu was awful, but I did not catch it.


Remember Swine Flu can pass through the air more easily in winter than in summer based on recent studies. The air is drier in winter including homes.


Take the swine flu vaccine even though you think vaccines are bad. Vaccines prevent hospitalizations. People get pneumonia in hospitals. That is how my father died.


We have adults running our government after a huge destruction by Bush/Cheney of the FEMA, CDC, FDA, and veterans hospital, and public hospitals by allowing takeovers by corporations, and withdrawing funds for the rich and war. Republicans don't seem to know how to govern, but they sure know how to destroy the benefits of government for all of us.


Read John W. Dean, a Goldwater Republican, "Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches. Also he wrote the very revealing books "Conservatives Without Conscience and Worse than Watergate."


Most of the press/media directs you to the CDC website for the so-called Swine Flu at http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/, but for most of my readers the wikipedia website is probably the most helpful although it does get technical in some of its aspects. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_A_virus_subtype_H1N1

Humans gave the Swine Flu to Pigs in Mexico which started in Wisconsin. (Garrett Newsweek) I call it Bird Flu because that is the component our immune system reacts so violently too. When the virus changes it could become more mild or more virulent or remain basically the same. We do not know.


Information from the press/media can be both confusing and contradictory with stories varying from similar in infection rates to regular flu to three times more infectious. Just using common sense, it must be much more infectious because most of the "summer" transmission must come from getting flu samples on our hands and touching our nose or eyes. Even though the mouth is mentioned a lot, I doubt this is a major source of contamination although theoretically possible. We rub our eyes nose much more than we think we do.


Carry alcohol based sanitizer such as Purell in the smaller size or else you can carry alcohol soaked pads in individual sealed packages which I have been doing for years. I think that people pick up germs after they wash their hands in a public bathroom by opening the doors. Carry the paper towel you use to dry your hands to open the door or use your elbow or body to open the door etc.


In the winter because of normally drier air, we have discovered from recent scientific studies that flu is transported through the air better in winter than in summer. So the major mode of transmission will be through the air. So if many are getting Swine Flu which is really mostly human and bird flu combined and acts more like the 1918 pandemic bird flu which caused a cytokine storm in the lungs and killed the young but not the older folks. The bird flu vaccine will be given to adults 25-64 and not to retired seniors who were exposed to something similar after 1957 pandemic.


Cytokine is produced whenever the body detects what it considers is a foreign body. Younger people and children with stronger immune responses over reacts to the invasion of flu virus to produce a cytokine storm in the lungs which fills the lungs with fluids or what we call pneumonia when bacteria also proliferate.


Many patients died from pneumonia in both the Bird Flu and SARS spread in Asia and in Canada. Only the Chinese seemed to have realized that the immune system had to be ramped down to save the patients by giving them a high dose of cortisone or similar immune suppressant medications such as prednisone. As far as I have read in the press/media, not many American doctors have used this smart technique to save patients.


A similar thing happens with poisoning with e-Coli 0157-H7 where very strong reaction producing a cytokine storm and shuts down the kidneys of children so they have to put on dialysis hopefully saving their kidneys. I have not heard of any doctor trying to ramp down their immune response probably because we all buy into our immune response getting rid of bacteria including most doctors.


Ask your doctor if it is advisable to get Prednisone for Bird Flu (I get a three months supply of 5 mg Prednisone for less than a dollar with insurance, but it is cheap without insurance. Jim)


It seems that the scientists and very intelligent laypersons understand this clearly enough to apply it.


One of the clearest presentation I have read was in my Eugene Register Guard http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/sevendays/19026364-35/story.csp .


Garrett has expressed the cytokine storm view many times, but it does not seem to sink in very well yet. Laurie A. Garrett who has been a awarded many times for her reports on Health is now a Senior Fellow of Global Health, Council On Foreign Relations, an invitation only group of elites largely controlled by corporate executives with some of the brightest politicians, academics, and policy experts whose chief interest is optimizing our economic system by actions overseas. See http://www.charlierose.com/search/?text=Garrett, http://www.newsweek.com/id/195692


Laurie Garrett, reported in Newsweek that the current flu started with a subsequent promiscuous mutation process back in back in 2005 in Wisconsin on a pig farm. Mutation is quite fast in a flu virus because it tends to easily break up into many parts and then recombines and may pick up any DNA in its environment. Pigs often don't get sick but provide an incubation factory for the virus to mutate more and may also pick up some pig RNA. If chickens, turkeys or wild bird are in close proximity, they may infect the pig so the flu has another resource for bird flu.


Many forget that the deadly 1918 flu pandemic killed 100 million people before a large amount of international travel and importation of live animals legally or not did not kill many at first and then went in incubation, probably in a pig, and then a year or so later became the deadly wide-spread bird flu H1N1. The hardest hit were our young soldiers and children. (100 million for a population of 1.8 billion in 1918 or est 377 million now minus those saved with better medical care and anti-virals and anti-bacterials. plus more travel for people, birds and pigs.)


My chief worry is that many are not going to take the vaccine because a large number of people did not die. The thing you have to rely on is not to get so sick you need hospital care which after the Reagan and Republican years of predatory capitalism no longer have beds and respirators to accommodate us if we have a deadly pandemic with many hospitalization.


So we have to do all we can to prevent hospitalization. The best chance we have is to take the flu vaccine which will help a lot or less if the virus mutates greatly. Remember in 1918 young children and adults were the ones who died in great excess compared to seniors, the victims in regular flu, especially those over 65. Remember the CYTOKINE STORM!


Jim Kawakami, August 25, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Americans Already Deeply Uncomfortable with Death Susceptible to Scare Tactics

Sharon Begley, Newsweek, August 15, 2009, http://www.newsweek.com/id/212131

Sharon Begley of Newsweek is my favorite science reporter who, I think, is better than most at the New York Times because she seems to be able to think outside the box that most of us in America seem incapable of escaping. Perhaps our cruelly predatory economic system has all of us wary of accepting outside views. Narrow minds seem to fall prey most easily to skillful propaganda put out by corporations posing as Republicans and Democrats.

Begley explains why Americans are so easily fooled, but I am not sure what we can do to dissuade misguided Americans. President Obama who is a decent guy has not adjusted to the aggressive and dishonesty of Republican and key Democratic politicians and their chief ally, large corporations who provide the funds to live a high life and fund their reelections.

Perhaps President Obama should stop trying to be political and just tell Americans why we need the basics of the bill with lots of examples of Americans harmed by the current system including Medicare instead of spending valuable time refuting Republicans and Corporate Health Insurers lies.

Jim Kawakami, August 20, 2009, http://jimboguy.bloodspot.com

Sharon Begley Newsweek August 15, 2009 … The power of "death panels" as a phrase and a scare tactic also works because Americans are deeply uncomfortable with death. We don't like to think about it or talk about it, says bioethicist Tom Murray, president of the Hastings Center. Only 29 percent of us have a living will. As a result of that discomfort, reminding people of death sends them off the deep end, into the part of the neuronal pool where reason cowers behind existential terror.

And we're particularly vulnerable to scaremongering in the atmosphere of dread created by the economic meltdown. When people are already scared about losing their jobs and their homes and paying for health care, it doesn't take a lot to make them afraid of one more thing. We're living with "free-floating anxiety" every day, says psychiatrist Louann Brizendine of the University of California, San Francisco. …

The best myths have a kernel of truth, and of all the healthcare screeds, the most plausible is that reform will bring tens of millions of the currently uninsured into the system, making it even harder for you to get a doctor's appointment. Indeed, Luntz finds that the consequence of healthcare reform that frightens more people (44 percent) than any other is making patients "wait weeks or even months" to get the procedure or treatment you need. ("Socialized medicine" scares 26 percent. "Hillary-care"? 10 percent.)

But we're already in the land of waiting weeks for an appointment, thanks to a shortage of primary-care physicians that will only get worse: astonishingly, only 2 percent of medical students are entering primary-care internal medicine, notes the Journal of the American Medical Association. Still, it is a long-established fact of psychology that fear of losing what you have, even if what you have is less than great, always overpowers the hope of getting something better.

Sure, Obamacare might keep insurers from denying you coverage for preexisting conditions, offer you a Medicare-like option similar to the plan that millions of seniors love, eliminate insurers' annual and lifetime spending caps, and reduce your premiums. But it just might—who really knows?—take away something you have now. "What scares people is the devil they don't know," says Westen.

Which brings us to outright rationing. In his memo on "10 Rules for Stopping the 'Washington Takeover' of Healthcare," Luntz—and let me say the man is a psychology genius—tells clients to say that "the plan put forward by the Democrats will deny people treatments they need." This has much less plausibility than the longer-waits specter.

But it has emerged from confusion over a separate White House initiative: spending $1 billion to compare the effectiveness of different treatments for various diseases. Somehow that has morphed into cost (rather than medical) effectiveness. That is, bureaucrats will decide if it is worth treating you based on some calculation about the value of your life or health. … http://www.newsweek.com/id/212131


Is Obama Planning to Sign Congress' Health Care Reform Bill with Lipstick? Wendell Potter

Every dollar you donate to the Center for Media and Democracy at the link where Wendell Porter blogs on the health insurance mess goes to support the work of Wendell Potter who has been the most effective spokesperson counteracting the Health Insurance company's propaganda.

He is located at http://www.prwatch.org will go to support Wendell Porter former Top Propagandist for CIGNA Health Insurance who is now free to talk about how he and his team were able to manipulate the press/media and congress and the people to accept healthcare insurance from corporations which are duty-bound to keep increasing their profits to satisfy Wall Street or we investors. No one dares ask the question whether we really need to keep increasing profits at the sacrifice of most Americans who are arbitrarily fired to boost records profits even higher.

Is Obama Planning to Sign Congress' Health Care Reform Bill with Lipstick? Wendell Potter

... Having worked in the health insurance industry for 20 years, I know Obama and Clinton right in insisting that a public health insurance plan is vital to reform. A public plan not only will serve to "keep the private insurers honest," as Obama used to say before he started waffling, but it also will provide millions of people who now have no insurance at all with good coverage at a more affordable price. That's because the big for-profit insurers waste increasingly big chunk of your premium dollars on nonessential things like exorbitant CEO salaries and profits for the big institutional investors who own them. A public plan would not waste your precious dollars that way. ... http://www.prwatch.org/node/8508 [Top 1 percent own half of the stocks. jim]

Those who do not have insurance seem to be more easily fooled by the healthcare Insurance industry than those who do not watch FOX Cable.

You will be amazed at how good the propaganda has been used to completely change many opinions about the incomplete health reform bill. One of the best Wendell Potter gives us all the juicy details on how they controlled all of us even though we pay exorbitant fees to get healthcare without the guarantee that we will get it when we are in life or death situations. Just three of these so-called minor Healthcare Insurers rejected the claims of 20,000 people in one year as reported by Rachel Maddow at http://rachel.msnbc.com . Read Wendell Potter's blog at http://www.prwatch.org/node/8508 .

Everything we believe about how Capitalism works is not the whole truth because in practice, corporations prefer to have have essentially local monopolies so they do not have to compete and can maximize profits. This is the situation in many cities and towns with Healthcare Insurance where one or two companies control the whole market. This is most evident in the corporate press/media. Profits margins have been routinely as high as 50 percent in the past!

You have no choice on picking your cable company and your only choice is go to satellite television which requires the ability to have the right exposure and the ability to put an antenna on your roof which may be prohibited by the community.

This essentially monopoly of communication on television and radio by corporations insures that their message gets prominence.

We need to support General Electric NBC in its effort to give us something closer to the truth on MSNBC. They were taking a big risk because television depends on advertising for revenue from conservative corporations. The commentators go from conservative in Morning Joe at 6-9 AM ET and gets more liberal during prime time with Olbermann at 8 PM ET and Rachel Maddow at 9 PM ET. California time is 3 hours earlier.

As long as the audience is willing to sacrifice or record prime time shows and get a large enough of the right audience, advertisers will stick. The audience for Maddow and Olbermann is significantly younger and upscale than CNN and FOX. How do I know? It has been reported and usually I can tell easily by the advertisements. The average age for Rush Limbaugh's radio audience, the de facto leader of the Republican Party is 67. Yes, SIXTY SEVEN!

Jim Kawakami, August 20, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com

Polls Can Be Manipulated by Pollsters for Political Reasons: Public Option Poll an Example

Polls Can Be Manipulated by Pollsters for Political Reasons: Public Option Poll an Example

Retired long-time Gallup Pollster's book "The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls, by David W. Moore gives us an eye-opening view about how deceptive polls can be. Sometimes the pollster can get the answer they want by the kind and way they ask the question. Moore also found that not enough options are given to Americans to fully determine if the person really understands the question. Just by asking this question, the polls becomes more easy to understand. Sometimes pollsters leave out crucial questions because polling is expensive.

But since polling run by cable and networks may have their own political agenda either to favor their advertisers or bottom line, it is important for Americans to not take them too seriously until many different polls are examined or a more neutral pollster such as the non-profit Pew Research Center http://people-press.org/ . But even with Pew, one must look for how thorough the polling has been done and the questions asked. Pew is one of the few organizations that routinely discloses their polling technique.

Note that the pollsters for the Republican Party and some network shows are also propagandists PR experts. As Wendell Potter, the top propagandist PR Communications Chief for CIGNA health insurance, said he used very sophisticated techniques to influence the opinions of congress and the American people by manipulating how they think. Corporations hire the best and brightest or hire top PR firms to do their dirty work.

Jim Kawakami, August 20, 2009, http://jimboguy.blogspot.com .

MoveOn.org Used the Same Polling Questions Used by NBC in June 09 Shows that 77 Percent of Americans Favor the Public Option Sam Stein Huffington Post 8/20/09 NBC Modified the Question Asked in Recent Polls

In asking its question SurveyUSA used the same exact words that NBC/Wall Street Journal had used when conducting its June 2009 survey. That one that found 76 percent approval for the public option: "In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance--extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?" ...

Earlier in the week, after pollsters for NBC dropped the word "choice" from their question on a public option, they found that only 43 percent of the public were in favor of "creating a public health care plan administered by the federal government that would compete directly with private health insurance companies."

Opponents of the president's agenda jumped on the findings as evidence that backing for the public option was dropping. Proponents responded by arguing that NBC's tinkering with the language of the question (which it had also done in its July survey) had contributed to the drop in favorability for a public plan. ... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/20/new-poll-77-percent-suppo_n_264375.html