As we all know, corporate dollars often override science. It seems that nearly everything is up for sale, and everyone. Well, get ready for some hot news. The American Diabetic Association (ADA) now thinks that sugar is a-ok for diabetics. Suddenly, it is reversing decades of scientific studies that have consistently linked diets high in sugar to diabetes.

In a May 16 interview, Richard Kahn, the chief scientific and medical officer with the ADA announced that sugar had just been receiving a bad rap all these years.

“What is the evidence that sugar itself has anything to do with diabetes? There is no evidence.” Those are the golden words which slipped from his throat. Strange how those words coincided with a “three-year, multi-million dollar alliance” with Cadbury Schweppes, which is the third largest producer of soft drinks in the world.

It’s gotten to the point where you don’t really know what to believe anymore, because you have no idea who’s funding who to say what!

This is a press release from Consumer Alert:

After the American Diabetes Association received a large gift from major manufacturer of sugar-sweetened beverages, its top medical official is claiming that sugar has nothing to do with diabetes. In an interview published in today¹s Corporate Crime Reporter, Richard Kahn, the chief scientific and medical officer with the American Diabetes Association said “What is the evidence that sugar itself has anything to do with diabetes? There is no evidence,” On April 21, the ADA announced a “three-year, multi-million dollar alliance” with Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, which produces sweetened soft drinks that are implicated in the epidemic of obesity and diabetes in the United States. Its parent company is Cadbury Schweppes, which is the third largest soft-drink manufacturer in the world, after Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.

“Saying that sugar has nothing to do with diabetes is like saying that tobacco has nothing to do with emphysema,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert. “The American Diabetes Association has been so corrupted that they have sunk to the mentality of tobacco scientists’ who denied the link between tobacco and lung cancer.” Incredibly, when Kahn was asked whether sugary drinks have anything to do with diabetes, he responded “No one has a clue of whether they do or don’t.” There is ample evidence linking diets high in sugar, and sugary drinks, with obesity. For example, a study in the Lancet, titled “Relation Between Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Drinks and Childhood Obesity: a Prospective, Observational Analysis” found that the likelihood of obesity in children “increased 1.6 times for each additional can of sugar-sweetened drink that they consumed every day.”

Even his fellow conservative Republicans oppose him. Poor Dubya. Then why do I not feel sorry for him.

Just to rehash, the House had the audacity to defy Bush and vote to give federal funding to embryonic stem cell research. And this included loyal Republicans, who obviously don’t equate a pre-embryo in a petri dish with a living person.

From the LA Times:

The debate over the issue has pitted the hopes of patients suffering from debilitating ailments against the moral objections of conservatives, who see embryos as tantamount to children.

The 238-194 vote brought together most Democrats and 50 Republicans, who feared that the United States was being left behind in an emerging area of medical research because of objections from abortion opponents and religious conservatives.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, where are the protests against fertility clinics and research? The number of pre-embryos used thus far in stem cell research is minute, but hundreds of thousands have been destroyed in fertility research and clinical use. So where are the so-called pro-lifers, with their picket signs and protests? Why the silence about fertility research? Is this a sacred cow, or what?

And most of all, I am very curious if fertility research (which involves pre-embryos) is federally funded. Does federal money go to killing pre-embryos in the name of fertility?

The legislation has strong support in the Senate, as well as the backing of some leading conservatives, such as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. A spokesman for Hatch said the senator believed that the legislation had the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. Supporters in the Senate are urging Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to schedule a vote soon.

But back to this bill. Now here’s where it really gets beyond ludicrous. Bush and his morality squad continue to whine on about a “culture of life” and “ethics,” while discarded embryos are flushed down the toilet.

“This bill would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life,'’ Bush said. “Crossing this line would be a great mistake.'’

Uh, Dubya, sorry to burst your bubble, but the bill is not creating an incentive for destroying “emerging” human life–and please note, that this life only has the potential of emerging if it gets to be implanted in a woman’s uterus. Otherwise, frozen pre-embryos can sit in deep freeze for centuries. This bill is designed to find a more useful avenue for embryos slated for destruction.

That’s right, Dubya, read the fine print. What the bill would do is use embryos that are designated for destruction–get that Bush? They are designated to be thrown into the trash, those precious little pre-embryos that you love so much. Only this bill would provide federal funding for them to be used in stem cell research.

So is it more ethical to throw them out than use them for science? If people like Bush and Tom deLay are so concerned about pre-embryos, then they should be pushing for laws that ban their creation in the first place, and stop playing the half-assed dance around the true situation. Or that only a certain number can be created at one time, ie, the exact amount that will be implanted in a woman and none leftover. A complete moratorium on both freezing and destroy pre-embryos.

But apparently, it seems that their love of pre-embryos does not go quite that far. Picking on stem cells is a safe way to play both sides. Hypocrisy is, afterall, Bush’s middle name. And it also seems that Bush and deLay were grossly outnumbered.

Lawmakers were lobbied by patients and their families - and even by one of their own. Rep. Jim Langevin, R-R.I., whose spine was severed in a gun accident as a teen, said from his wheelchair that he believed that embryonic stem cell research “is very consistent'’ with his opposition to abortion.

“What could be more pro-life than extending and improving the quality of life of people suffering from disease?'’ he said.

The cells in question have already been created. Some may have been sitting in a freezer for over a decade. Talk about the dignity of human life! An estimated 8,000 embryos are discarded every year as hospital waste. At least half a million more are currently sitting in deep freeze. The Castle-DeGette bill would allow donated embryos to be used in federally funded research. Doctors and patients would have to certify that no money changed hands, and that the embryos would never be implanted in a woman and were destined to be discarded.

So what is wrong with that? Unless Bush puts on his Lone Ranger’s outfit, and comes charging into each and every fertility clinic and carries off the poor doomed pre-embryos into the sunset, those 8,000 embryos are going to be toast. Wouldn’t it be better to use them for some good?

The legislation “would require federal taxpayer dollars to be used to encourage the ongoing destruction of nascent human life,'’ said a White House policy document distributed to lawmakers. It “would compel all American taxpayers to pay for research that relies on the intentional destruction of human embryos for the derivation of stem cells, overturning the president’s policy that supports research without promoting such ongoing destruction.'’

Excuse me for being so ignorant, but wouldn’t it make sense to provide federal funding, so that some good can come out of destroying embryos? They are going to be destroyed anyway, a fact that Bush just doesn’t seem to comprehend. But a man who thinks its okay to spend billions to fight an unncessary war and kill American soldiers and thousands of civilians, or who thinks its okay to cut benefits from poor children, or to cut benefits from veterans, or to withhold money from international family planning organizations and thus INCREASE the number of abortions–doesn’t have a clue on what pro-life actually means.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. Let’s take a moment of silence to remember them, as well as our soldiers who are dying (needlessly!) in Iraq.

Kaslog has a nice photo of the American flag on top of the Space Needle. And here’s a link to the History Channel, in case you want to know about the history of Memorial Day.

Monsanto, that wonderful monster corporation with dreams of controlling the world’s food and water supply, is being a bad boy again. Apparently, someone got their hands on documents from Monsanto, documents which they had no intention of sharing–and well, not good news for the mother of all parasite.

A May 22 headline news story in the London Independent has rocked Monsanto and the biotech industry and fueled the controversy over the safety of genetically engineered food. The story reveals that internal Monsanto documents, reviewed by EU scientists, show serious health damage to laboratory animals fed Monsanto’s new genetically engineered “rootworm-resistant” corn. Rats who consumed the mutant corn developed smaller kidneys and exhibited blood abnormalities. Scientists say these are “red flags” for immune system damage and/or cancer tumor promotion. Although the EU will now likely ban Monsanto’s new GMO corn, this same rootworm-resistant corn is already being grown and consumed on a major scale in the United States. Monsanto has denied that the corn can harm humans, but nonetheless refuses to turn over its data to the media, claiming that the lab studies are “Confidential Business Information.”

So if this is just nonsense, and the corn is perfectly safe, why is Monsanto refusing to let anyone take a close look at their data? Could it be, that they have something to hide? Where is your data, oh great Monsanto company, that shows that the corn is SAFE? Does it exist?

If I had to take a guess, the answer is no. Otherwise, they would be willing to share the news, the studies, the science, which would clear their name as well as open the market to their frankencorn.

This is one of the strangest stories to hit the news, I have to say. Worse even then the one a few years ago, when it came to light that women on welfare were having fertility treatments covered by Medicaid. Uh, if you can’t support yourself and the kids you already have–should the state be paying you to get pregnant with another kid, and by extraordinary means no less????

But now, we are feeding sex offenders Viagra, in order to make sure that their dick doesn’t dick out, when they prey on their next victim.

From Businessweek.com:

Nearly 800 convicted sex offenders in 14 states got Medicaid-funded prescriptions for Viagra and other impotence drugs, according to a survey by The Associated Press. The majority of the cases were in New York, Florida and Texas.

The states that provided registered sex offenders with subsidized impotence drugs are Florida, 218 cases; New York, 198; Texas, 198; New Jersey, 55; Virginia, 52; Missouri, 26; Kansas, 14; Ohio, 13; Michigan, seven; Maine, five; Georgia, three; Montana, three; Alabama, two; and North Dakota, one. That comes to 795 cases.

In Virginia, the cost came to at least $3,085. Gov. Mark R. Warner issued an emergency order barring Medicaid from continuing to pay for the drugs for these men.

It would really be comical if it wasn’t so tragic. Viagra to sex offenders. Even if these guys are truly reformed and will never commit another crime, still. They should just be happy that they weren’t castrated.

Kyle Smith, a spokesman for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, put it this way: “Do we have programs giving clubs to wife beaters or drinks for those committing DUI? Weird things happen in this world, and this is one of the weirder.”

Amen, brother.

Monkey see, monkey do…Polly wanna cracker?

I honestly think that for many articles that appear about the the nursing shortage, newspapers simply use a generic script and fill in names and numbers. That has to be the reason why the vast majority of these articles are basically inane, miss the point, and sound identical no matter where you read them. They all just copy from eachother, rehash the same old sound bytes…we need more nursing graduates…nurses are aging….the population is aging and getting sicker…

It is truly the innovative and adventurous newspaper that dares step out into the open, defies the standard protocol, and writes about what is really going on in healthcare.

But just when I thought that the generic (gagga gagga) versions couldn’t get any worse, I happened onto this treasure of idiocy published in the Honolulu Star Bulletin. To say that this article is stupid would be complimenting it. This is one of those rare occurrences, a news story that completely defies all logic and intelligence.

According to this masterpiece, the nursing shortage has hit Hawaii at the worst possible time, just when the number of resident aged 60 and over is growing by leaps and bounds. That is reason #1. Next, the “aging population requires more nurses than colleges can enroll.” So what does that mean, exactly? That everyone who turns 60 is going to become sick and disabled, and need a nurse?

Next, reasons #2 and #3. The nursing shortage in Hawaii exists primarily because nurses are getting old and nearing retirement age, and the local schools can’t produce enough nurses. And that’s it. End of story.

The importance of nurses for quality care for patients was emphasized during National Nurses Week this month as all states struggle with vacancies left by retiring nurses and faculty.

What about the vacancies left by nurses who quit the profession, or go to work outside of the hospital setting? Apparently, the reporter who wrote this story is living on Fantasy Island. Did she bother to find out the attrition rate at hospitals for reasons other than retirement? Did she bother to find out the number of nurses holding a current Hawaii license who no longer work in nursing? Or did she try to find out how many nurses have left Hawaii for the mainland, in order to get better pay and benefits?

Obviously not. That would be too much of mental stretcher.

The nursing vacancies aren’t due to lack of interest in the profession. Hawaii’s nursing schools turned away 293 qualified students in 2003 because they didn’t have enough faculty, the task force reported.

So now, here would be a perfect opportunity to discuss the reasons for the nursing shortage, but instead, the article switches to a mindless anecdote about a nursing student. There is no mention of salary issues, working environment, mandatory overtime, unsafe conditions, too many patients, verbal and physical abuse, etc. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Apparently, in Hawaii, all nurses are blissfully happy and remain on the job until they die, or are too ancient and rickety to make their way down the hospital corridor.

I also imagine that this reporter never thought to find out the drop out rate in nursing programs. The rate of students who drop out before they ever get to their clinical rotations? The rate who drop out after they get a taste of nursing? The pass/fail rate of new grads?

No, that does not compute. This article is the epitome of the royal spin job; the nursing shortage is caused by a combination of lack of new nurses and too many old ones. If enough new nurses can be stuffed into the system, they will the vacancies left by retiring nurses and then we’ll live happily ever after.

The rest of article goes on to discuss how the state of Hawaii is “dealing” with the shortage. Get ready for maximal drivel:

The Hawaii State Center for Nursing, established by the Legislature in 2003, is leading efforts to deal with the shortage with help from health professionals, educators and policymakers statewide.

To fund it, lawmakers added a $40 fee to every RN license.

If I was a nurse in Hawaii, I would refuse to pay a $40 fee so that some pinheads could sit and drink coffee and discuss doing more studies, setting up a task force, and extending efforts at “recruitment.” I would really be pissed. We know what the causes are, but the solutions are painful. It means stepping on the industry’s toes, and forcing nurses to start saying no to heinous work conditions and demanding better pay. It means creating a supportive and enjoyable work environment. It means decent nurse:patient ratios, managers who are not ass-kissers and who actually can provide leadership, and most of all–it means allowing nurses to do their job and not saddling them down with paperwork and everyone else’s chores.

But I guess this article seems to reflect the current mindset in Hawaii, as in forcing nurses to fund the taskforce. Very intelligent, great PR. I’m sure that will entice even more nurses to maintain their licenses in Hawaii. It would be interesting to hear what the Hawaii nurses think about being charges for this nonsense, but again, that probably never crossed the reporter’s mind. Interview a nurse and possibly hear something negative?! Unheard of!

Anyway, I would call this one a winner. Mediocre journalism at its best. Either this reporter is profoundly stupid, and has never learned the two words that are supposed to encompass journalism–research and investigate–or the newspaper must be owned by a healthcare facility. That would clearly explain why nothing naughty was said about poor working conditions being the primary reason why nurses quit their jobs.

It was pointed out to me this morning, that I am not looking at the full picture, in regards to the mental health crisis enveloping Washington State and California. Obviously, there is a pattern and it seems that this type of mental illness may be contagious. Notice how it is afflicting the Pacific Coast.

So may question it, do we need to quarantine? Should we call in the CDC? Do we need to quarantine both states to keep it from spreading, until we at least know the cause?

This is very serious. Obviously, when you see the governor of a state making holes in the ground and then calling in the news to watch him fill it up–well, it means that there must be more like him.

Anyway, this spread of politco-mental derangement needs to be contained. If you see any suspicious activity in your state, please call the CDC.

If you read my earlier post, you know that I reported on a serious mental health crisis among Republicans in Washington state (they just love their pal Dino). But there is also a very serious mental health crisis in California. Sorry Ahnold lovers, but I have to declare the governor insane. He has totally and completely lost his mind, and I don’t think the streets are safe with him lurking in the shadows.

As we know, Arnold declared war against nurses. Since everyone in the state will at some point either be a hospital patient, or have a family member or friend who is hospitalized, then it is common knowledge that the general public wants improved healthcare. They want to know that they’ll have a nurse who has time to notice if they’re breathing, and to change granny’s bed if she has an accident, and will notice if they’re baby tries to strangle herself with her IV tubing.

But one of the first things that Arnold did was try to suspend the second phase of the nurse:patient ratio law, which is designed not only to keep nurses from going insane but to protect the patient. And to help ensure that good care is given.

So, that is when I started to doubt his mental stability. Okay, the healthcare industry is lining his pockets with gold, no doubt, so that can certainly affect one’s judgment. So what if the healthcare workers hate your guts? No bother, still lots more folks in California.

Then Arnold turns his wrath on public employees. Teachers, firefighters and police officers. He wants to “change” the rules for tenure in the schools (and not to the teachers’ advantage). He wants to change pension plans for public employees to 401k plans. Ah, now we see more signs of mental illness. He is widening the scope of people who wish that he’d terminate–that an un-obsolete model of terminator would appear from the future and turn him to toast.

The Brain Had Sizzled Away

But Arnold is not through. He wants to eliminate survivor benefits from the spouses and children of firefighters and police officers killed in the line of duty. Surely only the criminally insane and sadistic would dare to deprive surviving children of support, when their mother or father was killed in service to the public. This one really makes me gag. Puke, puke, all over you, Arnold.

You know, Arnold is a big shot in the movies. He’s the terminator, handling his gun like it’s a lollipop, but in real life, he’d probably crap in his pants if someone pointed a gun at him. Or if he had to get near a burning building.

If you go to Arnoldwatch.org, there is a lot more proof that he has lost his mind. For example, Arnold says that he wants to:

“Review all regulations enacted under Gray Davis to determine if they are consistent with enacting legislation AND minimize the economic impact to regulated communities.”

Real meaning:

Arnold means that whatever health, safety, environmental, civil rights, and workplace regulations that the public has won in recent years might be rolled back if corporations claim they hurt economically even if the rules protect individuals and society.

Arnold says:

“California’s runaway litigation system has become a trial lawyer’s paradise - encouraging frivolous lawsuits and outrageous settlements that are bleeding money from businesses”

Real Meaning:

Arnold wants to take away the legal rights of injured consumers to hold corporations accountable for wrongdoing.

In reality, California already has some of the nation’s most restrictive laws that bar consumers from taking businesses to court, including limits on liability for hospitals, insurance companies and manufacturers.

And on healthcare, one of Arnold’s favorite topics. This is what he has to say:

On ensuring Californians have access to health care:

“We need to get rid of costly mandates that make health insurance costs prohibitive. We need leadership and innovation. Government may be part of the solution in the future, but with our current financial situation, now is not the time to impose a costly new mandate on business.”

Now this translates to:

Arnold’s language is exactly that of employers and insurers who don’t want to be accountable to the public for a newly enacted health care requirement concerning the way Californians receive healthcare and the quality of that care. Arnold is avoiding the fact that regulation and government oversight of the health care market is the only way to increase access to care and control costs.

Now we know, should Arnold or any of his family ever get sick, they will have the best of care. He can afford whatever it takes, and he can completely bypass the system.

Arnold Gone Mad…Rabies, Perhaps?

Rabies may be a very real possibility. Perhaps he was bitten by the likes of Condi Rice, or Ann Coulter, or John Connor who came from the future to terminate him. At any rate, there is striking evidence that Arnold needs to be put in a straitjacket, pumped full of medication, and locked away at Camarillo State Mental Hospital until further notice.

The other stuff I mentioned is proof enough. But this is the final straw….

Now, Arnold seems puzzled why his approval rating has plummeted to 40%. He just doesn’t get it why Californians are not pleased with his idea of a new world order. So, Arnold puts on his pointy thinking cap. How do I make them looovve me again, he wonders. And then a brilliant idea comes to mind, an idea that only a mentally depraved individual would think up.

He wants to show the world that he’s doing good things for California. So he has a road crew create a pothole on a residential street in San Jose. Yes, had them create a pothole. Then he shows up with the lights, cameras, and flashng a brilliant smile to the public, fills in the pothole and declares his willingness to increase funding for transportation projects. Of course Arnold’s attempt at filling up the pothole was just window dressing; it was later sealed by a roadcrew with a gigantic roller truck.

No, I am not making this up. You can read the full, ad nauseum story on the San Francisco Chronicle. Whether you choose to laugh or cry is a toss-up.

Now, am I correct that a man who is supposed to be governor of the most populous state in the nation, who thinks that wasting money to break up a road (and California surely isn’t lacking in potholes), and who then has the media photograph him pretending to fill it up, is insane?

And that he thinks that this staged showing of Arnold-the-governor-at-work-is going to make people like him again?

I rest my case. Electro-shock therapy may work wonders. And if that doesn’t help, there’s always that good old stand-by, a lobotomy.

Overheard this morning:

He’s the second worse politician to come out of Austria….

Any ideas who this person was referring to? Any idea who the worst one was?

Okay, ten seconds, think it over…

The answer is: Arnold Schwartzenegger, nurse hater supreme, and the man who wants to eliminate benefits for spouses and children of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty.

And as to the worst dictator to emerge from that land of famous sausages and Tyrolian Alps? Well, none other than Adolf Hitler. So apparently, some people consider Arnold to be a pretty nasty scumbag. I don’t think that I would go so far as to put him in the same category as Adolf (although who knows, maybe he will try to start a war), he’s turned out to be a blood-sucking parasite, trying to destroy social and economic systems. Like wanting to change pensions of public employees (firefighters, police, teachers, etc) over to 401k plans. Could that be any indication of why he is becoming so hated?

If it was up to Arnold and his friends (and financial supporters) in the healthcare industry, nurses would probably be assigned 20 patients each, and have the glory of mopping floors, cooking meals and doing the hospital laundry.

Kiss, kiss, I love you Arnold. Thanks for being such a good friend to the people of California, and to the sick and needy. And to the nurses.

As unbelievable as it may sound, the Republicans in Washington state just don’t know when to quit. They have been crying and whining since November because their beloved candidate, Rossi (can’t even recall the guy’s first name) lost the election. Lost, as in didn’t get enough votes to win.

It was a very close election but the final outcome was Democrat candidate Christine Gregoire. Yes, she won. But the Repubs just can’t accept it. Six months later, they are still at it.

The latest is that Gregoire won by “illegal” votes. From the Seattle Times:

For months, state Republicans have insisted that hundreds of votes cast illegally by felons put Democrat Christine Gregoire in the governor’s mansion.

But a Seattle Times analysis finds that even if those votes were disqualified, Gregoire would still prevail over GOP challenger Dino Rossi.

Okay, his name is Dino. Like the pet dinosaur on the Flintstones. Is it any wonder that he lost the election?

But anyway, the man lost the election. Anyway you look at it. Right side up, upside down, sideways, crossways, lengthwise.

The Republicans submitted a list of 946 people it says were felons who voted illegally in the election, and assuming that these convicts voted proportionately the same as others in their precincts, the GOP argued that removing their votes from the tally would hand the election back to Rossi.

Wow, what logic.

But the Empire strikes back. The Democrats followed with a list of their own, citing 794 illegal felon voters. And they concluded the opposite: Gregoire still wins.

Using the “proportional deduction” method proposed by the Republicans, The Times’ initially analyzed both lists, presuming they were entirely accurate. That approach showed Gregoire ahead by 112 votes.

Is this getting old or what? I think that Dino and his Repub crowd need to step back from the podium and take their medication. Or increase their dosage because clearly, someone is having a bad mental health day. And this surely isn’t good for the mental health of the state of Washington.

But today Dino the dinosaur is going to finally have his day in court. The lawsuit to make him governor has finally reached the bench. However, the Democrats are expected to ask for a dismissal and put an end to this nonsense.

I guess the Republicans have very very short memories, which is undoubtedly a sign of either amnesia, early onset Alzheimer’s, or some other form of dementia. So it seems we have yet more mental health issues at stake here. State Republicans who have run out of their Prozac and Xanax, and who have suffered a complete loss of memory.

I am talking about that little election back in 2000, when George Bush snagged the presidency even though he clearly lost the popular vote. Clearly. Al Gore protested, and the Republicans were all over him. Name calling galore, beating up the Democrats for even daring to think that Gore had legitimately won the election.

Well you know, Gore gave up after a few weeks. He conceded, and got on with his life.

But not Dino. Nope, he is intent on making a fool of himself, and I bet that he was singing in the chorus in 2000, at what a schmuck Gore was for trying to contest the election.

All I can say is; boys and girls, increase your medication dosage. Get therapy if need be, but give it a rest. Let the governor go to work and do her job. Which she is, by the way. Gregoire appears to be completely ignoring this circus and good for her.

So, the birdie flu has not been forgotten, despite the fact that new cases are very few and far between, and there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. And it is impossible to ignore the constant background chatter, how we are in for the greatest pandemic that the world has yet to witness….when the inevitable occurs, and the bird flu spreads to humans en masse.

Scientists and doctors are often wrong, such as in their prediction 35 years ago that the war against infectious disease had been “won.” Or that certain drugs were safe and didn’t cause birth defects. Or that parents who were voicing concern about the pertussis vaccine were crazy (the vaccine has since been changed and many doctors admit that there is strong evidence which linked the old pertussis vaccine to neurological damage).

Scientist and doctors often can’t agree on the simplest things. Are mammograms useful? Beats me. The studies keep popping out and the information is like being on a seesaw–today they’re good, tomorrow they’re bad, the day after they’re good again…

So with all this near-hysteria about the bird flu, in the wake of no real evidence that it will emerge as a contagious disease spread human-to-human, it’s really hard to know what to believe. Considering how wrong the “experts” often are, and how frequently they disagree.

But I received a press release from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), an organization that I have a lot of respect for, concerning the bird flu. Are they really worried about it? Are they just trying to cover their butt in case it does turn out to be a disastrous epidemic? Do they know something that the rest of us peons don’t, and just aren’t saying?

I don’t know, but here’s what they had to say.

Infectious Disease Doctors Issue Warning on Flu Pandemic
Steps Should be Taken Now to Protect Against Disease Threat

It is not a big secret that the USDA caters to the interests of the food industry, rather than the consumer, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that they may be covering up about mad cow disease. In fact, a number of scientists have specifically stated that the U.S. has had low level mad cow disease for years. Since autopsies are rarely done on persons who die of dementia/Alzheimer’s like diseases, it has been impossible to get a handle on the situation.

But now, the USDA may finally have their day in the sun, or under the hot light.

The USDA has recently been accused of been covering up cases of mad cow disease for over a decade. Now a deceased California man’s family and doctor have announced they believe Patrick Hicks, aged 49, died late last year from variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, or vCJD. The fatal disease is contracted from eating beef contaminated with mad cow disease. Dr. Ron Bailey, a neurologist at Riverside Medical Center, believes this will be the first documented case of vCJD in the U.S., and in order to bypass the hand of the USDA, is sending brain samples overseas for testing in an independent laboratory. Over 150 Europeans have already died from vCJD, with thousands more believed to be incubating the disease.

There’s a short article about it in the Washington Times

The new Mecca for black market organs, that is. Are you dreaming of a new kidney? Well, Iraq may have just the organ for you, and at a reasonable price. It is a coincidence that this story appeared, right at the same time that I was attending a conference on transplants. As an off-shoot of all of the instability and economic decline brought on first by the U.S. sanctions against Iraq, and then attacking/invading/occupying the country, it seems that a whole new industry is emerging. Thanks, Dubya, say the Iraqis, for helping to boost this great new industry.

The black market organ trade is apparently taking off in Baghdad. Wealthy “medical tourists” from Arab countries are now visiting Iraq to score inexpensive kidneys and other organs for transplant. For example, a kidney can be had in Baghdad for thousands of dollars less than than the market price in Turkey or India.

From the Telegraph:

Mr Hameed received a good price for his kidney. Would-be buyers with an eye for a bargain can now pick up a new kidney for as little as $700, given the desperation of fit and healthy Iraqis for money.

In the main their customers are other Iraqis, for whom kidney problems are common thanks to decades of poor diet, water and medical care.

Seems like life is really picking up in Iraq. I think that they are better off without Saddam Hussein, but this was certainly not the way to go about it. When people are reduced to selling organs in order to survive, then you know things are bad.

In 2001, the going rate for a donor was $2,000. The fact that the price has tumbled, some doctors say, suggests that Iraqis are even more desperate for money now than they were under Saddam.

“It wasn’t easy two or three years ago to find a donor,” said a senior nurse at another Baghdad hospital. “Now patients’ relatives need to make no big effort.”

What is sad is that I haven’t seen anything about this in the American press. This story is from a UK paper, where despite Tony Blair’s bumbling support for the Iraq War and for kissing Bush’s ass, their media is far more open about the situation in Iraq, militarily and otherwise.

Anyway, the good news is that if you are in dire need for a new kidney, Iraq is offering cut rate prices and there seems to be an unlimited supply. Stock up now while supplies last!

And now, for another entry in the annals of health history.

Have you ever wondered why the British are called “limeys?” I know, the thought has never occurred to you. Well, like it or not, I’ll tell you anyway. It’s because they love to suck on limes. Delicious, huh.

Actually, there’s more to the story than that. Once upon a time, a dreadful disease plagued a good chunk of the population–primarily those who didn’t have access to good nutrition, or who scorned fruits and veggies. Scurvy is caused by a deficiency of Vitamin C, and is relatively unknown these days in most parts of the world. But way back when, it was a problem, particularly among sailors and others who often had to go for long periods of time withot fresh food.

James Lind, a British surgeon, was the first to couple a dietary deficiency and a disease. He didn’t know what vitamin C was (this was way before Linus Pauling’s time), but he did notice that eating oranges, lemons, limes and other citrus fruits would cure people suffering with scurvy. The British navy’s directive to sailors in 1795 that they eat citrus fruit daily was largely a result of a breakthrough study that Lind conducte in 1747.

Aboard the H.M.S. Salisbury, Lind took control of the diets of 12 sailors who had developed scurvy. After giving them citrus fruits, symptoms of the disease vanished and they were good as new. All within a week’s time. Lind’s report, “A Treatise of the Scurvy,” was published six years later, on May 25, 1753.

The stats are startling. Of course, many transplants are done for congenital birth defects, hereditary diseases, accidents, and so on, but do you have any idea of how many can be avoided?

Diabetes is the number one cause of kidney failure. But according to the World Health Organization, 90% of type 2 diabetes cases can be prevented. As can up to 80% of cases of coronary heart disease and one-third of cancers. The big secret? Not one that the medical industry wants to hear because it is so simple. This magic can be achieved by changing to a healthier diet, increasing physical activity and stopping smoking.

I should add that the food industry, as they try to convince us to eat sugary processed trash, doesn’t want to know about that either.

But for some of us, I guess it’s worth getting a new kidney or heart, in order to have the privilege of sitting in front of the TV set for 10 hours a day, eating potato chips, cheeseburgers, and luncheon meats, and guzzling down 16 oz bottles of Coke.

A high point of my day in the world of transplants was a rather animated discussion of whether or not organs should be for sale. Or should I say, legally for sale. Buying and selling kidneys is becoming quite a business, and is certainly not without its problems. There were two main speakers who gave both sides of the coin–one was an anthropologist from UC Berkeley (yes, she was what you might expect from Berkeley), and got very impassioned about her cause to stop organ sales. While she made some good points, she left many holes in her arguments.

On the other side, was a physician who proposed (much more calmly) a hypothesis about regulating organ sales. He gave a much thought out argument, about how regulating sales would help control exploitation and allow for more organs to become available. At the very least, he wanted to put out a hypothesis for discussion.

A person in the audience pointed out that no matter how impassioned the Berkeley professor’s speech was, she left out one crucial point–no solution. Many of the people in developing nations are selling kidneys for food, medicine, survival basically. While Madam professor was very good about showing her slides of people with their long surgical scars and missing kidneys, she seemed to skim over the fact that these people probably figured food was more important than their kidney.

In one slide, she told about a man in the Philippines who sold his kidney to pay for treatment for his two dying children. The professor huffed and said, “The government should have covered the cost. He didn’t have to pay for it.” Well gee, nice. I don’t know anything about healthcare in the Philippines, but if the man could get it free, then why didn’t he? Obviously, it was not available to him. And I guess her solution would have been for him to contact his local govt agency and “demand” the free care that Madam Berkeley said he should get. In the meantime, the kids were dying.

What she missed is that kidney sales will continue, until the poverty is alleviated or the system becomes more regulated. And she didn’t address the poverty, or offer an alternative source of income for people selling organs.

Yes, big ideas about helping to stop exploitation. But it’s the same for prostititution, child labor, and so on–all of those ills which tend to afflict poor people in both poor and wealthy countries. Obviously, if these people had another source of income, they wouldn’t be selling their kidneys. The Berkeley professor means well, I’m sure. She travels to the kidney selling hot spots, and is very involved in this issue. But her logic just doesn’t work, because she needs to be focused on the poverty.

She also annoyed me because she hinted that staying on dialysis is far more noble than trying to buy a kidney. I wonder how she’d feel if she was on dialysis, or if her child was in renal failure and dying. Sometimes, it’s a whole new ballgame when it hits home.

As long as the demand exists for kidneys, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds, this is going to continue. As long as there is dire poverty, it will continue. And again, Madame Berkeley didn’t address that either. How do you keep desperate people from trying to find organs on their own? And if there’s money to be made in it, there will be brokers, unscrupulous middle men, and so on.

That is the reason why I enjoyed the talk from the doctor who advocated considering some sort of regulated sales with safeguards for both donor and recipient. He squarely looked at the reasons, the problems, and offered a hypothesis for trying to solve it.

One more day of transplants. A lot of this information is actually quite fascinating. One of the really big things on the horizon would be the ability to actually grow organs from, ahem, embryonic stem cells. A hot spot of debate in the U.S., but nevertheless, some countries are pouring zillions into research.

I am curious about one thing. I haven’t looked at the news for a few days, but I think it was Friday or Sat, when there was a headline about Bush “sticking to his guns” and planning to veto any legislation which would open the door to stem cell research. Does the federal government give money to fertility research, I wonder. Do scientists experimenting with in-vitro fertilization get grants from NIH and other govt money? Because if they do, then the hypocrisy couldn’t be greater. Probably several hundred thousand pre-embryos in petri-dishes have been destroyed over the course of the past two decades, as a result of the fertility industry. Compare that to the tiny number that have been destroyed for stem cell research.

Anyway, not to get off on a Dubya rant…

Eponine has agreed to allow her picture to be posted. I am so sleepy after a long day at the Convention Center, learning everything there is to know about transplanted organs and then some. I am too tired to blog anything coherent, so I hope this cute little face will do for now.

After spending the better part of 7 hours at this conference (and I’m going back for more tomorrow), I thought of Anoopa Sharma, a young woman that I wrote about a few months ago, who was killed in a car accident. Her family donated all of her organs, with one kidney going to her aunt who was in renal failure.

Her friends set up a website for her, www.anoopa.net, and there are two videos of news broadcasts. The second one, which was just posted on May 18, coincidentally talks about the family’s decision to donate her organs, along with an interview with her aunt, whose life has been saved. Anoopa planned to go into public health and make a difference in the world, and so she has. Not in the way she planned, but nevertheless, Anoopa lives on.

At one session of the conference today, the speaker pointed out that not only has the waiting list for organs increased over the past ten years, but the number of available organs has declined. Not a good match. I was also thinking, listening to them speak about organ failure, of how many of these transplants could have been prevented, if only the people had taken some responsibility for their health. Take diabetes, for example. It is one of the major causes of kidney failure, and type 2 diabetes can be prevented or minimized in a great many cases. But people don’t want to lose weight–it’s too much of an effort to exercise (easier to drive a block to McDonald’s), don’t want to be “deprived” of their junk food, and so on.

Anyway, coming home from the Convention Center, I was struck by how many overweight people passed me by on the street. Adults, kids, young, old, black, white and everything in-between. I wonder how many of those fat kids (sorry, no political correctness here) already have type 2 diabetes, plaque in their arteries, and the beginnings of other diseases. How many of them are going to end up as fat adults? How many will end up with heart attacks, full blown diabetes, any number of digestive problems–and how many may end up needing a transplant to stay alive.

I am about to go AWOL. At least, for the morning and early afternoon. I’m off to find out everything you’ve ever wanted to know about organ transplants, and then some. A huge transplantation medical conference has gathered here in Seattle, and I’m off to do my conference thing.

Of course, why would my editor be cruel enough to schedule me to attend a “sunrise symposium” three days in a row? On the positive side, they serve breakfast, so at least there’ll be food.

Be back to my regularly scheduled programming later today. Enjoy your Sunday. I’m about to find out what to do, should I need a new liver or a set of lungs.