Organized around war and money, that us ...

Wars on drugs, sex, Iraqis, oil. Whatever you want. Don't like something. Let's have a war ...

If that doesn't work for you, take some of the most important functions of a working society (supporting one's self and one's family, one's health and one's family's health, one's overall well being and the well being one's family) and organize that society in such a way to cause the most harm for as many as possible and the most wealth for a very few. That is us, the US of A.

Not limited to draconian law enforcement, the US's societal sickness permeates even to groups that promise 'no harm.'

Fifteen days of blogging for health care reform: Burden of debt

The above link should be read not only for the documentation it contains on the amount of debt many physicians are burdened with in our society, but also for a vivid picture of how those who will be responsible for treating the rest of us when we are at our most needy and vulnerable have been treated themselves. Who among those who go through US medical training can possibly be unscarred human beings?

Imagine your doctors think they're your representatives ...

Well in Missouri the Missouri State Medical Association, The Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons, Missouri Academy of Family Physicians, and the St. Louis Metropolitan Medical Society filed a suit claiming they were their patients 'representatives.' Their woman patients, of course. Isn't that a given?

After the bill, which dealt with numerous health issues as well as including the midwifery provision, was passed and signed into law by the Governor, the Missouri State Medical Association, The Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons, Missouri Academy of Family Physicians, and the St. Louis Metropolitan Medical Society filed suit to invalidate the section that would allow legal midwifery practice in the state. The lower court invalidated the statute, but an appeal was filed by the State of Missouri along with Friends of Missouri Midwives, the Missouri Midwives Association, and other parties.

The medical associations seeking to invalidate the law had claimed standing for the challenge by arguing that physicians may be subject to disciplinary actions if they cooperate with midwives, and that they should be allowed to challenge the law on behalf of patients as their representatives. The Court disagreed on both of these matters and indicated that the groups had no standing to challenge the Constitutionality of the law. They therefore reversed the lower court decision, allowing the law legalizing midwifery in Missouri to stand.

Bet Missouri isn't the only place where physicians think they should rule women's lives.

Genetically modifying monkeys to GIVE them human diseases ...

Monkey Model of Huntington's Disease

Homo 'sapiens' are a mass of contradictions (to put it kindly), are they not? Stem cell research. NO. Give crippling and painful human disease to animals? YES.

Flagstaff quacks ... ?

'Pears Flagstaff, Arizona's only hospital has (quackishly?) decided that women who have had a Cesarean Section will NOT BE ALLOWED to have a vaginal birth every again, not in THEIR hospital!

The US Business Model of Life and other absurdities ...

Yesterday I posted a quote from a conference where some are suggesting it was time to shift from product development to discovery research in the fight against AIDS.

Imagine a world where the main emphasis is on the next health related product that can be developed, preferably with the public's money but without the public's ownership, and where that health product will be legally protected so that the end business owners can sell it at inflated costs for years and years, often back to the same public's government organizations that initially invested in the development of the product. That's the world we live in ...

Today I read this post: Shareholder Wealth Maximization in Action

Thus, Walgreen CEO Jeffrey Rein, speaking to shareholders, said “If attendees of the meeting needed to cough, he joked, they should leave the room and ‘go to a movie theater or on a bus’ to spread their germs. ‘We’re really hoping for a very strong flu season’.” While P&G CEO A.G. Lafley said on a quarterly analyst call: “Unfortunately, people have not been getting sick at a rate that we would all like yet.” Finally, LifePoint Hospitals CFO David Dill mused that "You have a strong flu season, and the ancillary business is very profitable . . . On the pediatric side, young kids coming into the hospital, that’s a nice margin for us, as well.”

Truths presented as humor. When people get the flu Walgreens and other corporations make more money selling flu related products. Walgreens' job is definitely not to serve the public. Walgreens' job is making money. The purpose of Walgreens' management is to make the maximum profit which in turn increases the investment value for it's shareholder (joke) so the job of Walgreens' management is to ensure there are an increasing number of people with the flu. Or Walgreens could just change to manufacturing weapons, start another war and kill people directly. That would work just as well and, well, it appears to be the American way. Abortion, no. Genocide, yes. The word is VALUES. Keep repeating a few key words and the whole world, well, at least the US will fall into line ...

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Kos makes it clear that he's a supporter of an Obama Civil War within the Democratic Party:
... she [Clinton] doesn't deserve "fairness" on this site [dailyKos] ... ... a lot like with Republicans; we're not supposed to believe our lying eyes as they accuse the Clinton camp of doing what the Obama camp (and the dailyKos crowd) are doing themselves.

Hope you weren't expecting optimism:
Things fall apart, and the center doesn’t exist.


... ah, nothing plus nothing produces books about nothing:




The Western US may be the only place in the world where the connection between trees – or more precisely upland forests – and water supply is not recognized. ...


Solzhenitsyn did speak frankly, and now from our vantage years later we can fully appreciate his powers of observation. He said, for one thing: A decline “in political courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party . . .”



Curriculum to actually support physicians as moral and ethical leaders in society are largely absent ...

... in the concentration camp in Guanatanamo Bay: the slow, deliberate murder of an innocent man, who is being killed with the collusion of oath-breaking physicians. ...

Anyway, better late than never.... perhaps.

As for Iraq, after the president’s rationale(s) for the war in Iraq fell apart, the White House crafted a post-hoc rationalization for the invasion — the United States was committed, above all else, to spreading democracies and toppling dictators across the globe. He didn’t mention any of this before the war, but only because he was really busy. Or something.

When Arizona does something that makes sense ...

I wasn't aware that Arizona had an 'I'm sorry law' for doctors who make mistakes. It makes sense. I think we all understand that physicians can make 'honest' mistakes. We certainly hope they don't make them on us and certainly do not want them making them through lack of diligence but we cannot expect them to never make a mistake.

Having laws that increase the risk in court for honest attempts at showing regret for mistakes is bad for everyone. I wonder how this law is working out?

Source: Tucson hardly 'judicial hellhole' for suits vs. docs by Anne T. Denogean

Of doctor offices and carpet cleaners ...

Does anyone else think the running of [some?] doctors' offices is approaching the operation of [some?] carpet cleaning concerns sans the sales calls?

A microscopic, or is that nonoscopic, army ...

How long before your diseases and infirmities will be attacked, corralled and corrected by little nano soldiers that wage war inside your body?

New Nano Weapon against Cancer --Gold nanoparticles with branching polymers could attack tumors in multiple ways.

Evidently every thing is a 'war' to us for which we must construct 'weapons.' I really would be more comfortable thinking of those areas we would like to change or control (if we can) as situations, problems or even the business-speak opportunity. The solutions to problems may be identical or similar to the 'weapons' we devise for our 'wars' but then again, perhaps not.

As a country we have achieved much 'collateral' damage in our wars (e.g. War on Drugs, War on Iraq). Damage that we sometimes ignore and sometimes escalate. But rarely address, reverse or correct. [Added: Or even admit]

This is the mindset we bring to medical problems? And the cancer patient is supposed to be nobly cooperative, compliant and grateful.

Tucson's University Medical Center and drug money ...

The drug mafia (or Big Pharma, the pharmaceutical industry, whatever you wish to call them) buy the medical profession much the same way they buy elected and appointed government officials.

The Arizona Daily Star reports that:

A new policy has been drafted that would stop the free meals, gifts, trips and payments at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.

The title of the article may be misleading. It implies that this change is a done deal. But within the article one gets the impression that UA doctors may fight an effort that requires that they give up their free lunch, literally. According to the article the revised policy will be presented to the UA medical faculty. Now we'll see if the University of Arizona chooses integrity over money. What's your guess?

A few stats that should raise your blood pressure:

Pharmaceutical companies spend up to $18 billion a year — more than $13,000 per doctor — persuading doctors to prescribe their drugs, with overwhelming emphasis on the newest and costliest. This pays for some 60 million visits a year by salespeople — known as "drug reps" — laden with all manner of food, gifts, sponsorships and other tokens.

They do it because it works. Study after study shows that while doctors deny any influence from all the wooing, it does significantly increase the likelihood that they'll prescribe the drugs being pushed, even if evidence shows they may not be the best or most cost-effective.

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Arizona Daily Star: UMC to loosen drug reps' grip --New policy would ban doctors' perks that cost patients by Carla McClain