Tag: health

Consumers Cut Health Spending

Seth Anderson0 comment

Strange to think of health care as a discretionary expense1, but some aspects are I suppose,especially in our current system.

Neon - NH Ballin Drugs Prescriptions

As the credit crunch threatens to throw the economy into a deep slump, Americans are already cutting back on health care, a sector once thought to be invulnerable to recession. Spending on everything from doctors’ appointments to preventive tests to prescription drugs is under pressure.

The number of prescriptions filled in the U.S. fell 0.5% in the first quarter and a steeper 1.97% in the second, compared with the same periods in 2007 — the first negative quarters in at least a decade, according to data from market researcher IMS Health. Despite an aging and growing U.S. population, the number of physician office visits also has been declining since the end of 2006. Between July 2007 and 2008, the most recent month for which data are available, visits fell 1.2%, according to IMS.

As consumers cut back, spending on everything from doctors’ appointments to preventive tests to prescription drugs is under pressure.
In a survey by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners last month, 22% of 686 consumers said that economy-related woes were causing them to go to the doctor less often. About 11% said they’ve scaled back on prescription drugs to save money. Some of the areas being hit include hip and knee replacements, mammograms, and visits to the emergency room, according to a survey conducted by D2Hawkeye Inc., a Waltham, Mass., medical data analytics firm, on behalf of The Wall Street Journal.

Since sales at the Sebring, Fla.-area car dealership where Christopher Pye works have dwindled, so have the commissions that were 40% of his income in good times. Barely able to afford his $850 monthly mortgage and pay for groceries, he says something had to give: his two young sons’ annual medical checkups.

[From Consumers Cut Health Spending, As Economic Downturn Takes Toll – WSJ.com]

Annual medical checkups are frivolous? Really? Too bad the government couldn’t purchase any healthcare insurance companies while they are bailing out corporations with faulty fundamentals…

Footnotes:
  1. discretionary expenses like clothing, music, restaurants I understand, but health care? [↩]

McCain and his Radical Agenda

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Bob Herbert picks up a theme that’s been percolating on the blogosphere for a few days1 – John McCain wants to screw you over while privatizing healthcare. I’m sure there will be a few corporations that will prosper handsomely under McCain’s plan, but not anyone that you know, especially after McCain’s poison pill has a few years to wreck havoc.

A study coming out Tuesday from scholars at Columbia, Harvard, Purdue and Michigan projects that 20 million Americans who have employment-based health insurance would lose it under the McCain plan.

There is nothing secret about Senator McCain’s far-reaching proposals, but they haven’t gotten much attention because the chatter in this campaign has mostly been about nonsense — lipstick, celebrities and “Drill, baby, drill!”

For starters, the McCain health plan would treat employer-paid health benefits as income that employees would have to pay taxes on.

“It means your employer is going to have to make an estimate on how much the employer is paying for health insurance on your behalf, and you are going to have to pay taxes on that money,” said Sherry Glied, an economist who chairs the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

[From Bob Herbert – McCain’s Radical Agenda – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com]

The Dallas Morning News wrote, back in August:

Democratic health care proposals may have gotten more attention during the primaries, but Republican John McCain’s plan just might be more revolutionary.

The GOP nominee-to-be wants to tax workers on the value of the insurance they receive from employers.

At the same time, everyone would be offered a federal tax credit to help them pay for insurance – whether a company plan or one purchased on their own. Buyers could subtract up to $5,000 from their federal tax tab come April 15. Or they could simply sign over the credit to an insurer in order to purchase coverage.

…

North Texas employers are not saying they would drop employee coverage altogether if Mr. McCain’s plan were enacted.

But some do say the plan, which Mr. McCain detailed in July, would encourage young and healthy workers to forgo company coverage, purchasing insurance on their own rather than paying income taxes on the benefit. That would leave employers with only the costly sick workers to insure.

And that, they said, could eventually lead to the death of company-provided health plans.

[From McCain’s health insurance plan: More radical than Democrats’? | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News ]

Parking Garage Crosses

Bob Herbert continues:

Taxing employer-paid health benefits is the first step in this transition, the equivalent of injecting poison into the system. It’s the beginning of the end.

When younger, healthier workers start seeing additional taxes taken out of their paychecks, some (perhaps many) will opt out of the employer-based plans — either to buy cheaper insurance on their own or to go without coverage.

That will leave employers with a pool of older, less healthy workers to cover. That coverage will necessarily be more expensive, which will encourage more and more employers to give up on the idea of providing coverage at all.

The upshot is that many more Americans — millions more — will find themselves on their own in the bewildering and often treacherous health insurance marketplace. As Senator McCain has said: “I believe the key to real reform is to restore control over our health care system to the patients themselves.”

Yet another radical element of McCain’s plan is his proposal to undermine state health insurance regulations by allowing consumers to buy insurance from sellers anywhere in the country. So a requirement in one state that insurers cover, for example, vaccinations, or annual physicals, or breast examinations, would essentially be meaningless.

In a refrain we’ve heard many times in recent years, Mr. McCain said he is committed to ridding the market of these “needless and costly” insurance regulations.

This entire McCain health insurance transformation is right out of the right-wing Republicans’ ideological playbook: fewer regulations; let the market decide; and send unsophisticated consumers into the crucible alone.

You would think that with some of the most venerable houses on Wall Street crumbling like sand castles right before our eyes, we’d be a little wary about spreading this toxic formula even further into the health care system.

Footnotes:
  1. I read it here first, and subsequently other places too numerous to cite [↩]

Methadone Is a Painkiller With Risks

Seth Anderson2 Comments

The first thought I had upon reading this article about methadone use is that insurance companies probably love methadone because it doesn’t have an active patent, and thus is cheap to proscribe.

Methadone, once used mainly in addiction treatment centers to replace heroin, is today being given out by family doctors, osteopaths and nurse practitioners for throbbing backs, joint injuries and a host of other severe pains.

A synthetic form of opium, it is cheap and long lasting, a powerful pain reliever that has helped millions. But because it is also abused by thrill seekers and badly prescribed by doctors unfamiliar with its risks, methadone is now the fastest growing cause of narcotic deaths. It is implicated in more than twice as many deaths as heroin, and is rivaling or surpassing the tolls of painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin.

“This is a wonderful medicine used appropriately, but an unforgiving medicine used inappropriately,” said Dr. Howard A. Heit, a pain specialist at Georgetown University. “Many legitimate patients, following the direction of the doctor, have run into trouble with methadone, including death.”

…

OxyContin is still widely prescribed, but a survey of Medicare plans in 2008, by the research firm Avalere Health LLC, found that many did not even include OxyContin on the list of reimbursable drugs. Critics like Dr. June Dahl, professor of pharmacology at the University of Wisconsin, fault the insurance companies for favoring methadone simply because of its monetary cost. “I don’t think a drug that requires such a level of sophistication to use is what I’d call cheap, because of the risks,” Dr. Dahl added.

Federal regulators acknowledge that they were slow to recognize the dangers of newly widespread methadone prescribing and to confront physician ignorance about the drug. They blame “imperfect” systems for monitoring such problems.

[From Methadone Rises as a Painkiller With Risks – NYTimes.com]

and apparently, I was right:

The rise of methadone is in part because of a major change in medical attitudes in the 1990s, as doctors accepted that debilitating pain was often undertreated. Insurance plans embraced methadone as a generic, cheaper alternative to other long-lasting painkillers like OxyContin, and many doctors switched to prescribing it because it seemed less controversial and perhaps less prone to abuse than OxyContin.

The subtext is that the FDA only was concerned with methadone for narcotic abuse1:

In what critics call a stunning oversight, the F.D.A-approved package insert for methadone for decades recommended starting doses for pain at up to 80 mg per day. “This could unequivocally cause death in patients who have not recently been using narcotics,” said Dr. Robert G. Newman, former president of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York and an expert in addiction.

The F.D.A. says that in the absence of reports of problems by doctors or surveillance systems, “we would have no reason to suspect that the dosing regimen” might need to be adjusted.

In November 2006, after reports of overdoses and deaths among pain patients multiplied and The Charleston Gazette reported on the dangerous package instructions, the F.D.A. cut the recommended starting limit to no more than 30 mg per day. “As soon as we became aware of deaths due to misprescribing for pain patients, we began the process of instituting label changes,” Dr. Rappaport said.

Footnotes:
  1. in other words, there was not expensive advertising campaign touting the benefits of methadone, thus the FDA didn’t really care what the materials describing proper use actually said. Junkies don’t care what the current advertising says, and the FDA officials can’t get future jobs [↩]

More Red Wine Propaganda

Seth Anderson0 comment

Wine-go-Round
[Wine-go-Round, 560 W. Washington, Chicago, IL]

Good thing I like wine1.

Red wine stops effects of high-fat diet
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

Red wine does indeed explain why the French get away with a relatively clean bill of heart health despite eating a diet loaded with saturated fats, concludes a new study.

Red wine contins resveratrol which can blunt the toxic effects of a high-fat diet
Many have speculated that answer to the paradox lies in their love of a glass or two of wine with a meal and have focused on a chemical found in red wine called resveratrol, also a natural constituent of grapes, pomegranates and other foods.

Earlier studies have shown it can blunt the toxic effects of a diet very high in fat, which causes liver damage, but this is the first study to directly look at ageing.

Today, in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers report that even low doses of resveratrol in the diet of middle-aged mice has a widespread influence on the genetic levers of ageing, and may confer special protection on the heart.

Specifically, the researchers found that low doses of resveratrol mimic the helpful effects of what is known as caloric restriction, diets with the full range of nutrients but up to 30 per cent fewer calories than a typical diet, which extend lifespan and slow the progression of age related diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cancer.

“This brings down the dose of resveratrol toward the consumption reality mode,” says senior author Prof Richard Weindruch of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

[From Red wine stops effects of high-fat diet – Telegraph ]

My thought is: everything that’s part of human experience is good. Drinking wine is part of civilization, there must be benefits.

Footnotes:
  1. another post that never got posted, but now is, sans much from me [↩]

Heroin vs Coke

Seth Anderson0 comment


“The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star” (Nikki Sixx)

Nikki Sixx is just a putz. John Dolan concurs.

Yet heroin that gets the blame when Nikki’s retarded band mates discuss his descent to what Tommy Lee calls “a dark fucking place.” If you’ve spent any time in L.A. you’ve probably met guys like this. For them, cocaine is simply part of a normal healthy diet, whereas heroin is just plain evil. Odd, because among intelligent druggies opiates get a lot of respect, while coke is simply despised. For serious drug people there are two ways to go: up with some variety of speed, or down with some kind of opiate. Coke is scorned as a short-acting verbal emetic, a silly drug for moneyed trash. The only intellectuals who took it seriously were Freud and Sherlock Holmes — one a half-baked intellectual who masqueraded his literary criticism as therapy, postponing effective treatment for schizophrenia and depression by generations, the other an apotheosized peeping tom, who of course never really existed. Indeed, both were nasty voyeurs; perhaps that’s a feature of coke addiction too.

Opiates, by contrast, have been the drug of choice for an astonishing number of the really talented people of the last few centuries: Coleridge, de Quincy, Poe, Donald Goines, Jean Cocteau, William Burroughs, Jimi Hendrix. And prescription opiates are still the choice of L.A.’s upper class, which is why when one of the stars is arrested, their glove compartments are always full of perfectly legal percodan or Demerol. (If you’re a star, you see, you can get special prescriptions which are issued after your arrest but dated weeks before.)

Of course injected street heroin has a terrible potential for fatal overdoses, because you don’t know the purity of the dose until it’s already in your bloodstream. What no one seems to realize is that this too is a side effect of Prohibition. When you make a drug illegal, you are encouraging smugglers to import it in the most concentrated, potent form available, then charge insanely high prices for infinitesmal amounts. In the case of heroin, these quantities are so tiny that the drug must be injected to be effective. Without Prohibition, quantity and content would be clear, and people would be free to smoke opium in legal dens. In such conditions, accidental overdoses are rare. Conversely, in countries like Iran which prohibit that allegedly safe, mainstream drug, alcohol, many users die or go blind from ingesting street booze laced with the usual variety of poisons. Prohibition kills far more people than “drugs.”

Alas, even educated Americans are too intimidated to point this out. In a provincial, Puritan society like ours, nothing is worse than your neighbors’ disapproval, and speaking up against the drug laws can get you whispered about. And if Nikki’s betters won’t speak out honestly on the topic, we can hardly expect him and his idiot hessian friends to get it. So naturally, they’re all eager to blame heroin, “the worst drug in the world.” They’re also in love with its notoriety — hence the book’s title.

[From Why Is Coke Glamorous and Heroin Scary? Because of Halfwits Like Nikki Sixx | DrugReporter | AlterNet]

I had a witty rejoinder to this article, and to the nonsense of Nikki Sixx, way back when I discovered the article in 2007, but it never made it through my movabletype blog filter1, so I’ll just let Mr. Sixx wallow in his own depravity. I remember part of my critique was of those who cocaine is a drug of choice. I’ve partaken, even a few times, but cocaine never seemed very fulfilling of an inebriant.Empty calories, basically. The entire article is good, check it out if you have a moment.

Footnotes:
  1. I had a lot of trouble posting content for a while [↩]

Creating Space to Think

Seth Anderson1 Comment

The Sunday NYT reprinted a brief off-the-mike conversation between Barack Obama and David Cameron, another one of those “didn’t realize the mike was live” moments. Though this snippet was actually interesting.

Mr. Obama: I have not. I am going to take a week in August. But I agree with you that somebody, somebody who had worked in the White House who — not Clinton himself, but somebody who had been close to the process — said that should we be successful, that actually the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you’re doing is thinking. And the biggest mistake that a lot of these folks make is just feeling as if you have to be …

Mr. Cameron: These guys just chalk your diary up.

Mr. Obama: Right. … In 15 minute increments and …

Mr. Cameron: We call it the dentist waiting room. You have to scrap that because you’ve got to have time.

Mr. Obama: And, well, and you start making mistakes or you lose the big picture.

There is a tendency to fill up our days with as many activities, as many appointments, as many tasks as we can fit, and then even a few more beyond, to the detriment of our minds. I’ve always felt it was extremely important to have time to think, to daydream, to doodle, or to stare vacantly at walls. Bill Clinton (and Barack Obama) seem to agree.

Steve Jobs Health off the record

swanksalot0 comment

Joe Nocera steers close to the edge of propriety while discussing Steve Jobs health, ostensibly wrapping his tattle tale with discussion of Apple’s keen interest in secrecy.

Under its chief executive and founder Steven P. Jobs, Apple has created a culture of secrecy that has served it well in many ways — from new products to the health of Mr. Jobs.

…Mr. Jobs first discovered he had an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor — which is both rarer and less deadly than other forms of pancreatic cancer — in October 2003. This was a full nine months before he had the surgery to remove it. Why did he wait so long? Because, according to a Fortune magazine article published in May, Mr. Jobs was hoping to beat the cancer with a special diet.

The Apple directors who knew the gravity of the situation urged him to undergo surgery, according to the Fortune article. But it was only when Mr. Jobs realized that the tumor was growing that he finally agreed. And only after the surgery was successful did he inform employees that he had been sick, in an e-mail message in which he declared himself “cured.” That’s how Apple’s shareholders found out, too. The company has never spoken about his illness, citing his “privacy” concerns.

I bring this up because of what transpired on Monday afternoon, during Apple’s third-quarter conference call. In June, rumors began swirling that Steve Jobs was sick again. They had started during the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, where Mr. Jobs looked unusually thin and haggard.

[From Talking Business: Apple’s Culture of Secrecy]

And nothing you ever say to anyone is ever really “off the record”, even if you are Steve Jobs

On Thursday afternoon, several hours after I’d gotten my final “Steve’s health is a private matter” — and much to my amazement — Mr. Jobs called me. “This is Steve Jobs,” he began. “You think I’m an arrogant [expletive1 ] who thinks he’s above the law, and I think you’re a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong.” After that rather arresting opening, he went on to say that he would give me some details about his recent health problems, but only if I would agree to keep them off the record. I tried to argue him out of it, but he said he wouldn’t talk if I insisted on an on-the-record conversation. So I agreed.

Because the conversation was off the record, I cannot disclose what Mr. Jobs told me. Suffice it to say that I didn’t hear anything that contradicted the reporting that John Markoff and I did this week. While his health problems amounted to a good deal more than “a common bug,” they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer. After he hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I had just been handed, by Mr. Jobs himself, the very information he was refusing to share with the shareholders who have entrusted him with their money.

You would think he’d want them to know before me. But apparently not.

Footnotes:
  1. asshole, probably, or motherfucker, possibly [↩]

Aroma is Disgusting

Seth Anderson0 comment

We haven’t eaten at Aroma on Randolph for many years1 because I thought the place was kind of gross. The food wasn’t fresh, and the entire restaurant looked unclean, unkept, unswept, you name it. Apparently, my instinct was correct, the City of Chicago agrees that Aroma is gross.

Aroma on Randolph, 941 W. Randolph, was shut down after inspectors found dozens of cockroaches in the kitchen, particularly in the drip pan of a stove.

The restaurant also was cited for raw sewage backing up from a floor drain in the basement kitchen, no hand washing sink in the basement kitchen, a non-functioning hand washing sink in the kitchen on the main floor, no soap or hand towels at any sink on the premises, employees laying their shoes and clothing on top of plates and utensils, houseflies and fruit flies in the kitchen, and a poorly maintained outside garbage area (grease on top of and on the ground around the grease box).

CDPH inspectors also cited Aroma on Randolph for two violations of the Chicago Clean Indoor Air Ordinance. Inspectors found two dozen dirty ashtrays hidden behind the bar. The second citation was issued because management had failed to post “No Smoking” signs as required by law.

The Aroma on Randolph web site states, “Our restaurant has a smoking area…”.

Smoking is prohibited in all restaurants in the city, as well as in the rest of the state.

Today’s inspection was triggered by a customer who contacted CDPH via the City of Chicago web site to allege that she had found a cockroach in her food.

[From City of Chicago – Near West Side Restaurant Shut Down by City Health Department]

I’d be surprised if they manage to emerge from this violation: that’s pretty harsh. Also the first violation of “No-Smoking” I’ve ever heard since the ordinance was passed.

see this screenshot from their website:
Aroma Randolph Smoking

Footnotes:
  1. though there used to be a Thai restaurant in the same location called Hi Ricky which was quite good [↩]

Plastic Fantastic

Seth Anderson0 comment

You have to be insanely dedicated to even consider removing plastic from the items you consume. Just too ubiquitous, in nearly every food packaging, on your clothing, on your shampoo, toothpaste, everywhere. The scientific proof of harm from the body may still be murky1 , but the fear of plastic is custom made for our worry-wart culture. Another thing to feel inadequate about being unable to change about our environment.

Sun Like a Drug

[Frederick vom Saal, a biologist at the University of Missouri] is a prominent member of a group of researchers who have raised worrisome questions in recent years about the safety of some common types of plastics. We think of plastic as essentially inert; after all, it takes hundreds of years for a plastic bottle to degrade in a landfill. But as plastic ages or is exposed to heat or stress, it can release trace amounts of some of its ingredients. Of particular concern these days are bisphenol-a (BPA), used to strengthen some plastics, and phthalates, used to soften others. Each ingredient is a part of hundreds of household items; BPA is in everything from baby bottles to can linings (to protect against E. coli and botulism), while phthalates are found in children’s toys as well as vinyl shower curtains. And those chemicals can get inside us through the food, water and bits of dust we consume or even by being absorbed through our skin. Indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 92% of Americans age 6 or older test positive for BPA–a sign of just how common the chemical is in our plastic universe.

Scientists like vom Saal argue that BPA and phthalates are different from other environmental toxins like lead and mercury in that these plastic ingredients are endocrine disrupters, which mimic hormones. Estrogen and other hormones in relatively tiny amounts can cause vast changes, so some researchers worry that BPA and phthalates could do the same, especially in young children. Animal studies on BPA found that low-dose exposure, particularly during pregnancy, may be associated with a variety of ills, including cancer and reproductive problems. Some human studies on phthalates linked exposure to declining sperm quality in adult males, while other work has found that early puberty in girls may be associated with the chemicals.

Does that mean even today’s minuscule exposure levels are too much? The science is still murky, and human studies are few and far from definitive. So while Canada and the Democratic Republic of Wal-Mart are moving to ban BPA in baby bottles, the Food and Drug Administration maintains that BPA products pose no danger, as does the European Union. Even so, scientists like Mel Suffet, a professor of environmental-health sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, say avoiding certain kinds of plastics is simply being better safe than sorry.

As researchers continue to examine plastic’s impact on our bodies, there’s no doubt that cutting down on the material will help the environment. Plastic makes up nearly 12% of our trash, up from 1% in 1960. You can literally see the result 1,000 miles (1,600 km) west of San Francisco in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling mass of plastic debris twice the size of Texas. The rising cost of petroleum may get plastic manufacturers to come up with incentives for recycling; current rates stand at less than 6% in the U.S. But the best way to reduce your plastic impact on the earth is simply to use less.

[Click to read the rest of The Truth About Plastic – TIME]

Don’t forget that the oil barons who run our country don’t really want to change anything that might interfere with profits, so don’t expect any FDA or EPA studies concerning the interaction with humans and plastics anytime before the Rapture.

Footnotes:
  1. though compelling enough for this writer [↩]

Kids on Statins

Seth Anderson0 comment

Ridiculous, really, there shouldn’t be a pharmaceutical solution for every health issue. Like the cliche goes, to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The drug companies, and their lackeys in the FDA (and drug-industry corrupted doctors) want to sell more pills, no matter the consequences to long-term health of the nation, and to the nation’s healthcare system.

This aggressive new recommendation for warding off heart disease in some children has stirred a furious debate among pediatricians since the American Academy of Pediatrics issued it on Monday.

While some doctors applauded the idea, others were incredulous. In particular, these doctors called attention to a lack of evidence that the use of the cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, in children would prevent heart attacks later in life.

“What are the data that show this is helpful preventing heart attacks?” asked Dr. Darshak Sanghavi, a pediatric cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. “How many heart attacks do we hope to prevent this way? There’s no data regarding that.”

Nor, Dr. Sanghavi added, are there data on the possible side effects of taking statins for 40 or 50 years.

Other doctors said the recommendation would distract from common-sense changes in diet and exercise, which are also part of the new guidelines.

[From Well – 8-Year-Olds on Statins? A New Plan Quickly Bites Back – NYTimes.com]

How about banning high-fructose corn syrup instead? Or removing the subsidy from its manufacture so that it isn’t added to every packaged food and beverage?

Marijuana is a Powerful Medicine

Seth Anderson0 comment

Aron Rowe of Wired points out one of the biggest problems with our healthcare system: if a drug was not created in a laboratory, by a pharmaceutical corporation, and subsequently approved by the FDA, then no matter how effective the drug might be, the drug will have an immense barrier to entry.

Marijuana contains an amazing chemical, beta-caryophyllene, and scientists have thoroughly proven that it could be used to treat pain, inflammation, atherosclerosis, and osteoporosis.

Jürg Gertsch, of ETH Zürich, and his collaborators from three other universities learned that the natural molecule can activate a protein called cannabinoid receptor type 2. When that biological button is pushed, it soothes the immune system, increases bone mass, and blocks pain signals — without causing euphoria or interfering with the central nervous system.

Gertsch and his team published their findings on June 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.They focused on the anti-inflammatory properties of the impressive substance — testing it on immune cells called monocytes and also in mice.

Since beta-caryophyllene seems to be powerful, occurs naturally in many foods, and does not get people high, it could turn out to be a nearly ideal medication. The organic compound is also phenomenally cheap. Sigma Aldrich sells it, in kosher form, for forty-two dollars per kilogram.

Unfortunately, big pharmaceutical companies tend not to seek FDA approval for natural chemicals, and most doctors are reluctant to prescribe drugs that have not received a green light from the regulatory agency. Thus, it would require a heroic effort by academic researchers to prove that beta-caryophyllene is safe and effective in humans.

[From Some Proof that Marijuana is a Powerful Medicine | Wired Science from Wired.com]

A real shame. In a fair world, natural remedies would be the first option, not an option only available to law-breakers.

Bridge of Smoke

Clash on Safety of BPA in Plastic Items

Seth Anderson0 comment

Do Not Attempt This At Home

So an industry-funded report found no problem? How novel! And the FDA firmly supporting the industry? How novel!

Government experts and lawmakers clashed at a hearing Tuesday over the safety of a chemical used in plastic baby bottles, as the science indicating health risks seemed not conclusive enough to meet the burden of proof required for a U.S. ban.

The chemical, bisphenol A, or BPA, makes plastic hard and shatterproof and helps prevent corrosion in cans. It is used in hundreds of consumer products, including plastic baby bottles, plastic food containers and soda cans.

The latest concern about BPA emerged in April when the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Toxicology Program released a draft report concluding that small amounts of the chemical could be linked to health and developmental problems. Those problems include early puberty, changes in the prostate gland and behavioral changes found in animal studies that warranted “some concern” for exposure to fetuses, infants and children.

“The possibility that bisphenol A may alter human development cannot be dismissed,” said John Bucher, associate director of the National Toxicology Program, at Tuesday’s hearing.

The program’s findings contradicted some earlier industry-funded animal studies that found minimal concern.

[From Clash Arises on Safety of BPA in Plastic Items – WSJ.com]

Here is where Senator Clinton can help the nation: pass this bill

Led by New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer and supported by fellow New York Democrat Hillary Clinton, the senators want their BPA-Free Kids Act of 2008 to be part of a larger bill that would reform the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Bills to overhaul the CPSC were passed by the House and Senate in differing forms late last year and earlier this year following a string of recalled children’s products that put the agency under fire. If signed into law, the overhaul would provide the agency with more funding and greater authority, while making data more transparent and boosting fine limitations for manufacturers.

Part of the clash in how the hundreds of BPA studies are viewed stems from the manner in which they were conducted. Many have been small and weren’t conducted according to regulatory standards, critics say.


“SIGG – Green Traveler Classic Water Bottle” (SIGG)

Corporate Welfare – The Sugar Edition

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Moto Watermelon Cucumber

The US Farm subsidy program has some real consequences to consumers, especially consumers of sweets. Free trade is in reality a myth.

The sugar program may be the most harshly criticized of a number of farm subsidies which are included in the mammoth legislation. The Bush administration had previously called for reform to the decades-old plan, along with other subsidies, at a time when consumers are facing record food and commodity prices.

“There is an overwhelming consensus among economists that it is good for producers, but bad for consumers,” said Russell Roberts, an economics professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

Rather than the Bush administration’s called-for reform of the sugar program, the newest version includes increases in non-recourse loan rates, a shift in market allotment policy to guarantee that 85 percent of U.S. sugar demand comes from domestic sugar and restrictions on the disposal of excess sugar supply by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The changes raise the price of a program, which according to its charter is supposed to cost nothing to taxpayers, to an estimated $333 million per year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The biggest complaint from the Sweetener Users Association in the latest farm bill is the guarantee of 85 percent of domestic sugar demand to U.S. producers, according to a source at the USDA. The guarantee places a cap on sugar imports with the exception of Mexico, an exemption it gained under NAFTA.

[Click to read more of: Sugar’s money, influence continue to plague domestic candy companies]

The high price of sugar encourages confectioners to relocate their plants outside of the US.

Since 2002, when the previous farm bill went into effect, the price of candy, on average, has increased 17 percent, according to the Consumer Price Index generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“They’re skyrocketing,” said Todd Moore, chief operating officer for Chicago Chocolate Co., of prices. While Moore’s company doesn’t produce its own chocolate – it purchases chocolate from Chicago-based Blommer Chocolate Co. to make its products – the increase in commodity costs still affects it.

“The price of chocolate has gone up probably 30 to 40 percent, and I’m sure some of that probably has to do with the price of sugar,” Moore said. As Moore spoke, he was in process of writing a letter to his customers informing them of the company’s first price increase in three years.

The current price of domestic sugar hovers around 21 cents per pound, while the world price is near 10 cents per pound.

Some manufacturers have moved to Canada or Mexico to combat what they say are the high sugar prices they are forced to pay. In the past two years, Northfield, Ill.-based Kraft Foods Inc. moved what were its Life Savers candy operations to Canada. …

Another Chicago company, Ferrera Pan Candy Co. also expanded its candy making operations in Mexico and Canada, while reducing its domestic production.

“You can’t import sugar, but you import candy bars more freely,” Roberts said.

Sugar subsidies also factor in on ethanol manufacturing – corn is cheap, sugar isn’t, so more corn gets grown at the expense of nearly everything else.

Red Wine May Slow Aging

Seth Anderson0 comment

Breakfast drinks self-portrait
[Breakfast drinks self-portrait – click to embiggen]

Is it too early to have a sip? I could pretend we lived in 17th C.E. France…

Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.

The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. Some scientists are already taking resveratrol in capsule form, but others believe it is far too early to take the drug, especially using wine as its source, until there is better data on its safety and effectiveness.

[From New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging – NYTimes.com]

What every meal needs
[What every meal needs – click to embiggen]

Far too early to take in drug form, but not too early to drink red wine in its natural state – a glass on the way to my mouth!

Oh wait, there isn’t much resveratrol in each glass:

the door has now been opened to drugs that exploit an ancient biological survival mechanism, that of switching the body’s resources from fertility to tissue maintenance. The improved tissue maintenance seems to extend life by cutting down on the degenerative diseases of aging.

The reflex can be prompted by a faminelike diet, known as caloric restriction, which extends the life of laboratory rodents by up to 30 percent but is far too hard for most people to keep to and in any case has not been proven to work in humans.

Research started nearly 20 years ago by Dr. Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed recently that the famine-induced switch to tissue preservation might be triggered by activating the body’s sirtuins. Dr. Sinclair, a former student of Dr. Guarente, then found in 2003 that sirtuins could be activated by some natural compounds, including resveratrol, previously known as just an ingredient of certain red wines.

Dr. Sinclair’s finding led in several directions. He and others have tested resveratrol’s effects in mice, mostly at doses far higher than the minuscule amounts in red wine. One of the more spectacular results was obtained last year by Dr. John Auwerx of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. He showed that resveratrol could turn plain vanilla, couch-potato mice into champion athletes, making them run twice as far on a treadmill before collapsing.

Seriously, even I would be challenged if I had to drink 100 bottles of wine a day. However, a glass or two? No problem, no problem at all. Clinical trials always start from a higher dosage – easier to see results that way – and then work back down to lesser dosages.

Separately from Sirtris’s investigations, a research team led by Tomas A. Prolla and Richard Weindruch, of the University of Wisconsin, reports in the journal PLoS One on Wednesday that resveratrol may be effective in mice and people in much lower doses than previously thought necessary. In earlier studies, like Dr. Auwerx’s of mice on treadmills, the animals were fed such large amounts of resveratrol that to gain equivalent dosages people would have to drink more than 100 bottles of red wine a day.

The Wisconsin scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day. But red wine contains many other resveratrol-like compounds that may also be beneficial. Taking these into account, as well as mice’s higher metabolic rate, a mere four, five-ounce glasses of wine “starts getting close” to the amount of resveratrol they found effective, Dr. Weindruch said.

Ode to Dionysus
[Ode to Dionysus – click to embiggen]

Global Dimming and Vitamin D

Seth Anderson0 comment

Stroll

Our polluting ways have other effects beyond climate change. We now frequently have a vitamin D deficiency because of world-wide smog blocking the sun our bodies have evolved into needing. Nova broadcasted a documentary about Global Dimming fairly recently, I’ll have to see if any of the video is available.


How To Live Longer: Take Vitamin D:

A simple course of vitamin D could help you live longer, say researchers.

Trials involving 57,000 people found that those who took supplements regularly were less likely to die over the six-year period.

Scientists have already shown that a deficiency of vitamin D may be to blame for 600,000 cancer cases each year. Other studies have linked low levels of the vitamin with heart disease and diabetes.


“Solgar – Vitamin D Softgels 1000 IU (Cholecalciferol) – 250” (Solgar)