Category Archives: Rants

The Bush Administration Pulls Another Fast One

President Bush and his cronies wouldn’t know what the the idea of independent science meant if they were forced to sit in on a lecture about it for a week. Instead of allowing Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Atlanta-based CDC, freedom to tell the truth about global climate change, they “eviserated” the report forcing her to leave out much of what we need to know about the consequences of global warming.

This is why the denialists have pulpits with which to hoist their “don’t worry, be happy” nonsense. This administration refuses to allow the CDC or the Surgeon General the independence they need to protect the public. They hide the truth and feed the media conflicting data to protect the polluters who fund their campaigns.

Read more about this abomination here at CNN.com. President Bush is the most “anti-science” President in our nation’s history. He needs to be replaced.

Chemicals Found In Children – No Problem If You Believe Professional Denier

Elizabeth Whelan, the President of the American Council on Science and Health said in response to a report by CNN about levels of dangerous chemicals being found in children “My concern about this trend about measuring chemicals in the blood is it’s leading people to believe that the mere ability to detect chemicals is the same as proving a hazard, that if you have this chemical, you are at risk of a disease, and that is false.” Huh???

Dr. Whelan is the same women who claims that nutritional supplements are wastes of money and dangerous while working with the well-known anti-supplement Dr. Fredrick Stare, is a shill, for major corporations wanting the public to continue to be blissfully unaware of the toxins being dumped on each of us. All you need to do is look at who funds her so-called public health advocacy organization. As long as you define public as polluting corporations and health as sick people being treated with drugs, well then I guess that’s ok.

Money pays for the “experts” to continue to deny reality. Big tobacco claimed that cigarettes were safe for decades (and guess who ratted them out, yup she did), now Elizabeth Whelan tells you to stop worrying. Remeber she worked for many years for the Chemical Manufacturers Associtation so her opinion is highly biased. Don’t listen to her, it does matter. Stop buying toxic substances and go green. Your children will thank you.

Veto Spending by the Democrats but Not the Republicans

I find it quite unbelievable that President Bush would veto the SCHIPs insurance bill to help people pay for medical care for children because it’s too expensive but when the Republican’s were in control and spending money like drunken sailors on their last day on dry land, he didn’t seem to worry about our money. When Senator Ted Stevens (R) of Alaska put a multi-million dollar appropriation for a bridge in the middle of Alaska that would have served around 100 people; the President didn’t use his line-item veto power to save us money. No this self-proclaimed “compasionate conservative” who would watch over our money and bring back fiscal responsibility, is the most politically motivated President we have ever had.
If a Republican wants to spend billions of tax payer dollars is that somehow different than when a Democrat does it? Apparently. Giving billions and billions of dollars to the pharmaceutical industry via the Medicare reform bill which stopped negotiated pricing for drugs is okay but spend the same money to help insure children isn’t? Compassionate? You be the judge.
Spend hundreds of billions of dollars on wars in foreign countries is ok, but helping our citizens live better lives is not ok. Enrich Halliburton but not our citizens is what this administration is all about. Corporate handouts, not aid to the people.
How can any self-proclaimed Republican or conservative stand by and not ask for his immediate resignation? No wonder recent polls show that Americans are not optimistic about our future. We don’t think we’re moving forward because we’re not. Our once great nation has seen the most disastrous Presidency’s ever.

Food Porn – Hardee’s Shows No Corporate Responsibility

The burger chain Hardee’s which has a history of producing artery clogging garbage has now introduced a breakfast burrito that not only has 920 calories but 60 grams of fat. Their Monster Thickburger is 1420 calories and even their chicken salad has 1,100 calories and an astonishing 83 grams of fat. Talk about heart attacks on a plate!

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based advocate for nutrition and health, has called the Hardee’s line of Thickburgers “food porn.” I heartily agree.

This is a company with no conscience, no care for their stakeholders and no respect for the people they serve. It’s all about money with no corporate responsibility at all. Legislation is needed to make companies like Hardee’s pay a health tax to help pay for their health damaging garbage. Just like smoking and alcohol, meals like this should be taxed and taxed heavily. Their marketing Brad Haley, has no shame and makes no apologies for pushing these meals. Shame on Hardee’s.

Losing a Child Due to Negligence and a Medical System Gone Awry

This past Sunday, a little girl, 2-years old was sent home by her HMO physician with a case of croup. In the medical/for-profit environment our health system has become, they did not want to admit her, despite her labored breathing because that might cut into the bottom line. So, trying to save some money for the corporation the girl was let go, parents told to get a vaporizer which they did and three hours later, the girl died.

I’ve ranted about our broken health care system many times in my speeches, and here on my blog site but this takes it to another level. Pharmaceutical companies, HMOs, and hospitals are more and more being driven by MBAs who answer to their stockholders, demanding more profits, sacrificing healthcare in a spiriling madness that now has taken yet another life. Isolated incident? Of course not. Preventable? You bet.

Our nation needs to completely revamp its abysmal health care system. It’s broken and it will never get up. When profit is more important than life, we have created a system that has degenerated to its lowest level. Physician error deaths are way too high and I have very little doubt that this is not due to a lack of caring, or gross negligence but more due to a poisonous atmosphere that doctors have to work in that deprives them of giving proper care to their patients. This needs to change and change now. No more innocent lives need to be lost.

Healthcare Policy on Obesity Needs Changes

The blog Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review came our with an interesting write-up on the troubling epidemic about obesity and the pressure it is putting on our health care system. As a lecturer in the field of health and obesity I have seen how our nation has become lazy and unwilling to do what is necessary to take back our health. Health care practitioners I lecture too have expressed utter frustration when trying to get people to change their habits. They just don’t want to be bothered. They would rather take a drug, or pop a few vitamins under the assumption that is all that is necessary to help them get healthy.

Health should be defined as not just the absence of disease but as the vibrance that comes with optimal health. We need to stop having the mind set that we don’t need to be responsible for our own health and that of our children. Making those who abuse their bodies by overeating, not exercising and having bad health habits pay more for their health care is the first step in reversing the growing obesity trend. If you want to abuse yourself, it will cost you more.

I don’t want to continue to pay higher and higher medical insurance bills for those of you who refuse to take care of themselves. That is a form of welfare that I am tired of supporting. Many of those people would scream and yell if they had to pay for people on welfare but would think nothing of taking subsidies from people who actually try to keep themselves healthy.

Breast Feeding For Babies – Lobbyists Fall to New Lows in Ethics

Just when you thought things couldn’t get much more unethical, the baby formula lobby, forced the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to “tone-down” their advertising campaign targeted towards improving the percentage of mothers who breast feed their babies. Political appointees changed the ads so that they were kinder and gentler and not hard hitting like they were initially designed and needed to be. This is just another example of the present Administration injecting politics and money into science.

There is little doubt in the medical and scientific community that breast feeding a baby markedly lowers the risk of developing asthma, becoming obese, becoming diabetic and scads more childhood diseases. American’s, according to this article on MSNBC.com are far behind other countries when it comes to breast feeding their babies. Maybe this is another reason our health care system is stressed. Still, to think that lobbyists have such an influence on scientific and medical issues like this makes me more than ill, it truly disgusts me.

The advertising agency that originally created the ads that would have startled mothers into understanding that by not breastfeading their babies, they could potentially harm them, said that by just emphasizing the positives of breastfeeding, the message would not work. Despite that, this is what the HHS did. So how did it work? Exactly like the ad agency said it would, by bombing. During the time the ads were on the air, 2003-2005, the percentage of mothers breastfeeding their babies went DOWN, from 33.2% to 30%. To increase the disgust factor it turns out that the lobbyists even convinced the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics Carden Johnston to help them convince then director of HHS Tommy Thompson to tone down the pro-breastfeeding ads.

This Administration has shown no compunction to make their friends richer regardless of the effects on the citizens of this country. How many children could have led healthier lives had their parents received hard hitting messages that breast feeding is the right thing to do? How many hundreds of millions of dollars have we wasted in treatment of asthma, diabetes, and heart disease that could have been prevented? To allow lobbyists from the baby formula industry to do what they did and to have buckled under the pressure they used is one step up from depravity. Shame on the lobbyists who have no compunction to do what they did. Shame on the political hacks at the Department of Health and Human Services for changing the ads. Shame on Dr. Carden Johnston for betraying his profession and his Hippocratic Oath. Most of all, shame on this Administration for allowing this pervasive assault on the American people to continue. A sad day in our country’s history.

A National Shame – The Lack of Healthcare Coverage in America

How is it that the most affluent country in the world has 44 million of its citizens lacking health care coverage? How do we as a people allow our fellow Americans to lack something so basic as commonly available health assistance? Are we as a people so lacking compassion that we allow children to be forced to avoid medical treatment because their families lack the financial ability to afford health care?

My feelings here run deep as I feel that the lack of such a basic and fundamental right is a blemish on our nation. We spend billions on fighting a war in Iraq, yet we see no problem in cutting back on services to our growing population of poor and middle class citizens who flat out cannot afford the spiralling out of control health care costs. Why do we do this? Greed. Since the 1980s our country’s focus has been on making money, making rich people richer and cutting back on services to our citizens all the while wasting money on pet projects that do nothing more than enrich the few at the expense of the many.

Our country grows lazy, obese and uncaring. The percentage of people who volunteer time to their community is shrinking. We have focused on our own personal pleasures at the expense of others. Unless we have a fundamental change in what we want in life, our health care system will continue to flounder and more people will have to do without.

It is the will to change our ways that will make a change in health care. If we get away from the pharmaceutical, treat the symptom, not the cause model, we will begin to make the first step towards real health. The FDA also needs to regulate their approval program so they can stop pharmaceutical companies from introducing new drugs at higher costs with only minimal benefits over cheaper drugs. We need to cut back on the mountains of paperwork and bureaucracy that fuels medical care expenses. We need to take the stance in health care that prevention, through the use of alternative and complementary means are much cheaper and preferable than emergency care medicine which is the mind set of today’s health care community.

Pharmaceutical Company Payoffs

We all suspected that Big Pharma pays large fees to physicians to speak about their drugs but the latest news out of Minnesota is downright disgusting. Turns out that groups of practitioners in many states “advise” which drugs to select for Medicare use. One such “advisor” was paid over $350,000 in a year, but claims it had nothing to do with their judgement. Yeah, right and I have some prime swamp land in the desert to sell you. To read more about this issue, click here.

This is plain outrageous. This is tatamount to bribery which, if I am not mistaken, is illegal. The recorded votes on which drug is approved and who voted for what is absurd. This is unethical and needs legislation which probably won’t happen due to the deep lobbying pockets of Big Pharma and their stranglehold on Congress.

How much longer can we as a people, citizens of the United States, take this kind of chicanery?  They are stealing our tax dollars to enrich their pockets. Congress needs to stop subsidizing the pharmaceutical industry.  They flat out don’t need it. It is high time we all demand better.

Terrorist Dry Runs? Another Administration Attention Getter.

This is simply getting ridiculous. Every few weeks the Bush Administration calls out another scare to take our minds off of serious issues. Remember the bottles of liquid gang who were going to blow up planes?  Not so. Unfortunately we can’t take water on planes anymore even though the threat wasn’t real. Now the latest “dry runs” being done by potential terrorists may not be real either. In San Diego, they claim that there were no dry runs being done in their airport despite media claims otherwise. Click here for the story.

My mother told me the story of Peter Wolf and I feel that our government is crying wolf too often. Is there a terrorist threat?  Of course. Is there concern amongst travellers?  Yes again. Do we need to have “gut feelings” made public by the head of Homeland Security?  Why?  Our democracy is at a crossroads. Do we continue to become more and more paranoid and act like Chicken Little’s and start banning everything from being carried on airplanes for safety purposes?

I am saddened by the way this administration is handling our country and this is another example of the distance they have with reality. As a proud American, I hope we as a people have the guts to stand up and say enough is enough. We want the respect the rest of the world once had for us back.