Tuesday - March 08, 2016
The Food Police Suck More Fun Out Of Life, Again
G_D DAMN IT TO HELL.
I had a great post just about ready to publish and I managed to close the tab by accident. Lost the whole thing. I had a 3 paragraph social commentary, tie-ins to ObamaCare and Big Pharma, links to the Celiac Foundation and everything.
fuggit. It’s too late at night and I’m cranky. But I’ll try to regurgitate the gist of it. I probably needed the editing anyway.
so here’s the damn link to the original story
My whole point: You’ve probably noticed how every food product under the sun that isn’t made with flour now touts “Gluten Free” on it’s label, as if glutens were some new kind of poison worse than eggs, salt, Conservatives, or even those awful trans-fats. And now we’re being pushed to believe that everybody and his uncle, and probably their dog to boot, has celiac disease. 1 in 100, says the foundation. Absolute total horse shit, says the Drew. Someone has lowered the membership bar into a trench dug deeply in the ground, so that anyone with the occasional tummy ache can claim to be a victim of the disease, and being a victim is the thing these days.
Well not just bread, but any foods with a high glycemic index. Cakes, pies, rice and barley. Also sweet fruits and vegetables, including beets, carrots, apples, oranges, and dates. And let’s not forget starchy foods, they’re HGI too. Atkins Diet for everyone!!
a new study revealed that carbohydrates may also be bad for your lungs. Consuming a diet with a high glycemic index increases the risk of lung cancer, scientists revealed.
Foods known to have a high glycemic index (GI) include white bread or bagels, corn flakes and puffed rice.
Lead study author Dr Stephanie Melkonian, of University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, said: ‘We observed a 49 per cent increased risk of lung cancer among subjects with the highest daily GI compared to those with the lowest daily GI.’
The findings suggest that cutting out foods with high glycemic index could reduce a person’s risk of developing lung cancer. Lung cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women across the US. Furthermore, it is also the leading cause of cancer mortality.
More than 150,000 people in the US are expected to die from lung cancer in 2016, according to an estimate from the American Cancer Society.
Meanwhile in the UK there are around 45,525 new cases of the disease diagnosed each year, while 35,371 people lose their life to the disease annually, according to Cancer Research UK.
And, while tobacco is the leading cause of lung cancer, it does not account for all cases - particularly for those who never smoked.
The study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, is the largest ever to investigate the potential link between glycemic index and lung cancer.
It is also the first to show that GI was more significantly associated with lung cancer risk in specific subgroups - including people who had never smoked and those with the sub-type squamous cell carcinoma.
The glycemic index, or GI, measures how a carbohydrate-containing food raises blood glucose.
Foods are ranked based on how they compare to a reference food — either glucose or white bread.
A food with a high GI raises blood glucose more than a food with a medium or low GI.
Previous studies have found that dietary factors may have an influence on a person’s risk of developing lung cancer.
Diets high in fruits and vegetables were found to decrease the risk - while increased consumption of red meat, saturated fats and dairy products are known to increase the risk of the disease.
So. Can’t smoke, can’t drink. Don’t do drugs! Red meat is bad, sugar is bad, fat is bad, bread is bad. Eggs are OK this week, but are scheduled to be bad again soon. Anything with flour or white sugar is bad. Salt is bad. Sugary fruits are bad. What’s left? Here, chew on this disgusting bitter green shit a starving Mexican donkey wouldn’t eat called kale. And have a big scoop of this re-moistened tasteless puss called quinoa. The Fun Suckers are at it again.
Posted by Drew458 on 03/08/2016 at 06:05 AM
Filed Under: • Fine-Dining • Health-Medicine •
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Sunday - August 16, 2015
Late Night Indulgence
One nice part about being sick, is that you can feel sorry for yourself, which allows you to rationalize nearly any minor indulgence. Late night tea with genuine Peek Freans Fruit Cremes? Works for me. Because I deserve it.
Feeling quite a bit better after a few days of medications. Still coughing a fair amount more than I’d wish, but it’s lessened so much in intensity. Well, after a really nasty bought last night. Guess I turned the corner.
Posted by Drew458 on 08/16/2015 at 04:18 AM
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Wednesday - August 12, 2015
it’s official, I’m sick
Why am I making a blog post at 2:20 in the morning? Because I’m up. Coughing. Because I am officially sick.
I thought I was on the mend, having had the worst ever waterfall sinus condition for the past week. But things got even worse and I finally gave up the foolish male stubbornness and made an appointment. Hey, now that I’ve got my legally required insurance, I may as well use it.
The doctor was so impressed by my coughing that she immediately sat me down and made me partake in a session with their nebulizer. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded like some weapon system from Star Treck. Phasers, photon torpedos, galactic nebulizer. Nope, it’s the medical version of a “Vape”; an electronic cigarette. Just what my bronchitis needs! Actually, it’s a gizmo rather like the air pump from a fish tank hooked up to widened perfume spray venturi attached to what could be a paint cup from an air brush. A gentle breeze turns a spoonful of liquid medicine into a cold steam, which you breathe in through the mouthpiece on the plastic venturi tube. I have no idea what the medicine was, but my chest felt relaxed afterwards. I never even got around to telling her about my “deep coughing” technique wherein I cough and cough and cough and cough and then cough harder, sometimes having to squeeze the sides of my head against the muscle spasm, and cough hard until some “lungfish” of sticky mucus breaks loose. It’s harsh, but it works, and it’s got me through the past couple of days.
So I’ve got a major sinus infection going, and bronchitis, and a nice middle ear infection. Actually, I think I’ve been keeping the middle ear infection on slow simmer for years now. I think it’s the cause of my almost-always moderate hearing loss, because my Eustachian tubes never open. Must’ve been at least 5 years ago when I saw an ENT who gave me a small dose of steroids, which just barely started to work and then the ‘scrip ran out. No, sorry, you just tapered off, you can’t have any more. Gee, thanks. And it was a couple years before that, that I tried the drainplug grommet inserted through my eardrum, which was supposed to eliminate inner ear pressure and get things draining. Didn’t work for beans. So I’ve lived with the ear thing, and the deafness that comes and goes gets even worse in the winter ... but I knew the inner ear thing was acting up this time when I got up a couple of mornings and found myself bent over to the side walking in tight arcs to the right, because that was what my brain was feeling was up. Middle ear messes with your balance. But I could overcome that with a few good nasal blasts of saline spray and some magnum nose blowing. So I only felt that way for a minute or two each time.
I went a long long time without health insurance, and got by most of the time by going to the local health clinic. You don’t usually get to see a doctor, you see a PA, and that’s usually good enough. Two years ago the last one decided I had COPD, gave me several long term prescriptions to asthma pills, steroidal sinus sprays, and a rescue inhaler, and sent me on my way. Oh, and here’s a shit ton of low power generic cholesterol lowering pills. I milked those ‘scrips for all they were worth, and finally ran out of the last sinus spray and inhaler about 2 months ago. I figured this iteration of the sinus thing - generally I get 2 a year, almost like clockwork, and have for at least 20 years - was because my meds were used up. But then it hit me worse than it has in a long long time. And for all I knew, it could be a Lyme Disease flare up. I had a real case of Lyme last year, and I got a couple of tick bites this Spring, although they weren’t the “right” kind of tick and I didn’t get any of the symptoms like last time. Which can also be one of the symptoms. Like Lupus, Lyme is a sneaky little bastard. And what happens the second time? Can there be a second time?
Right. So off to see the real doctor. And tell my story, going back most of a decade. She looks at her tablet computer and names the ENT who did the minimal steroid treatment. Damn doc, you’re good; I know I didn’t mention her name because I never knew it. Yes, but our whole county is wired in to a shared medical database run out of the hospital. EMR at its finest, and it works. Sign that HIPPA form and they share everything within their medical circle.
And after all of this, I come home with 5 ‘scrips, including a much heftier regimen for the Prednisone steroid. Giant anti-cough pills. Antibiotic pills big enough to use as pillows, of a kind I’d never heard of. Even new sprays for the old schnoz. Oh baby. So I’ll be popping pills left and right for the next couple of weeks. And who knows, I may actually get well. And perhaps even be able to hear! Horry Clap! And they want to see me again ... not in a few weeks or months, but this very Friday. You know, maybe the clinic isn’t such a great solution after all. They were there when I needed them, they were cheap, and they got me well enough to continue muddling through. I think I want to do more than just muddle this time. I had the first round of pills with lunch, then took a nap for an hour. I think I feel better already.
Posted by Drew458 on 08/12/2015 at 05:18 AM
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Saturday - August 01, 2015
Thank Some More White Folks
A vaccine, not a cure.
Merck & Co.’s vaccine for Ebola is “highly effective,” according to an interim analysis from a panel of experts who recommended that a late-stage trial should continue.
The vaccine was 100 percent effective when it was tested on more than 4,000 people who were in close contact with Ebola patients in the African nation of Guinea, according to a study published today in the Lancet medical journal. The trial of the vaccine, called Ebola ca Suffit—“Ebola, that’s enough” in French—began on March 23.
...
The vaccine was developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada and licensed to NewLink Genetics Corp. In November, Merck entered in an agreement to research, develop and distribute the vaccine. Charles Link, NewLink’s chief executive officer, said the company doesn’t intend to make any significant profit in Africa or developing countries from the potential Ebola vaccine.
...
In the trial, researchers vaccinated anyone in the close circle of contacts of a newly infected person, targeting those most likely to get the disease after a new case. The Lancet called it the largest-scale trial ever performed in Guinea.People in the study were protected against the Ebola virus within six to 10 days of vaccination. The late-stage trial is continuing, and other studies are in progress, with the goal of submitting the vaccine for regulatory approval around the world.
To create the vaccine, scientists removed a gene from another virus, vesicular stomatitis, and replaced it with an Ebola virus gene that can’t cause the disease alone. That could let people who get the vaccine develop antibodies against Ebola.
It’s still unclear how significant or long the immune response to the vaccine will be, Merck said.
Well, yeah, that’s why it’s still in testing. But mon Dieu, this is far more than just “looks promising”. It’s half an inch from grasping the gold ring, even if the immunization only lasts a few months or turns out to be 97% effective. Thanks Canada!
GlaxoSmithKline is also getting great results with their vaccine.
And the third to enter human testing is made by Johnson and Johnson together with the company Bavarian Nordic.
...
Johnson and Johnson announced the start of their vaccine trial at the beginning of 2015. This uses a different approach still - two separate jabs will be given in the hope the second one boosts the effectiveness of the first.Vaccine company Novavax has recently announced the start of an Australian trial designed to investigate another potential immunization on healthy human volunteers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is also evaluating developments in Russia and Japan.
So 6 vaccines rushed through development, 4 already in human testing, with highly positive results back on 2 of them so far. Developed and made in Canada, USA, Bavaria, Australia, Russia, and Japan. The palest corners of the world.
Posted by Drew458 on 08/01/2015 at 04:24 AM
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Thursday - June 25, 2015
Welcome To Wonderland
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the nationwide tax subsidies underpinning President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, rejecting a major challenge to the landmark law in a ruling that preserves health insurance for millions of Americans.
The justices said in a 6-3 ruling that the subsidies that 8.7 million people currently receive to make insurance affordable do not depend on where they live, as opponents contended.
The outcome was the second major victory for Obama in politically charged Supreme Court tests of his most significant domestic achievement. And it came the same day the court gave him an unexpected victory by preserving a key tool the administration uses to fight housing bias.
Obama greeted news of the decision by declaring the health care law “is here to stay.” He said the law is no longer about politics, but the benefits millions of people are receiving.
Declining to concede, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said Republicans, who have voted more than 50 times to undo the law, will “continue our efforts to repeal the law and replace it with patient-centered solutions that meet the needs of seniors, small business owners, and middle-class families.”
At the court, Chief Justice John Roberts again voted with his liberal colleagues in support of the law. Roberts also was the key vote to uphold it in 2012. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in 2012, was part of the majority on Thursday.
”Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Roberts declared in the majority opinion.
Limiting the subsidies only to individuals in states with their own exchanges could well push insurance markets in the other states “into a death spiral,” Roberts wrote.
Justice Antonin Scalia, in a dissent he summarized from the bench, strongly disagreed. “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare,” he said, using an acronym for the Supreme Court and suggesting his colleagues’ ownership by virtue of their twice stepping in to save the law from what he considered worthy challenges.
His comment drew a smile from Roberts, his seatmate and the object of Scala’s ire.
Scalia said that Roberts’ 2012 decision that upheld the law and his opinion on Thursday “will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”
Boy howdy, nothing like taking a quote out of context. Changes everything, nyet? How about the whole Roberts quote this time?
“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”
Roberts continued, “In this instance, the context and structure of the Act compel us to depart from what would otherwise be the most natural reading of the pertinent statutory phrase.”
In other words, the law means what I say it means, NOT WHAT IS ACTUALLY WRITTEN. Um, gosh, does that sound a wee bit familiar??
In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice Antonin Scalia said, “We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.” Using the acronym for the Supreme Court, Scalia said his colleagues have twice stepped in to save the law from what Scalia considered worthy challenges.
“The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says ‘Exchange established by the State’ it means ‘Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government.’ That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so,” Scalia wrote.
Scalia added, “Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is ‘established by the State.’ It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words ‘established by the State.’ And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words ‘by the State’ other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges.”
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined the dissent, as they did in 2012.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton commented on Twitter following the ruling.
“Yes! SCOTUS affirms what we know is true in our hearts & under the law: Health insurance should be affordable & available to all,” she tweeted.
So there you have it. The law is what we say it is, without regard to how it was written, because we so fervently believe it to be true. Feelings trump every kind of fact, every aspect of reality, including the written word of law. From the very top on down.
Welcome to Wonderland.
PS - and you’re not allowed to think about how this kind of squishy thinking can now be applied to any other annoying law, like the Constitution.
Posted by Drew458 on 06/25/2015 at 05:20 PM
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Wednesday - May 13, 2015
Obamacare Exchange Down The Toilet
Despite over $205 million in federal taxpayer funding, Hawaii’s Obamacare exchange website will soon shut down. Since its implementation, the exchange has somehow failed to become financially viable because of lower than expected Obamacare enrollment figures. With the state legislature rejecting a $28 million bailout, the website will now be unable to operate past this year.
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser the Hawaii Health Connector will stop taking new enrollees on Friday and plans to begin migrating to the federally run Healthcare.gov. Outreach services will end by May 31, all technology will be transferred to the state by September 30, and its workforce will be eliminated by February 28.
While the exchange has struggled since its creation, it is not for lack of funding. Since 2011 Hawaii has received a total of $205,342,270 in federal grant money from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In total, HHS provided nearly $4.5 billion to Hawaii and other state exchanges, with little federal oversight and virtually no strings attached.
Despite this generous funding, the exchange has underperformed from day one. In its first year, Hawaii enrolled only 8,592 individuals – meaning it spent almost $23,899 on its website for each individual enrolled. Currently over 37,000 individuals are enrolled in Hawaii’s exchange - well below the estimated 70,000 enrollees that is required to make the website financially viable. Unfortunately, taxpayers will have to hand out an additional $30 million so that Hawaii can migrate to the federal system.
It’s not like the interface wasn’t standardized or anything ... they just can’t code a gateway for shizz ...
The plan, obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, states the Connector will cease new enrollments Friday, discontinue outreach services May 31 and transfer its technology to the state by Sept. 30. The Connector’s workforce will be completely eliminated by Feb. 28. The exchange has 32 employees, 29 temporary staff and 12 full-time contractors.
“Staff reductions will commence immediately, with the executive director ( Jeff Kissel) exiting once the bulk of operational activities end,” the report said. “If the state cannot facilitate an orderly transition, the Connector’s operations will abruptly end, as the Connector does not have the resources to continue operations.”
The state was notified in March that Hawaii was out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, because the Connector wasn’t financially sustainable at the start of this year and wasn’t integrated with the Medicaid system, which determines eligibility for subsidies and tax credits obtained through the exchange. The federal government subsequently restricted grant money to support the Connector and moved to take over its IT functions to allow residents to enroll in coverage through the federal marketplace, healthcare.gov.
Ya, I kinda hate to say it, but once this crap was signed and sealed, there really should have been a big software design symposium. Design the federal back-end, the federal front-end, and the state front-ends all at the same time. Then hand out the front-ends to the states, so they can modify their copy by changing the name of the state and the wallpaper. And the state providers database. But that’s about it. It really should be an out-of-the-box solution, built, bulletproofed, and tested to bazinga and back again before release.
What a total rip-off this whole thing has been.
Posted by Drew458 on 05/13/2015 at 01:11 PM
Filed Under: • Government • Health-Medicine • Obama, The One •
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Saturday - May 09, 2015
Ebola Burnt Out In Africa?
Liberia Ebola Free For 42 Days
Liberia has been declared free of the deadly Ebola virus, which killed 11,000 people in the west African [area], after six weeks without a new case of the disease,
The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said Liberia was free from Ebola after 42 days without a new case but urged vigilance until the worst-ever recorded outbreak of the virus was extinguished in neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone.
A total of 11,005 people have died from Ebola in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone since the outbreak began in December 2013, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Nearly half of those deaths have been in Liberia, where the outbreak peaked between August and October, with hundreds of cases a week, sparking international alarm.
The size of the catastrophe prompted the United States to send in hundreds of troops to help build treatment clinics in the country.
Helped by the visible U.S. military presence, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s government launched a national awareness campaign to stem the infectious disease, which is spread by physical contact with sick people.
‘We can’t take our foot off the gas until all three countries record 42 days with no cases,’ said Mariateresa Cacciapuoti, MSF’s head of mission in Liberia.
[ UN Special Envoy on Ebola David ] Nabarro suggested that, even though fewer than 20 new cases were reported in Guinea and Sierra Leone last week, it could take months to get to zero.
Posted by Drew458 on 05/09/2015 at 04:26 PM
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Friday - May 01, 2015
The Newest STD Is The Worst One Possible
Horry Clap! ("literally"!!)
The deadly Ebola virus may be transmitted through sex long after a person has been cured, a major finding that could change how the virus is combated.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigators looked into the case of a Monrovia, Liberia, woman who contracted the disease. The agency identified only one link to Ebola: unprotected sex with an Ebola survivor who was not presenting symptoms.
Ebola can only be passed through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person showing symptoms. But health officials have been aware of another problem: The virus can remain in semen for nearly half a year after symptoms emerge, even after the patient has fully recovered. A survivor could still potentially infect a sexual partner with the virus, which appears to have happened in Monrovia in March, when the woman in question had sexual relations with a man who had been discharged the previous October.
No word on whether this works the other way around: do female fluids of certain types remain infectious as well?
Posted by Drew458 on 05/01/2015 at 04:30 PM
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Tuesday - April 14, 2015
holy fugnuggle
Check out this government doublespeak ... straight from the Form 1040 Instructions for Line 61 ...
Remember how the ObamaCare Individual Mandate was pushed because it wasn’t a tax, it’s a fine?, but then approved by the Supreme Court, once they (ie Roberts) turned the law inside out so that it wasn’t a fine, it was a tax? Right, you’d better have insurance, or you’re going to pay. But what is it called that you are going to pay? Mwaaahahahahahaa; time to let the masters twist the terms to find one that’s both, and yet neither ...
Line 61
Health Care: Individual ResponsibilityBeginning in 2014, individuals must have health care coverage, qualify for a health coverage exemption, or make a shared responsibility payment with their tax return.
If you had qualifying health care coverage (called minimum essential cover-age) for every month of 2014 for yourself, your spouse (if filing jointly), and anyone you could or did claim as a dependent, check the box on this line and leave the entry space blank.
Otherwise, do not check the box on this line. See the instructions for Form 8965.If you can be claimed as a dependent, do not check the box on this line. Leave the entry space blank. You do not need to attach Form 8965 or see its instructions.
Wow, count me in. I sure don’t want to be a slacker and not carry my part of the burden. Let me make my payment to the Tax Man, whether it’s a fine or a tax. Who cares? It’s a shared responsibility.
Weasels.
Posted by Drew458 on 04/14/2015 at 09:09 PM
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Thursday - April 09, 2015
NHS Still Wasting Millions
£13million NHS bill for suncream: Millions also wasted on prescriptions for toothpaste, Yakult and Calpol
NHS gave out 404,500 prescriptions for suncream at a cost of £13m in 2014
Also handed out 4.7million prescriptions for indigestion pills costing £29m
Other items routinely prescribed include vitamins, Vaseline and toothpaste
Critics branded prescriptions ‘ludicrous’ at time of financial crisis for NHSThe NHS is spending millions on prescriptions for suncream and toothpaste, a damning analysis has found.
Some patients are even being given hangover tablets and Yakult yogurt drinks. Critics said it was ‘ludicrous’ that such items were being handed out when the NHS was rationing routine treatments.
It has prompted concern that patients are abusing the system by demanding prescriptions for household essentials which are cheaply available at their local chemist.
The figures came on the day that Britain was ranked only 27th in the world for health and wellness – below Slovenia, Spain and Portugal – and 111th out of 133 countries for obesity.
In 2014, the NHS handed out 404,500 prescriptions for suncream at a cost of £13million. Another 4.7million prescriptions for indigestion pills cost £29million, while 1.4million were written out for multi-vitamins, at £4.2million.
Other bathroom cabinet items routinely being prescribed by GPs include Calpol, Vaseline, Strepsils and toothpaste, according to the Health and Social Care Information Centre.
Roger Goss of Patient Concern said: ‘This is ludicrous. Every week we hear of patients being denied another cancer treatment or refused cataracts while others are being prescribed toothpaste. Whoever is prescribing this or authorising it must have completely lost their mind.’
I think government jobsworths are the same everywhere. The rat pushes the button and gets his cheese. The rat pushes the button and gets his cheese. The rat pushes his button and gets his cheese. And that’s all he can do.
Posted by Drew458 on 04/09/2015 at 01:28 PM
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Thursday - March 19, 2015
celebrate diversity and hope your children don’t die
One more reason for vaccination. I know my inoculations are up to date; I hope yours are too.
I don’t have to opine how I can absolutely guarantee that the carrier is an illegal immigrant, do I? We all know it.
Nearly 30 people have tested positive for tuberculosis at a Kansas City-area high school, officials confirmed Wednesday.
That’s about 10 percent of the 300 tested after one person tested positive at Olathe Northwest High School last week, KSHB reports.
“The number of individuals with TB infection does not exceed what we would anticipate in this setting,” said Lougene Marsh, director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment in a statement.
Officials have not confirmed who may have been the original carrier of the disease.
“Does not exceed what we anticipate in this setting”? No, of course not. Because you already knew what the setting was: a bunch of disease carrying foreigners forcibly mixed in with a generation of American kids who live such a germ free life that their parents didn’t get them inoculated because of some perceived moral high ground, or because they objected to some possibly GMO derived ingredient in the injections. Because we spent our tax dollars wiping out TB in this country so long ago that nobody even knows what the heck it is anymore. They’ve lost the fear.
Thanks for nothing Obozo. Let’s let another wave of invaders over the border.
PROFESSIONAL UPDATE: A doctor who reads BMEWS, let’s call him Dr. Walker, has written me several times with additional information concerning tuberculosis:
Doc: HI, I am not a registered user, just a reader, and a doctor. There is no immunization used in the states for tuberculosis. Shots would not have prevented the outbreak. Although, border control would have.
Overseas a vaccine called BCG is slightly effective but is not used in developed countries, there are valid reasons too extensive to explain why it is not given here. Suffice it to say one of them is that developed countries don’t need vaccines for TB as it is not rampant in our population. Again, although it likely will be soon.Drew responds: Thanks for the clarification. So that little thing they stick kids with just tests for TB, not immunizes? Ok.
...Doc: Rright, it is called a “Mantoux test” it just tests for it, and if you have had the BCG vaccine then that test is positive,, thus making the Mantoux test useless in countries where everyone has had a bcg vaccine....
Actually, Mantoux test tests for exposure to TB, if you have antibodies to it; to see if you actually have active disease you need a chest x-ray and possibly bronchoscopy with washings of the fluid secretions in your lung then await the cultures of that test. this is not simple. I have had experts not be able to pin down a diagnosis for a week or two in my patients due to the diagnostic tests being imperfect and the disease not obvious.
Since there is almost no TB in the states we don’t use BCG vaccine as it is not needed and thus the Mantoux test can be used, relied upon ... the vaccine is not all that good but is better than nothing and is also why it is not used here. but in countries where there is TB on every street corner the BCG vaccine helps reduce overall disease burden.
Thanks for that, Dr. Walker.
Quick internet research shows that the standard treatment for TB is to hit it with a cocktail of heavy duty antibiotics for an extended time period. I gather it also spreads through an airborne vector. The point is, border jumpers get into our society with no health screening, so they could be carrying anything and everything in the way of nasty diseases. And I’m pretty certain that whatever “screening” was done with the hordes last summer was cursory at best, and most likely just applied on a random sampling. Looks like some of them didn’t get a chest X-ray, at least.
Posted by Drew458 on 03/19/2015 at 01:34 PM
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Wednesday - March 18, 2015
The EverReady Bunny Disease
It Just Keeps Going, And Going, And Going ...
Guinea Ebola cases rise, three doctors infected
Guinea has suffered a setback in its fight against Ebola with a rash of new cases, including three doctors infected by the virus, with officials blaming weak surveillance and a failure to follow safety procedures.
The outbreak, which began in eastern Guinea more than a year ago and has killed over 10,000 people in the three West African countries worst hit, had appeared to be on the wane, but Guinea has seen cases rise for three consecutive weeks, according to World Health Organization data.
A government health report from the weekend showed there were 21 new cases in a single day, a spike from the recent daily average of eight.
President Alpha Conde said on Tuesday that everything must be done to end the outbreak by mid-April, ahead of a meeting with donors scheduled around that date.
Ending Ebola could reboot Guinea’s mining-dependent economy that has been hammered by the outbreak which has scared investors, he said.
“With Ebola, it is easier to go from 100 cases to 10 cases than from 10 cases of to zero. To end it, we need ten times more effort than when the outbreak was at its height,” he said.
A big source of concern is a chain of new infections that can be linked back to a woman who died of Ebola and was not buried safely, according to Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, spokeswoman for the U.N.’s Ebola emergency response mission UNMEER.
“It’s a major setback .... It’s due to individual behaviors. That is having a devastating effect on the community. People are simply not practicing the safety rules that we have been talking about for a year,” she told Reuters.
Of the other two countries worst hit, Sierra Leone has also seen a spate of new cases while Liberia has no known cases at present and is waiting to be declared free of the disease.
The new cases in Guinea are in the capital and the southwestern town of Forecariah but if the situation is not brought under control they could spread across borders, said Lejeune-Kaba.
Guinea officials said the new cases came from high risk Ebola contacts who had left Forecariah and developed symptoms elsewhere, pointing to poor surveillance.
Meanwhile, here in the USA ...
Fifteen American aid workers who had high-risk exposure to Ebola in Sierra Leone have arrived back in the United States since Friday for monitoring, according to a spokesman.
None is known to be infected with the disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner said Tuesday.
The returning workers are clinicians for Partners in Health, a Boston-based aid group. They all had contact with a colleague who’s been diagnosed with the disease and is being treated at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
The heath care worker with Ebola was in critical condition Monday, the NIH said. That changed from the NIH saying on Friday that the patient was in serious condition. Details about the patient’s identity weren’t released.
While in West Africa, the workers “came to the aid of their ailing colleague,” according to a Partners in Health statement.
As the CDC investigates who else might have had contact with the Ebola patient, more workers might be flown back to the United States, according to Skinner.
The workers are being housed near hospitals that specialize in treating Ebola patients, and if they show signs of the disease, they’ll be admitted as patients—as was the case with one worker in Nebraska.
The person developed symptoms Sunday evening and “out of an abundance of caution” was taken to the biocontainment unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
“At this point, this person has not tested positive for the Ebola virus,” Phil Smith, M.D., medical director of the unit, said in a statement Monday. “However, because of a change in symptoms, we decided the most prudent course of action was to bring the individual to the Biocontainment Unit, where we can better monitor symptoms and safely perform testing.
Posted by Drew458 on 03/18/2015 at 08:18 PM
Filed Under: • Health-Medicine •
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Wednesday - January 28, 2015
They Sell Insurance For This, Right?
As many as 6 million U.S. taxpayers will have to pay a penalty of as much as 1 percent of income because they went without health insurance in part or all of 2014, the Treasury Department said.
The penalty, part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is designed to force people to sign up for health insurance using the expanded options and financial assistance available under Obamacare. The penalty would apply to about 2 percent to 4 percent of all taxpayers for 2014.
Tax filing for 2014 opened Jan. 20, and the Internal Revenue Service’s Form 1040—for federal income tax—includes a new Line 61 asking if the taxpayer has health insurance. Three-quarters of taxpayers won’t have to do anything more than check that box, said Mark Mazur, the department’s assistant secretary for tax policy. The remainder will have to to take additional steps, though most won’t pay a penalty, he said on a conference call with reporters.
The IRS has been preparing for additional strain during the tax season as people adjust to the rule, warning that about half the people who call its toll-free phone lines won’t be able to get through.
About 3 percent to 5 percent of taxpayers got tax credits last year to help them absorb the cost of paying premiums on Obamacare insurance plans, Mazur said. Ten percent to 20 percent weren’t insured for all or part of the year but will be able to claim an exemption. People who owe a penalty “will pay a fee because they made a choice not to obtain health insurance that they could have afforded, and they’re not eligible for one of the exemptions,” he said.
Hey, I tried for days and days, weeks even, to get through to the government website to sign up. And it never worked right. The only time I could get through to the insurance companies was after the cut-off date, and they wouldn’t take my money at that point. This year, I started applying early, and it still took me until just before the deadline to sign up and get my payment applied. This enrollment window is BS if there isn’t a pro-rated fine period that allows me to sign up after the “penalty free” period. 1/365 per day of whatever my “additional tax” might be sounds right. Because the idea is to get me to have health insurance, right? That’s what this whole thing is about, right? So why did they slam the window shut and then lock it for 11 months?
And what happens when SCOTUS rules on that state subsidy thing and those are declared UC and have to be paid back? And paid back by whom? One more worm, out of the can and now turning. I hope it has poison fangs a foot long.
This whole thing is BS from the get-go.
Save us John Boehner, save us!
Posted by Drew458 on 01/28/2015 at 10:42 PM
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Monday - December 29, 2014
Over Here, Now Over There
Hey, remember Ebola? Amazing how this horrible disease, in it’s worst outbreak in human history, simply dropped off the radar a couple of months ago, after total news saturation. Poof, gone. As if it never happened.
Well, it’s still with us. And it’s still raging. The death count in Africa is now nearly 7,600 from almost 20,000 reported cases, and several more health care workers have died. Perhaps worse, “somehow” a huge shipment of medical supplies burned up in Guinea.
And now another health care worker has slipped through the safety net. Sort of.
A female healthcare worker who returned to Glasgow from Sierra Leone last night has been confirmed as having Ebola.
The woman, possibly a nurse, returned to Scotland via Casablanca and London Heathrow, arriving into Glasgow Airport on a British Airways flight at around 11.30pm.
The patient - understood to have been working for Save The Children - was admitted to hospital early this morning after feeling unwell and was placed into isolation at 7.50am. She is in a stable condition.
She has been isolated and is receiving treatment in the specialist Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases on the Gartnavel Hospital campus, but will be taken to the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Their infectious diseases unit is run by a dedicated team of doctors and laboratory staff and access is restricted to trained medical staff.
Anyone who is at risk through contact with the patient in transit is to be contacted and closely monitored.
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has chaired a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Committee and has also spoken to Prime Minister David Cameron.
She said: “Our first thoughts at this time must be with the patient diagnosed with Ebola and their friends and family. I wish them a speedy recovery.
Right then. She did the right thing, but the going-home process is such that she took an all-day flight and then a goodly drive AND THEN realized she wasn’t feeling well. Maybe, maybe, maybe they ought to keep them in Africa just a tad longer?
Posted by Drew458 on 12/29/2014 at 11:15 PM
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:
It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.
- Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
- Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
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- Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere
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Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.