Recently in Health Category

If this TED talk by toxicologist Susan Shaw isn't depressing and a powerful call to arms, then nothing is.

She begins by mentioning the chemical industry, which is all but completely unregulated, and how many chemicals can be found in our bodies.  In Europe, the numbers are vastly, vastly lower.  The worst offender:  flame retardant.  It's in everything you can imagine (your clothes, cars, furniture...), including your blood stream now!  At least we are less likely than the rest of the world to spontaneously combust!

But her talk is on the deadly cocktail that is the chemical dispersants and the oil combination designed to cause the oil to drop to the bottom of the Gulf so we don't see the damage it is doing.  Apparently the deadly dispersants make the oil vastly more likely to enter the organs of body through the skin.  We don't even know all of the compounds in the dispersants because the chemical industry is not required to disclose them by law.  What a revolting shock!

Our US government has completely failed to protect people.  What good is it?!

I just get so angry at what we as Americans tolerate without a second thought!  Such short-sighted, live for the comfort of the moment idiocy!

I find it so unspeakably maddening that important, reflective, intelligent voices of reason such as Susan Shaw's, are ignored in mainstream media because the influence peddlers would prefer we receive a steady diet of buffoons like Sarah Palin!  Dear god!

Related articles:

• TEDTalks: Susan Shaw: The oil spill's toxic trade-off (huffingtonpost.com)
• "Toxic Chemicals Industry Designs PR Campaign for Survival: Exclusive Leaked Footage!" and related posts (naturalpapa.com)
• Cancer panel: Unregulated chemicals pose serious risk (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Today we went walking along the beach and plopped our beach chairs surf side to enjoy a moment of sunshine and the cool ocean breeze. When I sat down, I noticed I had a glob of tar near the heal of my foot. And since I had forgotten to wear my "official beach shoes," I was going to have a very hard time getting the tar glob off.

While seated I frequently rubbed my heal in the sand. No help at all.

So, when I got home, I Googled "remove tar foot" and saw two suggestions:

• use olive oil and a toothbrush
• use regular white (not gel) toothpaste on a wet washcloth

All of the toothpaste here at the house is gel;  so, I got the olive oil out and the tiny new toothbrush my dentist gave me when I had my teeth last cleaned.  The tedious process took about 20 minutes, but it worked.  Below are the pictures documenting the trauma. Consider this my own personal exhibit of "Crude Awakening" that I blogged about before.

The tar (combined with the beach sand) becomes hard and is completely stuck to the skin.  I couldn't even scrape it off with a sea shell.  It has the dank tar smell.

The Tar Glob Proper

The Tools for the Procedure

Twenty Minutes Later

This is quite the week for tar.  The city of Manhattan Beach is in the process of redoing the slurry on the streets (that black tar goo with little tiny pebbles in it).  They just did the two streets by the house.  It's incredibly messy.  The workers also got black tar on the grass by the side of the house.  Not happy as that oil spill will probably kill the grass.

Oil is gushing freely into the Gulf of Mexico today as BP is trying to cap the well again.  And I just read an article online about the potential of a massive methane gas bubble from all of the methane gushing from the well in the Gulf (40% is methane gas and 60% is oil) rising from the Gulf and causing the extinction of all life on earth as methane gas is deadly.  She claims the sea floor around the gushing well is rising for about a 5 mile radius.  I hope the author is a crackpot.  If not, at least BP was kind enough to only kill all life on one planet in the solar system.

Check out the link at the bottom for a more detailed description of the methane gas theory including a link to the original article.

But the greatest tragedy of all was the realization that I have lived here in Manhattan Beach for about 2.5 years now, and today was the first time I've actually sat out on the beach.  That will be rectified this summer!

Related articles:

• Happy Sunday! The BP spill could trigger a methane explosion, mass extinction (crunchgear.com)

Today I went to Patty Brown Physical Therapy for physical therapy.  I have never had physical therapy before, but the issues with my shoulder are just impacting my basic living to such an extent that I decided I had to do it.  This morning I almost had my mouth in the bowl of cereal because I can't lift the spoon to my mouth.  Getting dressed and showering have become time consuming and difficult challenges.  I can't pull the seat belt with my right arm or shut the front passenger's door.  ENOUGH!

I dreaded the appointment.  If I move my arm/shoulder in various unknowable ways I have a variety of incredibly intense pains, sometimes lasting for up to 10 minutes.  I just knew this was going to hurt like hell.

Patty happened to be my therapist.  She is amazing!  I won't bore you with the details, but the appointment lasted about two hours.  At no time did she or any of her assistants cause me pain.  They were all knowledgable, professional, and genuinely warm people.

Astoundingly, I had immediate results!  When I reached into my pants pocket to get out my phone to input three additional appointments, I realized I could do so with no bizarre physical contortions and absolutely no pain.  This would not have been possible before the appointment.  I would have had searing pain and barely been able to get my phone out.  Tonight at dinner, I could lift my fork to my mouth like normal!

Already, with just one visit, I highly recommend Patty Brown Physical Therapy.  Her office has a positive, friendly energy about it.  The people are all genuinely pleasant, and I think that flows from her inner nature.  I have always believed that the energy of a space flows from those who lead what goes on in that space.  So if you need physical therapy, I recommend Patty Brown.

I'm sure you noticed that my Fitbit tweets stopped for a while.  I'm confident of your concern about my exercise level.  Therefore, I update you:

My original Fitbit died.  It would just turn itself off at random times.  Fitbit was good enough to replace it with no questions asked!  So now, I have a new one.  The regular (daily) updates should have started in earnest today.

As busy as today has been, I still only walked 5,423 steps so far.  Sad how indolent I am.

Related articles:

• Liking My New Fitbit (timtyson.us)

Well, despite the fact that I've had a horrible sinus infection/laryngitis this week, I have been wearing my Fitbit ever since I first got it. The results, even with being sick, are interesting.  I've noticed how unbelievably my stats dive when I spend a day working at the computer.  This must change!  And being sick has an interesting impact on stats too:  not exactly what I would have expected.

My best stats have been:

• 11,671 steps on May 18th (before I got sick)
• 2,693 calories burned on May 22 (when I didn't sleep at all that night because I was sick and couldn't breath)
• 5.58 miles walked on May 18 (again, before I got sick)
• 11 minutes of strong activity on May 17th (on the elliptical--but for 45 minutes!!! hello?!)

Because of getting sick, my 7 day averages compared to everyone using a Fitbit aren't that good yet.

• I average in the 30 percentile for steps per week yet...
• at the 61 percentile for activity.
• Distance and very active minutes are still crazy low.

My sleep patterns, as I already knew, are weird:

• I woke up an average of 8 times per night before I got sick.
• My three worst nights, when I couldn't stop coughing and couldn't breath: I woke up 31, 67, and 39 times! (Between that and the pain in my arthritic shoulder, I'm just amazed I didn't die.)

So, to check out my official fitbit page, visit Tim's Fitbit! And, for those who follow me on Twitter, I will start tweeting my stats as of today.

Related articles:

• Liking My New Fitbit (timtyson.us)
• The Fitbit Portends a Scary New World [Shut Up Fitbit] (gawker.com)
• My Sleep Graph (russellbeattie.com)
• Philips Changes Policy on Fitness Monitor (pogue.blogs.nytimes.com)

The Fitbit accurately tracks your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled and sleep quality. The Fitbit contains a 3D motion sensor like the one found in the Nintendo Wii. The Fitbit tracks your motion in three dimensions and converts this into useful information about your daily activities.

You can wear the Fitbit on your waist, in your pocket or on undergarments. At night, you can wear the Fitbit clipped to the included wristband in order to track your sleep. Anytime you walk by the included wireless base station, data from your Fitbit is silently uploaded in the background to Fitbit.com

I ordered mine a long time back, several months, and it just arrived. I think it was on backorder when I ordered it. While that was annoying, it was certainly worth the wait. Today I worked at the computer a lot but still managed to:

• walk 9,292 steps
• travel 4.45 miles by foot
• burn 2,278 calories
• sleep 94% of the night (a miracle for me!)

One of the things I really like about the fitbit is that when I used my Octane elliptical today, it accurately tracked that data! (The Nike Plus doesn't.) When I walk near the charging station connected to my computer's USB port, the data automatically syncs to the web site. The site has lots of clean, easy to read and understand data charts. The fitbit even knows when I wake up at night and tracks the quality of my sleep. So cool! It will even automatically send updates using your Twitter account. [I haven't gone there, yet...]

Related articles:

• The Fitbit Portends a Scary New World [Shut Up Fitbit] (gawker.com)
• Consumers Like Medical Toys Too (medgadget.com)

Well, it's about time something like this appeared.  I, ever the cynic, wonder who owns this company.

It’s easier on the web to use reviews to choose the best noise-canceling headphones or a good Indian restaurant than it is to find even the most basic information on which doctor you should go to.

But a new service called Doctor Finder created by Insider Pages hopes to change that by fielding comprehensive online reviews of doctors.

The site covers nearly a million doctors in the United States, combining patient reviews with board certification and official malpractice and sanction records to help patients find a new doctor. Users can sort potential doctors by specialty, insurance carrier, gender, locality, ratings and years of experience.

That’s a big upgrade from how most people choose a doctor now, according to Insider Pages general manager Eric Peacock. Most people simply go to their insurance provider’s website to see a list of doctors nearby, and then decide on one blindly."

[Source: New Service Lets You Check Out Your Doctor Online, Before You Get Checkup | Epicenter | Wired.com.]

In Town
Well, I'll be home all week this week.  Wonderful!  I have so much catching up to do.

Eating Out
We went out to eat in Culver City tonight, a place called Eat Your Greens.  I've been there before and really like their food.  Afterward I splurged and had a chocolate ice cream from Cold Stone.  While sitting outside eating the ice cream in the totally perfect late afternoon weather, some group was shooting a movie--directly in front of us!  If I had talked loudly, I would be in their audio!

Chiropractor
My regular doctor said I have severe arthritis in my shoulder, a tear, two muscles significantly inflamed, and fluid buildup.  She wants me to go get a shot of steroids in my shoulder.  O god!  She also prescribed physical therapy.

I called the rhuematologist and got voicemail.  I was glad to leave a message and haven't heard back from the doctor yet.  I also returned to my chiropractor who I used over a year ago.

Now, I'll be the first to say that I don't believe in a lot of the chiropractic mumbo jumbo the chiropractors of America blather on about.  However, after 4 visits (every day but today as they are closed on Sundays) I am absolutely noticeably, significantly better!  The range of motion has improved significantly and both the sharp and constant pains have been significantly reduced.  I can assure everyone, this is not imagined.  My shoulder issue had grown to be an increasing problem that has even significantly affected my ability to get dressed and shower.

According to the chiropractor, my neck is not to a point that the degeneration is irreversible.  My head is constantly held forward, which is probably the result of my continuous use of the computer.  As a result, my upper back and neck alignment is a train wreck.  In the past I've even had some serious tingling and partial numbness in my arm as a result of pinching nerves in my neck.

My shoulder still has some very significant issues, and I'm not sure if it will ever return to "normal," but it is improving a lot.  I hope this continues.

Weather
I still profess to living in paradise!  The weather today was flawless.

I've actually been thinking more and more about leaving the US. I mean: for good. I find myself so disillusioned with what is happening in my native land.

My country forces education reform that is destroying creativity, problem solving, deep thinking, and analysis of knowledge to inform carefully considered long term solution-making for the immediacy of factionalized curriculum memorization. My country will not move beyond prejudice and discrimination. My country is squandering our national (as well as international) resources. My country is flinging privacy and personal freedom as fast as it escalates fear. My country cares more about greed, money, and possessing things than it does about people and their basic wellbeing. My country is removing the separation of church and state and forcing people to live by tenets of religion in which they may not personally believe. My country allows business, built on greed and outsourcing, to become so large they can not fail and must receive tax payer's money to keep the executes rolling in fat bonuses with shameless abandon. My nation's government is bought and sold by transglobal corporations and makes divisiveness its core ethic.

I can do little of nothing to stop or change any of this.

I wonder if this is a natural part of getting older--seeing the world through more jaded eyes. But I see other nations, not without their faults to be sure, at least maintaining some more moderate and productive sense of balance. I just think the US government is fundamentally broken and inept.

I shared last night at dinner that I actually don't think the US will be able to move to a better place within my lifetime. This saddens me greatly.

I've supported Lawrence Lessig's work for some time. I've had his "Change Congress" link on my site for some time. In this video he sums up things, and, unlike my dismal state of disillusion, offers a ray of hope. He doesn't frame the problem as conservative versus liberal or Republican versus Democrat. He is insightful and brilliant.

In sheer horror, I did the math. My waistline is only 12% larger now than it was when I was 18 years old. And I feel fat! If I had jumped 400%, I would wear size WHAT???!!!

The average waistline of people in the developed world has increased 400% in 25 years, with three-quarters of adults now overweight or obese. For the first time in history, there are literally more people overweight than there are starving."

(Via David Rock: Are Our Minds Going The Way Of Our Waists?)

Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study.

The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable.

"This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist.

The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery, comes as Congress is debating the expansion of health insurance coverage to millions more Americans. It could add fodder to that debate.

link: Uninsured ER patients twice as likely to die // Current

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - With the establishment of government-mandated death panels just days away, grandmothers began fleeing the United States in record numbers today, reports Fox News.

"I am never one to yell 'Fire' in a crowded theater," said Fox News host Glenn Beck. "But run for your lives!"

Across the country, slow-moving caravans of 1980s-era Cadillacs with turn signals blinking were making the torturous journey to the Canadian border, their back seats laden with cats, knitting projects, and bottles of Ensure.

Fox News may have set off the mass exodus by warning grannies that if they did not flee quickly enough they would face government-mandated organ harvesting.

Elsewhere, anti-healthcare protesters objected to the language of the House bill, saying there were too many polysyllabic words.

link: Fox News Reports: Millions of Grannies Flee U.S. as Death Panels Loom - Borowitz Report

I have no idea why I am so irritable. I've been in this state ever since the wind storm exploded my allergies. Additionally, I'm making a huge number of typographical errors--consistently leaving letters out of words. I'm so totally over it! I'm also wondering if it's because I've been taking vastly more insulin.

But this post is not about the horrid, irritable mood I'm in. This post is about my recent implementation of the Medtronic Paradigm Real-Time Continuous Glucose Monitoring System with my MiniMed insulin pump.

I tried it for a whole week. I'm over it. I stopped using it today.

My objective was to have continuous information about my BG (blood glucose) level, test my BG less but be better informed. The continuous glucose monitor (CGM) did not accomplish that for me.

Things I liked:

• The sensor's transmitter looked cute and had a cleverly designed charger.
• The sensor provided a graph, with trend information, about my BG.

• I had to test my BG far more often than I had been testing it.
• The new sensor that communicated wirelessly with the pump seemed to require constant attention: asking me to calibrate the sensor with another finger stick, notifying me my BG was out of range, telling me the sensor signal was weak, that there was a calibration error, that I would need to calibrate in 30 minutes, that my BG was high, that my BG was low, et. al.
• The sensor seemed to require attention at the most inconvenient times possible: test your BG for calibration now. But you're not supposed to test during or immediately after eating, exercising, or while your BG is changing significantly. Well, hell, it seemed to always know when that was or at 2:00AM when I'm sleeping, waking me up. This would have become a nightmare when I'm working.
• It requires a finger stick. No other testing location is acceptable. I stopped using my fingers years ago because it turns them black and blue and hurts like hell. I use my arm or thigh for BG monitoring. Those areas produce error readings when calibrating the sensor.
• The needle that inserts the wires into your body that read the BG level from the passing electrical charge in the interstitial tissue appears enormous. The nurse who trained me suggested I deaden the area before inserting it. And yes. Even after a cold compress, it was a very, very significant stick, dare I say "stab."
• Inserting the wire into my body for the sensor seemed very cumbersome and unnatural to me. Maybe I would have gotten better at it in time, but I felt as though I was fumbling with it every time.
• The transmitter had to be taped on for it to stay and not get pulled. I have a hairy stomach. This was problematic when I replaced the sensor.
• The damn sensor pulled out from the skin before it needed to be replaced. This happened with two sensors. They are ludicrously expensive to have them pull out and therefore need early replacement! One pulled out on the first day, even after being completely taped down. This is actually what served as the straw that broke the camel's back! The tape on the backside of the sensor itself did not hold it down to my skin. I didn't want an infection at the area where the wires went into my body.

The extra information that I learned from using the sensor: my BG skyrockets when I eat anything! It would go from 120 to 260 and be rising by 4 every 5 minutes. So, what would I do? I would take extra insulin. In this week, I gained 2 pounds! Gaining 2 pounds in one week is astounding to me! I already feel fat. Now I feel like a cow!

And worse yet, the insulin works so slowly, I would have to take about 80 units to achieve a result. Often, once the insulin began to work, within 30 minutes, my BG was low. Yet my body seemed to require such an absurd amount to even begin to impact the BG levels. This seemed very odd to me.

So, I gained weight. I'm not sure I really impacted my BG levels in any meaningful, sustained way and actually think I did not. I turned my fingers black and blue. I spent $130 out of pocket for medical supplies (the cost of the transmitter and one month's sensors).

The concept is good. I really like it. But... The application needs significant improvements before it will work for my life style. I want my diabetes management to be less intrusive and more effective, not, as was the case with the sensors, more intrusive with no improvement in outcomes for me.

Maybe this will work for others. Regrettably, it didn't work for me. I would have continued to work with it, but I am unwilling to have to stab myself more often with that large needle and waste sensors because they do not remain affixed to my body the way they should.

A couple of nights ago, a ferocious wind storm came through (a weather front without rain). I was walking along the sidewalk in Culver City, heading to meet friends for dinner at Fraiche, one of the many delightful little restaurants in downtown Culver City.

The wind was so fierce, debris was blowing into my hair and into my eyes. I've never experienced anything quite so irritating.

The weather became much cooler--dropping maybe as much as 20º. During the night the wind from the ocean was so strong I closed up the house. But too late.

As it so seldom rains, the pollens and dust permeated the air, filled the house, and have sent my sinuses into a belligerent rage. My allergies have been out of control ever since--nose bleeds, burning eyes, burning sinuses, et. al.

Deliver me!

For some time now I've thought the insurance industry was a corrupt monopoly that needed to go to the woodshed. Maybe that time has come!

Democrats launched a drive at both ends of the Capitol on Wednesday to strip the insurance industry of its decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws, part of an increasingly bare-knuckled struggle over landmark health care legislation sought by President Barack Obama.

If enacted, the change would put an end to "price-fixing, bid-rigging and market allocation in the health and medical malpractice" insurance areas, said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy said he would seek a vote on the plan when the Senate debates health care legislation in the next few weeks.

Leahy made his comments at the same time the House Judiciary Committee voted 20-9 to end an industry exemption that dates to 1945. Three Republicans supported the move.

Senior Democratic officials said the leadership was inclined to incorporate the measure into the broader health care bill expected to be brought to the floor for a vote within a few weeks. No final decision has been made, they added.

together, the actions reflect the fury Democrats have shown in response to recent insurance industry attempts to influence the shape of legislation. The events occurred less than a week after the insurers' trade association issued a report saying a measure that cleared the Senate Finance Committee would produce sharp increases in premiums for millions who currently have insurance. end of excerpt Source: MSNBC

link: Dems aim to strip insurers' antitrust protections // Current

He just needs to stand up to these thieves, bullies, and greedy thugs more often!

"This is the unsustainable path we're on, and it's the path the insurers want to keep us on. In fact, the insurance industry is rolling out the big guns and breaking open their massive war chest - to marshal their forces for one last fight to save the status quo. They're filling the airwaves with deceptive and dishonest ads. They're flooding Capitol Hill with lobbyists and campaign contributions. And they're funding studies designed to mislead the American people. [...]

"It's smoke and mirrors. It's bogus. And it's all too familiar. Every time we get close to passing reform, the insurance companies produce these phony studies as a prescription and say, "Take one of these, and call us in a decade." Well, not this time. The fact is, the insurance industry is making this last-ditch effort to stop reform even as costs continue to rise and our health care dollars continue to be poured into their profits, bonuses, and administrative costs that do nothing to make us healthy - that often actually go toward figuring out how to avoid covering people. And they're earning these profits and bonuses while enjoying a privileged exception from our anti-trust laws, a matter that Congress is rightfully reviewing."

link: Obama rips health insurance lobby as 'deceptive,' 'dishonest,' 'bogus.' // Current

Everyone knows I'm a technology addict. Therapy would be far less expensive.

So I have purchased a new Withings scale in the hopes it will motivate me to eat more healthfully and exercise more often. (Since I've added the insulin pump, my A1C is in the normal range, but I have gained 20 pounds over the past 3 years and just feel fat.)

The scale measures your weight and your BMI. It tells me how many pounds of my weight are fat. (Dreadful) It sends my weight to my online profile and my iPhone so I can see a graph of how well I am proceeding to my goal. I could even share my graph here on timtyson.us, but... well, how to say this succinctly... not a chance in hell!

Actually, though I really want to lose 20 pounds, I'm just barely outside a normal weight (a mere 2 pounds) for my height, and my fat mass is within the normal for my height range. I suppose the reason I'm not happy with my weight is that my lean body mass is near the bottom of normal for my weight. So I need to have more of my weight be muscle mass instead of fat.

The new scale looks very sleek and works amazingly. I stand on it for about 10 seconds and get a digital readout of total weight, lean mass weight, fat mass weight, and BMI. Within a minute the data is on my iPhone and online profile. Very cool.

I must confess to being among the first to purchase the new scale in the United States. Withings has been selling them abroad for some time now and just opened up the US market.

Scale Rating: Tim Likes!

To his credit, he apologized. But SC Republican Representative Joe Wilson should be humiliated by his typically Republican behavior. The President, while presenting his case for health care reform, showed remarkable restraint.

Rachel Maddow, my new heroine, sums it up nicely in the video below.

California's Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims PacifiCare's Denials 40%, Cigna's 33% in First Half of 2009

More than one of every five requests for medical claims for insured patients, even when recommended by a patient's physician, are rejected by California's largest private insurers, amounting to very real death panels in practice daily in the nation's biggest state, according to data released today by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

link: California Nurses Association

Marion Nestle, NYU professor and blogger at FoodPolitics.com, gave a great presentation at the GEL conference about why we have doubled the percentage of our US population that is over weight in just 25 years. She offers these sensible ways to control your weight and eat healthfully:

• Eat Less
  
• Move More
• Eat Fruits and Vegetables
  
• Don't Eat Too Much Junk Food
  
• Enjoy Food

Watch her presentation:

Marion Nestle at Gel 2009 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

8 ways reform provides security and stability to those with or without coverage

1. Ends Discrimination for Pre-Existing Conditions: Insurance companies will be prohibited from refusing you coverage because of your medical history.
2. Ends Exorbitant Out-of-Pocket Expenses, Deductibles or Co-Pays: Insurance companies will have to abide by yearly caps on how much they can charge for out-of-pocket expenses.
3. Ends Cost-Sharing for Preventive Care: Insurance companies must fully cover, without charge, regular checkups and tests that help you prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.
4. Ends Dropping of Coverage for Seriously Ill: Insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping or watering down insurance coverage for those who become seriously ill.
5. Ends Gender Discrimination: Insurance companies will be prohibited from charging you more because of your gender.
6. Ends Annual or Lifetime Caps on Coverage: Insurance companies will be prevented from placing annual or lifetime caps on the coverage you receive.
7. Extends Coverage for Young Adults: Children would continue to be eligible for family coverage through the age of 26.
8. Guarantees Insurance Renewal: Insurance companies will be required to renew any policy as long as the policyholder pays their premium in full. Insurance companies won't be allowed to refuse renewal because someone became sick.

The immorality of unfettered capitalism never ceases to disgust me: the wealthy stealing from the people who need the most. But to then turn around and work them into a worried frenzy about cooked up lies to empower the wealthy to continue to rob from these needy people is unconscionable.

The "death councils" that will decide who lives and who dies, direct access to your bank accounts... on and on. This from the industry who actually does decide who gets treatments covered and who doesn't and who can not be held accountable for the many people denied coverage that not just severely impacts their quality of life but even kills them. Has no one stopped to wonder why people don't file lawsuits against the insurance industry? You can't. The had congress protect them from that as it would eat into their outrageously immoral profits.

We have the most expensive healthy care in the world and are among the lowest ranked in the world for health. What is wrong with this picture? And then to frighten the elderly and the ill with lies to keep their money flowing into the coffers of the most wealthy is nothing but the worst evil. Hell will not be hot enough.

And why doesn't the media report on all of this? Have you paid attention to the number or advertisements the medical industry puts on CNN, for example?????

Journalism is dead.

A great expose of what senators and congressmen are bought and owned by the healthcare industry to stop helping the American people get better healthcare. As I have written before, we need return to government by, for, and of the people, not the corporations!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I recently needed to replace my toothbrush. I only have a few criteria in this order of importance:

• Medium bristles
• Some plastic or rubberized bristles
• Comfortable, over-sized grip
• Colorful and cheery

I was having a most difficult time locating brushes with medium bristles. Almost all of them were soft. The soft bristles don’t work well for me and certainly don’t last. The only one I could find didn’t have any plastic bristles and, of all things, was battery powered!

What? A battery powered toothbrush? How ecologically responsible is this? But, needing the medium bristles above all else, I decided to get it.

The vibrating brush is novel if nothing else. But what I found shocking is the fact that 2 of the 3 other toothbrushes in the house were also battery powered, and I had no idea. All this time I could have vibrated my teeth, and yet I didn’t realize my toothbrushes were electrified. One of them even has spinning bristles (pictured here).

I just thought the thicker handles were a fad. Little did I know.

Fascinating!  

This development from the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Science Institute in Germany has made the creation of human skin much cheaper:

The basic skin production system, which Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft hopes to start selling next year, can produce 5,000 little swatches of human skin a month, for a total of over 600 square inches of mass-produced tissue. Each 0.12-square-inch section of skin would cost around $49 to produce, far less than the current cost.

The system, which should be available in 2010, is fully automated, with computers controlling the solution that the skin grows in, monitoring the vats for infection, guiding the blade that cuts the swatches, and even testing the quality of the final product. So far, this project has generated 19 patents for Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.

[From Scientists Find Way to Mass Produce Human Skin - Neatorama]

This laser light mounted on the bike projects a bike lane onto the road around the cyclist for safety.

Source: Wired

A friend of mine has this and loves it. I want to add the continuous glucose monitor to my pump, which will support it, but that needle looks a little sharp!

Artificial pancreas: Scientists are pairing continuous glucose monitors, such as the device pictured here (white device, top), with insulin pumps, such as the one pictured here (pagerlike device, bottom), to create an artificial pancreas for people with diabetes. In this commercial system by Medtronic, the glucose monitor wirelessly transmits data to the pump via a meter (not pictured). However, the user must still decide how much insulin he needs and dose it out himself. In an artificial pancreas, specially-designed algorithms would calculate how much insulin is required, and how quickly, and then signal the drug’s delivery without human intervention.
Credit: Medtronic, Inc.

[Source: Technology Review: An Artificial Pancreas]

Yeah, I just don't think it's good to use a cell phone next to your ear. I prefer my bluetooth head set or bluetooth connection to the car. But is bluetooth any better?

Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. “I think the safe practice,” said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.”

Dr. Vini Khurana, an associate professor of neurosurgery at the Australian National University who is an outspoken critic of cellphones, said: “I use it on the speaker-phone mode. I do not hold it to my ear.” And CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon at Emory University Hospital, said that like Dr. Black he used an earpiece.

Along with Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s recent diagnosis of a glioma, a type of tumor that critics have long associated with cellphone use, the doctors’ remarks have helped reignite a long-simmering debate about cellphones and cancer.

[Source: Well - Debate Over Link Between Cellphones and Cancer Is Revived - NYTimes.com]

Sounds interesting...

Cancer Therapy Without Side Effects Nearing Trials
By Jennifer Laloup 04.13.08

A promising new cancer treatment that may one day replace radiation and chemotherapy is edging closer to human trials.

Kanzius RF therapy attaches microscopic nanoparticles to cancer cells and then "cooks" tumors inside the body with harmless radio waves.

Based on technology developed by Pennsylvania inventor John Kanzius, a retired radio and TV engineer, the treatment has proven 100 percent effective at killing cancer cells while leaving neighboring healthy cells unharmed. It is currently being tested at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“I don’t want to give people false hope,” said Dr. Steve Curley, the professor leading the tests, “but this has the potential to treat a wide variety of cancers.”

[From Cancer Therapy Without Side Effects Nearing Trials ]

This seems unseemly!

Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones: Scientific American

We compulsively wash our hands, spray our countertops and grimace when someone sneezes near us—in fact, we do everything we can to avoid unnecessary encounters with the germ world. But the truth is we are practically walking petri dishes, rife with bacterial colonies from our skin to the deepest recesses of our guts.

All the bacteria living inside you would fill a half-gallon jug; there are 10 times more bacterial cells in your body than human cells, according to Carolyn Bohach, a microbiologist at the University of Idaho (U.I.), along with other estimates from scientific studies. (Despite their vast numbers, bacteria don't take up that much space because bacteria are far smaller than human cells.) Although that sounds pretty gross, it's actually a very good thing. ...

But the bacterial body has made another contribution to our humanity—genes. Soon after the Human Genome Project published its preliminary results in 2001, a group of scientists announced that a handful of human genes—the consensus today is around 40—appear to be bacterial in origin. ...

[From Humans Carry More Bacterial Cells than Human Ones: Scientific American]

I found that last paragraph cited of interest as I have always joked with people, to see if I can get an incredulous reaction, that bacteria are actually alien life forms that are attempting to colonize the earth by mutating our bodies into their original alien likeness. Good God! Is it true?! <eg>