March 31, 2012

The Right to Vote is Too Important to Give to Everyone...OMG

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March 31, 2012

All Parties Ignore the One Way to Reduce Health Care Costs: Single-Payer

In a recent full-page newspaper advertisement, IBM touted massive medical savings through computerization. It's a promise they've made before, starting with a report issued in 1961. If only these promises were true.

For 50 years, we've been told that computers would give doctors ready access to past tests and diagnoses, eliminating duplicate tests that are unnecessary and costly. But it turns out the reverse is true.

Our study published this month examined 28,741 patient visits to 1,187 physicians. We found that when doctors can view X-ray results online, they actually order 40 percent to 70 percent more X-rays, including costly CT scans and MRIs. And the same holds true for blood tests.

Even the most wired doctors - those with full electronic medical records and those in hospital-owned practices where old test results are most likely to be available electronically - showed no signs of moderating their test ordering.

Sparing doctors the inconvenience of tracking down results seems to lead to more testing, not less.

Computer vendors' promises of cost savings by eliminating paperwork have also flopped. In a previous study of 3,800 hospitals, we found that computerization actually increased hospitals' administrative costs.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8195-all-parties-ignore-the-one-way-to-reduce-healthcare-costs

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Way to simple, like why not Medicare for All......someone asked me how we pass this.....I say if we don't, we just go further in the hole and listen to simpleton solutions from naysaying politicians who want to look at the glass always half empty.....

March 31, 2012

Smoking May Be a Risk Factor for Schizophrenia

March 30, 2012 — New research suggests that smoking alters the impact of a schizophrenia risk gene — the transcription factor 4 (TCF4) gene, which is known to play a key role in early brain development.

The study showed that healthy adults who carry TCF4 variants and who smoke process acoustic stimuli in a similarly deficient way as adults with schizophrenia. And the impact is stronger the more the person smokes.

The research was published online March 26 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

"Smoking might be a relevant risk factor for schizophrenia and should be considered when genetic risk factors of psychiatric disorders are assessed," first author Boris B. Quednow, PhD, from University Hospital of Psychiatry Zurich in Switzerland, told Medscape Medical News.

In addition, "a set of markers, including smoking, electrophysiological parameters, and genes, might help to identify and predict subtypes of schizophrenia, which may lead us also to new treatment options," he said.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/761252?sssdmh=dm1.772315&src=nldne

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March 31, 2012

FDA Rejects BPA Ban

The FDA has reportedly denied a petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to ban the plasticizing agent bisphenol A (BPA) from food packaging.

According to an Associated Press report, the agency found that the NRDC didn't provide enough scientific evidence to justify a complete ban of the chemical, which ignited public concern in 2008 after being found in baby bottles, soup cans, and other food items.

The FDA has not yet posted the decision on its website and did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.

The decision springs from a lawsuit NRDC filed in June 2010 after the FDA didn't respond to its initial petition 18 months earlier, which called for the agency to keep the chemical out of food packaging products.

In 2008, FDA initially dismissed concerns about BPA in consumer products, but subsequently took heat from congressional leaders and its own scientific board for the decision.

Two year later, the agency reversed course and promised a major research effort to pin down any potential health risks.

Read more: http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/PublicHealth/31953?utm_source=breaking-news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-news

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Like pink slime its safe folks.......

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and then this...... we do not know how much radioactive material is good for fish.....

Radioactive Iodine from Fukushima Found in California Kelp

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=radioactive-iodine-from-from-fukushima-found-in-california-kelp

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March 30, 2012

Broccoli and Bad Faith...Krugman style

Nobody knows what the Supreme Court will decide with regard to the Affordable Care Act. But, after this week’s hearings, it seems quite possible that the court will strike down the “mandate” — the requirement that individuals purchase health insurance — and maybe the whole law. Removing the mandate would make the law much less workable, while striking down the whole thing would mean denying health coverage to 30 million or more Americans.

Given the stakes, one might have expected all the court’s members to be very careful in speaking about both health care realities and legal precedents. In reality, however, the second day of hearings suggested that the justices most hostile to the law don’t understand, or choose not to understand, how insurance works. And the third day was, in a way, even worse, as antireform justices appeared to embrace any argument, no matter how flimsy, that they could use to kill reform.

Let’s start with the already famous exchange in which Justice Antonin Scalia compared the purchase of health insurance to the purchase of broccoli, with the implication that if the government can compel you to do the former, it can also compel you to do the latter. That comparison horrified health care experts all across America because health insurance is nothing like broccoli.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/opinion/krugman-broccoli-and-bad-faith.html?_r=2

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March 30, 2012

Foxconn workers question why hours are being cut after FLA review

Workers at Apple supplier Foxconn are reportedly worried after it has been announced that their hours will be cut following an audit of its facilities.

Twenty-three-year-old Wu Jun is used to working long overtime hours to earn the bulk of her income. But after Foxconn announced it will cut hours for its employees, she and other employees expressed concern to Reuters that they won't make enough money to support their families.

Foxconn announced on Thursday that it would reduce employee working hours to 49 per week, including overtime. That change is one of a number made in response to violations found by the Fair Labor Association, which audited Foxconn's facilities at the request of Apple.

FLA issued its report on Thursday, revealing that it discovered excess working times and various code violations at three Foxconn factories that were investigated. The audit reviewed 3,000 staff hours and more than 35,000 workers.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/03/30/foxconn_workers_question_why_hours_are_being_cut_after_fla_review.html

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March 30, 2012

Wendell Potter: Insurance Companies Want The Mandate Just Not Consumer Protections

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REALLY.............

March 30, 2012

How Supreme Court Rulings Could Impact Health Care

March 30, 2012 -- After hearing three days of heated arguments this week regarding key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, the nine justices of the Supreme Court will cast their initial votes today. Their decisions may change before the final ruling expected by the end of June, but in the meantime, the country is now left to wait and wonder about the law’s ultimate fate.

Here, WebMD answers some frequently asked questions about the Supreme Court case, breaking down a number of possible ways in which the court could rule, and the potential effects of those decisions.

Could the whole law be overturned? If so, what happens?
Yes, one possibility is that the Supreme Court justices will decide to toss out the entire law.

“If the entire law is overturned, we go back to the way things were before the law took effect in March 2010,” says Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a California-based health care consumer advocacy coalition.

Read more: http://women.webmd.com/news/20120330/how-supreme-court-rulings-could-impact-health-care?src=RSS_PUBLIC

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March 30, 2012

Hotsheet Live: What's the Supreme Court's next move in the health care case?

CBS News correspondent Whit Johnson was joined on Hotsheet Live Friday by CBS News political correspondent Jan Crawford, National Journal's Major Garrett and Politico's Jonathan Allen to discuss this week's historic Supreme Court oral arguments on the constitutionality of President Obama's signature health care law.

"This is not an easy case," Crawford said. "You had very aggressive arguments by the conservative justices suggesting that is law is an unprecedented sweep of federal power over American life."

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57407197-503544/hotsheet-live-whats-the-supreme-courts-next-move-in-the-health-care-case/?

Video: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403794n

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March 30, 2012

Could he be the next Michael......52" Vertical...OMG