Category Archives: Medicine

It’s Time to Give Up on Britain’s National Health Service, by Antony Sammeroff

Posted on July 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

Actually, it’s long past time to give up on Britain’s NHS, but better late than never. From Antony Sammeroff at mises.org:

“Woe unto you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

— Luke 6:26

Our National Health Service just turned 70! According to a recent article in The Guardian by Polly Toynbee , The NHS is our religion in the UK and that’s why the conservative government can’t destroy it. Of course, the Conservative government have never actually tried to destroy the NHS. They haven’t even reduced the amount spent on the NHS. They haven’t even halted increases in healthcare spending. The only thing they have done is reduced the rate at which spending is going to continue to increase.

Before the National Health Service was created in Great Britain our nation was a world-leader with an unrivalled record in making major medical breakthroughs. People came from all over the globe to study medicine, and to be treated in the UK. Dr. John Snow proved that the source of cholera epidemics was the water supply in London. Edward Jenner pioneered a vaccine for smallpox in rural England, and Sir Almroth Wright one for typhoid. Sir Humphrey Davy, also a Briton, first suggested the use of nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic in 1800. Sir Joseph Lister pioneered the use of antiseptics in operations in 1865 using impure carbolic acid, saving countless people dying from infections after surgery. Alexander Flemming, the Scottish physician discovered Penicillin in one of the charitable hospitals in London in 1928. Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, brought it to fruition working in a laboratory in Oxford in 1941. Britain had established the best record in the world for achieving major medical advances and had just developed the landmark drug of the 20th century, as well as playing a leading role in 5 out of the 7 leading medical breakthroughs between 1750 and 1948 when the NHS was established.1 Britain is no longer a leader in medical advances. Despite its costliness, nepotism, and other flaws, America’s private system has taken the lead.

Britain has less of the latest equipment and the old equipment is often being kept beyond the time when it is safe.2 If a private company was using out of date intensive care machines and x-ray machines, obsolete cancer care equipment, and operating tables over twenty years old – double their safe life span – the champions of the NHS would no doubt be clamouring for more government oversight and regulation. When government agencies are culpable, they are more or less given a pass on public outrage because they are perceived to be acting in the public interest rather than for profit.

To continue reading: It’s Time to Give Up on Britain’s National Health Service

Advertisements

Leave a comment

Posted in Government, Medicine, Politics, Science, Technology

Tagged ,

NHS Waiting-List In England Reaches Longest In 11 Years, by Tyler Durden

Posted on July 16, 2018 | 1 comment

Ah, the beauty of single-payer, or socialized medicine. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

New figures released by NHS England today reveal the waiting list to be at its longest since August 2007 having steadily risen over the last few years to 4.1 million people awaiting treatment.

Infographic: NHS waiting list in England longest since August 2007 | Statista

You will find more infographics at Statista

Responding to the figures, Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Janet Davies, said:

“While he is not personally on the hook today…these figures should leave the new Health Secretary in no doubt as to the scale of the task ahead of him“.

In terms of the action she sees as necessary for the NHS, she added:

“Safe and effective patient care relies on having enough nurses, and the Health Secretary must urgently address the staff shortages that are crippling our healthcare system.”

As a reminder, in a tweet earlier this year, President Trump wrote:

“The Democrats are pushing for Universal Healthcare while thousands of people are marching in the UK because their system is going broke and not working. Dems want to greatly raise taxes for really bad and non-personal medical care. No thanks!”

With almost 10% of the UK population in front of you for treatment, he may have a point.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-15/nhs-waiting-list-england-reaches-longest-11-years

1 Comment

Posted in Government, Medicine

Tagged ,

“Shared Responsibility” Update, by Eric Peters

Posted on July 5, 2018 | Leave a comment

Eric Peters makes a stand—which will cost him actual money—against Obamacare. From Peters at theburningplatform.com:

I am now officially an Obamacare Outlaw – the deadline for sending in my “shared responsibility” penalty/tax whatever-it-is having come – and gone. Without my having sent them a burnished penny of the $695 they claim I “owe.”

Readers will recall that about three weeks ago, I received a thuggy letter from the Luca Brasi division of the government, which has become the collection agency for the health insurance mafia. The mafia succeeding in getting Obamacare passed into law – and don’t be deceived that it was Obama or the Democrats or even the Republicans who did it, though they played their necessary puppet parts. The power behind them is the insurance mafia, which saw the goldmine and determined to mine it – using the power of the government to dig out the gold at gunpoint.

Of course, the government wets its beak, too.

It gets power – over everything it hasn’t already got power over since literally everything imaginable can be claimed to “affect” health care and now that our health is no longer our business but the business of the government, everything we do (and don’t do) at least in principle now falls under the purview of the government.

Obamacare will be used to implement – just for starters – backdoor/extra-legal gun control via “health based” rulings on who may – and may not – own a gun.

For example, the recalcitrant patient – or the refusnik patient, such a myself. Declining to obtain health insurance will be punished in more than just one way. Those who do not “sign up” will likely be characterized as mentally troubled – and “we” (it is always “we” when in fact it is really they) can’t have the mentally troubled running around (or even staying home) with loaded guns on their person.

That kind of thing. Expect it, count on it.

And, don’t be tricked by the black face that has been put on Obamacare – a divide and conquer trick deliberately used to divert attention from the bipartisan decimation of our liberty to not be mugged by the insurance mafia via the joint efforts of Republicans and Democrats in the service of themselves and the mafia.

To continue reading: “Shared Responsibility” Update

Leave a comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Government, Medicine

Tagged ,

The Corruption of Evidence Based Medicine — Killing for Profit, by Dr. Jason Fung

Posted on June 28, 2018 | Leave a comment

There are a lot of dubious pharmaceutical-company funded studies out there. From Dr. Jason Fung at greenmedinfo.com:

The idea of Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is great. The reality, though, not so much. Human perception is often flawed, so the premise of EBM is to formally study medical treatments and there have certainly been some successes

Consider the procedure of angioplasty. Doctors insert a catheter into the blood vessels of the heart and use a balloon like device to open up the artery and restore blood flow. In acute heart attacks studies confirm that this is an effective procedure. In chronic heart disease the COURAGE study and more recently the ORBITA study showed that angioplasty is largely useless. EBM helped distinguish the best use of an invasive procedure.

So, why do prominent physicians call EBM mostly useless? The 2 most prestigious journals of medicine in the world are The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet said this in 2015

The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue

Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of NEJM wrote in 2009 that,

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor

This has huge implications. Evidence based medicine is completely worthless if the evidence base is false or corrupted. It’s like building a wooden house knowing the wood is termite infested. What caused this sorry state of affairs? Well, Dr. Relman another former editor in chief of the NEJM said this in 2002

The medical profession is being bought by the pharmaceutical industry, not only in terms of the practice of medicine, but also in terms of teaching and research. The academic institutions of this country are allowing themselves to be the paid agents of the pharmaceutical industry. I think it’s disgraceful

The people in charge of the system — the editors of the most important medical journals in the world, gradually learn over a few decades that their life’s work is being slowly and steadily corrupted. Physicians and universities have allowed themselves to be bribed.

To continue reading: The Corruption of Evidence Based Medicine — Killing for Profit

© 6/19/18 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter

Leave a comment

Posted in Academia, Business, Education, Government, Media, Medicine, Money

Tagged

The Big Secret The Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want To Tell You About America’s Soaring Suicide Rates, by Michael Snyder

Posted on June 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

Why are suicide rates climbing? From Michael Snyder at theeconomicollapseblog.com:

This week two celebrity suicides rocked the nation, and neither of them seemed to make any sense.  Kate Spade’s handbag designs had taken the fashion world by storm, and she was supposedly living the kind of lifestyle that millions of Americans can only dream about.  And Anthony Bourdain was one of those rare journalists that was greatly loved by both the left and the right.  His “Kitchen Confidential” book is currently the #1 best seller on Amazon, and his “Parts Unknown” series was one of CNN’s most popular shows.  Why would people that seemingly have everything going for them decide to kill themselves?  Well, by the end of this article you will learn some things about suicide and depression in the United States that the mainstream media definitely does not want to talk about.  And all you have to do is to follow the money to discover the very disturbing reason why the mainstream media does not want to talk about them.

On average, 123 Americans commit suicide every single day, and now suicide has become the 10th leading cause of death in the United States.

But among Americans between the ages of 10 and 34, it is now the second leading cause of death.

Of course it wasn’t always this way.  Suicide rates used to be much, much lower.  If you can believe it, suicide rates in the United States “have risen nearly 30 percent since 1999” according to the CDC…

Suicide rates in the U.S. have risen nearly 30% since 1999, according to a report released Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicides increased in both men and women, in all ethnic groups and in both urban and rural areas. Suicide and “self-harm,” a category that includes attempted suicides, cost the nation $70 billion a year in medical care and lost work time, the CDC says.

The CDC says that rates have increased “among both sexes, all racial/ethnic groups, and all urbanization levels”, and so this is not just a trend that is affecting one particular demographic group.

And virtually all age groups are seeing major increases as well.  For example, hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts and attempts at children’s hospitals approximately doubled over a recent 7 years period…

At children’s hospitals across the country, hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts and attempts doubled from 2008 to 2015, according to a study published last month in the journal Pediatrics. The highest increases were seen among teens ages 15 to 17 years old.

To continue reading: The Big Secret The Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want To Tell You About America’s Soaring Suicide Rates

Leave a comment

Posted in Collapse, Government, Media, Medicine

Tagged ,

It’s official: Medicare trust fund will run out of money in 8 years, by Simon Black

Posted on June 8, 2018 | Leave a comment

Don’t worry, the soon to be broke Medicare and Social Security funds will be backstopped by an insolvent government. From Simon Black at sovereignman.com:

Two days ago the respective Boards of Trustees for Medicare and Social Security released their annual reports for 2018.

As usual, the numbers are pretty gruesome… and the reports plainly stated what we’ve been talking about for years: the trust funds for both Social Security and Medicare are going to run out of money.

Soon.

In the case of Medicare, the Trustees project that its largest trust fund will be fully depleted in 2026, just eight years away. In the context of retirement, that’s right around the corner.

For Social Security, the Trustee report stated that the program will spend more money on benefits in 2018 than it will generate in income and tax revenue.

So this year will be the first time Social Security has run a deficit since 1982.

But it gets worse. Because according to the Trustees’ projections, the program will continue running larger and larger deficits until it too becomes fully depleted in 2034.

After that, recipients can expect at least a 25% cut in the benefits that they were promised and worked their entire lives to receive.

Again, these numbers come directly from the Trustees of Social Security and Medicare (which includes the US Treasury Secretary).

The reports were so dire that mainstream publications picked them up almost immediately.

Curiously, though, a number of newspapers tried to play down the bad news, dismissively telling their readers that Social Security and Medicare are just fine, and that those sobering projections don’t matter.

These are common refrains. They’ll state, for example, that there’s nothing to worry about because the government will step in and bail out the programs.

Is that so? Well, who is going to bail out the government?

According to the Treasury Department’s annual financial report, Uncle Sam is already insolvent to the tune of $20.4 trillion.

And those numbers are only getting worse too. Treasury’s own projections show annual budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion starting in 2020.

Simply put, a short-term fix of Social Security and Medicare would cost trillions of dollars. And that would just be a down payment on the long-term costs of fixing the programs.

The federal government simply doesn’t have that kind of money. Not even close.

To continue reading: It’s official: Medicare trust fund will run out of money in 8 years

Leave a comment

Posted in Collapse, Debt, Economy, Government, Medicine, Pensions

Tagged ,

Opioids Are Responsible For 20% Of Millennial Deaths, “Crisis Will Impact US For Generations”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on June 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

The opioid crisis is especially severe among millenials. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

The opioid crisis has become a significant public health emergency for many Americans, especially for millennials, so much so that one out of every five deaths among young adults is related to opioids, suggested a new report.

The study is called “The Burden of Opioid-Related Mortality in the United States,” published Friday in JAMA. Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, found that all opiate deaths — which accounts for natural opiates, semi-synthetic/ humanmade opioids, and fully synthetic/ humanmade opioids — have increased a mindboggling 292 percent from 2001 through 2016, with one in every 65 deaths related to opioids by 2016. Men represented 70 percent of all opioid-related deaths by 2016, and the number was astronomically higher for millennials (24 and 35 years of age).

According to the study, one out of every five deaths among millennials in the United States is related to opioids. In contrast, opioid-related deaths for the same cohort accounted for 4 percent of all deaths in 2001.

Moreover, it gets worse; the second most impacted group was 15 to 24-year-olds, which suggests, the opioid epidemic is now ripping through Generation Z (born after 1995). In 2016, nearly 12.4 percent of all deaths in this age group were attributed to opioids.

“Despite the amount of attention that has been placed on this public health issue, we are increasingly seeing the devastating impact that early loss of life from opioids is having across the United States,” said Dr. Tara Gomes, a scientist in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s.

“In the absence of a multidisciplinary approach to this issue that combines access to treatment, harm reduction and education, this crisis will impact the U.S. for generations,” she added.

Over the 15-year period, more than 335,000 opioid-related deaths were recorded in the United States that met the study’s criteria. Researchers said this number is an increase of 345 percent from 9,489 in 2001 (33.3 deaths per million population) to 42, 245 in 2016 (130.7 deaths per million population).

To continue reading: Opioids Are Responsible For 20% Of Millennial Deaths, “Crisis Will Impact US For Generations”

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Medicine

Tagged , ,