In these United States of America, many people cannot afford even basic health insurance. They suffer severely under the present system and have to live under the constant fear of not knowing what they will do if they or their loved ones ever fall seriously ill.
But in many cases, insured individuals aren’t much better off either. In comparison to the exorbitant insurance premiums they pay, the medical care they receive is often very poor.
Additionally, due to the government-enforced monopolies of HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) and pharmaceutical companies, many patients will never even hear about some of the most effective and non-invasive treatment methods. These natural and inexpensive ways of regaining one’s health are being suppressed by the FDA and the medical establishment not because of safety concerns (they’ve been around for hundreds of years), but because they cannot be patented and would therefore cut into the pharmaceutical industry’s profits.
The current system is most definitely broken, and it must eventually be abolished if we want to regain both our health and our freedom.
But Obamacare is the worst possible answer. All it does is perpetuate a flawed system by forcing everyone to become a client of insurance companies, even those who don’t want to or need to participate.
Why should anyone be forced to subsidize the medical care of others? Very few individuals would personally assault their neighbors at gunpoint and steal thousands of dollars to pay for their own medical needs. How could any freedom loving person agree to delegate such criminal acts to the government by supporting a compulsory health insurance system?
There is only one solution that will lead to true health and true freedom: making health care more affordable. Ron Paul believes that only true free market competition will put pressure on the providers and force them to lower their costs to remain in business. Additionally, Ron Paul wants to change the tax code to allow individual Americans to fully deduct all health care costs from their taxes.
Through these measures and the elimination of government-sponsored health care monopolies a much larger number of people will be able to finally access affordable health care, either by paying for medical insurance or by covering their medical expenses, which are now much lower, out of their own pocket.
As for the poor and the severely ill who can neither obtain insurance nor pay for the medical care they need, Ron Paul offers the following solution in his book “The Revolution: A Manifesto“:
In the days before Medicare and Medicaid, the poor and elderly were admitted to hospitals at the same rate they are now, and received good care. Before those programs came into existence, every physician understood that he or she had a responsibility towards the less fortunate and free medical care was the norm. Hardly anyone is aware of this today, since it doesn’t fit into the typical, by the script story of government rescuing us from a predatory private sector.
Illegal aliens already receive de-facto free health care. Why can’t poor Americans have the same… not as a right, but as a charitable benefit provided by doctors who feel a personal responsibility for their fellow citizens?
Unfortunately, the current medical monopoly corrupts many doctors by rewarding practices that are not in the patients’ best interest. Pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in not curing people, but getting them permanently addicted to expensive drugs that have many side effects, thereby requiring additional drugs to suppress those side effects. Many doctors are afraid to speak up and question the system for fear of being ostracized by their peers or even losing their license.
Under a liberated health care system prices would come down and additional options would become available, thereby making health care much more affordable. Moral corruption would give way to true compassion, and many doctors would remember their implicit obligation to provide free medical care to those in need, just like they did in the past.
As a medical doctor, Ron Paul swore the Hippocratic Oath many decades ago. His entire person and career is a monument to the beauty and sanctity of human life. Ron Paul knows that life without health can be very difficult and is not what it was meant to be. He has personally cared for the poor for many years, without asking anything in return.
The government’s original role is to protect our freedoms and restrain itself from causing too much harm. Ron Paul is working to prevent greedy bureaucrats, opportunist politicians and corrupt pharmaceutical companies from having any sort of unhealthy influence over our bodies and minds.
Join the Ron Paul Revolution and help us put the federal government back where it belongs: to Washington DC and out of our daily lives.
Transcript:
Government has been mismanaging medical care for more than 45 years; for every problem it has created it has responded by exponentially expanding the role of government.
Points to consider:
- No one has a right to medical care. If one assumes such a right, it endorses the notion that some individuals have a right to someone else’s life and property. This totally contradicts the principles of liberty.
- If medical care is provided by government, this can only be achieved by an authoritarian government unconcerned about the rights of the individual.
- Economic fallacies accepted for more than 100 years in the United States has deceived policy makers into believing that quality medical care can only be achieved by government force, taxation, regulations, and bowing to a system of special interests that creates a system of corporatism.
- More dollars into any monopoly run by government never increases quality but it always results in higher costs and prices.
- Government does have an important role to play in facilitating the delivery of all goods and services in an ethical and efficient manner.
- First, government should do no harm. It should get out of the way and repeal all the laws that have contributed to the mess we have.
- The costs are obviously too high but in solving this problem one cannot ignore the debasement of the currency as a major factor.
- Bureaucrats and other third parties must never be allowed to interfere in the doctor/patient relationship.
- The tax code, including the ERISA laws, must be changed to give everyone equal treatment by allowing a 100% tax credit for all medical expenses.
Laws dealing with bad outcomes and prohibiting doctors from entering into voluntary agreements with their patients must be repealed. Tort laws play a significant role in pushing costs higher, prompting unnecessary treatment and excessive testing. Patients deserve the compensation; the attorneys do not. - Insurance sales should be legalized nationally across state lines to increase competition among the insurance companies.
- Long-term insurance policies should be available to young people similar to term-life insurances that offer fixed prices for long periods of time.
- The principle of insurance should be remembered. Its purpose in a free market is to measure risk, not to be used synonymously with social welfare programs. Any program that provides for first-dollar payment is no longer insurance. This would be similar to giving coverage for gasoline and repair bills to those who buy car insurance or providing food insurance for people to go to the grocery store. Obviously, that could not work.
- The cozy relationship between organized medicine and government must be reversed.
Early on medical insurance was promoted by the medical community in order to boost re-imbursements to doctors and hospitals. That partnership has morphed into the government/insurance industry still being promoted by the current administration. - Threatening individuals with huge fines by forcing them to buy insurance is a boon to the insurance companies.
- There must be more competition for individuals entering into the medical field. Licensing strictly limits the number of individuals who can provide patient care. A lot of problems were created in 20th century as a consequence the Flexner Report (1910), which was financed by the Carnegie Foundation and strongly supported by the AMA. Many medical schools were closed and the number of doctors was drastically reduced. The motivation was to close down medical schools that catered to women, minorities and especially homeopathy. We continue to suffer from these changes which were designed to protect physician’s income and promote allopathic medicine over the more natural cures and prevention of homeopathic medicine.
- We must remove any obstacles for people seeking holistic and nutritional alternatives to current medical care. We must remove the threat of further regulations pushed by the drug companies now working worldwide to limit these alternatives.
True competition in the delivery of medical care is what is needed, not more government meddling.
@ scott -”Ron just wants small government and has no solution to healthcare. By nature, small government = “You are on your own.” If everyone were a millionare, everyone would love this idea. Too bad we’re not all filthy rich. We need government because we need something greater than ourselves to help us deal with the problems greater than ourselves. We need to take our government back and make it work for the people – that is why it exists.”
There isnt a solution to health care. Either you sacrifice your quality of health care, or you sacrifice how many people get it. The truth is, its each person’s own responsibility to provide health care for themselves. Thats why we have public schools in this country. So that everyone has the ability from the time they are born to become well educated and make something of themselves. If you cannot afford healthcare, odds are you made a mistake at some point in your life, and you just want the government to bail you out, even though you criticize them for doing it to corporations. Take responsibility for your own life, your own health, and stop blaming the governement for the problems you brought upon yourself.
Oh, and your claim that you need to be a millionare to provide healthcare for yourself… How about a steady job, and the work ethic of that of a 16 year old.
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So let me get this right. Your ok with taxing me so I can help educate your kids, but your not ok with being taxed yourself to help me get my prescription medicine. Right? Did I get that about right? Why don’t we get rid of all tax’s? I think people with children should pay to put their own kids through school and stop muching off everyone else. Get a darn job if you can’t put your kids through school – don’t expect me to foot the bill. Right? Thats Liberty right? You might want to think about how we can compete in a global economy without roads and how they would ever get built without a federal government but hey we would have a lot of “liberty”.
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Totally agree Matt. And no, I don’t believe Matt is confusing school tax which is a voted in county property tax with Obama Care, which is a rammed through violation of the 10th Amendment. Generally schools are paid for by bond issues and levies on property that are agreed upon by the local residents. Unless you happen to live in his county, I doubt if you can make an argument this way.
Roads are supposed to be paid for with gas tax but as you can imagine, that does not work well any more and so now toll roads and stimulus are needed. Can the government do anything at all without raising the PERCENTAGE of your money required to continue periodically?
People need health care they don’t have for two reasons: One is that they are unfortunate, one is that they are fools. Our country had reached a level of prosperity that literally reshaped our value system-largely away from valuing health! The plan to collectivize our health care is a plan to sow so many thistles in the wheat that we cannot weed them out. A system that provides rights must provide them to a righteous people! We should refuse to throw good money after bad-those that do not value their health MUST be separated out of the system in order for the system to survive.
To their credit, many other countries do not currently have this problem-they will too when they reach a pinnacle of prosperity. It does not come natural to man to successfully deal with having enough or too much-nature had no model to provide him to survive a life without constant struggle-so in event of prospering, man becomes his own enemy to fill the void. If we are ever to become a society that can adapt to a lack of need, we must either teach self-defeating people not to be that way or let them go that way on their own. We cannot finance drug abuse, obesity, smoking, laziness, unsafe sex and the myriad of other self defeating behaviors by allowing these people to infiltrate and bankrupt our medical system. We cannot allow silly theories of a perfect world or a perfect health care system to trump the reality that NONE of these systems ever work reliably when a people do not value their health FIRST.
I find it interesting that Social Security is about to run out while the economy threatens pensions and we are worried about health care. These people just don’t get it. I rather think food and shelter is more important than health care. Millions are homeless and hungry-fear not, a hospital bed has a roof and a meal! :/
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This isn’t in response to your post Matt, but I didn’t see any other way to post the following important piece of information regarding Obamacare.
Obamacare
Doctors traditionally have been unhappy with insurance mandates because third-party payers, whether public or private, represent a seemingly unnecessary interface between us and our patients. Many doctors today prefer to accept cash, even at a great discount, rather than having to deal with the burden imposed by insurers.
Yet the glaring inadequacy of the health care reform law is that putting the bureaucratic burdens on steroids does little to change the trajectory of health care spending. The law also floods the system with patients while tightening the financial screws on those in the health care industry.
We’re two years into this experiment, and the realities of the law — more regulations, more patients with low-paying insurance, higher costs but lower payments to doctors — are sinking in
When surveyed by Deloitte, 83% of doctors said one likely change to the medical system as a result of the law would be increased wait times — an inevitable outcome of insuring millions more patients without a matching increase in the number of doctors. Not too surprising. Most doctors surveyed also noted that the changes will “pose considerable implementation challenges.” I suspect it would be hard to find someone in the health care industry — or any employer, for that matter — who would disagree with that expectation
Think of ObamaCare as a heavy horse-drawn cart loaded with all of America’s patients and best technologies. As the cart gets heavier and heavier, does it make sense that we don’t add more horses but instead feed the ones we have less and less while expecting them to pull the additional weight?
Marc Siegel, physician [and ] associate professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU
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I get sick and tired of people claiming that our medical system is broken because it’s only concern is profit. Those of you who are claiming this, are simply uneducated, or more bluntly put, ignorant. Pharmeceutical corporations are the reason we’ve made so many medical advances in the past decade. The profits that they earn, fuel their R&D, and thus allow them to continue to make huge improvements. What would happen if we were to pass some form of socialistic legislation to limit their profits? The free market would die in the health industry, and our medical advances would become stagnant.
Then there are those of you who blame pharmaceutical companies for putting unnecessary drugs on the market, that treat the symptoms rather than the cause. There are a couple of things that need to be addressed here. First, in many cases, such as cancer related drugs, a cure does not yet exist, and the drugs that are on the market exist to improve the quality of life of those who take them. The second part is, for non-essential drugs such as ED medication, anti-depressents, and others (the ones you always see the TV-ads for), the responsibility falls on the consumer whether or not to use them. Its a growing trend in this country to disregard personal responsibility, and instead blame corporations for our stupid decisions. If you think a drug is unneccesary, or not needed, then don’t take it. No one is forcing you to.
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REF: to your statement, “First, in many cases, such as cancer related drugs, a cure does not yet exist,”
You Don’t Know the Half of IT!
REF: to your statement, “If you think a drug is unnecessary, or not needed, then don’t take it. No one is forcing you to.”
Yes they are, if, like I did, refuse Fosamax from my doctor and its the FDA treatment for my condition…..and I refused it, she could have lost her license by keeping me on as a patient, knowing that I was going to take natural supplements for my osteoporosis. So she discharged me as a patient. So I disagree, these doctors can not recommend anything but DRUGS for treatment of disease. IT’s a for-profit government and drug company world right now!
I hate to say this but you do not realize what is going on in our world or USA right now…..American is waking up to the games these people have played with us during our lifetimes.
You aren’t awake yet…you haven’t been through the “real deal” yet…we have and we are exposing them to you ……but you do not realize it ….cuz you have no experience in life yet, and had your Mom or Dad or yourself or husband scamed to
death, cancers, and drugs and low wages, high taxes, poor education, poor healthcare, foreigners taking your jobs, minorities taking your education, side effects to meds, undercared for due to no insurance, cars costing more than a house use to, gasoline and cigerettes and soda pop and water and beer and a telephone line being taxed to death or your utilities being taxed to death or womans clothes being jacked up in prices,higher than mens, or the basic foods being quadrupled in price, food contaminations, central banks confiscating all the paper money…..sending young men into two different wars to get polluted with Agent Orange and Depleted Uranium, and coming home toxic and infertile..or worse
Car insurance costing an average of $100 a month and a car payment of $300 a month…house payments jacked up along with rent payment jacked up.,Live alittle longer before you go along with this governments status quo. And listen to what we are trying to tell you………..
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im from germany. national healthcare does not work there. google a few unbiased sources tofind out more.
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I recently, called Hewlett-Packard to fix a new computer sent to a friend of mine, that was put together outside the USA. The computer was uploaded wrong, and the so I had to call them to help me fix it over the phone! When I called their 800 number, I got a computer technician in India, and I was on the phone with him for 5 hours! As he guided me to delete and reprogram and fix the computer! So, as friendly as I am, we talked. He was a very nice man and I have nothing against his country or his people. They are very kind and gracious people. I have a problem with the USA sending our jobs overseas, its not other nations fault. I wonder how much he was paid per hour and how much the 5 hour call cost HP, and how much money they would have saved had they not had China put it together and India fix it for an American! Instead they could have given an American the jobs and we’d have done it right! But, anyway, getting back to healthcare. I asked this nice Indian man this: If I moved to India, and I got sick, could I walk into your emergency room and get treated? He responded, “oh no, you must be a citizen of India to get healthcare.” I said, well, do you have national government healthcare there? He said, yes we do, all citizens have healthcare here. I said, well how do I get it? He said, well you have to live here 5 years and then you would become a citizen. I said how does your government pay for it? He said,at the end of every month our government takes out 10% of our monthly income to pay for our healthcare and our retirement fund. Whatever the person makes they take out 10% of it each month, they could make a $100 or $10,000, and 10% is taken out of their income each month. “If you were a citizen here you would receive all our benefits too!”
I said, so your system unlike our system in the USA does not treat anyone who is not a citizen then. In the USA a illegal can walk in an ER and get treatment….ahead of our own citizens, free! And our doctors do here do not like to treat anyone on government Medicare or Medicaid…because they do not make the money on us and in fact under treat us many times because they can not make as much money on us as they can on private insurance payers. He also, said, well we do not get so much bad diseases as you get because our India diet is so much more healthier for us. We are mostly vegetarians and we do not have all the processed foods as you do. I said, I know, however, I am a type “O” and have to eat meat, I can not be a vegetarian. And you worship the cow and do not eat it right? He said “yes” that is true. I wondered if any of his people were tempted to kill a cow for food for their family rather than starve to death, but I didn’t, that cow thing is in their religion, but I bet the penalty would be death!
So, anyway, the conversation lead to his retirement there….which is paid to the government and the government give whatever the citizen paid in at age 55yr. He said, everyone retires at age 55yr, so younger ones can take over their jobs.
If, person paid in more they get more, but government give everyone a lump sum at age 55yr. I think China does the same thing, I was told by a Chinaman once a few years ago. Now if we were all paid our Social Security and Medicare payments in a lump sum that we have paid in over 46 years worth for me….I’d be all set and debt free and driving a new car and probably owning a business…..like the Indians and the Chinese do over here! LOL……I thought this was a very interesting conversation and it really didn’t take up much our time in the phone call while things were downloading and uploading etc.
He was a really nice guy and smart in his field……
I do think we in the USA could learn alot about how other countries health care plans are financed and work in places like India……However, like he said they due to the differences in the diet, they don’t get as much cancer or heart disease like we do in the USA. He said to they take alot of Herbs and things like that too. Which helps them treat problems. Americans can too but the FDA, since its not a drug but a plant product, and the FDA and the Pharmaceuticals can’t make any money on it, and the doctors don’t like it either since they had a hard time with their nutrition classes, and I think they must be taught that anyone who takes herbs and nutritional supplements is a rebel of the traditional medical model! It messes up their “for profit philosophy”. However, most of the drugs made by the drug companies come from plants……the toxic ones come from fertilizers and those are the ones I do not want to take….The problem is they try to take the plant and duplicate it in a lab, and then give it to us and call it a drug. Instead, we could save ourselves alot of human cell damage, if we just were allowed to take the plant in herb form. Which cost alot less, and has alot less side effects!
I listen to Herbalists, D.O’s, and vetenarians…who keep animals supplemented to keep them disease free….since a diseased animal is not profitable.
I wish everyone would take a course in Biochemistry…..and you’d have an understanding of what vitamins and enzymes and minerals we need in order for our bodies to perfrom right.
WE aren’t low in chemotherapy or fertilizers or pesticides, petroleum, I’ll tell yah that! Did you know that lovastatins are made from Red Rice Yeast and that when you reduce your cholesterol it also reduces the enzyme COQ10 which is a catalyst for the ATP energy cycle? And many people get very fatigued with muscle wasting while on lovastatins? I spoke to a doctor about that and he ordered COQ10. It helped too to get rid of the fatigue. Coumadin is arsenic/rat poison….too much of that can cause a slow kill …and fatique..that is why they check your liver enzymes every month….but they don’t share with you why do they? They have to make sure they don’t toxify your liver and kill yah off….they are playing with your life with that drug and you have no idea how dangerous it is!
Now will say …..antibiotics are good but they can cause cancer, and fungicides/Flagyl, its a pesticide and bad for you liver…but it will kill fungus’s that humans get….and they do save lives..but baby your taking some toxic chemicals to do it!
You hear all the warnings on their TV commericals …..don’t you?
Well, here in America, we are exposed so many chemicals they put in our food,on the soil its grown in, in the seeds they plant, and in cleaning chemicals, the paints, the soaps the water…so we don’t have live like they do in a 3 rd world country…..I know their thinking on this….but we are suffering from it too.
I just wish the doctors would be paid to prevent disease with nutritional supplements and herbs….and I wish the FDA would just make sure our food chain is chemical and bacterial free. That would prevent alot of health conditions.
I wish the Pharmaceutical companies would not try to re-invent the wheel, by trying to duplicate what nature produces anyway.
We need massive herbal farms….we need to allow the Asian herbalists to share their research with us on treatment of disease. Garlic is a good blood thiner, and is a natural antibiotic. Calcium many times is made from, cement, chalk or oyster shells……who in their right mind would think that we could use any of that in our bodies? However, I do take the Chalk form for my osteoprosis!!!!!! Cauliflower is a good source of it and so is artesian well water….or boil some bones, like my mother use to do…e.g.hamhocks Honey and Maple Syrup is the sugar Fucose….a friendly immune modulator….I mimimize my intake of other forms of sugars, knowing what I know about them.
Blackstrap Molasses is good for yah.it has the right kind of iron in it….I refuse to take the metal iron, ferrous sulfate.
I do not want metals depositing in my arteries and veins and collecting nanobacterium and cholesterol and calium and hardening them up so much that they can’t pump my blood.
So, anyway,,,,,,,,this is some of the ways I am preventing disease in my own body….oh I eliminated all products that contain aspartame sweetener 15 years ago…..and there are now 5,000 food products that contain it now, again approved by the FDA, in the USA. My doctor told me it was causing my migraines cause it converts to methane in my body…..so I eliminated it and haven’t had a migraine since,unless I accidentally, eat something with it in the product.She was a MD too!
For instance, I was eating a fast food chicken sandwich at lunch…and getting a migraine about six hours later…after the third time I asked them if their mayonnaise had Aspartame in it, they checked their bulk jar label and sure enough there was Aspartame and MSG in it.
So I eliminated mayonnaise on my chicken sandwich and no more migraines from eating it. Also, ironically, the Heinz pack of mayonnaise they can give yah does not have asperatame in it.
I read my labels, which that is one good thing the FDA does make these companies write what is in the products. Also, I think it took about six months for my body to detoxify from Aspartame.
I feel alot better now, for awhile I thought I had Multiple Sclerosis starting, my muscles feel normal now and my balance is better. Now if I am mistakenly given a diet pop at a fast food restaurant, the diet stuff tastes 10x sweeter than sugar and it has a chemical taste in my mouth…..I think it could be contributing to obesity in this country…they are trying to match, or crave, the sweet taste,with a gallon of ice cream and pies and cookies……! My doctor told me she thought it was causing seizures, TIA’s and Strokes! She said that is how toxic it is. So, see why I feel so strongly about things….with our government healthcare. My doctor has her own clinical trials that guide her practice. And thank-god she passed her knowledge along to her patients, for the sake of the health and prevention of diesase. That to me is being a good doctor. Unfortunately, I do live in that area anymore to go to her or to tell her how much that kernel of wisdom has helped me. Now, the dang government is still allowing Aspartame in more food products and once they do something they dont change it as the data comes in. So, now I have read thousands of labels and try to fight city hall………!!!! which is like trying knocking your head against a wall! GRRRRRR! This is my personal story and not meant for any advice. Its taken years of living to come up with these changes in my own life style. And I haven’t had health insurance for the past 25 years. I was in business for myself and couldn’t afford it or changed jobs and couldn’t afford Cobra. So, as I always say,,,it was up to me to seek out alternative doctors and study these things on my own time, to try to prevent disease. I wouldn’t take hormone replacements when it was offered to me either…cuz I thought it could cause cancer of the breast or female organs…but it might have helped to prevent my now osteoporosis! I should have studied that a bit more I guess….when my height started shrinking I should have known it was creeping in on me….but its painless.and doctors never warned me of it, either, when my height was shrinking..so had they done so I wouldn’t have supplemented better then..also, living in Michigan with low sunshine..we are Vitamin D-3 deficient more than the sunshine states…so that is kind of a new thing the doctors are onto now which is a good thing. Without D-3 we don’t absorb calcium properly. D-3 is activated with sunshine, cuz its stored in our skin, but believe it or not its stimulated through light going into our retina of our eyes.
The bottom line is this. Insurance is needed for catastrophic “disease care”. If America is jobless…how will they pay for the proposed healthcare plan? Those with jobs…..who have healthcare is their any provision in their plans for disease prevention. If so, insurance are covering them then for more than catastrophic disease care. I wonder if all the government workers who have their healthcare plans for free..if they were required to have the same plan they want to give us fine, if not then maybe they would like to have some money taken out of their paychecks .e.g.$65 a month to pay for their American constituents catastrophic disease care! Also, I hope we aren’t waiting in line in a Urgent Care…..with 14 illegals and Canadians ahead of us! I hope they won’t give them a hospital bed ahead of a American Citizen either….we’ll see how this all turns out….in the meantime I am staying healthy without any toxic drugs or food additives, and eating good farm grown organic foods as much as I can afford.
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I applaud Ron Paul for his honesty, even if he’s facing the most uphill battle against the idiocracy the U.S. political system has become. Be afraid if he or anyone else like him ever disappears by unnatural circumstances and receives a brief soundbyte or tiny article buried in the middle of the newspaper, for then democracy will have truly died. I haven’t heard rhetoric like his since Thomas Paine or Ralph Waldo Emerson walked the Earth. Instead of relying upon misdirection or distraction like the two name-brand parties do, Paul actually tries to provide realistic solutions to current, repetitive problems in this nation. Yes we may not like the taste, but they’re real solutions. He makes the most sense to me because he invokes the Constitution that the current administration has wiped their asses with or otherwise shredded. I agree with him that government does need to be handled on a state or local level. What works best for one region, state, etc. will NEVER work on a national level. Yes health care would work if the unconstitutional I.R.S. and tax system didn’t rape up to half your paycheck a week and individual investment would decide the quality of care citizens would receive. Think of how much different the economy would be if you had the actual income to invest in it, whether in health care, manufacturing, or any other section. Think of how great it would be if employers would BENEFIT from hiring Americans instead of getting tax breaks for hiring immigrants, whether on visas or illegal, who manage to send BILLIONS out of this country on shit wages, and contribute next to nothing to our economy… Ron Paul is the only human being actually thinking about these issues, let alone trying to provide solutions… I hate how he has to work in Republican clothing to have even gotten this far, for he is truly a Libertarian. If he worked independtly he’d be a joke like Ralph Nader or Lyndon LaRouche. Why do we only get to choose two forms of poison as political representation in this country? I wish the rest of congress thought like Ron Paul, then they’d earn their bloated salaires and Jesus-level health care on our dime.
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*These are my opinions*
An unchecked “free” market, especially ones as profitable as the medical fields, lead to just as much, if not more than, those regulated by governmental bodies. I hold as case in point the mortgage and loan industries over the last decade.
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Ron just wants small government and has no solution to healthcare. By nature, small government = “You are on your own.” If everyone were a millionare, everyone would love this idea. Too bad we’re not all filthy rich. We need government because we need something greater than ourselves to help us deal with the problems greater than ourselves. We need to take our government back and make it work for the people – that is why it exists.
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I am a bit disappointed that Ron Paul only says that the system is broken but does not proffer a solution. I get the idea of regulating less and to increase competition but that also leaves Healthcare and Insurance companies to continue to abuse the system. Healthcare is important as most if not all the people will require care at some point in their lives. Also, I absolutely scoff at the idea that we owe a debt to society but society does not have to return the favor.
It is a fact that Healthcare has been run off course by greedy corporations but I do not get the idea that corporations will still be relied upon to provide Healthcare/Health Insurance in Ron Paul’s plan as is offered here. How will we then curtail the powers of Insurance companies and Healthcare providers? Would that not mean more regulation?
I am mystified by the contradiction. I hope someone can enlighten me.
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I agree, Norma!
I love the sound of all his plans, but we all know the devil is in the details.
How will the Ron Paul administration contain private corporation abuses in every area that he wants to remove government interference?
Whether it is health care, schools, big business, etc.
We all know how big business abuses us all.
Without ANY oversight how will WE THE PEOPLE be protected?
Debbie~ “policing their own” hasn’t worked. Look at the police~ have you really seen justice in that dept.?
So while I support the initiative, I have REAL QUESTIONS as to how this all works out.
Steve mentions the poor…yes how does the wealthiest country take care of their poor when there is no longer any incentive to do so?
Private charities are going broke under the strain as it is with the increase in poverty.
Please Rep/Dr Paul, please be more specific at least on your web site.
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But what IS Ron Paul’s plan for health care? I understand he wants limited government, but how about LIMITED pharmaceutical corporations’ greed, at least?!
This Health Care page does not make it clear what plan he advocates.
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THE SOLUTION IS: WE NEED THE REST OF CONGRESS TO DO WHAT MR. GRASSLEY IS DOING.
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PAXIL — (Senate – June 11, 2008)
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Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, for the last few years, I have been looking at how drug companies try and influence medical care in America. Companies can do this by, for example, creating studies favorable to their drugs, by hiring doctors to promote their products, and in some cases even intimidating critics of their drugs.
Today, I would like to talk about a different tactic by drug companies hiding data. I don’t mean that they actually hide the data. But they make these numbers so difficult to find that they might as well be invisible.
Last February, I asked GlaxoSmithKline to turn over a couple of reports on Paxil, a drug used to treat depression. These reports were written by Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard.
Based on the review of documents uncovered in litigation, Dr. Glenmullen concluded that GlaxoSmithKline knew for almost two decades that Paxil is associated with an increased risk of suicide. He submitted these reports as an expert witness in several lawsuits now pending around the country.
So what did GlaxoSmithKline do with these reports? Well, the company tried to hide them. They went to the judge and asked to have Dr. Glenmullen’s report and all the confirming documents placed under seal–that means that no member of the public could see them. In fact, Glaxo has been doing everything possible to ensure that this information remains under court seal.
It seems to me that GlaxoSmithKline tried to hide these reports because they seem to demonstrate what the company knew–that Paxil was associated with an increased risk of suicide based on the company’s own studies. In fact, Dr. Glenmullen argues that GlaxoSmithKline knew this when they submitted the New Drug Application to the Food and Drug Administration back in 1989.
Essentially, it looks like GlaxoSmithKline bamboozled the FDA.
How did GlaxoSmithKline get away with this? Easy, they just moved around numbers in their studies to make it look like Paxil was safe. Here is how Dr. Glenmullen says they did it. GlaxoSmithKline ran several studies comparing people on Paxil against people on a placebo, in other words, a sugar pill.
If a patient attempted suicide before a study began–let me emphasize this: Before the study began–that person was automatically put into the placebo group. That means the company was comparing Paxil users against patients who were already prone to suicide. So when you compared the placebo numbers to the Paxil numbers, it looked like Paxil was the same as the placebo.
But, when Dr. Glenmullen re-analyzed the data, he found that Paxil WAS associated with a risk for suicide. And it looks like this is what GlaxoSmithKline was trying to hide from the American public.
Thankfully, a judge in Kansas made one of Dr. Glenmullen’s reports public.
Finally, I would like to address GlaxoSmithKline’s responses to my questions about whether it hid data on Paxil. I am unhappy to say that Glaxo’s answers were a little more than word games. I don’t wish to use the word “lie” but let me say this: their answers were less than candid.
Let me give you one example. In a letter to GlaxoSmithKline, I asked them when they learned that Paxil was associated with suicide risk. They wrote back that they “detected no signal of any possible association between Paxil and suicidality in adult patients until late February 2006 …..”
So GSK claims to a U.S. Senator they knew nothing about suicidality in adults until February 2006. But in the United Kingdom, government investigators found that the company had the data back in 1998.
Two weeks after I received the letter from GSK, England’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency released a report on Paxil.
The report concluded that data from GlaxoSmithKline’s own clinical trials confirmed that patients under 18 had a higher risk of suicidal behavior. This report involved 4 years of investigation by this agency which is England’s counterpart to our FDA. It was the largest most thorough report in the history of that agency.
According to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the only reason that criminal charges were not filed in the UK is because “the legislation in force at the time was not sufficiently strong enough …..” So the company didn’t get off because it didn’t do anything wrong. It got off because the laws in UK did not address such situations.
Today, I am asking the FDA to take a look at the same information that was examined in the UK. And I am asking the FDA if we need to change any laws here in the United States.
We cannot live in a nation where drug companies are less than candid, hide information and attempt to mislead the FDA and the public. These companies are selling drugs that we put in our bodies, not sneakers. When they manipulate or withhold data to hide or minimize findings about safety and/or efficacy, they put patient safety at risk. And with drugs like Paxil, the risks are too great.
The CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, Jean-Pierre Garnier, is resigning. I hope that the company’s new leadership will do right by the public and be more open about side effects of their products.
What happened with Paxil, as well as, in my investigations involving the painkiller Vioxx and the antibiotic Ketek are only a few examples of why it is important that bad actors be held accountable when they withhold data, submit questionable or fraudulent data, or attempt to mislead the FDA, the medical community, and the public.
That is why I am also working on legislation that would require that companies certify to the FDA that they gave the FDA complete and accurate data related to the safety and efficacy of their products and that the information is not false or misleading. If a company knowingly violates those certifications, it could be subject to civil and possibly criminal penalties.
END
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I think your right ……glad you survived! The problem with healthcare is its not healthcare. Its disease care with toxic drugs and barbaric surgery,approved by the FDA.
President Obama got elected in part because he is for Preventative Care, which includes the non use of toxic drugs and the incorporation of nutritional supplements.
I want Fluoride/Fluorsicic Acid (fertilizer) removed from our drinking water. Fluoride is a poison if ingested. If applied to the teeth without ingesting it it may prevent tooth decay.
Did you know that Prozac is fluoride? Did you know that Hitler and Stalin put it in their people’s water to keep them calm while they rounded them up for the gas chamber? There is enough evidence out there that proves its toxic, and there is no evidence out there to prove it prevents toothdecay if ingested.
“Show me the studies FDA”. zero. Did you know there is no law that allows our government to medicate the nation via our drinking water, without our conscent? If Prozac is fluoride, then I would say our government has been medicating us with it for the past 50yrs. The only thing is I haven’t drank fluoridated water….maybe that is why I can still think for myself. I have refused any of the SSI drugs which are made of Fluoride, and was recently offered it by my doctor,and I refused. I went to a dentist who wanted me to use a prescription dose of Fluoride toothpaste, which I refused…he said it only had 200 times the dose of a glass of water. I quit both the dentist and the doctor. Their indoctrinated. I go to doctors who have knowledge and wisdom about the body…and aren’t into toxic drugs.
Check out the video….by a dentist,who discovered after using it on his patients for 25yrs. the facts….(of course us “healthnuts” have known it for 35 years), but now maybe they will listen to this guy and the FDA Union members who protested the use of Fluoride and lost their jobs over it..
The FDA runs the “disease care” in this country. I think they are really ignorant. I hope this new director of the FDA has a bit more common sense…and they wonder why we feel we are being persecuted as concerned Americans living in this country.
What is good is labeled bad and what is bad is labeled good. I think a famous Prophet warned us 2009 years ago, that it would come to this …
Dr. Bill Osmunson: Exposing the Dangers of Fluoride
http://www.republicmagazine.com/webinar/previous.htm
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Wow, interesting that I got a reply one year later.
I am aware of the flouride-psychiatry-nazi matrix.
One thing I must point out here is that the FDA is not really what most people beleive it to be. The FDA is known as the “revolving door”. Here is why. Here’s an example.
GSK invented a poison called paxil. Now of course no legitamate ethical science based authority would approve of this. So the way GSK gets around that issue, is they put thier head cheif in the FDA as the FDA head cheif. The new cheif threatens the scientists to shut them up. The marketing firm then provides phony “research” papers to the FDA, and the head cheif “approves” the drug. Then the imposter goes back to his cushy job at GSK to reap $millions in kickbacks for the crime he just committed while millions of people are forced against their will to take the so-called medicine. And this results in the disabling and killing of millions of inocents.
We can’t rely on the government to do anything about this roothless murderous cartel. The exception here is sen. Grassley.
The rest of the elite cock roaches running the New World Order are all on the dole$ for poisoning humanity under the guise of treating ficticous diseases.
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Well, I don’t doubt your statements about the phony way the FDA works. For instance, I was recently diagnosed with osteoporosis. My traditional doctor who “practice’s medicine”, wanted to order that I take Fosamax once a week, FDA approved treatment, $120 a month medication. I refused, but agreed to take increased calcium,strontium,and Vitamin D-3 10,000 units a day. Which is way too high of dose! And then she said she was discharging me from her practice and I would have to find another doctor! Which I am doing.
I talked with a friend of mines husband, who has a PH.D in Pharmacy, and he said, “good,did I know that only two studies were done on Fosamax before it was approved by the FDA. Two people with osteoporosis were studied, one was given Fosamax and one was not. The one who recieved it got one fracture and the one didn’t take it got two fractures.
So, they claimed by taking fosamax you have a fifty fifty chance of not getting any fractures!” He said, now look at all the money the drug companies are making on just that drug alone. And the taxpayer has to buy it with taxed money so the government is double dipping on us as well. I love to talk to Pharmacists who are also into Health. He told me doctors hate chemistry and nutrition.
And they really don’t have the knowledge that pharmacists have to be able to prescribe. I told him I think a Pharmacist should be the one who prescribes medications, not doctors. But, then I said, what would they be good for? That is how they treat disease is with drugs they know nothing about or how they interact in our bodies or how toxic they are to us from what they are made of.
Doctors would be out of job if they didn’t prescribe….cuz they do nothing other than give us pills.
LOL!
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First, let me clarify some points. Most people still believe the myth that the FDA is a public watchdog group. In reality, they are the drug CARTEL LAPDOG group. It is highly likely that there were more than just two studies done. What these ruthless criminals do is break every law every step of the way. And with the 1% chance they get caught and fined (even in the billion$), it is nothing more than a minute cost of doing business. The fact that big brother isn’t policing the cartel is in effect giving them permission to put hundreds of millions of lives in jeopardy. Take note of the fact that the negative studies are always covered up, as not to jeopardize FDA approval, and future profits. Now when a drug comes onto the market, half of the dangers are not known. Also, from a legal standpoint, it is only illegal for drug companies to advertise to consumers non-approved uses of the drugs. It is not illegal for the drug cartel to send propaganda directly to doctors for non-approved uses. In fact Jansen Pharmacuetica co. sent letters to doctors instructing them give their risperdal (chemical lobotomy) to people for no medical reason at all. It was around this time that Dr. Jeff Palacios gave me risperdal claiming it was a beta blocker to stabilize my hyperadrenalism which was causing me a heart rate of 250. This insane criminal scum nearly killed me. I am now disabled for the rest of my life with severe debilitating injuries.
Now in your case, I’m sure your doctor did not bother telling you that one of the primary outcomes of fosamax is jawbone necrosis. Your jawbone will die and rot if you take that poison. Also, bear in mind the legal fact that doctors cannot recommend any dietary suppliments or herbs, or he/she will not only lose the license, but also could go to jail. Because they are restricted to only telling you what the lapdog FDA and the big pharma cartel has approved by ruthless criminal activity.
Most people turn a blind eye, because they don’t want to accept the fact that the system is run by pure evil psychopathic scum. These mass murdering cock roaches actually were caught with a hit list of doctors they planned to neutralize for criticizing their poisons.
Your life depends on waking up and educating yourself about how the system works, and health issues, and the legitimate sciences. Don’t count on the monolithic drug cartel to have legal or scientific integrity when billions of $ are at hand.
And you touched upon another important point as well. That is, when doctors go to school, they learn nothing about science, they only learn to deal drugs to unsuspecting ignorant people. Like a wolf guarding the sheep. I’m always doing my own research, always informing myself. Since most people would rather blindly obey authority and be herded along by a system invented by psychopaths to lead us to the slaughter, millions more will die at the hand of elite sycophant scum . As far as I’m concerned, legitimate scientific proof is the best measure of what is best for my health, and not New World Order corporatocracy. If it’s good enough for horses it’s good enough for me. RIGHT RON PAUL? er..um..well..end the fed?
LOOK HERE…THIS WILL NOT KILL JAWBONES LIKE FOSAMAX…
Sodium pentosan polysulfate (PPS) is a linear polymer prepared from xylan, a complex hemicellulose extract of plant (Beechwood) origin. PPS is one of the sulfated heparinoid compounds. The heparin-like anti-coagulant effects have been reduced and the anti-inflammatory, fibrinolytic, and tissue trophic effects have been enhanced.
PENTOSAN EQUINE actively reverses the effects of osteoarthritis in the joints via a series of actions, including:
(a) Stimulating Chondrocyte Metabolism – resulting in increased production of proteoglycans and healthy cartilage matrix. PPS stimulates synovial fibroblasts to produce increased amounts of high molecular weight hyaluronic acid which results in an increased production of normally viscous joint fluid. Improving the fluid volume and consistency results in more effective joint lubrication and stabilisation, which limits further cartilage damage.
(b) Anti-inflammatory Activity – PPS has an inhibitory action on all mediators of the arachidonic acid cascade. PPS also inhibits the lysosomal catabolic enzymes hyaluronidase, histamine, cathepsin B, and polymorphonuclear elastase. PPS exerts a specific inhibitory effect on mediators implicated in the degradation of cartilage matrix components, preserving the cartilage and preventing the release of the highly inflammatory mediators, thus relieving pain and inflammation.
(c) Fibrinolysis and Lipolysis – PPS is strongly fibrinolytic, stimulating the release of plasminogen activator, and promoting the dissolution of thrombi and fibrin deposits in synovial tissues and subchondral blood vessels. PPS also mobilises lipids and cholesterol in synovial and subchondral blood vessels, which have been implicated in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis in older animals. These effects combine to increase the prefusion to the joint, which stimulates cartilage healing and repair.
PENTOSAN EQUINE is a sophisticated approach to the long term management of osteoarthritis in horses.
PENTOSAN EQUINE is equally effective by both intramuscular and intra-articular injection. Unlike traditional treatments, the unique effects of PENTOSAN EQUINE promote healing and the restoration of a healthy joint, in addition to having a safe antiinflammatory effect.
PENTOSAN EQUINE is NOT a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug like Phenylbutazone, or the cortisones (both of which have damaging effects on joints with prolonged use). PENTOSAN EQUINE does not suppress joint cartilage healing and repair.
Rather than simply masking pain, PPS directly stimulates joint healing and repair.
Anti-inflammatory agents, corticosteroids and NSAIDs all relieve the symptoms of osteoarthritis but DO NOT ALTER THE DISEASE PROCESS. Both hydrocortisone and NSAIDs have a marked inhibitory effect on the biosynthesis of the components of the extracellular matrix of cartilage, which limits the early healing response of cartilage to injury.
Indications
Non-infectious inflammatory joint disease, traumatic arthritis, degenerative cartilaginous joint disease, osteoarthritis and osteochondrosis dessicans in horses.
Dosage and Administration
Administer at a dose rate of 3 mg/kg bodyweight (1.5 g / 500 kg horse), by intramuscular injection, at 5 – 7 day intervals for four injections. PENTOSAN EQUINE is equally effective when given by intramuscular or intra-articular injection.
If intra-articular use is required, administer 1mL by sterile intra-articular injection. PPS has an affinity for cartilage, and active drug levels will accumulate for several days after administration. For maximum effect, tissues should be exposed to the drug over an extended period, hence the four injections. A period of improvement for up to 6 months following a course of four injections may be expected. If at any time during this period the horse becomes sore (e.g. following a particular activity), it is safe to administer a further injection to settle any inflammatory process.
PENTOSAN EQUINE is particularly effective, and displays synergy with, concurrent use of COSEQUIN EQUINE (Glucosamine and Chondroitin sulfate supplement), to provide the essential raw materials for joint repair and maintenance.
Presentation
6mL sterile single dose glass vial. Provides one dose (1.5 g) for a 500 kg horse at the recommended dose rate (3 mg/kg).
Storage
Store at 2 – 8o C (Refrigerate. Do not freeze). Protect from light.
Poisons Schedule
S4
APVMA Approval Number
51986
General Notes
Contraindications: Use in horses with clotting defects, traumatic haemhorrage, infection, renal or hepatic failure, or within 48 hours of surgery.
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Ron Paul is right on on civil liberties issues and pre-emptive international military actions like Iraq. But, I can’t get past a few of his other policy stands. His laissez-faire attitude toward the poor seems like it would lead to our moving more toward something like a Dickensian England. His man-made global warming denial is also bothersome for me. It seems he denies the science on the issue, for instance stating the world glaciers aren’t receding – that although some are receding, some are advancing – when the science has stated that the overall global data shows mass loss and retreat of glaciers during the last century.
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I still don’t see his position on this. What is his answer on fixing this problem. I want to see if his method will work or if it will fail like every other plan.
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By the way, one way to lower malpractice premiums for physicians is to have the physicians police their own. As with any insurance, the more claims the higher the premiums. Put the fault of rising premiums where it belongs, on the shoulders of Doctors who stand by and let their “brother” continue to practice when its evident they do not belong in medicine. Premiums for insurance will drop when there are little need for lawsuits. Windfall verdicts? How much is your life worth? Our health care is not broken. Remove the illegals that sponge off it first, saves alot of resources for the American. Force Physicians to be responsible for their actions which will lower premiums for all.Limit how many foreign Doctors can come over here and set up shop. Over 70% of all malpractice suits are brought up against Physicians who were not schooled in America. Instead of trying to recreate our health care, try these simple repairs that worked for many decades.
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Ok, I like where Ron Paul stands on most issues but, where does he stand on health care? I didn’t see his response.
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I failed to see your solution to our health care crisis in your above statement, what is it?
You have my support but you appear to be coming up short on explaining your solution!!
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One could get the impression that Ron Paul see’s government regulation and its failures as the rational for not having universal healthcare.
While there is some merit to this and these concerns must certainly be applied to any plan for universal healthcare to help protect against such failures, he has not stated what his solution would be to the problem of having 47+ million Americans without access to healthcare.
If we use the argument that government regulation does not work then why do we have so many agencies in our federal government that have been in place for so long that actually serve the existing health care system.
Does Ron Paul want to do away with the FDA? That is a regulatory agency that has many times proven to be ineffective and often effective. Some good and some bad.
I’d really like to see what his plan is for universal healthcare or what his plan is so that every American can obtain the healthcare that they need.
Just because it’s government regulated doesn’t mean that it has to be a failure. No one can tell me that a universal healthcare system is just going to fail and end up providing low quality healthcare when there is no reason why it can’t be monitored by experts in the field to assure its quality.
One thing is for sure. The current health care system is not working for those who need health care and for those who are providing the healthcare.
There are a lot of physicians and nurses who have left the medical field because they can’t do their jobs the way they were trained to do them. The current insurance companies and HMO’s are driven by profit interests to deny as many authorization requests as they can get away with.
I’m seeing physicians who won’t even perform the most rudimentary tests on a patient, even when these test would help rule out diseases that are probable based on the patients symptoms, because they know that the insurance company will not approve it or will deny the claim.
Most importantly, those physicians who operate within the treatment dictated by the insurance companies, providing less care, are those who are rewarded the most. This is not practicing high quality medicine. This is practicing medicine dictated by the insurance companies.
Physicians, nurses, and many other health care practitioners virtually have their hands tied under the current system.
I have sat down with cardiologists and other specialty physicians who state that the HMO’s have ruined healthcare in this country. They state that they no longer can do what is best for the patient and frequently have the insurance companies say “no” to a procedure or test the physician needs to perform.
If the current system is not working well, which I maintain it is not working well, then what does Ron Paul propose?
I still believe in a universal health care system that will return the power to the physicians, nurses, and other healthcare workers who can then practice medicine they way they were trained.
There is absolutely no reason why the physicians of this country can’t band together to make sure a universal healthcare system is solid and highly effective with high quality results.
Physicians and other healthcare workers need to be highly paid as this is one of the most important services, if not the most important, that each of us need. If they are not highly paid then the smartest and most capable people will not enter medicine, or leave, and it will slowly decline.
In general, under the current system, physicians and other healthcare workers are not getting paid enough to make it worth their while. They are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. I’ve heard many professionals say that they would have been better off financially by going into a non-healthcare related field.
There is no reason why a universal healthcare system cannot be effective and return the power of decision making back to the physicians and healthcare professionals.
We can do this and make it truely effective. But it will require that the healthcare professionals take control.
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On the flip side, here is a blog post describing how our free, private health care system is NOT actually free. It says too much regulation and the Medieval guild system of doctors has hampered the free market. It compares health care to the computer industry, which is unregulated. Why Computers Work and Health Care Doesn’t. I would be interested in exploring this model as well. I don’t believe it should be required to see a doctor to get a prescription if you know what you need, similar to Mexico or Thailand. I do have reservations about allowing drugs to market based on a pharmaceutical company’s word though. —- I was considering starting a health insurance company, because I believe I have a solution to the problem. However, health insurance is not like fire insurance or car insurance. In order for a health insurance company to make money, it has to take in more than it spends. A house can survive its entire life 100+ years without fire, and a car can survive without an accident. If something does happen, the expense is limited to the cost of the house or car, $10k – $200k. However, with health insurance, every single person is virtually guaranteed to need a hospital in 10-30 years. A single surgery can cost $100k (bypass, transplant…). That expense must be amortized over a suitable period, plus profit, leading to the high cost of health insurance. The prices hospitals charge is highway robbery. One has no choice but to pay whatever the cost. If the fire chief demanded payment or a bribe before they put your house fire out, it would be unconscionable. However, hospitals cannot be solely blamed, as they need a profit as well. Not everyone pays them (indignants, aliens) so they pass the cost on to a smaller and smaller pool of people who will pay (insurance companies, the rich, governments). This is why I believe health care should be given to all citizens, to spread the burden thinner, and protect against the inevitable homeless running up costs. Perhaps non-emergency individual doctors may still be privatized, but as mentioned, a lot of people will choose the free care. I don’t know the solution to that, except to say that some people will pay extra to save time. I may start a pet insurance company instead, due to less regulation.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-e-levine/congress-pummels-establis_b_117016.html
Bruce E. Levine
Congress Pummels Establishment Psychiatry but Neglects a Brave Psychiatrist
Posted August 5, 2008 | 11:15 AM (EST)
It has been a rough year for American psychiatry. In June 2008, Congressional investigators exposed the financial relationships between drug companies and several high-profile psychiatrists. And on July 12, 2008, the New York Times reported, “Now the profession itself is under attack in Congress,” as psychiatry’s premier professional organization — the American Psychiatric Association — was exposed as being heavily dependent on drug company money.
However, Congress and the New York Times have neglected the more significant story: The corruption of psychiatry by Big Pharma has resulted in the suppression of effective treatment options and has marginalized courageous, innovative, and non-corrupt psychiatrists.
First, a summary of the Congressional investigation of Big Pharma’s corruption of psychiatry, which has been covered in a series of articles by New York Times reporters Benedict Carey and Gardiner Harris.
Congressional investigators initially focused on the financial relationships between drug companies and individual psychiatrists. One high-profile example is Joseph Biederman, about whom the New York Times reported: “A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007.” Congressional investigators stated that Biederman and two of his colleagues in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School (who received an additional $2.6 million from drug companies from 2000 to 2007), by failing to report income from drug companies while at the same time receiving federal funds from the National Institutes of Health, violated rules designed to police conflicts of interest.
Congress then investigated the American Psychiatric Association, which the New York Times called “the voice of establishment psychiatry.” The American Psychiatric Association is the primary lobbying organization for American psychiatry, and it also publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the standard diagnostic manual. The New York Times reported:
“In 2006, the latest year for which numbers are available, the drug industry accounted for about 30 percent of the association’s $62.5 million in financing. About half of that money went to drug advertisements in psychiatric journals and exhibits at the annual meeting, and the other half to sponsor fellowships, conferences and industry symposiums at the annual meeting.”
Congressional investigators also discovered that the president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association (Alan Schatzberg of Stanford University) has $4.8 million stock holdings in a drug development company.
My hope is that Congress and the New York Times eventually get around to the more important issue of how Big Pharma corruption of psychiatry has eliminated options for people with severe emotional problems and who have been failed by establishment psychiatry.
One such option that was eliminated is Soteria House, the creation of psychiatrist Loren Mosher (1933-2004), chief of the National Institute of Mental Health’s Center for the Study of Schizophrenia from 1968 to 1980. Mosher hoped to create an effective and more humane way to help psychiatry’s most seriously troubled patients. Using National Institute of Mental Health funds, Mosher opened the first Soteria House in Santa Clara, California in 1971.
Mosher’s Soteria House experiment is detailed by former Boston Globe reporter Robert Whitaker in Mad in America. In Soteria House, newly diagnosed schizophrenic patients lived medication-free with a young, nonprofessional staff trained to listen to and understand them and provide companionship. Mosher tested his idea that “schizophrenia can often be overcome with the help of meaningful relationships rather than with drugs, and that such treatment would eventually lead to unquestionably healthier lives.”
The Soteria House experiment worked better than Mosher had expected. Over the initial six weeks, patients recovered as quickly as those treated with medication in hospitals. Whitaker notes, “Even more striking, the Soteria patients were staying well longer. Relapse rates were lower for the Soteria group at both one-year and two-year follow-ups. The Soteria patients were also functioning better socially — better able to hold jobs and attend schools.”
Mosher’s success with nonprofessional caregivers and without drugs embarrassed establishment psychiatry and Big Pharma. The National Institute of Mental Health choked off Soteria House funding causing it to close down. By 1998 Mosher was so disgusted with establishment psychiatry that he wrote a widely publicized letter of resignation from the American Psychiatric Association.
Loren Mosher remains a hero for many consumer and patient rights organizations such as MindFreedom. MindFreedom does not advocate abolishing the option of drug treatment but instead advocates for truly informed choice as well as for alternatives beyond establishment psychiatric treatments — alternatives such as Soteria House. The good news is that a new Soteria House is being created by attorney Jim Gottstein and other patient rights activists in Anchorage, Alaska.
In a genuine democracy people would be asking questions. Do Americans have mental health treatment choices that are informed choices? Why, when Big Pharma corruption has long been known, does it take Congressional investigations for the mainstream media to inform Americans of the financial relationships that drug companies have with high-profile psychiatrists and major psychiatry institutions? And most importantly, when will Americans get real choices when it comes to their mental health?
A real choice is not a choice between Prozac or Zoloft, not between Zyprexa or Risperdal. An example of a real choice is the choice between establishment psychiatry or Soteria House.
Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007). http://www.brucelevine.net
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Simply setting up an insurance system would only increase the profits of both the insurance companies and the medical-industrial complex – instead of improving overall health. What is needed is free access to health information and to safe and affordable treatments.
As early as the 70s, David Horrobin found evidence that schizophrenia is a disorder of the metabolism, caused by a lack of essential fatty acids. Small amounts of linseed oil or other sources of omega3 oil are sufficient to make the sufferer free of symptoms. The research by Horrobin was the basis for the creation of the drug Clozapine – a drug with severe side effects – but the original research has not even entered mainstream psychiatry, in actual fact it has been suppressed. David Horrobin had to found his own scientific paper to be able to publish his research and trial reports. Newer atypical drugs like Zyprexa are not less dangerous, but are considerably more expensive – i.e. profitable for the producer – and are simply inaffordable for a patient who may have severe difficulties holding a job.
As long as officials in the the FDA and government health departments work for the pharmaceutical industry’s interests they will damage public health; as long as universities get funding from the industry, scientists will only find the scientific “truth” according to Eli Lilly, Merck or Bayer.
The rule “first do no harm” is being violated on a constant basis and violations of human rights in mental health institutions are fully condoned by the legal system when patients are put there under court order. Psychiatrists have become Big Pharma’s willing workers, “first do no harm” refers mainly to their sugar daddy’s profits. Like many scientists they believe to be immune to propaganda; those with the most blatant interests of conflict will declare none. Definitely it’s a new type of psychiatric disorder, delusions of no conflict of interest (DONCOI).
Health freedom can be guaranteed only by providing truely independent research in the public interest, based on humane medicinal principles. Providing overall health insurance cover would be beneficial only if the protection of public health, freedom of information and best medical practice were guaranteed by a democratic state with checks and balances and not decided on by the industry and its henchmen. Follow the advance of the Codex Alimentarius agenda, pushed through by the World Trade Organisation which will make it a crime to inform your own children about the health benefits or dangers of food.
Please read the following article by Jonathan Campbell
http://www.cqs.com/schizophrenia.htm
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Military Industrial Complex in bed W Pharmaceutical Indust Complex
ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com
The Washington Times reports:
“Currently, the VA and other federal agencies are conducting nearly 300 clinical studies involving veterans with PTSD. Most studies are behavioral, including one that tests the effects of yoga on PTSD sufferers. Twenty-five, however, are testing drugs on 4,796 veterans, more than half (2,488) of whom are just returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to clinical trials filed with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and reviewed by The Times.”
Perhaps no other news report involving unethical human experimentation demonstrates how far along the slippery slope the American government and the pharmaceutical industry have plunged. The report is about the
exploitation of the vulnerability of disabled U.S. veterans who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The veterans are being enrolled in an unethical drug experiment with the approval of the Department of Veterans Affairs, an experiment that exposes them to Pfizer’s controversial anti-smoking drug, Chantix, whose documented serious risks include psychotic episodes, violence and suicide.
The FDA acknowledges that nearly 40 suicides and more than 400 incidents of suicidal behavior have since been linked to Chantix.
“Just two weeks after Mr. Elliott began taking Chantix in November, the VA learned from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the drug was linked to a large number of hallucinations, suicide attempts and psychotic behavior. But the VA did not alert Mr. Elliott before his own episode in February. In failing to do so, Mr. Elliott said, the VA treated him like a “disposable hero.” “You’re a lab rat for $30 a month,” Mr. Elliott said.
In all, nearly 1,000 veterans with PTSD were enrolled in the study to test different methods of ending smoking, with 143 using Chantix. Twenty-one of the veterans testing Chantix reported adverse effects from the drug, including one who suffered suicidal thoughts.
This government supported medical atrocity was uncovered by an investigation by The Washington Times and ABC News which is airing the report under the heading “Disposable Heroes”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5180437&page=1
Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav
veracare@…
212-595-8974
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VA testing drugs on war veterans – Experiments raise ethical questions
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/17/va-testing-drugs-on-war-veterans/
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Audrey Hudson (Contact)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The government is testing drugs with severe side effects like psychosis and suicidal behavior on hundreds of military veterans, using small cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments that often target
distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, a Washington Times/ABC News investigation has found.
In one such experiment involving the controversial anti-smoking drug Chantix, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) took three months to alert its patients about severe mental side effects. The warning did not arrive until after one of the veterans taking the drug had suffered a psychotic episode that ended in a near lethal confrontation with police.
Veteran James Elliott arrives at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington for his scheduled substance-abuse class in April. Mr. Elliott, a chain smoker, served 15 months in Iraq as an Army sharpshooter and suffers post-traumatic stress disorder. Iraq war veteran James Elliott opted for a government clinical trial for a smoking-cessation drug for $30 a month, starting in November. Two weeks later, the FDA informed the VA of serious side effects.
Iraq war veteran James Elliott smokes on his porch in Silver Spring as he talks about his experiences in war and dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. Mr. Elliott suffered a psychotic episode while taking the
anti-smoking drug Chantix.
James Elliott, a decorated Army sharpshooter who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after serving 15 months in Iraq, was confused and psychotic when he was Tasered by police in February as he reached for a concealed handgun when officers responded to a 911 call at his Maryland home.
For photos, video of James Elliott, official FDA documents and more, visit the interactive site for the Disposable Heroes report. Mr. Elliott, a chain smoker, began taking Chantix last fall as part of a VA experiment that specifically targeted veterans with PTSD, opting to collect $30 a month for enrolling in the clinical trial because he needed cash as he returned to school. He soon began suffering hallucinations and suicidal thoughts, unaware that the new drug he was taking could have caused them.
Just two weeks after Mr. Elliott began taking Chantix in November, the VA learned from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the drug was linked to a large number of hallucinations, suicide attempts and psychotic behavior. But the VA did not alert Mr. Elliott before his own episode in February.
In failing to do so, Mr. Elliott said, the VA treated him like a “disposable hero.”
“You’re a lab rat for $30 a month,” Mr. Elliott said.
One of the nation’s premier medical ethicists said the VA’s behavior in the anti-smoking study violated basic protections for humans in medical experiments. “When you’re taking advantage of a very vulnerable population, people who have served the country, and the agency that’s responsible for their welfare
isn’t putting their welfare first, that’s a pretty serious breach of ethics,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
In all, nearly 1,000 veterans with PTSD were enrolled in the study to test different methods of ending smoking, with 143 using Chantix. Twenty-one veterans reported adverse effects from the drug, including one who suffered suicidal thoughts, the three-month investigation by The Times and ABC News found.
Mr. Caplan, who reviewed the consent and notification forms for the study at the request of The Times and ABC News, said the VA deserved an “F” and that it has an obligation to end the study, given the vulnerability of veterans with PTSD and the known side effects of Chantix. “Continuing it doesn’t make any ethical sense,” he said.
The VA continues to test Chantix on veterans, even as reported problems with the drug increase and have prompted at least one other federal agency to take action. On May 21, the Federal Aviation Administration banned airline pilots and air traffic control personnel from taking Chantix, citing the adverse side effects.
The VA responds
VA officials defend their use of veterans in medical studies, saying that helping PTSD sufferers to stop smoking would prolong their lives. As for the three-month delay in notifying its patients about the Chantix problems, the VA said bureaucracy slowed down their warning because the alert letters had to be issued through an Institutional Review Board (IRB) that oversees the experiment at each VA location.
“We don’t have the authority to just send directly to patients material that has not been approved by the IRB sites,”said Miles McFall, director of the VA’s programs for PTSD sufferers. “We did sense urgency. And we respond to that urgency doing just what we did here, which was, I think, incredibly quick response for a governmental institution. “We believe that we took responsible action by informing the clinicians who are the people most in touch with the patients to be on the lookout for any potential side effects and to respond appropriately,” he said.
While Mr. Elliott blames Chantix for his mental breakdown and confrontation with police, VA officials said they cannot be sure. “We don’t know that Chantix was the cause of this, first of all. And it’s presumed that that’s the case. We don’t know that to be a fact,” Mr. McFall said.
Mr. McFall said the veterans with PTSD in the anti-smoking study “are at high risk to use tobacco” and the goal of the experiment is to determine how best to deliver treatment – through a mental health counselor or a smoking clinic. Chantix was one of several options tested on the veterans.
“FDA approved, and that drug is available to help individuals stop smoking and VA makes that drug available,” Mr. McFall said. “It does not deny access to them.”
Asked about adverse reactions now linked to the drug, Mr. McFall said: “We are certainly aware of FDA warnings and we took all precautions … so it can be used safely. All drugs have side effects or potential side effects.”
Dark history of medical tests
The government has a controversial history of using military personnel as human research subjects.
Mustard gas was tested on the military during World War II, radiation during the early Cold War period, LSD in the 1960s, herbicide in Vietnam and Panama, and chemical and biological warfare drugs during the Gulf War, according to Senate testimony given by the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) on July 10, 2002.
In most of those cases, few if any military test subjects were informed of the potential health consequences of the exposure. “We have a phrase to describe this phenomenon – the disposable soldier syndrome,” said Richard Weidman, former VVA director of government relations. The most infamous government experiment is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service from 1932 through 1972, which used 400 poor and uneducated black male sharecroppers who carried the sexually transmitted disease.
The men were purposely undiagnosed and untreated for a disease that already had progressed to late stages, and were studied through autopsy. The government effectively blocked the unwitting participants, who also were drafted in 1940 to serve in WWII, from receiving medical treatment for symptoms they were told were caused by “bad blood.” Of the participants, 28 men died of the disease, 100 others died from complications brought on by syphilis, and the disease spread to 40 wives and 19 children.
Ongoing tests with vets
The VA has extensive screening of veterans who enroll in medical experiments and requires detailed consent forms to ensure patients know about the potential complications and benefits.
Currently, the VA and other federal agencies are conducting nearly 300 clinical studies involving veterans with PTSD. Most studies are behavioral, including one that tests the effects of yoga on PTSD sufferers.
Twenty-five, however, are testing drugs on 4,796 veterans, more than half (2,488) of whom are just returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to clinical trials filed with the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and reviewed by The Times.
One study conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health is using virtual-reality exposure – sights, sounds and smells from the Iraq battlefield, along with a drug called D-Cycloserine that reduces fear.
Other studies are testing drugs on veterans with PTSD, including the antidepressants paroxetine, mirtazapine and citalopram – all carry warnings of suicidal side effects.
“Over 150,000 soldiers are currently deployed in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and 12 percent of returning OIF veterans have PTSD,” said one study that is using the drug paroxetine on 160 veterans “who have returned from the Iraq theater within the past six months.”
Warnings about taking paroxetine include “suicidal thinking about harming or killing oneself or planning to trying to do so” among young adults up to 24 years of age, according to NIH.
Another study on the use of mirtazapine for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan is testing the efficacy and tolerability of the drug on 100 veterans. Citalopram is being tested on 300 veterans “exposed to high levels of combat stress.”
The NIH warning for paroxetine also applies to mirtazapine and citalopram.
The VA has not revealed how many veterans are registered in an experiment to study the effects of divalproex in the treatment of PTSD, but the FDA warned health care professionals on Jan. 31 it had received reports of suicide and suicidal thoughts linked to the anticonvulsant drug.
Smoking study’s fine print
Mr. Elliott was one of 940 veterans with PTSD who participated in the Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program (CSP) # 519, “smoking-cessation treatment for veterans with post traumatic stress disorder” ongoing at 10 VA clinics.
The CSP studies date back to the 1940s, when 10,000 veterans suffering from tuberculosis were recruited into VA studies to test different drugs to treat the disease.
The smoking-cessation study uses nicotine replacement products like gum and patches as well as Chantix – a drug that is supposed to block certain brain receptors that make smoking pleasurable. The $11 million taxpayer-funded study was approved in 2004, two years before the FDA approved Chantix for prescription use. The FDA says that nearly 40 suicides and more than 400 incidents of suicidal behavior have since been linked to Chantix.
Mr. Elliott began taking Chantix on Nov. 6. Two weeks later, on Nov. 20, the FDA issued its first alert that it had “received reports of suicidal thoughts and aggressive and erratic behavior in patients who have taken Chantix,” also known as varenicline.
“A preliminary assessment reveals that many of the cases reflect new-onset of depressed mood, suicidal ideation, and changes in emotion and behavior within days to weeks of initiating Chantix treatment,” the November FDA alert said.
“The role of Chantix in these cases is not clear because smoking cessation, with or without treatment, is associated with nicotine withdrawal symptoms and has also been associated with the exacerbation of underlying psychiatric illness. However, not all patients described in these cases had pre-existing psychiatric illness and not all had discontinued smoking,” the FDA said.
On Jan. 18, the drug manufacturer Pfizer revised its warning label to state “patients who are attempting to quit smoking with Chantix should be observed for serious neuropsychiatric symptoms, including changes in behavior, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior.”
On Feb. 1, the FDA held a news conference to announce that new health risks have been associated with the drug.
VA officials started addressing the FDA alert on Nov. 26 and Dec. 4 with conference calls among government officials “to inform prescribers about these potential problems and advise patients accordingly,” according to a
timeline agency officials provided The Times.
On Feb. 4, VA officials were told to “formulate and approve an action plan,” and on Feb. 13, a second consent form and letter was submitted for approval by VA officials.
The letter received by Mr. Elliott and other veterans was dated Feb. 29, more than three weeks after he already had suffered his mental breakdown and confrontation with police.
VA letter watered down?
While the alerts from Pfizer and the FDA clearly mentioned suicide and suicidal thoughts as possible side effects, the VA’s letter to its veterans used no such language.
“Scientists have recently learned that varenicline can sometimes have serious side effects in some people,” the VA letter said. “These side effects may include an increase in psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, nervousness, tension and depression as well as untoward changes in behavior.”
Asked why the letter omitted the most significant side effect, Mr. McFall said “the more verbiage you use, the more difficult and lengthy it becomes, hard to read. It’s more likely veterans won’t pay attention to it if you
overdo.”
However, a secondary research consent form sent with the letter that participants are now being asked to sign cites “changes in behavior, anxiety, nervousness, tension, depression, thoughts of suicide, and attempted and completed suicide.”
Mr. McFall said the serious side effects were included in the secondary consent form, and not the notification letter, because “it’s better to have the letter be brief” so that it is not a “burden for people who sometimes have problems reading.” “They have eyesight problems,” Mr. McFall said. “Many of our veterans are getting elderly, so we’re trying to keep things simple and to the point, while at the same time pointing them to the most important document, which is the consent form.”
Veterans who are participating in the smoking-cessation program are carefully screened to ensure they are not suicidal, psychotic or homicidal, Mr. McFall said.
According to the VA research consent form Mr. Elliott initially signed, he would be required to fill out questionnaires “about some war zone events that you may have experienced” and interviews “regarding symptoms of other psychiatric disorders and your use of drugs and alcohol.” “Has there been a time in the past month when things were so bad that you were thinking a lot about death or that you would be better off dead?” is one example question listed on the consent form.
Mr. Elliott filled out monthly checklists on the extent to which he had nightmares about his military experience or flashbacks, became “super alert” or on guard, and whether he had a “feeling as if your future will somehow be cut short.”
Chantix debate
New York Magazine writer Derek De Koff detailed the nightmares and suicidal behavior he suffered while on Chantix in a Feb. 10 article, and said that at one point he felt like throwing himself in front of a tour bus or crashing his head into a computer screen. “All this seemed logical, but also weirdly funny, even at the time: I could see how crazy these impulses were, I could recognize them as suicidal cliches. But I couldn’t make them go away,” Mr. De Koff wrote.
In September, musician Jeffrey Carter Albrecht was shot by a neighbor who mistook him for a burglar. The guitarist and keyboardist who once played with Edie Brickell & New Bohemians went on a rant that friends say was fueled by alcohol and the drug Chantix.
A spokesman for Pfizer could not be reached after three calls seeking comment. However, in full-page ads published May 29 in several newspapers including USA Today, Dr. Joseph Feczko, Pfizer chief medical officer, said the company is “committed to patient safety” and “furthering our knowledge of Chantix.”
The FDA has declined to pull Chantix from the market, citing the health benefits of smoking cessation. “This actually is a very important drug,” Dr. Celia Winchell, team leader for the FDA division of anesthesia, analgesia and rheumatology, said during the February teleconference announcing the new warning.
“Although we are getting these reports, there’s also a lot of anecdotal reports out there where this drug has worked when no other drug would,” Dr. Winchell said.
“Smoking itself has very serious consequences. And so I think it’s important to try to manage the risk associated with the drug, also realizing that it has a lot of benefits for some folks,” Dr. Winchell said.
More than 5,000 people were treated with the drug in preliminary trials before it was approved for prescription use. However, patients with serious psychiatric illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder did not participate in those tests.
Ethics of future VA tests
Mr. Caplan, the bioethicist, said that using veterans with PTSD in clinical trials carries a “high risk” that must be addressed by the VA. “Researchers have a special obligation to vets with PTSD since they are a vulnerable population somewhat prone to threats or even violence against themselves or others,” he said. “They need to keep a hawklike eye on subjects involved in high stress experiments and make sure that families and friends are involved and on board any research projects to help monitor subjects.” “I am not against research to try and improve the health of those with PTSD but only if it is done with the highest levels of consent, transparency, supervision and accountability,” he said.
Mr. Caplan recommended several steps the government should adopt before allowing future testing on vulnerable veterans, including more participation by families and veterans on committees that review and approve research proposals.
Future studies that involve veterans with PTSD also should receive special approval from the VA secretary. And a clear policy should be established that prohibits drugs reported to have serious side effects be tested on populations at risk of those side effects, including veterans with PTSD, he said.
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Federal Court Affirms Family’s Right to Sue School RE: TeenScreen
ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION – Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
http://www.ahrp.org and http://ahrp.blogspot.com
A federal court has given the green light for a lawsuit to proceed against the school which had subjected 15 year old Chelsea Rhoades to a controversial mental screening test, TeenScreen, without her parents’ written informed consent.
For those unfamiliar with TeenScreen: It is one of the most insidious government endorsed dragnets. A mental screening tool with an 84% false-positive rate – as acknowledged by its author, Dr. David Shaffer, child psychiatry chairman of Columbia University. [1]
Hard to imagine that a screening tool whose predictive accuracy is only 16% – yet it is being promoted and used in schools across the country – 43 states in 450 schools. Healthy children are being branded as mentally unstable and /or suicidal, serving as a means to increase the market for psychotropic drugs.
See:
http://ahrp.blogspot.com/2007/01/mental-screening-drganet-targets-every.html
However, such a mental disorders dragnet assures the mental health industry–in particular, psychotropic drug manufactures – an endless supply of young clients who are deemed by an invalid subject test to suffer from otherwise undiagnosed “mental disorders.”
The Rutherford Institute is representing Chelsea and her parents in this precedent-setting case on the basis of violation of written informed consent.
Reference:
The Columbia SuicideScreen: Validity and Reliability of a Screen for Youth Suicide and Depression
DAVID SHAFFER, F.R.C.PSYCH. (LOND), MICHELLE SCOTT, PH.D., HOLLY WILCOX, M.A., CAREY MASLOW, PH.D., ROGER HICKS, B.A., CHRISTOPHER P. LUCAS, M.D., ROBIN GARFINKEL, PH.D., AND STEVEN GREENWALD, M.A. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2004; 43(1), 71-79
Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav, veracare@…, 212-595-8974
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Teen Screen Lawsuit Advances: Federal Court Affirms Family s Right to Sue School for Subjecting Teen to Mental Health Test Without Parental Consent
For Immediate Release: AUGUST 6, 2008
http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/press_release.asp?article_id=723
SOUTH BEND, Ind. A federal court has given the green light to a civil rights lawsuit filed by Rutherford Institute attorneys in defense of a 15-year-old Indiana student who was subjected by school officials to a controversial mental health examination without the knowledge or consent of her parents. In ruling that the lawsuit filed on behalf of Chelsea Rhoades and her parents, Michael and Teresa Rhoades, may proceed to trial, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana upheld the claims that the local school district deprived the Rhoades family of their federal constitutional rights to family integrity and privacy when it subjected Chelsea to the “TeenScreen” examination.
A copy of the lawsuit is available here
http://www.rutherford.org/PDF/Filed_Complaint.pdf
“This ruling rightly recognizes that parents have an intrinsic right to control their children’s education, as well as safeguard their mental and physical well-being,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
On December 7, 2004, Chelsea Rhoades, a student at Penn High School in Mishawaka, Ind., was subjected to a mental health examination known as TeenScreen by personnel with the Madison Center for Children, a local mental health center. The mental health exam consisted of questions seeking only a yes or no answer, with no opportunity to explain or offer an alternative response. Only students with an opt-out slip were excused from taking the exam. All other students were divided into groups of 10-15, herded into classrooms and placed in front of computers.
After completing the examination and being escorted into a private hallway by an employee of Madison Center, Chelsea was informed that, based on her responses that she liked to clean and didn’t like to party very much, she suffered from at least two mental health problems, obsessive compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder. Chelsea was also told that if her condition worsened, her mother should take her to the Madison Center for treatment. According to Chelsea, a majority of the students who were subjected to the TeenScreen exam were also told they were suffering from some sort of mental or social disorder. Chelsea s parents were not informed about the mental health screening exam until after it had taken place, when Chelsea spoke to them about her so-called diagnosis.
In September 2005, Rutherford Institute attorneys filed suit in federal district court on behalf of the Rhoades family, charging that school officials violated Chelsea s constitutional right to be free from unnecessary intrusions by the state. In rejecting the school district’s attempt to have the case dismissed, the court also ruled that the school is liable for the false diagnosis of mental illness that was given to Chelsea.
Mental health screening exams like TeenScreen have increasingly been adopted by schools in 43 states, reportedly as part of an effort to identify
students with mental health problems or at-risk tendencies for suicide that cannot be seen outwardly. However, while federal and state law generally
requires that parents grant written consent in order for their children to take mental health screening exams, some schools had relied on “passive consent” forms in order to administer the exams. Passive consent requires parents to return a form only if they do not want their child to participate in the screening. However, according to the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, as well as Indiana state law, schools are required to
obtain “written parental consent” before engaging in such programs as mental health screening.
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@hoosier man: I’m not convinced people will run to the ER for skinned knees. For one, gas is expensive. Two, so what if a nurse put the antiseptic and band-aid on. 30 seconds. The government already has restrictions on smoking, eating, and drinking, and we are still privatized! Many states (NY & FL) have no smoking indoor laws. NYC & California banned trans fats in restaurants. All states have drinking age limits, and cities dictate closing time and zoning laws. That isn’t really an effective argument. With all uninsured paying more taxes, that would lower the burden on those who currently pay premiums. We’ll have to ask an accountant to verify that. My dad goes to the VA. It’s great. He has all medical and drug expenses covered. Even Viagra which I don’t think insurance companies cover! That might be excessive but that’s besides the point. The only thing they don’t cover is dental, which is weird. Sicko covered Canada and Cuba too, which are not part of Europe. I’ve also heard from Australians their health service is covered as well, except for premium dental (?). I’m also not convinced drug companies are involved in a conspiracy to drug the world. Patents only last 20 years, so cheap generics are normally always available. I’m sure many people need mind drugs, especially homeless people (schizophrenia), but it would help them not debilitate them. If they could get treatment free, they would stop smelling up your doorstep, plus they would be productive tax payers. This is another example of a communal benefit.
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In America, the medical industrial cartel is already trampling on our liberty’s. It’s called involuntary commitment. People are getting locked up and forced to take debilitating-mind altering drugs for no good reason at all, other then the fact that there is a lot of profit involved. And once this happens to an individual, that person is denied their constitutional right to own a fire arm.
It is true that this country is moving closer and closer to socialism because the political leaders have totally sold out to special interests, and not your interests.
Anyway, Ron Paul delivered a ton of babies, so he must know about how the Hippocratic oath has been destroyed by corrupt and lazy medical workers who have sold out to Big Pharma and the HMO’s.
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Lets do a hypothetical scenerio:
Lets imagine that a socialist medical agenda gets passed in congress. We have a national healthcare system were you basically walk into a hospital and get helped(no questions asked). Sounds good right? The overall consensus would be that it is a necessary goverment institution like the military.
Ok, that is the way the socialists want it. But, lets come back down to reality for a minute. I feel that people would start going to the ER for every little thing that happens to them. Little Jimmy falls off his bike and skins his knee. Normally he would just get antiseptic and a band-aid, but since it is “free”, run him down to the ER and let “Doc” check him out. Small and insignificant issues would now become the resposibilty of all the other taxpayers. The goverment(taxpayers) would be paying the bills so eventually the high cost of the socialized medicine would cause the public to cry for restrictions on smoking, eating, drinking and anything else that would be a personal health decision of the individual. If you need an example of American socialized healthcare look no further than your local VA clinic. Veterans have been getting pushed around for decades and lied to by the very same goverment that everyone is wanting to take over the healthcare. I am not going to make the same ol Libertarian market based arguments, because I am convinced we WILL become socilaized very soon. I am Libertarian, but I want to try to argue against socialism through its own demerits rather than the fact Libertarian free market healthcare just being better.
*By the way, European socialism(SICKO-movie) is a tired argument for socialism since Europe’s population is declining and there is stagnant economy there at best. Whenever Europe gets more socialistic there civil liberties get trampled on. Lets focus on America…
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Ron, you said “Forced nationalization will give us even longer waiting periods, severe lack of choice, further deterioration of health care quality, final prohibition of alternative health treatments, higher taxes, and sadly (for some) permanent illness or death because they could not get the care they needed.” However, that is not the findings in the Sicko documentary, nor is it how foreigners describe on the internet. I believe health care must be socialized like fire service because you can’t comparison shop in an emergency. If your house is burning down, you don’t have time to find the cheapest fire truck. Likewise, if you are unconscious, you can’t shop around for the cheapest hospital. Health care should be part of a society’s infrastructure like sewer lines, roads, police, and firehouses. A healthy population benefits all through higher productivity and less communicable disease. Yes the taxes will be higher, but they will be offset with the elimination of insurance premiums. Having all uninsured forced to pay will also offset the increase. Please consider.
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Ron Paul could not be more right about America’s health care system! I have long believed that the problem with our health care program has not been a lack of funds/insurance for the individual, but the program itself. The FDA has become a heavily corrupted system, making pharmaceutical companies greedy businesses. The FDA no longer cares about curing individuals with severe health problems, its primary concern is to create and prescribe a drug to treat any kind of physical ailment; be the drug necessary or not, the FDA only cares about numbing the pain but never curing the cause of it. They can’t cure the health problems of Americans, because how would that earn them more money? No, they are a business that manufactures prescription drugs. They prescribe drugs (of which 95% are unnecessary) to more often than not, create side effects so that the individual will get more drugs for those side effects, and on goes the vicious cycle. No one wins except the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies. What’s worse, is that medical school is now brainwashing America’s future doctors so that they will not question this corrupt system. In short, America’s health care system is a sickening and vicious cycle. But it is wonderful to see that some doctors like Dr. Paul have not been brought in by it.
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The FDA does not manufacture or prescribe drugs.
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“All the years of FDA trials cost alot.”
And it isn’t your taxes that are paying for it.
Those trials are paid for entirely by pharma cartel blood money.
The FDA doesn’t even conduct clinical trials, it’s the pharma co’s that do it.
“FDA trial”…. two words that don’t go together.
The FDA should be on trial.
The FDA doesn’t have a safety review process before bringing new drugs to market. They have an approval process, and there’s a difference.
Why isn’t Stablon FDA approved? Why isn’t Proviron FDA approved?
Why isn’t PT-141 FDA approved?
I’ll tell you why. Because the companies that make those drugs aren’t involved in making bribes and shady back door deals with the dirtbags at the FDA.
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“All the years of FDA trials cost alot.”
And it isn’t your taxes that are paying for it.
Those trials are paid for entirely by pharma blood money.
The FDA doesn’t even conduct clinical trials, it’s the pharma co’s that do it.
“FDA trial” ….two words that don’t go together.
The FDA should be on trial.
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The pharmaceutical companies pass the cost of the drug trials to the consumers. The regulations that regulate the trials, the bureaucrats that write them, and the buildings they occupy are paid for with tax dollars.
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“Why does there need to be a “solution” to healthcare?”
Because the system is broken. American “healthcare” is killing 300,000 Americans per year.(AMA) We are near the bottom of the list in life expectancy compared to every other industrialized nation in the world.
“the people who pay to develop these miracle drugs foot the bills and the risk in developing them.”
There is no such thing as a “miracle drug”.
Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRJN_NfyiH4&feature=user
Big Pharma spends more “money on advertising than developing drugs. And the risk is already factored in as a cost of doing business. A settlement of $500 million is nothing to them since they make that much $ alone by routinely defrauding the medicaid system.
“All the years of FDA trials cost alot.”
And how much is that? The Reagan administration fudged up the FDA funding in the 80′s and ever since then Big Pharma has OWNED the FDA. Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxJomeak4V4
Also note the FACT that the FDA doesn’t even inspect 99% of clinical trials. And 90% of the drugs marketed in the US are imported from China and India, countries which don’t have any quality control, and the FDA doesn’t inspect 97% of those imports.
The FDA doesn’t even know where the bad tomatoes came from.
“I applaud the companies and risk takers for their dedication to making new drugs.”
Do you applaud their “miracle drugs” like phen=fen and redux, too?
The list of defective drugs that are developed and approved goes on and on….
“If a person makes a cure for cancer, do you not think they should be compensated for their work just like a baseball player or actor?”
They should be paid fairly. And I also think they should win a Nobel peace prize. But the reality is that the big pharma drug cartel has immense political influence, so if a person invents a cure for cancer, they will probably be imprisoned with a life sentence. You see, the big pharma drug cartel is not in business to cure anything. They are in business to make money. And the money is in symptom management. Not cures. In a business sense it’s almost genius. A customer for life is exponentially more profitable than a short term customer.
“do you not think they should be compensated for their work just like a baseball player or actor?”
Baseball players and actors aren’t killing 300,000 Americans per year, so that comparison is not fair to the Baseball players and actors.
“It costs a lot to go to the doctor for various reasons.”
The majority of that cost is: marketing, unnecessary testing, unnecessary treatment, unnecessary billing, unnecessary appointments, treatments for unnecessary aitrogenic (doctor inflicted) illnesses. One out of five hospitalizations are the result of a previous medical error. If those errors are reduced, wouldn’t insurance cost go down too?
Psychiatry charges health insurance companies $69 billion per year, doubling the cost of health care. So if you want to cut insurance cost in half… outlaw psychiatry.
“The idiots who sue a doctor, because grandpa died smoking 3 packs a day and drank a gallon of beer drives up healthcare costs.”
No. When grandpa dies from smoking, the family sues the tobacco company. Doctors don’t prescribe tobacco.
“Why is it ok for a welfare momma to win a $50,000,000 goverment backed lottery ticket”
Because when a welfare mom purchases a lottery ticket she has entered into a legally binding gambling contract with the state.
“but not ok for an oil executive in charge of a 3 billion dollar company to get paid $2,000,000?”
Who is the oil exec that is prohibited from making more money?
Name please? Or maybe you can contact the oil tycoon directly and ask him yourself why he is so underpaid.
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More than half of the 300,000 you mention are dead because of reactions to perscription drugs and botched surgeries, and that number will go through the roof with socialistic medicine.
You cannot make a determination on the subject using only the extreme.
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The 300,000 figure is extremely conservative. A more thorough investigation has revealed the true number to be in the millions.
I should have made something else clear during the previous post as well. THE FDA DOES NOT DO CLINICAL TRIALS!!!
What these crooks do is look over phony papers written by marketing companies and were signed by a doctor who had nothing to do with the so-called trial. (ghost writing)
And the trials are a total fraud. Look up Sen. Grassley, and his investigation on this issue. Big pharma concocted a trial for anti=depressant drugs like this:
Placebo group – all suicidal people.
Drug group – non suicidal people.
This way the pharm then states that there is no difference in suicidality between the groups. But in reality the drugs caused 100% of the suicides. And the FDA then approves this poison. When the post market suicides are reported to medwatch, the data is ignored, never made publicly available.
And when someone pulls teeth to get the data, the FDA writes it off as “anecdotal evidence” i.e. not important.
Geezus Fokin Krist people, wake up and do your research.
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Just an update here. I think the number of Americans killed by doctors is at least 7 million. Doctors routinely falsify records after the fact as a cover up. No more than 1 percent of drug reactions and medical errors are reported to the respective authorities. Doctors also don’t turn in their colleges in crime.
The brutal inhumane cult of psychiatry is an establishment of slavery, eugenics, and murder for profit. And they are billing $72billion a year, doubling the cost of health care. There is no science to anything psychiatry does. Psychiatry invents fictitious diseases by voting them into existence. Have you ever voted before? If so, did you think that you were making a break-through-life-saving scientific discovery? Or did you think you were practicing politics?
In summery, the two most effective primary objectives required to make the American health care abomination, safer and cheaper is thus:
1: Outlaw psychiatry. (which will cut ins cost in 1/2)
2: Make hospital a police state to monitor the murderers.
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Survivor:
Fluoride in your drinking water, and in toothpaste is unconstitutional because it is mass medicating you with
the toxic waste of Flourisic acid, which is the same toxin that the drug,Prozac is made from. Doctors love to prescribe Prozac don’t they! Creating emotionless zombies!
Applied to the teeth yes, not to be ingested, causing brain damage in babies if tap water is used with formula, causes osteoporosis,and its poison…..Hitler and Stalin put in their water system! Creating Zombies before the kill!
http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/chemicals/chemicals.html
http://www.just-think-it.com/f-facts.htm
Aspartame(man made amino acid and toxic according to scientist’s, I spoke with, who said “the USA must get that out of their food chain it is very toxic”, he had been working on a new sweetner for one of the cola’s at MSU for 5 years, I was telling him that my doctor told me to stop drinking soda’s cuz it was causing my migraines, and did and I haven’t had a migrain since, but I have to read the labels all the time now cuz its in so many of our foods) is another one that the FDA has been allowed to put into 5,000 food products in our food chain…….
causing massive rise in migraines,TIA’s, seizures and strokes, and I believe weight gain…….
Aspartame Warning
Dr. Bill Douglass Reveals The Ugly
Truth About the Poisonous Sweetner
http://www.douglassreport.com/
Dangers of Aspartame Poisoning!
The dangers of aspartame poisoning have been a well guarded secret since the 1980s. The research and history of aspartame is conclusive as a cause of …
http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html
As far as the toxicity of all Pharmaceuticals that is correct. They are toxic and FDA knows they are, as doctors know they are, but they “Practice Medicine” don’t they????? What do you expect then……?
In order to be FDA approved,all drugs are issued a LD-50 or LD-100. Each drug is monitored after giving it to the “rat”, and watched as doseage’s increase to first the side effects, then the adverse reactions and then death and maybe a antidote, if they can find one.
LD means, Level given causing Death.
Any drug must go through the above criteria…or have a LD rating before being approved. Now to me that means it’s toxic to my body…..from the get go!
Why do you think they have to issue the drug insert or when drug companies advertise they have to tell you all the side effects……
Why do nurses have to know what to watch for and report the side effects to the doctors…..( We/Nurses, had to know them I should say,but its been my experience with the “microwave” nurses they are putting through these community college programs that they don’t know, but half of what we had to know. You ask them what the drug is for or what it does and they can’t tell you …..they answer…”(oh I would have to look it up cuz there are so many drugs out there now that I give that I don’t know what they do!) Therefore, if she doesn’t know what they do, then she probably doesn’t know, what to look for if the patient is having an adverse reaction!
So, yes all medications have side effects. Even Chemo therapy does….it kills not just the cancerous cells but ALL the cells….my instructor in BioChem told us never to take Chemo….unless you want to be a living dead person.
And get sicker than a dog as it’s killing everyone of your cells and all the dead cells cause you to throw up. They give you nothing to help your immune system sweep up the debride being thrown into your blood stream and kidneys and lymph system….Our Macrophages are wonderful little sweepers of the bad stuff but they kill them off with the Chemo, its a pretty tough road to hoe. NOt that I don’t get their logic behind it…..but why not after 50 years haven’t they tried to come up with something better? Also, one of those side effects of that toxic Chemo Therapy is and they know it….that it may kill the cancer cells, but in 5 to 10 years after having a that toxin injected in yah you will die from cancer because it causes cancer! That to me is false hope if I ever heard of one.
Dr. Geyser has a another plan that works, check out his clinic someday……and the Amercian Cancer Clinics subscribes to his ways of treating cancers too.
Study supplements and immune enhancers and find those who know about them and take them to at least try to prevent disease by maintaining your bodies normal functioning chemically with them……..your body with a healthy lifestyle and nutrition and a healthy immune system can pretty much take care of its own healing…….There are many many doctors who love the study of the normal body chemistry and help you maintain it or correct it with nutritional supplementation.
That is how a veterinarian has keep animals free of diseases, just ask a vet professor in our universities…I’ve always picked peoples brains…and gain a ton of knowledge that way. One day I was talking with a vet professor about this subject, and I wondered why if knew what supplements prevent certain diseases in animals, why the doctors don’t know this, he said, because, “a sick animal does not bring profit, where a sick human does” And then he said we have always supplemented animals feed if we don’t they too would get sick because there are no longer any real nutrients in our soil and therefore even in our foods. There is a ton of info on that subject also, which I do not want to expound on……
As far as meds go no one knows more than a really good Pharmacists…I think they should be the profession that does the prescibing not a doctor. Maybe then there would be less practicing of meds going on ……….in us!
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Survivor:
Fluoride in your drinking water, and in toothpaste is unconstitutional because it is mass medicating you with
the toxic waste of Flourisic acid, which is the same toxin that the drug,Prozac is made from. Doctors love to prescribe Prozac don’t they! Creating emotionless zombies!
Applied to the teeth yes, not to be ingested, causing brain damage in babies if fluoridated tap water is used with formula, causes osteoporosis,and its poison…..Hitler and Stalin put in their water system! Creating Zombies before the kill!
http://www.actionpa.org/fluoride/chemicals/chemicals.html
http://www.just-think-it.com/f-facts.htm
Aspartame(man made amino acid and toxic according to scientist’s, I spoke with, who said “the USA must get that out of their food chain it is very toxic”, he had been working on a new sweetner for one of the cola’s at MSU for 5 years, I was telling him that my doctor told me to stop drinking soda’s cuz it was causing my migraines, and did and I haven’t had a migrain since, but I have to read the labels all the time now cuz its in so many of our foods) is another one that the FDA has been allowed to put into 5,000 food products in our food chain…….
causing massive rise in migraines,TIA’s, seizures and strokes, and I believe weight gain…….
Aspartame Warning
Dr. Bill Douglass Reveals The Ugly
Truth About the Poisonous Sweetner
http://www.douglassreport.com/
Dangers of Aspartame Poisoning!
The dangers of aspartame poisoning have been a well guarded secret since the 1980s. The research and history of aspartame is conclusive as a cause of …
http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html
As far as the toxicity of all Pharmaceuticals that is correct. They are toxic and FDA knows they are, as doctors know they are, but they “Practice Medicine” don’t they????? What do you expect then……?
In order to be FDA approved,all drugs are issued a LD-50 or LD-100. Each drug is monitored after giving it to the “rat”, and watched as doseage’s increase to first the side effects, then the adverse reactions and then death and maybe a antidote, if they can find one.
LD means, Level given causing Death.
Any drug must go through the above criteria…or have a LD rating before being approved. Now to me that means it’s toxic to my body…..from the get go!
Why do you think they have to issue the drug insert or when drug companies advertise they have to tell you all the side effects……
Why do nurses have to know what to watch for and report the side effects to the doctors…..( We/Nurses, had to know them I should say,but its been my experience with the “microwave” nurses they are putting through these community college programs that they don’t know, but half of what we had to know. You ask them what the drug is for or what it does and they can’t tell you …..they answer…”(oh I would have to look it up cuz there are so many drugs out there now that I give that I don’t know what they do!) Therefore, if she doesn’t know what they do, then she probably doesn’t know, what to look for if the patient is having an adverse reaction!
So, yes all medications have side effects. Even Chemo therapy does….it kills not just the cancerous cells but ALL the cells….my instructor in BioChem told us never to take Chemo….unless you want to be a living dead person.
And get sicker than a dog as it’s killing everyone of your cells and all the dead cells cause you to throw up. They give you nothing to help your immune system sweep up the debride being thrown into your blood stream and kidneys and lymph system….Our Macrophages are wonderful little sweepers of the bad stuff but they kill them off with the Chemo, its a pretty tough road to hoe. NOt that I don’t get their logic behind it…..but why not after 50 years haven’t they tried to come up with something better? Also, one of those side effects of that toxic Chemo Therapy is and they know it….that it may kill the cancer cells, but in 5 to 10 years after having a that toxin injected in yah you will die from cancer because it causes cancer! That to me is false hope if I ever heard of one.
Dr. Geyser has a another plan that works, check out his clinic someday……and the Amercian Cancer Clinics subscribes to his ways of treating cancers too.
Study supplements and immune enhancers and find those who know about them and take them to at least try to prevent disease by maintaining your bodies normal functioning chemically with them……..your body with a healthy lifestyle and nutrition and a healthy immune system can pretty much take care of its own healing…….There are many many doctors who love the study of the normal body chemistry and help you maintain it or correct it with nutritional supplementation.
That is how a veterinarian has keep animals free of diseases, just ask a vet professor in our universities…I’ve always picked peoples brains…and gain a ton of knowledge that way. One day I was talking with a vet professor about this subject, and I wondered why if knew what supplements prevent certain diseases in animals, why the doctors don’t know this, he said, because, “a sick animal does not bring profit, where a sick human does” And then he said we have always supplemented animals feed if we don’t they too would get sick because there are no longer any real nutrients in our soil and therefore even in our foods. There is a ton of info on that subject also, which I do not want to expound on……
As far as meds go no one knows more than a really good Pharmacists…I think they should be the profession that does the prescibing not a doctor. Maybe then there would be less practicing of meds going on ……….in us!
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“American healthcare is killing 300,000 Americans per year.” Survivor, I’m not sure what this statement means.
300,000 is almost 1/10th percent of the current population. Is this 300,000 an average over several years? Which years?
In 2008, 2.5 million people died. Are you suggesting that 12% of those deaths were the result of “American healthcare”? How did healthcare kill exactly–was it negligence, lack of access, both, or what?
What was the average age of the persons killed by American healthcare? Was each death preventable, how do you know? Do you include people who refused or did not seek care?
Please explain and cite your source.
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Extremely poignant and well stated.
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Why does there need to be a “solution” to healthcare? People state that there is nothing stopping drug companies from charging whatever they want for drugs. That is true, the people who pay to develop these miracle drugs foot the bills and the risk in developing them. All the years of FDA trials cost alot. I applaud the companies and risk takers for their dedication to making new drugs. If a person makes a cure for cancer, do you not think they should be compensated for their work just like a baseball player or actor? It costs alot to go to the doctor for various reasons. The idiots who sue a doctor, because grandpa died smoking 3 packs a day and drank a gallon of beer drives up healthcare costs. Why is it ok for a welfare momma to win a $50,000,000 goverment backed lottery ticket, but not ok for an oil executive in charge of a 3 billion dollar company to get paid $2,000,000?
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So, you think curing cancer is like hitting a home run? simply awesome.
Do you even know what you’re saying? perhaps had some of grandpa’s gallon o’ beer?
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You are correct, Clint.
First, what *exactly* is the problem with healthcare? Is it that 15% are uninsured? (That’s probably not true. See http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/health/the-46-million-myth-200908224005/) Or is that prices are rising? (Again, not the whole picture. http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/11/news/health_care_reform_myths.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009081209)
Second, the Law of Supply & Demands prohibits any company from setting arbitrary prices for its goods and services, even pharmaceutical companies. However, government regulations drive up costs and make new competition cost-prohibitive. The historical effect of government meddling is an increase in prices and a decrease in availability. (Oh, but the evil drug companies would kill us if the government were not regulating them! No, government is killing us by limiting new drugs.)
Third, in a free market, the company executive earns a large salary because he provides a product or service people want and voluntarily choose to pay him for. Each dollar he earns is a “yes” vote from a consumer–it is a truer democracy than any other form.
Healthcare is an industry because it involves people making a living. It is not unlike any other industry, but it is wrought with problems (some actual, some perceived) unlike most others. There is no single healthcare issue, there are thousands. Probe each healthcare issue: Follow the trail until you find government involved. This will almost always be the source of the problem.
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What is Ron Paul’s stance on abortion and stem cell research? I feel stupid asking this because I’m sure it has been made very clear in the past. I have just started looking into Ron Paul so I’m trying to obtain as much information as possible.
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Ron Paul is correct. The problem isn’t access to insurance or care. The problem is that the health care system is a total fraud and it’s broken. The AMA is participating in this fraud to mislead the American people with it’s flagrant lies on television ads. The AMA TV ad stated: “It is a tragedy that 1 in 7 Americans cannot afford health care.”
Someone needs to ask them the question: “If that’s what you call a tragedy, then what do you call it when 1 out of 5 hospitalizations are the result of a previous medical error? And what do you call it when doctors are killing 300,000 Americans per year? (based on data previously reported by the AMA) Aren’t these tragedy’s? And what is more important to Americans? Getting big government involved to provide the so-called “universal health care” so doctors will make a few extra dollars killing more Americans? Or holding these crooks accountable for what they do and stopping killing by this broken system?”
The AMA has a well documented history of acting in their own interest. That explains the obvious flip flopping that we’ve sen over the past few decades.
Psychiatry charges health insurance companies $69 billion a year, doubling the cost of health care. And they have 0 cures.
Just in the last four decades, nearly twice as many Americans have been killed in psychiatric hospitals alone, than every soldier killed in every war since the year 1776. And that isn’t even counting the many more private hospitals doing the same thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPUHUpfDVgY
Ban Psychiatry!
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I have recently received info, concerning my Insurrance. They have told me that they cannot give me a certain medicine because if I take it it will destroy the ozone layer. The Insurrance stated that FDA told them to tell people about this situation…If I don’t take the medicine my doctor told to take I could become very ill!!! RON PAUL–YOU MAYBE ONTO SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT!!!
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Free healthcare in Europe does NOT work. I know, I used to live there. I regularly waited 1-1.5 hrs. for any appointment and was given drugs being tested on the market, told I had kidney stones I didn’t have and went through a battery of doctors and tests to be told I was just nervous. This was in3 different cities, many different doctors over an 8 year period. I am so thankful for the ability to still choose alternative health care in this country as opposed to the “semi-care” I received there. No Thank You universal health care! People here don’t know what they’re asking for!
I am very sad that Ron Paul has decided not to run. He has been my only choice – don’t know what to do now…
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There seems to be a problem with becoming president. Once they are in, their messages and beliefs change. The American people have been fooled many, many times.
Perhaps he can be more effective in causing change as a Senator and influencing people at the grassroots level.
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Im not against what you are saying, dont get me wrong. But how dare any person look down upon what another candidate would “or would not” do, if they themselves do not have a plan to change…
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With all due respect, I like Ron Paul and agree with most of his ideas on most issues. But if nationalized health care is so bad, why does it work so well in Europe and Canada. That the medical services in Europe and Canada are so bad is a myth. I have family in Canada and hear nothing but good things. I also don’t hear an alternative. I’m all for a free market but we’re not talking about buying cars here this is about medical treatment, and everyone should be entitled to free medical treatment. The fact that a rich person gets better treatment than a poor person is ludicrous. I’m not saying he is wrong on the subject, I would just like to hear how he would fix it if not by nationalized medicine.
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First, no one has a “right” to healthcare. In fact, no one has a right to anything that someone else must provide. I have a right to complain about the government, but I have no right to a printing press or a copier or a computer. I have a right to worship, to defend myself, to own property, but no one is obligated to give me a church, a gun, or a piece of land. In the same way, a person who believes he has a “right” to healthcare necessarily believes that a doctor has no right to choose his patients, or set his rates, or decide how he will run his practice. In addition, he believes that the owner of an insurance company has no right to decide to whom he will sell policies and how much he will charge. The person who believes he has a right to healthcare differs only in degrees but not fundamentally from the slave-owner. So why does freedom work so well in markets, yet seem to fail for healthcare? Answer: Government involvement: expensive mandates and regulations. How does the healthcare industry circumvent the Law of Supply and Demand? Answer: Government sanctioned monopolies and the controlled practice of medicine.
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All very glossed over analysis…but delve into specifics and it gets too messy to discuss:
setting prices and policies is one thing, but gouging and taking advantage of a system run on greed is another. Walk into a store that sells bananas for $40 each, and you’ll walk to another store. But if ALL the stores sell bananas for $40 or more, what do you do? to whom do you complain? And what if you don’t have a car to get to the store that sells them for $30 each? Do you just accept it, and expect these readers to believe you accept the rules of the health care game?
Guess what? Freedom doesn’t always work well in markets. good quality is given to those who can afford it. Crap is given to the rest. I know this isn’t about being fair, but shouldn’t it be about treating all people equally? at least a little bit?
We’re all so wrapped up in arguing over rights being taken away, destroyed and changed, that we are overlooking the fact that these rights don’t apply to all and that we are FORTUNATE to have the luxury of complaining and writing on blogs about how righteous this one is or evil that one is…while there are people lying outside of grocery stores, and hospitals, and our homes…dying.
Let’s wake up and admit that the problem with the health care system (and a lot of other problems) isn’t that the government is involved, it’s human nature, greed. We are the problem.
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Sergio, see my argument about your expensive bananas below.
I think you’re a decent person. I believe you genuinely care about the human condition.
A husband with three children has an honest, hard job. He works to support his family and to give his children things he never had, like new clothes and a first-rate education. He resents having 25% of his paycheck being taken at gunpoint (i.e., taxed) to support faceless strangers whose stories he will never know and bureaucrats, who are required to collect and distribute his money, ensuring it’s spent “properly” (by what definition he has no say). Is the husband greedy? Do the faceless strangers, whether they be hapless victims or persons who made deliberate decisions, have a mortgage on the husband’s life?
I agree that there are mean, heartless bastards in the world. Fortunately, there aren’t many of them. The rest of us nice people who respectfully disagree with you think your solution to these economic problems (including healthcare) is flawed. The distribution of wealth doesn’t work. If the wealth of the world was suddenly divided equally among everyone, would we never again have rich and poor? For how long? When government protects people’s liberty, freedom works and always has.
Would you want to be a rich person in any part of the world in 1066? How about 1492? How about 1865? 1929? How far would you be willing to go back? In high school I was surprised to learn a new friend lived in one of the city’s worst housing projects. I had never been inside one and half-expected it too resemble a Russian prison. Surprise! There were working lights and running water, the rooms were air-conditioned by window units, there was a refrigerator and a microwave in the kitchen, there was a big-screen television in the living room (big for the time anyway) and a small one in one of the three bedrooms. The place was messy but certainly livable. Mom (single) even owned a car, an old one, but not a bad clunker. I did not think it was possible to have these things and be considered poor, but my friend’s family was. Later in life I realized that in all likelihood none of those things–the car, the televisions, the refrigerator, the air-conditioners–were created by persons who wished for anything more than to enrich their own lives, certainly not my poor friend’s family, and, yet, they had them. My friend was directly benefiting from the greed and selfishness of the people who brought these things into existence.
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but what is his solution to healthcare? even with lots more money from reduced taxes, the cost of medical care is over the top. since he believes that the market will take care of itself, what is going to stop the increasing cost of medical, pharmacological, technological costs? in the case of health care, it’s definitely profits before people. people’s lives will be devastated without assistance with healthcare, especially for surgery and hospital stays, not to mention complete diagnoses. this is perhaps the weakest point of ron paul’s platform. there are no solutions here from him. the above is nothing but superficial talk. there must be a definitive solution to this problem. lives are being destroyed.
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Laura, when your parents were young, the medicines and treatments available to them resembled what we might think of today as belonging to a third-world country. If that’s a stretch, then certainly *their* parents, your grandparents, were no better off.
If someone invented a device that could obliterate brain tumors, leaving the brain intact, how much would you expect it to cost? Would you expect over time the price (adjusting for government-induced inflation) to go up, down, or remain the same? Now I ask you, before the creation of this device, what happened to persons with brain tumors? Today, there’s a siginificantly better chance of survival than there was even 10 years ago; if caught early enough, brain damage can sometimes be negated! And complications and damage from surgery has been declining rapidly.
If a person died of a brain tumor in 1950, we’d have shrugged our shoulders and said, “That’s too bad, but there was nothing we could do.” Suppose the brain-saving device came into existence a month before, how would this have changed our response? Suppose the device and the procedure were expensive (damn greedy inventor, damn greedy doctors!). Would it have been a greater travesty if some people had not been able to afford treatment (and died) or if the device had not been invented at all?
Please try to keep all questions in mind while considering this last one.
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WRITE IN Ron Paul ’08.
Cassandra Bachrach
bk2nchr@hotmail.com
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The only way we will get back to a Government for the people, is by having a president picked by the people. No other canidate comes close to this very, universally agreed, idea. A vote for a canidate other then Dr. Paul is a vote for the repetition of past governments indescresions and (in my eyes) a true anti-american vote. Others should be ashamed and embarased that they have allowed party affiliations and media ignorance effect their potential votes. I emplore any upstanding citizen to educate themselves on the current and past policies and voting records of each canidate before jumping on any bandwagon. Upon learning this new information think of everything you hold dear; your family, your friends, your liberties and freedoms, and then and only then make ‘your choice’. Don’t allow the media make your choice!! We are blessed with an information system (the internet) that allows us to research and sort through the ‘bullsh*t’, and find real, tangible information that will ultimately lead to an informed decision which we can be proud to tell future generations about. NOTE: I am a RON PAUL supporter because of his his undying support and care for us, the AMERICAN PEOPLE.
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I find it interesting to see that there are so many people willing to give up on what is quite honestly the best thing to happen to this country, simply because of one or two issues. Have we sunk that low, that we would condemn a candidate based on one or two issues, when the candidate has amazing stances on all the other views? NO candidate will ever be 100% exactly what every single American is looking for. It is up to us to find the one with the best overall outlook, and the highest regard for America, *true* patriotism, and the beliefs this country was founded upon. Ron Paul has my full support! As for the person that posted they would only support him if he bans gay marriage… 1.) Are you really going to care who marries who when this country is driven so far into the ground that our children have to scramble for food, our elderly are discarded into the streets, and our men have to work in foreign countries just to send money home to support the family? While I can understand that gay marriage is a hot issue to many folks… it all comes down to picking your poison. Every candidate will have some views that people must take ‘with a grain of salt’. Ron Paul is the best choice, and only hope, for the American people. Don’t deny him your support over allowing a piece of paper to state that gays are married. Additionally, just because he doesn’t want to ban gay marriage does not mean he will actively advocate for it. Ron Paul is, and always has been, for the Constitution. The Constitution does not state that the government has a right to decide sexual preference.That is a right of the American people, and local government. Just as Americans are constantly telling immigrants to go back to their own country if they don’t like our laws, people need to understand that if they don’t like the laws of their local government, they are welcome to choose an area of America that more closely fits with their beliefs and opinions. America, as huge as it is, can not survive total unity; there will always be a need for smaller, local government to represent the people in their area. If there is a community prevalent in homosexuals, their local government has a right to allow them marriage. Likewise, a community will little to no population of homosexuals has the right to ban gay marriage within their area. Local government is a way of organizing the American people into groups that can not only get along, but compliment each other in many ways. If left up to the local governments (as it should be), more homosexuals will likely flock to one area, while anti-homosexuals will likely flock to a different. This is the founding fathers’ vision on how to “separate the children”, so to speak, into groups than can get along together. Ron Paul is all for America, and does what he feels is best for the people. This includes letting go of federal power over several things, and giving that power to the local governments. He is the only candidate we have that disregards personal power trips in the interest of a successful nation.
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alot of us don’t have quality health care now, even though we have a choice. unless you have money, or connections, good doctors won’t see us anyway. we get the doctors just starting out, and i have health care. you doctors choose.
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amen to that!
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Ron Paul is an advocate of personal responsibility by citizens across the board and limiting government regulation. He is also an advocate of eliminating the IRS and federal income tax.
His intention is to make your medical expenses your liability, but also give you the means to shoulder it (directly, but also indirectly by breaking up the stranglehold that insurance, pharmaceutical, and large medical companies have been given by the FDA on the care available.)How much trouble would you have paying (and saving for) medical expenses if the 20-50% you currently pay in federal taxes were in your pocket?
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Ron Paul is 80% on the level with my political and philosophical beliefs. The other 20%? I believe abortion is a medical issue and should be treated as such (freedom of religion is one of our countries most important rights, but doesn’t a mother have the right to live too?). Withdrawl from NATO and the United Nations will not help matters either. But what *is* his solution to health care? He is incorrect that free health care is worse health care – France, Canada and many Scandinavian countries have awesome health care – sure you wait for an hour if you have a cold, but that’s because they take the serious cases first!!
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I have a Canadian friend with a rare disease, confirmed by US doctors, but dismissed by Canadian quacks as “psychosomatic.” “Free” health care, when presented with a rare and difficult case, becomes non-health care. “Free” health care is a great deal like going to Big “O” Tires. If you have something easy to fix they’ll be happy to get you in and out as quickly as possible. If you threw a rod you need to go buy another vehicle. Oh wait, we haven’t invented whole body transplants yet…
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My step father is from south america they have public heath system, he got orthopedic implants in both hips (femur heads)and he didn’t spend a single coin, when you need to go to a consult you have to wait or make an appointment in advance, but nothing far from what i have seen here in USA with astronomic bills, do you really think that $10000 is fair for 1 day of hospitalization and 1 x-ray?
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It is odd to know that there are otherwise intelligent persons who would not have the courage to vote for Ron Paul.
I am thankful there is a space to share our views. However, I am disappointed that some would use this response forum to vent masoginistic views (i.e. someone’s implication that the only good thing about Hillary is that she has breasts, etc. etc.). A word to the wise: That did nothing to help this campaign and could very much have been “said better” by focusing on more important issues.
And by the way, freedom of speech allows us to also choose decent words when publicly venting — rather than cheapening one’s stance and losing credibility. When expressing one’s conscientious view to inspire others, there is merit in casual personalizing and not being phony, but let’s do so with our best, shall we? It’s something I also must keep in mind. (We might think of Ron Paul as a positive example.)
That being said, I would like to congratulate Mr. Paul and thank him from the deepest realms of a mother/citizen/midwife’s heart.
Ron Paul, you are indeed my family’s hero and for all families and individuals in the USA!
My children and I keep you in our prayers as well as your campaign — which is OUR campaign! We will not give up on what you helped us to start taking back for all the people of the USA. Thank you, sir, and may such rare goodness and honesty be this country’s guiding beacon in the elections and always!
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Ummm..dont boycott fox you idiot dope..its the only honest news station in the country..i like ron paul alot..but i truly believe a nuclear attack will 100% hit the US in the next 7 years if we let our guard down,also i am against gay marriages..so..if he changes on those 2 issues.he has my vote..If there’s no people left on the eastern seaboard,then the debt,healthcare,taxes,etc.,really dont matter,lol..
brian
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I couldn’t agree more. Fox News Channel is the ONLY source of honest media in our present system (sad as it is). Consider how the other media sources promote ONLY positive attributes of the Obama administration. You wouldn’t consider anything amiss unless you’re wise enough to question everything concerning politics and government. Obama has failed to provide a LEGALLY SOUND U.S. birth certificate.. along with this, his grandmother is on record stating Obama’s birth in Kenya. How could this constitutional requirement for U.S. presidency just suddenly become such an insignificant qualification? I am not even going into foreign policy and homeland security, which he apparently doesnt feel is a priority for funding. I do believe our safety, security, and peace of mind should be a very top priority. He is proving his lack of experience and success at running our country… @ a time when efficient leadership is most needed. Our enemies are smarter and better equipped, we are weaker, and our economy is crashing. It’s scary. I think everyone has forgotten about 911.
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Fox News is the only media that reinforces your crazy, afraid of everything predisposition. Fox news constantly bombards people this crap like Obama isnt a citizen and Ron Paul is some lunatic.
Please use multiple sources for your news, then slowly form your opinion.
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Fox News is nothing but bad. For a company that has other good shows on it’s sister stations Fox News is crap. Most of Fox News reporters are clown’s and idiots. I’m sorry to see that channel go down the toilet. And sad to see its good journalist get dragged down with the bad.
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I disagree that Fox is nothing but bad. There is alot of good, truth coming from them when no one else has the courage or balls to expose what is happening. They still fall short of telling it like it really is on some things. I think they are afraid they will be labeled as crazy’s just as some here are saying.
I personally watch Glenn Beck daily. I have been all over the internet trying to find out what is really happening in our world. Some seems far fetched but then alot of things I used to think was crazy is actually happening.
I have to say that Glenn is courageous for exposing what he is finding out himself.
And most of what he is exposing, I have felt and researched out myself before I started paying attention to him.
He is on target.
I am doing my due diligence. If I make mistakes along the way, I will find out.
But you can bet you won’t find NBC, CBS, MSNBC or any other media, telling us the truth. They are corrupt and part of the deception.
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Fox is a part of the puppet game. They want to spread fear and hate. They did it while bush was in office and they will do it when obama is in office. They want you to fear the government and put us in our place. They also want you to build up rage and hatred. It is all BS propaganda.
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Fox is owned by NWO’s elitist Rupert Murdoch.
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Child Hacker: “Fox is owned by NWO’s elitist Rupert Murdoch”
Well that makes sense as to why on one is really bringing it up… but then again, quite a few of our presidents have been calling for NWO and I am ashamed to say that I was not paying attention so now I am paying the price like everyone else.
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check this out
http://issuesoncall.blogspot.com/2007/12/rupert-murdoch-bilderbergs-council-on.html
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Ya, no major tv networks talk about the bilderburg group or the council on foreign relations. Here is a video explaining media takeover. (obama is openly a part of CFR but has denied it)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO8OnxEld3M
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brian
the chance of the states being hit by a grounburst nuke are nil.
a simple airburst from a container ship in the gulf a few thousand feet up will destroy the entire US within a year.EMP..much simpler and easier for the bad guys…better stock up
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You are being lied to, straight to your face.
“Fox” news is “FAUX” news. period.
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I’m not sure what Ron Paul’s solution is, but I’ve got one idea that may be worth mentioning, and that has to do with the pricing of health care (post them to the consumer in advance). Why are medical visits the only thing we “buy” and then learn the cost of afterward? Ever walk into a doctor’s office and see a sign up stateing what you are about to be held accountable for? Here’s a tough truth comparison about our medical spending habits; I can walk into my neighborhood Jiffy Lube, and instantly know what an oil change will cost me, but I can’t walk into a doctor’s office and know what that is costing. Hope Mr. Paul reads this.
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That’s a very good point. When something gets complicated and confusing, we know most lawyers have been working on it. It’s a tactic. Americans want simple, easy to understand, uncomplicated, and affordable health care options.
I suggest that health care not be attached to your job (since most of us change or lose jobs more frequently that in generations past). We could purchase health insurance just like we do our life and car insurance. Maybe need regulations to keep things reasonable and affordable, or just let the competitive market work it out until it is affordable. This way, individual plans, the quality of the customer service and care would be the difference! Don’t customers and patients need that!
Insurance should also include alternative health care, methods such as massage, chiropractic, nutritionists, acupuncture, non-invasive techniques to help the body heal itself, like it was designed to do. (not be zoned out on massive doses of drugs so your mind doesn’t know your body is in trouble)
Why is it that people who are inclined to do the right thing are intimidated by those who do the wrong thing? We need people in this country who have backbones! We need to follow
Ron Paul’s way and be the lone voice for what is right if need be, be brave, courageous and always speak the rational truth.
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What IS Ron Paul’s solution to the health care crisis in this nation?
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That’s great and all, but it doesn’t actually fix anything. Medical/Retirement Savings Accounts do –
http://www.americansolutions.com/SolutionsLab/Solution.aspx?GUID=2d50363e-00be-44e8-9251-9a6589ba820d
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I couldn’t have said it better, Ditto, and Amen! I am floored that someone as good as Ron Paul has come along and hasn’t been snapped up as the overwhelming leader in the race for the WH. But, even I must admit I hadn’t taken time to visit this website to find out more about him and his politics until I noticed his peculiar and inexorable rising in the AOL polls. Amazing.
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We the people need R.P. You are the man this country needs in the White house. We have seen the worst in the White house, now lets see the best. Clean up our government, get rid of the Bush shit self serving $@#%$# in Washington that have made millions of dollars pulling the wool over the American people’s eyes. I can’t see how this country ever sank so low as to follow this bunch of fools. But the best thing that ever happened in this country is to for some in power to go so far that the people revolt against their govt. So for that we thank you. If we didn’t have a Ron Paul for a choice for Presidency, I think there would be no reason to go to the polls. There is no difference between turds & shit. WOW a man for the people,if there was ever a man with a dream this is the one. Dreams do come true. Ron do not drop out, the race is on. Thank you (you tube) for being a vain for the blood of truth to flow. I prayed for a black president but now I can’t vote for him. I was blind but now i see. “Ron i joined the revolution.” There is a God and he has sent us the best, now it’s up to us to do the rest.We want a great country once again. I will carry Ron Paul to Washington on my back if that is what it takes to get this man in the W.H. And I will carry the rest of them out the same way and take them to the same dumpster in Volusia county Florida were our votes went. If any American votes for anyone other then Ron they are not seeing the real picture that they paint for their children. How can we vote for a Mcsame and the best thing I’ve seen from Hillary was her in a push up bra. The greatest thing about U.S.A. is the American people. We will not be fooled by any of the other boobs in the W.H no matter how big they are or how they are packaged . So boycott Fox, CNN and the rest of the media that are hiding the truth and hiding the real agenda the pack in power have at this time. If you don’t get it yet read this. Vote Ron Paul .Vote Ron Paul.Vote Paul or pay later and your children and your children’s children can also pay for our ignorance, if this country last that long. As Thomas Jefferson said there should be a revolution in this country every 20 years. He must have foreseen the bush administration, thanks bush for running usa debt to 60-trillion dollars and ending up borrowing 3 billion dollars every day from other nations to support our free country that we the people are afraid to voice our opinions for fear of govt reprisal against its own people. Sounds like a story from a different country. politicians on the take, media suppressing the truth , continuing war for profit for the elite few war mongers to sell their guns and ammo and pilfer other countries. Stop the madness. Vote Ron Paul , cant be bought , wont be sold , might have gray hair but he don’t think old. We Love this Country and we the people want it back.Vote Ron Paul don’t turn your back…,GOD BLESS, WE HAVE A CHOICE. RML
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I am a Respirotoy Theriopist, neonatial/ pediatric specialist I am worried about my job and the care of my patients. If we go national.
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Well, your hourly payrate may be going down…, as I am sure doctors and for profit hospitals will be also…..
Doctors may not take anyone on the Public option, unless they make it mandatory…..just like they do for those of us on Medicare and Medicaid….right now they can refuse to take patients who are on government “what is acceptable and reasonable” payment for services.
As the bill stands right now …people will get their “bus ticket”, the Public option card, but there may be no bus that will let you on……..!!!!! Unless they make it mandatory!
Not many doctors voicing their opinions …except for Ron Paul and Howard Dean……both M.D.s!
For profit …..should never be part of the healthcare of a person anyways…the stock market and its investors need to get out of the healthcare and treat people for their medical problems without creating a medical record.
The ICD-9 needs to be revamped too…..doctors code according to what they will be paid by an insurance company.
Then paint a false picture of the patient, just for the money…not for the real truth..causing then the premiums to go up…..which is not fair…
The FDA keeps lowering the Cholesterol levels every year, in order to sell more Lipitor………
that kind of working together for profit needs to stop.
A cholesterol level lower than 200 is dangerous to the patient. Most people are not aware what the funtion is of cholesterol in the body…..but too low of a level causes depression, Alzheimer, and a low sex drive….
created by a drug…..they are ruining peoples bodies and causing more diseae……..
They never study the cause and get to the root of it…they just practice medicine which causes more diseases.
Healthcare should be healthcare……and they need to expose all the cures that have been discovered..instead the scientists mysteriously come up missing!
Chronology of Dead Scientists
http://www.stevequayle.com/dead_scientists/dead.scientists.chron.html
Dead Scientists And Microbiologists – Master List
December 21, 2004:
http://www.rense.com/general62/list.htm
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Unfortunately, Ted Kennedy sure didn’t get one in time did he…….if anyone would have paid them a million out of his own pocket he could have and would have…..
But, you miss the point all together however……it’s not how many devices they invent….they will never be able to give the tin a man a real heart ………
True science in my mind is being able to understand the biochemistry of the body and their functions….and how the body maintains health…….what went wrong…….to cause the disease? Then get it back to normal as quickly as possible…..
This treating disease process with toxic drugs is not what the body lacks or needs to function normally….drugs just destroys more systems..
And we were not meant to live in this body forever.
It wears out and ages…..so that is just the way it is……
Our Spirit will live forever but not this earthly body….
The pull of gravity and the rotation of the earth out here in outer space is enough to make us all of us dizzy…….
P.S. if you want to live forever with no tears and no disease then “put on immortality”…..and get a new body…..like Jesus did.and will give to us in eternity…..but it may be a long time waiting before that happens….so in the meantime we are all going to die of something……
but lets stop pushing it to the brink with all these expensive drugs and devices….and pollution.
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