Originally Posted by independent

Splitting hairs? If you go in to a pharmacy, the majority of the chemicals inside those pills (or the precursers to them) can also be found in naturally occurring plants, fungi, etc..

So what? Steroid drugs are or are derived from compounds found in all sorts of animals and plants. Hydrocortisone is related to cortisol, a hormone made by humans and other animals. You won't get the theraputic benefit of hydrocortisone cream by rubbing yourself with adrenal glands.

Since the plant itself isn't tested for medical efficacy (no profit incentive), you have to go through the doctor and the patent to get the chemical you could have grown in the backyard.

Huh? There is nothing to stop you from making the stuff yourself. You can make hydrocortisone yourself from soybeans, or you could just buy hydrocortisone and mix it up with some cream.

Either is a lot more work than buying a tube of hydrocortisone cream at the discount store.

Now, as far as penicillin goes, maybe the fact that we've pumped the whole population up with the extract of a single strain has something to do with why the antibiotic doesn't really work anymore?

The whole population is not taking penicllin. The vast majority of people are not actively taking antibiotics at any given time.

So if you get an infection outside of any sort of medical facility, say from a bug bite in your backyard, odds are it will be susceptible to antibiotics. Resistance imposes costs, meaning non-resistant populations will outcompete the resistant ones in environments in which antibiotics are not prevalent, which is most environments.

But if you acquire an infection in a hospital, it is much more likley that those bacteria will have some resistance, because hospitals are full of sick people with weakened immune systems who are often on antibiotic therapy.

Maybe there are other chemicals in the mold that would suppress bacterial evolution, maybe allowing penicillium to evolve on its own would leave it more effective in the long run.

What do you mean suppress evolution? All living population evolve. The only way to suppress evolution is to kill all the evolving organisms. No poisons are 100% effective especially when used improperly and so resistance will evolve. It's a completely natural and expected response.

Few new drugs are found today at all. Placebos have become so effective that its hard to get anything past late stage trials. Some of the most popular prescriptions (Prozac) probably couldn't get past FDA evaluation if they were introduced today.

As I said in my earlier post, the magic bullets have all been developed. Most of the common ailments left are very hard to treat by their very nature. In cancer, for example, the invasive entity is your own tissue. Anything that hurts it will hurt the patient because the invading entity is of the same species as and closely related to the patient.

Ezra has some insight on health reform based on "material ... put together by the International Federation of Health Plans, which is pretty much what it sounds like: an association of insurance plans in different countries. "

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr..._ceo_expl.html

The material is a bunch of bar graphs for different medical costs and comparing those costs across several developed nations. The primary characteristic of the charts is that the US costs stand, as Ezra puts it, like skyscrappers in comparison to the other countries.

A secondary characteristic is the great variances in costs within the US as compared to the the other nations.

Costs under US Medicare are much more consistent with the other countries both in scale and variance.

Here is just one example of the many charts -



I guess the bottom line is folks like Rani make too much money in the US of A!
Makes you wonder why the Rani seems to always be in a combative mood.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Thanks to the monopoly given to us by the government! Woohoo!

Now that's not being combative!

Hey, did you see the David Byrne videos I posted on the other thread?

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...4&postcount=55

On the first video, what substance would your educated guess suggest that he was, ah, employing?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Thanks to the monopoly given to us by the government! Woohoo!

Don't pretend that interest groups representing doctors like the AMA don't have a hand in it though. The government, after all, is what we make of it. It is not some alien force from the planet Zenon sent to destroy us. Still, I admire your ability to put aside your own personal self interest in pursuit of your ideals.

It also should be pointed out (to others reading this thread, I'm sure the Rani is aware of this) that doctors in this country have to pay for their own educations', whose cost can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then they often have to go through a multi-year residency at a wage where they can't realistically start paying off the debt.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Yeah, I wonder what student loan payments and malpractice insurance rates look like for physicians in those other countries. That would be an interesting "skyscrapper."

Generally much lower on both counts, though "tort reform" as kicked around wouldn't affect total patient costs too much. T.R. Reid looks at several other big countries' systems (and how diverse they really are) in his The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care. I found it eye-opening to say the least.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Yeah, I wonder what student loan payments and malpractice insurance rates look like for physicians in those other countries. That would be an interesting "skyscrapper."

oh, pleeezzeee -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmdPCGorjhY


Gad, its amazing how much Johnny looks like me!

Originally Posted by The Rani

Not really:
The Changing Epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus: Emergence of Penicillinase-Producing S. aureus

Oh shit. That's not good.

I forgot that S. aureus is commonly present on healthy people without causing disease, that S epidermidis is ubiquitous, and that resistance is often carried on plasmids (in this case in enterics):

Extended-spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBLs) are plasmid-associated beta lactamases that have recently been found in the Enterobacteriaceae. ESBLs are capable of hydrolyzing penicillins, many narrow spectrum cephalosporins, many extended-spectrum cephalosporins, oxyimino-cephalosporins (cefotaxime, ceftazidime), and monobactams (aztreonam). Beta-lactamase inhibitors (e.g. clavulanic acid) generally inhibit ESBL producing strains. ESBL producing isolates are most commonly Klebsiella ssp, predominantly Klebsiella pneumoniae, and E. coli, but they have been found throughout the Enterobacteriaeae.

Independent, scratch that about bugs in your backyard

A heavy hitter announces support for the Democratic House Bill.

Originally Posted by Yahoo News

In a coup for House Democrats, AARP will endorse sweeping health care overhaul legislation headed for a history-making floor vote, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday...

...The House bill is estimated to expand coverage to about 96 percent of eligible Americans. Beginning in 2013, it would provide government subsidies to extend coverage to tens of millions who now lack it, and ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical problems.

For the three years before the federal aid starts flowing, the bill would set up a temporary "high-risk pool" through which people who have been denied coverage because of poor health could obtain a government-subsidized policy.

The bill would set up health insurance "exchanges" through which self-employed people and small businesses could buy coverage, either from a private insurer or a new government plan that would compete. All the plans sold through the exchange would have to follow basic consumer protection rules, making it easier to shop and compare among them.

The majority of middle-class Americans covered under big employer plans would not see dramatic changes. But coverage for the poor through Medicaid would be significantly expanded.

Seniors in traditional Medicare would get improved preventive benefits. Also, the prescription coverage gap known as the "doughnut hole" would be gradually closed. However, seniors signed up for private insurance plans through Medicare could lose some benefits, as the bill scales back extra payments that the plans have been getting.

Well now you can back up the truck, pack it in and say good night when it comes to universal health care.

The only "reform" we're likely to see now is medical savings accounts for the rich and a repeal of the 1985 law forbidding ERs from turning away patients who can't pay.

Meanwhile, check out this postcard from the political center:

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/i...630.xml&coll=1

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Well now you can back up the truck, pack it in and say good night when it comes to universal health care.

The only "reform" we're likely to see now is medical savings accounts for the rich and a repeal of the 1985 law forbidding ERs from turning away patients who can't pay.

Meanwhile, check out this postcard from the political center:

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/i...630.xml&coll=1

There is a real danger that you are correct.
The Democrats have two choices.
They can read that losing both governorships is a sign that should continue the same old Quixotic quest for a bipartisan Shambala.
Or, they can understand that if they don't deliver a meaningful healthcare bill and re-mobilize their base, then the 2010 election will bring the dozens of GOP pickups that the corporate media is salivating over the possibility of.

Why not simply expand Medicaid eligibility to like 200 or 250% of the poverty level, taking local differences in cost of living into account (as $8 an hour in New York City and $8 an hour in Joplin, Missouri are hardly the same) and fund it with admittedly "regressive" taxes on things like prepaid phone cards, and money transfers out of the country (the latter pointedly hitting illegal aliens the hardest)?

Also include those who can't obtain private insurance due to pre-existing conditions, etc., regardless of income; and undo the awful bankruptcy "reform" passed in 2005 (with control of the Oval Office, a majority in the House and a supposedly filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, why haven't the Democrats long since gotten the latter done?).

Then you can leave everyone else alone, and the opposition to health-care reform would quickly evaporate.

Ezra has a good counterpoint to those believing all we need to do is bring down inter-state barriers and allow plans nationwide (like we do with credit card companies, mostly Hq'd in South Dakota(!)) -

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr...ianas_bec.html

Will the Northern Marianas become America's insurance capital?

It seems that the Republican health-care alternative is, surprisingly, even worse than I thought. It's not just that it allows insurers to cluster in whichever state has the loosest regulations and sell policies that only accord with those minimal standards (which is the dynamic that brought you a credit card industry based almost entirely out of South Dakota). It also allows them to use the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Marianas for the same purpose. All those territories are poorer, and would have even more incentive to give insurers whatever regulatory concessions they wanted in return for the jobs and tax revenue that would come from Wellpoint opening offices in Guam.

Real nice. And people fear big government.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/11/05/the_costs_of_medical_care_part_ii__98985.html

If we want to compare the effects of medical care, as such, in the United States with that in other countries with government-run medical systems, then we need to compare things where medical care is what matters most, such as survival rates of people with cancer.
The United States has one of the highest rates of cancer survival in the world-- and for some cancers, the number one rate of survival.
We also lead the world in creating new life-saving pharmaceutical drugs. But all of this can change-- for the worse-- if we listen to clever people who think they should be running our lives.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091106/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul

The apparent problem: Democrats have yet to resolve intraparty disputes over abortion funding and illegal immigrants' access to health care.


Huh. If President Obama was telling the truth about Illegals, then why are the Donkeys busy arguing about it NOW?




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Originally Posted by haymarket martyr

WARNING: The poster known as jamesdglick has a history of engaging in fraud. He makes things up out of his own head and attempts to use these blatant lies to score points in his arguments. When you call him on it, he will only lie further. He has such a reputation for doing this that many people here are cowed into silence and will not acknowledge it or confront him on it.

Anyone who attempts to engage with glick will discover this and find out you have wasted your time and energy on an intellectual fraud of the worst sort.

-So cry many Boomers (self-professed Lefties, mostly) whenever they fail to explain their hypocritical self-justifications, their double-standards, and their double-think forays into evil. Perhaps their consciences bother them, perhaps not. Who knows.

Ugh, an anti-choice Catholic Democratic congressman with connections to the Christo-Fascist C-Street "Family" pushed though an amendment saying that abortions cannot be covered by ANY insurance except in case of rape, incest, or the health of the mother. I'm REALLY p*ssed off right now. ****ing religious BS!!!

Originally Posted by Odin

Ugh, an anti-choice Catholic Democratic congressman with connections to the Christo-Fascist C-Street "Family" pushed though an amendment saying that abortions cannot be covered by ANY insurance except in case of rape, incest, or the health of the mother. I'm REALLY p*ssed off right now. ****ing religious BS!!!

You can have an abortions all you want, I will not stop you. Rape, incest or health should be the only factors of coverage of abortion on Health Insurance coverage. The rest is a basic tenet of responsibility.

Originally Posted by wtrg8

You can have an abortions all you want, I will not stop you. Rape, incest or health should be the only factors of coverage of abortion on Health Insurance coverage. The rest is a basic tenet of responsibility.

Translation: "Women are sinful sluts are should be punished for having sex".

Originally Posted by Odin

Translation: "Women are sinful sluts are should be punished for having sex".

Takes two to tango, so no I am not.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Odd statement for someone who has repeatedly written that universal health care is a "moral" issue.

I can't have morals because I'm an Atheist?

Originally Posted by The Rani

They can't have morals because they're Christians?

Some Christians (including some Catholics) are pro-choice.

I'm not particularly thrilled by the Stupak amendment, but the final bill did pass, and that's a good thing.

The Democrats have passed the Health Insurance Bill in the House, and now they need to pass one in the Senate!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33748707...h_care_reform/

Originally Posted by The Rani

Why are you talking to me? Tell it to your bigoted little buddy.

The C-Street "Family" are pretty much a bunch of power-hungry, reactionary jerks.

I don't think what Odin said was particularly out of line re: Catholics. He had plenty of qualifications.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So who's allowed to force their morals onto others and who isn't?

It has always seemed to me that the pro-choice view should prevail, since it assumes that women are capable enough to make their own decisions about whether or not to have children.

It also doesn't force anyone to have an abortion if they don't want to have one. That's the beauty of it.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I'd bet that most Americans wouldn't see paying for abortions as a moral imperative.

Their own, or someone else's?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Why are you talking to me? Tell it to your bigoted little buddy.

Bigoted? I think you got me confused with the Fundies.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I'd bet that most Americans wouldn't see paying for abortions as a moral imperative.

People used to think that non-whites where mentally and morally inferior to whites, too.