plus 4, Warren sisters raise money for cancer research - Recorder Community Newspapers |
- Warren sisters raise money for cancer research - Recorder Community Newspapers
- The Devastating Consequences of a Corporate Health Care Bill - Boston IMC
- Mary Emma Brown - Herald-Palladium
- Recent cancer screening changes leave many confused - KIVI-TV
- Grand Blanc Township man pushes for further legalization of marijuana - MLive.com
| Warren sisters raise money for cancer research - Recorder Community Newspapers Posted: 28 Nov 2009 11:35 AM PST WARREN TWP. – Olivia Valentino, in sixth grade at grades 6-8 Warren Middle School, and her sister, Sophia, a second grader at grades K-5 Woodland School raised money this summer for cancer research by setting up a refreshment stand at their grandparents' house in Tonawanda, N.Y. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Devastating Consequences of a Corporate Health Care Bill - Boston IMC Posted: 28 Nov 2009 11:35 AM PST After months of confusion and delay, Congress has shipwrecked the popular energy over health care onto the jagged rock of corporate interests. More spectacularly, health care "reform" is being used as an opportunity to greatly advance corporate influence over social spheres long-dedicated to the working-class — seemingly harmless provisions carry with them enormous implications.
These devils hide in the details of the competing health care bills in Congress; both contain debilitating right-wing policies hidden within a progressive shell. Obama is indeed acting as the agent of change, to the great benefit of the U.S. corporate elite.
And although the final bill has yet to be crafted, there exists general agreements as to what the end version will look like. Americans will be forced to buy shoddy corporate insurance with no limit to the cost, no guarantee of quality, with large premiums and other tricks to further gouge consumers. If a public option emerges in the final bill — by no means a guarantee — it will be shrunken enough to insure very few people (2 percent of the U.S. population).
But it gets worse. How this health care "reform" will be paid for has implications that dwarf the above atrocities.
For example, the Democrats were determined to pass a health care bill that "will not add one cent to the deficit." And they have succeeded: the House and Senate health care bills both plan to reduce the deficit by over $100 billion. But a second-grader could do the math here: more service does not equal less cost — a truism that dominates the for-profit health care industry.
So how does the government plan to save billions of dollars as they "help" millions of people?
The two biggest cost saving schemes are the most damaging. The first is the enormous attack on Medicare. Since its inception, the corporate elite wanted this program struck down. Now they have their man for the job — a Republican could never get away with such obvious treachery.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Senate version of health care would cut $404 billion from Medicare and Medicaid; the house version would cut $570 billion. The final cut could be much more. Obama made the ridiculous claim that only "wasteful" parts of Medicare would be cut. The truth is far different.
One way that both Congressional health care bills will gut Medicare is referred to as "forced productivity gains" — cost saving measures essentially; trimming the fat.
What are these savings? The most mentioned device — by politicians and media alike — is the reduction of "wasteful tests" and procedures that doctors routinely perform, an idea that the health care mega-corporations love. It will save them billions, while having catastrophic effects on the health care of millions of people.
For example, the recent announcement that women will now be persuaded to cut back on screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer have caused an uproar nationwide: people are correctly making the connection behind Congress' "forced productivity gains" and the new "recommendations" that will be used by insurance companies to justify cutting these services, both of which will boost profits. The general agreement behind rationing health care in this way will be an attack on not only Medicare, but serve as the backbone of any health care bill passed, negatively effecting everyone unable to afford luxury health care.
Another piece of Medicare that's being trimmed is Medicare Advantage, a favorite program of the elderly because of its comprehensive services. Premiums for this program are already rising drastically in anticipation of the health care bill's passage, considered by Congress to be "wasteful." Without this program, Medicare will be greatly devalued and be more appropriately named: "band-aides for seniors."
Finally, The Senate health care bill attacks Medicare by reducing payments to doctors by 25 percent. If doctors receive such a drastic reduction in pay, they will simply refuse to see Medicare or Medicaid patients; people will thus be insured only on paper. The newly insured Medicaid patients under any new congressional bill will be sorely disappointed.
Once Medicare is undermined in the above ways, the corporate sponsored right-wing will make a very convincing argument that "Medicare doesn't work", leading to future cuts that will further destroy the program.
The second hidden disaster in financing a congressional health care bill is the tax on so-called "gold-plated" or "Cadillac" health insurance policies that some employers offer their workers. This tax is supposedly meant to apply to the health care policies that "elite" employees receive.
And while there should exist no complaints about taxing corporations, the motives behind this particular tax are intentionally deceiving. As it turns out, many, if not most workers in unions will be included in this tax, which, under the Senate version, will include any plan worth more than $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. Hardly elite, considering the still-soaring costs for health care.
If this provision were to pass — and it's very popular in Congress — the immediate reaction would be very predictable: employers would immediately drop their health care plans, forcing workers into the now-forced purchasing of inadequate health care. This is why unions oppose such a plan. California Democrat Pete Stark agrees: "Employers and insurers will reduce their benefits to avoid paying the proposed tax."
Workers fortunate to have union contracts will be heavily pressured to concede their plans, which in the past they've sacrificed wage-increases to keep. Ultimately, employers will have a new excuse not to provide health care to workers.
Obama again used his superb intelligence to totally obscure the issue in support of the tax:
"I do think that giving a disincentive to insurance companies to offer Cadillac plans that don't make people healthier is part of the way that we're going to bring down health care costs for everybody over the long term." Translation: he supports taxing the health care of union workers.
Overall, a compromise bill between the Senate and House versions will create utter disaster for the working-class. It will not signal a progressive "step in the right direction," as many liberals claim. At minimum, it will be a step backward, though more likely such a bill will be an enormous regression, to a time where health care was the exclusive privilege of the wealthy.
The trash legislation that Congress is producing is the direct consequence of the Democratic Party being dominated by giant corporations — in this case the health care industry. The two-party system is the political system of the corporate elite, who switch party affiliations when they find it convenient; many of them throw equal money at both parties. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Mary Emma Brown - Herald-Palladium Posted: 28 Nov 2009 10:02 AM PST Mary Emma Brown WATERVLIET - Mary E. Brown, 56, of Watervliet went to be with her Lord and Savior on Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009, surrounded by family, after a courageous battle with breast cancer. A celebration of her life will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009, at Midway Baptist Church, 7517 Red Arrow Highway, Watervliet. Burial will follow at North Shore Memory Gardens. The visitation was held from 4 to 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 27, 2009, at Starks & Menchinger Funeral Home, 2650 Niles Road, St. Joseph. Mary was born on April 19, 1953, to Jesse and Maye (Pruett) Dye in Brawley, Calif. Mary attended Benton Harbor Public Schools and earned her diploma from Coloma High School. After high school she attended Twin City Beauty College, where she earned her degree in cosmetology. Over the years, Mary enjoyed working at many places. Her most recent and favorite was Contours Express in Coloma. Mary was most content with the simple things that God has blessed us with. She loved long walks and bird-watching, as well as the colors of the leaves changing in the fall. Mary attended Midway Baptist Church for many years, where she loved to sing in the choir. In her spare time, Mary was an avid shopper. Mary took fulfillment in watching her children throughout their lives. Mary will be most remembered for her loving and compassionate heart. Everyone who was blessed by Mary enjoyed much laughter, honest advice and warm hugs. Mary will be dearly missed by her lifetime love and companion, Mark Steiner of Watervliet, and her two daughters, Brandy Brown of Grand Rapids and Kori Steiner of Watervliet; five siblings, Gary D. French, Jesse A. Dye Jr., James R. Dye; Shirley M. Pipkins and Judy (Tom) Jones; several nieces and nephews; and many friends. Mary was preceded in death by her father, Jesse; her mother, Maye; and her brother, Billy French. Her family and friends will forever remember and miss her dearly. Those wishing to share a memory online may do so at www.starks-menchinger.com. Memorial contributions may be directed to University of Michigan Cancer Center (Breast Cancer Research), 1500 E. Medical Center, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, Attention: Lita Smith. This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Recent cancer screening changes leave many confused - KIVI-TV Posted: 28 Nov 2009 11:28 AM PST By Amanda Gardner, HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Nov. 24 (HealthDay News) -- The world of cancer screening has been upended in the past two weeks. Not only did the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) just raise the age at which it recommends women get their first mammogram from 40 to 50, but the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists (ACOG) decided that adolescents should be spared the inconvenience and possible risks of cervical cancer screening, and wait until they reach the age of 21 for such testing. Both groups also recommended screening less frequently. Add to that the long-simmering debate on the value of PSA testing for prostate cancer and the fact that both the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the American College of Radiology have condemned the new USPSTF recommendations, it's no wonder patients and even experts feel like they are suffering from a bad case of medical whiplash. Was the timing of the announcements anything more than coincidence? Are the changes a reflection of new science, attempts to influence the current raging health-care debate or just medical business as usual? The timing, by most accounts, was purely accidental. "I think it's a coincidence that this [the mammogram recommendation] came out when it did, right in the middle of the health-care reform discussion. It's a good panel, one that was dedicated to getting the right answer to what should be done about this," said Dr. Robert J. Barnet, senior scholar in residence at the Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C. Added Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge, La: "This is nothing new. Cancer screening guidelines have been changing as more scientific knowledge accumulates." And much of the new knowledge does suggest that over-screening does happen, often resulting in false-positive results, which lead to more biopsies and more angst. This is true of breast, cervical, prostate and other forms of cancer, experts concur. "There's appropriate screening and there is the appropriate population that should be getting that screening, and there is the appropriate screening interval," said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. "We can violate all of those things." Meanwhile, false-positive results from mammographies are more common in younger (age 40 to 49) women than in the upper age bracket. And the age cut-offs for screening may be artificial. "We like to lump people into big decades of life, so the risk of a 40-year-old woman and the risk of a 49-year-old woman [for breast cancer] are different," Brooks noted. "The risk at 40 is much less than the risk at 49." "Younger women are at higher rates of false-positives, which results in more biopsies, more procedures being done and women getting callbacks for extra mammograms," he added. "This creates anxiety for something that's not anything bad." Also, there's increasing evidence that some cancers will never turn into anything dangerous and, therefore, don't warrant treatment. "Our definition of cancer was given to us by German pathologists in the 1840s after they looked at biopsies from autopsy specimens," Brawley explained. "Now, 170 years later, we've progressed in terms of imaging, in terms of medical diagnostics into what I call the genetic and molecular biologic age, but our ability to define cancer has not progressed beyond the light microscope. What we need to be able to do eventually is say that 'this cancer is never going to progress,' it is not going to spread and invade other organs in the body. But right now we don't have the molecular tools to predict their behavior." "Not only do we need to find small tumors, we need to know more about the biology of those tumors," added Dr. Michael V. Seiden, president and CEO of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Until those tools are developed, imperfect screening is going to lead to over-diagnosis and unnecessary treatment. Still, there's no question that the revisions do fit into a larger and rapidly changing health-care picture. "Where I think the question was solely focused on 'can you prevent cancer death?' ... 10 years ago or 20 years ago, I think there has been a much more open dialogue about the burden of screening, the cost burden, the anxiety burden, the false-positive burden," Seiden said. "As screening techniques become more sensitive, you do a better and better job of capturing people with cancer but you also do a better job of capturing people with tumors they might not have died from. So, all of a sudden the incidence of pre-malignant breast disease, the incidence of low-grade prostate cancer, starts doubling and the death rate drops, but only very, very modestly." While the USPSTF stated that cost considerations had nothing to do with the new breast cancer recommendations announcement, ACOG did mention costs in its announcement regarding changes to cervical cancer screening. "In this country, health care is an enormous issue and it is the single greatest driver of the national debt," Brooks said. "There's nothing wrong with raising financial questions in a public health setting." "It's my belief that the task force just set the date [for its announcement] and wasn't really paying attention to the politics. In truth, I don't know but . . . part of the way of controlling costs is the rational use of medical care, not the rationing of care," Brawley said. "For most women in the U.S., to get a Pap smear on an annual basis means that we're going to spend three times more on cervical cancer screening than we need to spend and we've actually gotten evidence that screening tests every five years is going to save as many women as every three years [but] we've gone every three years to be safer." According to Brawley, ACOG's new cervical cancer guidelines "look amazingly" like the 2002 American Cancer Society guidelines. The ACS does not agree with the new USPSTF guidelines for breast cancer screening, however. "Our view is that breast cancer screening saves lives and women aged 40 and above should get a high quality mammogram and clinical breast exam on an annual basis," Brawley said. Ochsner Health System's Brooks is not changing his advice to women. "I tell women at age 40, if she wants to begin screening with mammography, it's fine," he said. "I haven't changed what I'm recommending in my practice but I try to explain to women what the rationale behind it is." More information To see the new breast cancer screening recommendations, visit the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.
SOURCES: Jay Brooks, M.D., chairman, hematology/oncology, Ochsner Health System, Baton Rouge, La.; Robert J. Barnet, M.D., senior scholar in residence, Center for Clinical Bioethics, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.; Otis Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer, American Cancer Society; Michael V. Seiden, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia Copyright © 2009 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| Grand Blanc Township man pushes for further legalization of marijuana - MLive.com Posted: 28 Nov 2009 12:04 PM PST By Scott Atkinson | The Flint JournalNovember 28, 2009, 1:00PM
GRAND BLANC TOWNSHIP, Michigan — Medicinal marijuana may be legal now in Michigan, but for Clyde Cathcart, it isn't legal enough. The 51-year-old Grand Blanc Township man said he wants marijuana to be "as legal as tomatoes — you can grow your own tomatoes," and has taken the first step, starting a Web site, in his grassroots effort to have it legalized completely. Sitting in his living room, one of the first things Cathcart, an Internet marketer, says is that he himself is not a user of marijuana. He said he came to the idea after both his parents were diagnosed with cancer and had heard of stories and research suggesting marijuana — a term he doesn't like, preferring cannabis, or hemp — could hinder the growth and spread of cancer cells. The more he researched, the more uses he said he found for the plant, such as paper and biofuel, and said it raised an activist mindset in him that hadn't existed before. "There's a whole lot we're missing out on," he said, calling marijuana the "holy grail of killing cancer." Cathcart has links to medical journals suggesting the impact THC, the active chemical in marijuana, could have on cancer cells. But Paul Adams, an oncologist at the Genesys Hurley Cancer Institute, said he's not buying it. "These are laboratory experiments. Now a lot of laboratory experiments don't carry over to live tumors in people," he said. "Right now we can certainly say there is no evidence that marijuana has any effect directly on the tumors as far as slowing growth goes." If there was evidence suggesting otherwise, Adams said he would have heard of it by now. "That would be big news in the oncology community. That would ripple through fast. There are very few secrets in the oncology community. If something's working everybody hears about it," he said. If the 2008 Nov. election is any indication, however, people may lean Cathcart's way. In Genesee County about 130,000 people voted for marijuana's legalization, versus the approximate 80,000 that voted against it. Mandy Spears, of Durand, said her father-in-law recently received his medical marijuana card and her mother, who lives in Virginia, has multiple sclerosis and is working to get it legalized there. "I'm all for it. I have people use it that are close to me," she said. Still, she thinks if it was further legalized, there would need to be boundaries. "Do I see the need for keeping it away from certain age groups and certain aspects of people lives? Yeah," she said. Cathcart said his curing cancer argument is a "wedge issue" aimed at getting people to open up to the legalization of marijuana completely. He said he hasn't smoked it recreationally in about two years, but thinks other people should be able to. That doesn't mean being an advocate for an illegal drug doesn't come without certain worries. "Am I going to have men in suits knocking on my door and saying, 'Mr. Cathcart, you need to come with us,'? And I still worry about it," he said. He's moving forward nonetheless. "What's next is to get the word out about this, to gain support," he said. "I would love to see this be a nonissue." If he can rally enough support, he said he'd love to take his message beyond the world of the web by airing TV advertisements, renting space on billboards and sponsoring events. He's currently ordering magnets shaped like the pink ribbons representing breast cancer, which his mother was diagnosed with. The only difference is that Cathcart's magnets advertise his Web site and bear the words, "Legalize the cure." "That's part of it," he said he said of his movement. "But this is a start." This content has passed through fivefilters.org. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Add Images to any RSS Feed To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment