The Medical Freedom Channel

“Hospitals are still the heart of the health care industry, consuming a third of the $2 trillion U.S. health care bill. Some are very good. But many are not, brimming with infectious bugs, systemic error and negative hospitality. And because the hospital industry does all it can to thwart competition, many communities are stuck with the hospitals they have. One in 200 patients who spends a night or more in a hospital will die from medical error. One in 16 will pick up an infection. Deaths from preventable hospital infections each year exceed 100,000, more than those from AIDS, breast cancer and auto accidents combined. The presidential candidates are grappling over the plight of the uninsured, yet you’re five times more likely to die from visiting a hospital than from not having health insurance, according to the not-for-profit Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Patients have a choice, but it’s not widespread yet. It’s called the specialty hospital, a center that focuses on the care of a particular body part such as the heart, spine or joints, or on a specific disease such as cancer.” (03/10/08)

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0310/086_print.html

“It only took 5,000 years to catch on in the West, but now that it’s gaining momentum, Qigong is here to stay and spreading like wildfire throughout medical and rehabilitation communities alike. Qigong (pronounced chee-gong) consists of gentle movements and various meditations designed to massage internal organs, balance and strengthen the body’s energies, relax the mind and improve the body’s circulation. Qigong techniques ignite the body’s natural wellbeing and healing ability. Qigong (meaning ‘working with’, or ‘moving’ exercises) has been practiced for centuries in China and is based on ancient therapeutic exercises that were developed for health and well-being.” (02/13/08)

http://tinyurl.com/3a8b5a

Abstract: “By shaking down tobacco companies a few years ago, state government made a devil’s bargain. They made portions of their budgets dependent upon the sale of products that those governments claim people should not be purchasing.” Published by Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs. [Adobe Acrobat .pdf file] (published 11/01/03)

http://heartland.temp.siteexecutive.com/pdf/13816.pdf

“Much of the current debate about healthcare is between those who want the government to wipe all insurance companies out of existence and those who instead want the government to force everyone to buy regulated private insurance. Both sides ignore the fundamental context for any discussion of healthcare in America: individual rights and personal choice. Individuals have the right to incorporate and invest in businesses that provide an important service, like health insurance. Individuals and businesses have the right to make provisions for their medical expenses by seeking the insurance firms that best meet their needs — or not. That is the essential point to remember: governments should never be allowed to destroy such rights — as irrelevant details in the face of the application of naked government power.” [editor’s note: While the title may hold some real truths, it does seem to minimize the fact that the current health insurance industry is anything BUT a free market, but is instead just another government-regulated (and protected) cartel of special interests! - SAT] (02/04/08)

http://www.afcm.org/freemarketnotenemy.html

The New York Times last week published an incredibly dismissive page-one story about fibromyalgia, questioning whether it is a ‘real’ disease. The hook for the story are the advertisements for Lyrica, the first medicine approved to treat the pain condition: In November, Pfizer began a television ad campaign for Lyrica that features a middle-aged woman who appears to be reading from her diary. ‘Today I struggled with my fibromyalgia; I had pain all over,’ she says, before turning to the camera and adding, ‘Fibromyalgia is a real, widespread pain condition.’ Author Alex Berenson writes that doctors who specialize in treating fibromyalgia welcome Lyrica — and the other fibromyalgia drugs likely to receive FDA approval this year — because they will encourage doctors to address a disease that is undertreated and whose sufferers are not always believed. ‘What’s going to happen with fibromyalgia is going to be the exact thing that happened to depression with Prozac,’ said Dr. Dan Clauw, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan who has consulted with Pfizer, Lilly and Forest. ‘These are legitimate problems that need treatments.’” (01/24/08)

http://tinyurl.com/2cqrqa

“A medical practice consultant advises his physician clients to place all their patients on drugs. This way doctors can ‘up-code’ their insurance claims and make more money. So every patient gets a prescription for heartburn, cholesterol control, sleep, anxiety, attention deficit, and drugs as yet to be invented for dealing with the common stresses of life. Forget advice to avoid tobacco, limit alcohol consumption, avoid refined sugars, ease up on red meat, eat more whole grains and fish. Doctors didn’t go to medical school to become dietitians.” (01/14/08)

http://tinyurl.com/35svaq

“The care of Americans with severe chronic illnesses is disorganized, unnecessarily costly, and undisciplined by sound clinical science. The federal government should invest in a crash program to improve the scientific basis of managing chronic illness, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) should extend its pay-for-performance (P4P) agenda to ensure that within ten years all Americans with severe chronic illnesses have access to accountable health care organizations providing evidence-based prospective care. This paper recommends a strategy for achieving this goal.” (Nov/Dec 2007)

http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/26/6/1564

“What if we could show convincing evidence that autism, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Attention Deficit Disorder, encephalitis, meningitis, cerebral palsy, allergies — even “Shaken Baby Syndrome” as well as other maladies, are caused by childhood vaccinations mandated by governments and staunchly defended by organized medicine? What if we could show that rabies is caused by the rabies vaccine? That arthritis is caused by vaccinations? That ebola is caused by ingesting acutely poisonous chemicals? What if EMS was caused not by tryptophan, but by the genetically modified bacteria its manufacturer used to produce it? … In fact, there is strong evidence for all of the aforementioned environmental and iatrogenic (caused by medicine or doctors) disease causations. In most cases much stronger than the theories that attribute these diseases to germs.” (posted 01/20/08), originally printed 05/01/05)

http://www.thenhf.com/articles_117.htm

As many as 1 out of 3 people who have died from disease in the last 40 years did so needlessly because of a single law passed by Congress in 1962! Here’s my ‘insider’ story. For 19 years, I was a research scientist with the Upjohn Company, a mid-sized pharmaceutical company. I once joked that we were so busy complying with superfluous regulations, we had little time to discover new drugs. Unfortunately, it’s no laughing matter. In 2003, enough studies had been published on the 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendments to estimate the true cost of these FDA regulations. … Prior to the passage of these Amendments, the FDA primarily regulated only drug safety. The Amendments gave the FDA authority over drug manufacturing, advertising, animal studies, and the design of clinical trials. The result was predictable: the time it took to take a drug from the laboratory to the market went from 4½ years to 14½ years.” (original publication: 11/11/05; posted 01/14/08)

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/ruwart2.html

“All immunodeficiency diseases are associated with an increased rate of malignant diseases including lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin’s Disease. Patients who are immuno-suppressed from chemotherapy drugs and radiation can develop Kaposi’s sarcoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, cervical cancer and Hodgkin’s disease. Organ transplant patients and patients with autoimmune illnesses have an increased incidence of cancer because of the use of immune suppressing drugs. The immune system is involved in recognizing and destroying cancer cells. Several natural substances have been proven to be of value in treating cancer and HIV.” (10/14/07)

http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james62.htm