Tag: the new reality
To quote a recent MedPage report by Michael Smith, the total number of cases of the Middle East coronavirus has nearly tripled in the past month and a half, according to the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC).
But those cases do not include new cases reported today from Saudi Arabia, which recorded another six patients and three deaths. That brings the nation’s own totals to 520 cases with 163 deaths, up nine and three respectively. Also, it does not include the Illinois hospital worker who contracted the virus without showing signs of infection.
Saudi Arabia is followed in number of cases — although not closely — by the United Arab Emirates, which has recorded 67 cases and nine deaths, according to the ECDC. Seven other countries in the region have a total of 24 cases and 12 deaths.
Other regions — Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas — have seen a total of 19 cases and seven deaths and all patients have had primary epidemiological links to the Middle East.
The exact number of cases is a moving target and has been dogged by delays in reporting. The World Health Organization, for instance, reported Thursday it had been officially informed of just 572 laboratory-confirmed cases, with 173 deaths.
While the virus continues to cause several cases a day in Saudi Arabia, the risk for people outside the Middle East is said to be extremely low. However, 22 U.S. airports are now displaying signs that warn of the virus.
Returning travelers, the agency says, should monitor their own health and see a doctor if they have respiratory symptoms within 2 weeks of coming home. Importantly, they should call first and mention the travel history so the doctor’s office can ensure that proper precautions are taken.
Remember the day when new hospitals were being built and greater health services were being created every day? Remember when it wasn’t such a fight to get what your insurance owed you, the services that were recommended or the prescriptions the doctor’s gave you?
Unfortunately, there has been a complete unraveling of our medical system, with Obamacare being the final straw. As reimbursement continue to plummet and the expectation of services rise, many hospitals are left either closing their doors or laying of their employees. With less hospital workers or worse yet, less hospitals, care for the sicker patients of our communities is being decimated by the day.
Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines had to lay off 29 people this week. The president of the medical center said that this is a direct effect from both Obamacare and cutting Medicare benefits.
“As the federal government and state payment systems continue to ratchet down on what they pay us and our costs go up, we have to look for opportunities to create cost efficiencies,” the president of Mercy Medical Center said. “And one way you do that is you reduce your management costs. So if we have a department that has a director and a manager and two supervisors for let’s say 75 staff, we may remove one of those positions to what we say are the layers of management.”
Here is the biggest question: if the federal government can’t afford Medicare expenses, how can they afford a multi-trillion dollar Obamacare plan? I’m not an economist but I can do simple math. Obamacare + Increased Medicaid + Increased federal spending + Increased Federal Giveaways + Increased Americans on the Federal dole + the costs of Michelle Obama’s vacations = more debt = more dependence on China = A DECLINING AMERICA.
Will this be the epitaph of our country? I don’t know but there is one person who wishes it to be– Obama.
Will the entire US healthcare system look like the current VA system in a few years? Unfortunately, the trend is going that way, and there is absolutely no indication that there is any signs of improvement.
The first, real question each American should ask is why would the US government try to institute a massive medical overhaul with Obamacare when its track record in healthcare delivery is deplorable? The VA system has always had problems, but now under the Obama administration the situation has turned critical.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is facing mounting evidence that some of the hospitals it runs have been keeping two sets of books to make it look as if they were reducing waiting times to see a doctor. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is facing mounting evidence that some of the hospitals it runs have been keeping two sets of books to make it look as if they were reducing waiting times to see a doctor. More damning, the department is investigating the claims of a whistleblower doctor in Arizona that dozens of patients at one hospital died while they were languishing on a hidden waiting list without ever being given an appointment.
Richard Griffin, the department’s acting inspector general, admitted on Thursday that its review could lead to criminal charges. In the first political casualty of the scandal, Robert Petzel, the department’s undersecretary for heath, resigned on Friday.
The budget for the VA has risen from $73.1bn in 2006 to $153.8bn this year. However, the number of outpatient visits at its facilities has increased from 46.5m in 2002 to 83.6m in 2012.
While there have been reports for several years that the new waiting line system was being abused, the subject really began to gather steam three weeks ago when CNN interviewed Sam Foote, who had recently retired as a doctor after working for 24 years for VA hospitals in Phoenix, Arizona.
He said that as many as 40 patients had died after being placed on a hidden waiting list that could last for up to a year, while officials at the hospital shredded documents and faked evidence to make it seem as if waiting times were under control.
Since then, whistleblowers have alleged similar practices at least seven other VA hospitals around the country and claimed that officials at the hospitals were sometimes paid bonuses for reducing declared waiting times.
This is what the US government delivers to the nation’s finest—long waits and insufficient care. Unfortunately, this is what awaits the rest of America under Obama.
Many people are not aware that Hillary Clinton actually had a stroke. However, the type of stroke she had is a rare form and with long term possible complications. Despite her stroke, no one is talking about any long term effects it may have on her. Some have suggested there may be some residual problems. However, nothing has been confirmed other than she is wearing new glasses for double vision. As a physician, I can only conjecture that this complication was directly due to the stroke we know she suffered, or that she may suffered a second stroke effecting the muscles of one of her eyes.
Regardless, the glasses do raise some suspicion about her long term health. As publicized by the American Stroke Association, some long term possible consequences of Clinton’s stroke are as follows:
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6.5% chance of recurrent clot
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½ patients left with permanent psychiatric disease
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Up to 21% do not reach complete recovery
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50% suffer from chronic headaches
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Up to 32% with residual seizures
What, if any of these problems does Clinton have, I do not know?
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List of Why GMOs Unsafe
Genetically modified foods are more widely grown and distributed than many people realize. In fact, people don’t realize it because warning labels are not required when selling these foods. Though genetic manipulation may sound logical to some, the consequences of transforming the food is yet to be determined. I have found an interesting list of reason genetically modified foods are worrisome:
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Genetic engineering reduces genetic diversity. When genes are more diverse, they are more robust; this is why a pure bred dog tends to have greater health problems than the dear old mutt. Plants with reduced genetic diversity cannot handle drought, fungus invasions or insects nearly as well as natural plants, which could have dire consequences for farmers and communities dependent on GMO crops for survival.
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Once the mutant genes are out of the bag, there is no going back. Genetically modified organisms contaminate existing seeds with their altered material, passing on modified traits to non-target species. This creates a new strain of plant that was never intended in the laboratory. In North Dakota, recent studies show that 80% of wild canola plants tested contained at least one transgene.
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GMOs are not the answer for global food security. Genetically engineered crops have shown no increase in yield and no decrease in pesticide use.
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Genetically engineered foods have not been proven to be safe, but the few studies conducted don’t look so hot. The organs of rats who ate genetically modified potatoes showed signs of chronic wasting, and female rates fed a diet of herbicide-resistant soybeans gave birth to stunted and sterile pups.
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Big biotech firms have very sketchy track records, but then again what would you expect from organizations who want to patent the world’s food supply?
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GMOs require massive amounts of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. These things are poisons, and should not be eaten or allowed to run off into our water supply. But they are, every day, by companies who care far more about the bottom line than they do about your health, your environment or your children’s future.
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No one monitors human health impacts of GM foods. If the foods were creating health problems in the US population, it might take years or decades before we identified the cause.
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There can be nutritional difference between GM food and non-GM food. A 2012 nutritional analysis of GM versus non-GM corn showed shocking differences in nutritional content. Non-GM corn contains 437 times more calcium, 56 times more magnesium, and 7 times more manganese than GM corn. GM corn was also found to contain 13 ppm of glyphosate, a pesticide so toxic that it may be carcinogenic in the parts-per-trillion range, compared to zero in non-GM corn.
Remember, gene therapy even in humans has never been proven to be completely safe. Remember the deaths and disease caused by gene therapy over the past 20 years? Scientists claimed it was safe. However, the people at placed at risk in these gene therapy studies are minor compared all those at risk from consuming GMO food products.
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Second US Case of MERS
Health officials have confirmed a second U.S. case of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in Florida this week. Not a native of the states, the victim was visiting from Saudi Arabia. Health officials say this case is unrelated to the other recent one diagnosed in Indiana.
“The risk to the public remains very low,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, health officials are trying to contact all the passengers on the planes the man took to inform them to watch out for early signs of the MERS virus.
This virus has been found in camels, but officials don’t know how it is spreading to humans. It can spread from person to person, but officials believe that happens only after close contact. Not all those exposed to the virus become ill.
But it appears to be unusually lethal – some estimates have suggested it has killed nearly a third of the people it sickened. The estimate has been dropping as health officials have begun diagnosing more and more cases with less severe illness. But the estimated fatality rate for MERS still is far higher than what’s seen with seasonal flu or other routine infections.
Are we looking at the beginning of a new pandemic? As a physician, I seriously doubt it. However, what if this virus mutates into something more contagious? Though slim, the possibility is there. Like all viruses, MERS is prone to frequent mutations, and does have the potential to become more infectious. And what makes this scary is that we still have no treatment, prevention or source for this virus.
By 2013, farmers were growing genetically modified crops on more than 420 million acres of land across 28 countries. However, both the environmental and human safety of these crops still remains highly debated. Without long term, controlled human safety data available, this concern is certainly valid.
Because of this concern, politicians, particularly in Europe, have created regulations to monitor GM products. However, in the United States, labeling of these foods is not mandated by the government. In fact, it is mostly voluntary in nature.
A new test called “MACRO,” which stands for: multiplex amplification on a chip with readout on an oligo microarray is now available to identify these crops. The sensitivity of this new genetic test is the best on the market and can identify about 97 percent of the known commercialized modifications.
As the Europeans take the lead in using such tests, the United States lags behind with the transparency of these foods. While the FDA goes after soaps and e-cigarettes, real and potential harmful foods/chemicals can be poisoning our country with little being done to stop it. Where are our priorities? Better yet, who is paying off the FDA and politicians?
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No Conservatives Christians Allowed
Has the media turned so progressive that any non-progressive, conservative thinking person is shunned from working?
Regardless of your social beliefs, you should find the treatment of David and Jason Benham by HGTV a little troubling. I understand that some disagree with their Christian beliefs but that is certainly not the point nor is it the issue. The issue is that they lost their show on HGTV not because of what they did but what they believed.
We are now finding media censoring themselves at a heightened, liberal level. Will conservative checks now be done for every person who tries to get any job on TV, the newspaper or on the radio? If you attended a mass in which the pastor or priest demonized abortion, could you be out of a job? The scarier thing to ask is if this liberal litmus test will spill over to different professions? Remember what happened to Brendan Eich from Mozilla or the scrutiny Chick Fila-A received.
We are heading to this point. My great grandfather was the first Martino to come to the USA in the early 20th century. He left Italy after he and his other 3 brothers were arrested for attending a democratic rally. His 3 brothers died in jail, and he came here to start a better life—in a place where freedom of speech was guaranteed by law.
Where has that guarantee gone? Well ask yourselves this– how many CEO’s are going to come out and say that they are pro-life? I can guarantee it will be zero. They will be too afraid to speak their mind for fear their job or company would be in jeopardy. The media attack dogs are ready and more than willing to pounce on anybody who does not adhere to the progressive party line.
The sad part is that there is a complete double standard. Remember Obama sitting through Reverend White’s hate filled speeches? Where was the media outcry. Sure, it was discussed and written on conservative outlets, but the main stream media killed the story before it really got legs.
The truth is as the mainstream media gets more progressive, our country gets worse.
A new study from the Brooklyn Institution states that more US businesses are being destroyed than are being created. This trend has been most striking over the Obama administration, culminating with the worst numbers since the beginning of 2009.
There is no states or regional localization for these numbers. The poor business growth and the destruction of businesses are seen throughout the entire 50 state union. The only valid conclusion when looking at these statistics is that the problem arises from a central source and not on the local level. When I write of a central source, I am, of course, referring to Washington DC.
Since Obama has taken office, there has been an attack on the middle class. Despite Obama’s rhetoric and the media’s confirmation of his lies, the wealth gap between the rich and poor is widening by the day, while squeezing out the middle class in the process.
Remember, small business is the spine which makes America’s economy and creates most of the jobs in this country. However, as any small business owner will tell you, it has become more difficult by the year to maintain that business. Higher taxes, no incentives, new laws and an unfriendly central government has made business ownership increasingly more difficult. Also, it deters the entrepreneurial spirit and discourages anyone from wanting to create their own business.
Despite the lower unemployment rate, it clearly explains why the nation’s workforce shrank by more than 800,000 workers in April, sending the labor force participation rate plummeting 0.4 percentage points to 62.8 percent.
Despite what you hear on the news, America’s economy remains in a downwards spiral. Many have given up looking for work and are now on the government doll, or they just decided to retire due to the bad economy. As this trend continues, America’s competitive edge will soon be lost.
Don’t let this happen.