Are mammograms unnecessary for women until they turn 50? Have the politics on health care reform gotten in the way of doing what’s best for the prevention of breast cancer? Will this effect insurance coverage for the procedure?
Addressing one of the questions, The Obama Administration announced government insurance programs would continue to cover routine mammograms for women starting at age 40, reports today’s New York Times.
This was in response to the Preventative Services Task Force recommendations that women not start routine mammograms until they are aged 50, instead of 40. The research showed that benefits gained starting at aged 40 were small. The downside of earlier screenings was that they lead to excess biopsies, unnecessary anxiety as well as discovery and treatment of tumors that would not cause problems if left alone.
The Physician Data Query Group, a physician group that evaluates new research on cancer research for the National Cancer Institute, recommended that the task force’s evidence be added to all information passed onto doctors and the public.
Members of the group were frustrated that mammogram screenings had become the center of political debate.
One member of the Physician Date Query, Dr. Russell Harris, a former member of the Preventative Services Task Force, explained that when the old guidelines were released by the task force in 2002 there had been less research on the topic.
According to Vitals.com, Dr. Russell received his medical degree at John Hopkins University and completed his specialty training at Duke University.
The Democrats believe the timing of the study’s release was just another opportunity for Republicans to raise doubts about the health care plan now being prepared for a vote in the Senate. Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human services, assured the country that their policies remain unchanged on this issue. She pointed out that the task force is an outside independent panel of doctors and scientists who make recommendations but don’t set federal policy.
Dr. Andrew Ordon, the star on CBS’s hit daytime show, The Doctors. He is referred to as “the governor of plastic surgery” and “plastic surgeon to the stars”. Dr. Ordon is teaming up with renowned plastic surgeons Dr. Kami Parsa and Dr. Jay Calvert to form a new foundation, Surgical Friends Foundation. The trio joined together to combat the most difficult, and often life-threatening, reconstructive cases of individuals in need and without health insurance.
The mission of Surgical Friends Foundation is to unite philanthropists, reconstructive surgeons, and patients in need of surgery but without the financial resources. As plastic surgeons with sub-specialty expertise, they are well-suited to perform these life-altering surgeries. Most of the foundation’s patients have physical deformities that are congenital, post-traumatic or acquired in nature.
Their first mission will be to Cambodia where they will handle a full slate of pediatric cases - all children who have been victims of land mines, as a result of decades of civil war. After 20 years of war, one out of every 290 Cambodians is living with a deformity as a direct result of the numerous land mines plaguing their landscape. This is one of the highest ratios in the world
For more information on the Surgical Friends Foundation and to view a video of a recent case surgery, visit www.surgicalfriends.org.
The Doctors (fox61.com)
Dr. Andrew P. Ordon, M.D is a surgeon in the area of aesthetic plastic and reconstructive surgery with a private practice in Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage. Dr. Ordon is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of California where he earned his under-graduate degree with Honors in Biological Sciences. He then received his medical degree from USC School of Medicine with Honors in Medicine.
Dr. Ordon in His Own Words: For decades I have been privileged to help rebuild and enhance the lives of many individuals. I bring a unique combination of training, experience, and quality of care to all of my patients. I have a commitment to enhancing an individual’s natural beauty through using the latest techniques in cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. Our relationship begins with trust and ends with the successful completion of natural rejuvenation or reconstruction
Retired pro football players have several times the national rate of Alzheimer’s disease and other memory afflictions than normal populations. Former players between the age of 30-40 experience memory-related diseases at a rate of 19 times of that of men who didn’t play, according to an analysis of a study by the New York Times.
Last week the House Judiciary Committee confronted the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, accusing the league of neglect. Besides Goodell, the witness panel featured former players such as retired New York Giant standout Tiki Barber, Merrill Hoge, George Martin and Gay Culverhouse, a former Tampa Bay Buccaneers team president.
Goodell and the league were quick to point out that the studies did not prove an actual link between concussions and Alzheimer’s or other head related diseases. The NFL’s conclusion was reached despite the New York Times analysis, an NFL survey with similar findings and several other corroborating independent studies.
Their interpretation of the studies might be influenced by the league’s revenue, which totals nearly seven billion dollars. But it is unfortunately at the expense of 2,000 current players and more than 10,000 retirees associated with the NFL. Not to mention its effect on the millions of players at the college, high school and youth levels, reports the New York Times.
Head first accidents on the field (courant.com)
Among the medical expert witnesses were researchers from Boston University School of Medicine center for studying types of brain trauma.
Dr. Ann McKee one of Boston University’s representatives, showed the committee images of brains of dead football players.
She testified that all 11 of the former collegiate and professional football players she had examined showed “severe” signs of degradation. Before they died, many of the players had suffered from memory loss and emotional disturbances.
“We need to take radical steps to change the way football is played,” said Dr. McKee.
According to Vitals.com, McKee received her medical degree at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and completed her specialty training at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Missing from the two panels of witnesses was Dr. Ira Casson, the co-chairman of the NFL’s committee. Casson has been criticized for discrediting all the outside research and his own role in the league’s study has been questioned. Independent experts believe the results are flawed by conflicts of interest, statistical and sampling problems.
Mr. Goodell agreed to turn over all medical records to Congress for independent review, but in an interview after his testimony he said he would not release medical records because of confidentiality issues.
This lack of cooperation will continue to harm not only players on powerhouse professional teams such as the Giants, Jets and Patriots. Sadly experts have noted that many concussions particularly at lower levels of football go undiagnosed, meaning that many players who never make it to the pros face serious health consequences as well.
The needs of the millions of players at all levels, including college, high school and youth, need to be addressed. Experts feel more can and should be done by changing rules reducing contact to the head and neck; teaching better tackling techniques and developing new equipment, especially better helmets.
Dr. Rima E Laibow is a medical doctor who has been in private practice since the 1970s. She graduated from Albert Einstein Medical College in 1970 and after years of private practice she has dedicated her life to Codex Alimentarius.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 by FAO and WHO to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme. The main purposes of this Programme are protecting health of the consumers and ensuring fair trade practices in the food trade, and promoting coordination of all food standards work undertaken by international governmental and non-governmental organizations.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, et al.,
Defendants.
DR. LAIBOW’S SECOND DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF COMPLAINT
Rima E. Laibow, MD, New York State Medical License #111813, declares under penalty of perjury pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1746 that the following information is true to best of my knowledge and belief and that if called to testify in this matter I could testify competently to these facts.
1. I am a Plaintiff in this matter. In addition, I am a licensed physician and graduate of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Furthermore, I have carefully studied the history of immunization through vaccination and have published on the topic.
2. In my considered professional opinion, to a reasonable degree of professional certainty, I find that there is no significant scientific agreement that any influenza vaccine prevents influenza epidemics or pandemics or, for that matter, protects those who are vaccinated from contracting influenza. There is, however, significant professional opinion that influenza vaccines provide no protection or efficacy in the face of adverse-event risk, which would be totally absent in those who have never had influenza vaccines. In the peer-reviewed scientific literature, I further find that competent scientific investigation leads to the conclusion that the use of live virus mist vaccines may very well increase the incidence of the disease. Those children who have been vaccinated have a 3-fold increase in hospitalizations for all causes compared to those children naïve to vaccination for influenza. Children vaccinated with live–cold-adapted-influenza-virus vaccines have an even greater likelihood of neurological and other disorders that have no known cures.
3. One example of the growing scientific agreement that there is no emergency upon which to base the April 25, 2009 Pandemic Declaration followed by the October 23, 2009 Declaration of National Emergency is that both morbidity and mortality from Swine Flu are completely unknown and, given the current state of laboratory testing and identification of the virus, unknowable. As a three month-long CBS News investigation reported, nearly 90% of alleged “Swine Flu” (2009 -H1N1-A) cases were something else.1 Though the Defendant CDC has claimed to stop counting cases, the Defendants initially were “counting” all respiratory illness and death in the absence of accurate laboratory tests as though they were caused by 2009-H1N1-A. Based on the findings of the CBS News investigation, such a position is simply contrary to the evidence and flies in the face of all respectable scientific and epidemiological methodology.
4. Further, an NIH media release of October 21, 2009 shows that influenza vaccines have a range of what the proponents consider to be immune system responses in up to 36% of the test subjects. The induction of an immune system response of some sort, not necessarily a disease-protective one in little more than one-third of the population puts that response squarely in the placebo response range. The close link between the mind and the immune system is very well known: results like these are seen with sugar pills and saline injections. This level of immune response is well within the range of placebo results. This immune system response has not been proven to be associated with any protective benefit. This is the case because the immune response that occurs following vaccination is substantively different from that which occurs when, in the absence of formaldehyde, thimerisol, aluminum, gentimycin, Polysorbate 80, squalene, foreign proteins, adventitious viruses, malignancy-causing and otherwise, and other vaccine ingredients and/or contaminants, a virus is encountered by the immune system from natural contact.
5. I have further considered the largest meta-study of all U.S. influenza vaccine uptake and vaccination-related outcomes, by David A. Geier, Paul G. King, and Mark R. Geier, published in the respected Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, that showed no significant protection from the flu for the vaccinated.2
6. My conclusion is that there is no significant public health benefit to be expected from the Defendants’ carefully orchestrated disinformation campaign in favor of the Vaccines. Rather, the Vaccines’ approvals demonstrate a clear and present danger to the public, released by the Defendants, in the form of the Vaccines, owned, approved, recommended and provided by the Defendants through agents of the Defendant CDC’s choosing, to the detriment of the Plaintiffs.
7. It is my professional opinion that nasal mist vaccines provide a continuing contagion for those who have not been exposed to the vaccines that places unvaccinated persons at potential serious risk. Since the nasal mist vaccines cause both shedding of infectious viruses in the absence of disease in the vaccinated person AND shedding in the presence of the disease which the nasal vaccine is, according to its manufacturer, designed to produce. Thus, whether the people volunteer for the nasal mist vaccine or are given the vaccine on a mandated basis or refuse the vaccine, they WILL be exposed to not only the bioengineered cold-adapted versions of three “seasonal influenza viruses” but also a cold-adapted version of a novel virus that the WHO, FDA and the President of these United States have declared to be of nearly inestimable harm to humans. Thus, those who do not take the vaccine are being exposed against their will by their own government to four live influenza viruses, one of which that government claims could kill them.
8. I would not be able to walk the streets of my home State of New York, where I have lived since 1968, without risk of exposure to the live viruses in the live-virus vaccines that the Defendants have unleashed on an unsuspecting public or some mutated live virus or viruses spread by the person or persons in whom one or more of the inoculated live viruses mutated. I therefore petition this Court to recognize my standing to sue to protect myself from the underlying, unlawful vaccine approvals and disinformative recommendations, pronouncements, and pro-vaccination infomercials promulgated by the Defendants.
I certify that the above statements by me are true and accurate; I am aware I am subject to punishment as for perjury if any are willfully false.
Dr. Albert Hoffman, founder of LSD and Psilocybin (flickr.com)
Getting high with a little help from your friends was a real trip in the 1960’s. This was not the intention of Albert Hofmann, the creator of the hallucinogenic drugs LSD and psilocybin. He’d hoped to explore its therapeutic uses. But they are finally back in the hands of the medical community, picking up where they left off.
In 1930’s Dr. Hofmann accidentally learned of LSD’s incredible side effects when he absorbed a small amount through his fingertips. He described a not unpleasant intoxicated-like feeling characterized by uninterrupted streams of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes and an intense, kaleidoscope of colors.
It was inevitable that this fantastical mind-altering drug became the center of the 1960’s drug-driven counterculture. To Hofmann’s dismay, it was placed into a restrictive category in the 1970’s by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
According to this month’s Scientific American, Albert Hofmann finally celebrated the first scientific research in decades one month before his death at the age of 102. Using psychedelic drugs for medical applications, such as treating alcoholism and alleviating intense anxiety for patients with life threatening diseases, are once again being explored.
The British-based Beckley Foundation is funding and collaborating on such a study at the University of California Berkley. They are assessing how these drugs may foster creativity and investigating the changes in neural activity that go along with altered conscious experiences, using Hofmann’s psilocybin instead of LSD.
“We chose psilocybin over LSD because it’s gentler and generally less intense,” says Dr. Charles S. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles who conducted a trial to test the drug’s effects on anxiety in cancer patients.
“It’s associated with fewer panic reactions and less chance of paranoia and, most important, over the past half a century psilocybin has attracted far less negative publicity and carries far less cultural baggage than LSD.”
According to Vitals.com, Dr. Grob received his medical degree at the State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine and completed his specialty training at John Hopkins Hospital.
There had been similar experiments with LSD dating back over 35 years ago, but researchers are basically starting from scratch. LSD is still a trip, but navigated by a well programmed GPS that must meet strict drug protocols and standards.
At some point in our lives, we all need to go to the doctor. Perhaps for a mild problem, or perhaps for a serious one. The choice of which doctor to go to, and the
performance of that doctor, can be a life or death decision... (Read More)