Free Republic

Glenn Dance does not have swine flu. But when he took the family cat to the veterinarian last week, he was greeted in the parking lot by workers in surgical masks. They knew that his wife and daughter had the flu and told Dance that he was not allowed inside. Dance, who lives in Great Falls, obliged. Then he went along when he was asked to don rubber gloves to sign his pet's paperwork. And again when they said to keep the pen -- and wait in his pickup -- as Cleo was whisked away for a 90-minute work-up. "It...

I thought other freepers might be interested in hearing about real world swine flu cases. This is my story. My children were to get their regular flu shoots last week, but the pediatrician office ran out. They were rescheduled for next week. We opted against the swine flu vaccination. On 10/20/2009 we received a phone call from the school nurse saying that one of my children was not feeling well and wanted to come home. No fever but was at the nurses office twice in the morning asking to come home. Strange, I thought, because my child was fine in...

Here is CNN video reporting on a website designed to help people figure out if they have the H1NI (Swine) Flu. Here's the direct link to the Flu Self-Assessment site mentioned in the video. (VIDEO)

The subject of James Love's precarious health came up one day last winter when his landlord was chatting with Love's wife about a leaky faucet. Barbara Thomas, who rents a home to the couple and their six children in Sleepy Hollow, asked Shira Love what her husband needed to avoid kidney dialysis. Born with sickle cell anemia, he had endured years of excruciating pain and renal failure. Shira Love told Thomas that he desperately needed a kidney but that it was hard to find a match because of his O-positive blood type. "The second Shira said James needed a kidney,...

Cell phones cause brain tumors, according to the newest banner headline on the DrudgeReport. The story it's linked to explains how a new study, soon to be published, will provide the data needed to prove this long-rumored assertion. The comments alrady on the story-link include one from a blogger claiming much more.

It seems to me that the rise in health care insurance premiums is more a result of government interference than free market forces. The proposed destruction of the American private health care industry will destroy individual Freedom and Liberty. The lefts lament is that the rising healthcare insurance costs is only about greed. Of course, they say only "healthcare" in a deliberate attempt to misrepresent and deceive. let's lay it out right here, what has caused the escalating costs in premiums? Governmental mandates on coverage? What are these mandates? Is it true you cannot buy insurance from state to state?

October 16, 2009 Dear Cecil:What’s the deal with getting a song stuck in your head? Why does it happen, especially if it’s a song you don’t like or don’t even know well? Yet all you can think about is that stupid tune. Please enlighten me; I’m getting really sick of “Tainted Love” running circles through my brain.— MegCecil replies:You think you’ve got problems? My assistant Una claims she had the same tune running through her head off and on for 27 years. Only after laborious research online was she able to establish what it was: a concerto by Antonio Vivaldi,...

A Japanese man misdiagnosed as having rectal cancer is suing the hospital that he says unnecessarily gave him an artificial rectum. The man, who has not been identified, underwent surgery to remove a tumor in March at a university hospital in Miyzaki prefecture, western Japan. Following the surgery, his doctor informed him that no cancerous cells had been found in the removed tissue. The complainant is seeking 35 million yen (USD $385,000) in damages.

LOS ANGELES — “Law & Order,” the long-running NBC series about crime and punishment, rarely shies away from inflammatory topics, and Friday night it takes on one of the most contentious — abortion — for just the third time in the program’s 20 seasons. In the show’s customary ripped-from-the-headlines style, the new episode focuses on the murder, in a church, of a doctor who performs late-term abortions. Though the episode, which will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time, begins with the disclaimer that the story “is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event,” its...

Things change, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. For example, your kids health. Every parent wants healthy kids. But are the "times" making it harder to keep your kids healthy? Maybe. Let us take a stroll back in time. Healthy kids may just mean getting back to basics.

Nikki Sams died after cervical cancer spread into her lungs, spine and neck despite repeated complaints to her doctor of irregular bleeding and abdominal pain. Dr Navin Shankar, 59, told her it was ''nothing serious'', ignored her request for hospital checks and never performed an internal examination at his surgery in Luton, Beds. The blunder only emerged when Miss Sams was transferred to another GP practice after Dr Shankar was suspended for a separate case of serious misconduct involving a nine-day-old baby. Her new doctor immediately recommended a smear test which revealed abnormal cells, and further examinations at Luton and...

The memory still bothers Ken Keller: A panicked ambulance crew had a critically ill patient, but the man weighed more than 1,000 pounds and could not fit inside the vehicle. And the stretcher wasn't sturdy enough to hold him. The crew offered an idea to Keller, who was then an investigator with the Kansas Board of Emergency Medical Services. Could they use a forklift to load the man - bed and all - onto a flatbed truck? Keller agreed: There was no other choice. "I'm sure it was terribly embarrassing to be in his own bed, riding on the back...

Well, I've come down with flu like symptoms and it's been 2 days of no fun. My major symptoms are not what I'd call life-threatening, they are what I'd call annoying. I am experiencing: 1) Major back pain and body aches. Don't look at my back, it hurts. Need advil to lie down. 2) Exhaustion. I want to lie down. I don't care if it hurts. My minor symptoms are: 1) Minor, not severe ear pain 2) Minor but gone almost immediately sore throat 3) Initial onset of headache, gone 1st night prior to other symptoms 4) Stomach quesiness but...

Yip yip ya-hoo (as Limbaugh would say). The Dem's health care plan, as you probably know, will cover 94% of the U.S. population. Let’s have a drink to celebrate. But hold that one, because if you are currently uninsured, you still have a 50% chance of staying this way even if the Dem plan gets signed by Obama. Here are the simple numbers…

The federal government has accelerated its $16 million dollar PR campaign to brainwash and coerce increasingly suspicious Americans into taking the swine flu vaccine by weaving their propaganda into a popular pre-school show for children currently airing on PBS Kids. Sid the Science Kid is a half-hour series produced by Jim Henson Productions and KCET in Los Angeles, California. The program is bankrolled in part by The Boeing Company, a titan of the military-industrial complex. During an episode of the show set to air on Monday, the computer-generated characters are shown dancing around and singing about how their are taking...

There's no doubt about the love we have for our dogs and cats. But, when push comes to shove, just how far would you go if your best friend was in a health crisis? Let's get to the point. Your pet is injured and needs lifesaving air.Question is, could you bring yourself to put your mouth to his snout? 58-percent of people surveyed by the Associated Press and Petside.com would be at least SOMEWHAT likely to perform CPR on their animal in a medical emergency. The survey showed women were more likely to deliver those rescue breaths than the men....

The deceptively named “Cancer Project” animal-rights group is at it again. This time its target isn’t hot dog makers, but grilled-chicken servers. The group, a branch of the PETA-linked Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), filed a lawsuit in Connecticut yesterday against three restaurant chains demanding warnings about a supposed link between grilled chicken and cancer. As we told the media, PCRM is nothing more than an animal rights front for pushing vegan activism, which is funded primarily by a single rich donor. Since 2003, PCRM and the Cancer Project have derived 60 percent of their budgets from a...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Someone healthy enough to work could still cost an employer more than $4,000 annually in unnecessary health care costs. A new University of Michigan study shows workers with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and associated chronic disease can cost employers up to $5,867 annually in health care, pharmacy and short term disability—compared to $1,600 for a healthy worker. But the good news: Companies can stop those chronic health problems before they start. MetS is a collection of health risks that includes body mass index, cholesterol, glucose, blood pressure and triglycerides. The study was designed to determine the relationship between MetS...

Rep. Michele Bachmann from Minnesota offered sound advice this morning during an interview with Lee Rodgers on KSFO (audio here and MP3 here) in San Francisco, on how to turn back the various healthcare proposals working their way through Congress. The key she says is call volume -- old-fashioned telephone call volume.  Every morning, Monday through Friday she advises us to call our Congressional delegation, our two Senators and Congressional Representative, with the goal of achieving 10,000 calls every day.  With staff tied up just answering this volume of calls, there is no way that healthcare can survive.  And if...

You have to read all the way to page A-25 in today’s New York Times to learn about it, but the Senate took its first floor vote on Obamacare yesterday and the White House lost. Big. The NYT reports: “Democrats lost a big test vote on health care legislation on Wednesday as the Senate blocked action on a bill to increase Medicare payments to doctors at a cost of $247 billion over 10 years. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, needed 60 votes to proceed. He won only 47. And he could not blame Republicans. A dozen...

Starting in 2010, an international crew of six will simulate a 520-day round-trip to Mars, including a 30-day stay on the martian surface. In reality, they will live and work in a sealed facility in Moscow, Russia, to investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration space mission. ESA is looking for European volunteers to take part. The ‘mission’ is part of the Mars500 programme being conducted by ESA and Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems (IBMP) to study human psychological, medical and physical capabilities and limitations in space through fundamental and operational research. ESA’s Directorate of Human Spaceflight is...

Male supporters of presidential candidates John McCain and Bob Barr took news of their candidates’ loss to Barack Obama hard, almost like a kick in the crotch, a new study from Duke University and the University of Michigan concludes. Young men who voted for either McCain or Barr suffered immediate drops in their testosterone levels after the election results were announced, while Obama supporters suffered no change. Females also suffered no change, according to the study, which will be published in the journal PLOS One on Wednesday. "This is a pretty powerful result," said Duke neuroscientist Kevin LaBar. "Voters are...

The Newest Relaxing Trend - Snake Massage! 21 October 2009 | Tired of the normal spa treatments? Well, then turn your attention to the latest means of pampering: snake massage Give it up for the newest relaxing trend - snake massage! (Getty Images) ! Therapist Ada Barak in Norther Israel provides this unusual treatment, in which she places six non-venomous snakes on her clients’ aching body. The clients apparently feel relaxed as the snakes move on their body and face. Barak got the idea for the unique therapy after noticing visitors to her roadside attraction called Ada Barak’s Carnivorous Plant...

Most people who lose a leg dream of walking again. For adaptive athlete Jarem Frye, the inventor of a spring-loaded prosthetic knee transforming the lives of amputees, that wasn't nearly enough. He wanted to fly. Jarem Frye at his office in Mcminnville, Oregon (Photograph by Annie Marie Musselman) WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE a military propaganda video showing footage of U.S. Marines on patrol—protecting an Iraqi neighborhood from insurgents—now lives on the Internet, where you can see Garrett Jones's last steps as a whole-bodied man. The 15-second clip, shot in July 2007 in the city of Karmah, is poor in...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Researchers in the United States have found another good reason to go to the local espresso bar: several cups of coffee a day could halt the progression of liver disease, a study showed Wednesday. Sufferers of chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who drank three or more cups of coffee per day slashed their risk of the disease progressing by 53 percent compared to patients who drank no coffee, the study led by Neal Freedman of the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) showed. For the study, 766 participants enrolled in the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment...

Ageism in the NHS, which turns elderly patients into second-class citizens, is to be outlawed. Health Secretary Andy Burnham says all patients - whether 20 or beyond 80 - deserve the same care and attention. Today's announcement follows alarming new evidence that older people are far less likely to receive a proper diagnosis and essential treatment. Many elderly patients miss out on the scans, drugs and even basic health advice routinely given to the young Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222077/NHS-bans-ageism-Elderly-patients-receive-attention-young.html#ixzz0UcvCqMPw

(PDF Format) Free Congress Foundation Commentary The Major Incurable Disease – Tort Terror By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq. October 21, 2009 Unlike other countries, our Federal system and many of our State judicial systems encourage litigation against physicians and hospitals. The practice of medicine is almost unimaginatively sophisticated, as applicable knowledge continually becomes more complicated and more extensive.

The American College of Physicians, representing 129,000 internal medicine physicians and medical student members, is gravely disappointed by the failure of the "cloture" vote today in the U.S. Senate on S. 1776, the Medicare Physician Fairness Act of 2009. We commend Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), the bill's principal sponsor, for her diligent efforts to persuade her colleagues to support this long-overdue legislation to sunset the flawed SGR formula and put an end to the cycle of annual Medicare cuts that threaten seniors' access to physician services. We also thank the 47 senators who, like Senator Stabenow, voted to allow S....

In case you missed it, here is the "Pot City, USA" television show recently shown on the A&E Network. It's pretty interesting and well worth your time to watch.

You can divorce an abusive spouse. You can call it quits if your lover mistreats you. But what can you do if the source of your misery is your own parent? Granted, no parent is perfect. And whining about parental failure, real or not, is practically an American pastime that keeps the therapeutic community dutifully employed. But just as there are ordinary good-enough parents who mysteriously produce a difficult child, there are some decent people who have the misfortune of having a truly toxic parent. A patient of mine, a lovely woman in her 60s whom I treated for depression,...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Healthy eating, not supplements, is the best way to keep the good bacteria in your gut healthy, says a dietitian and researcher. As with vitamins, it's best to get the bacteria you need from healthy food rather than taking often expensive and potentially ineffective supplements, says Gail Cresci, Medical College of Georgia dietitian and researcher. "Consumers are buying stuff like crazy that is probably not even helping them and could potentially hurt them," says Ms. Cresci, assistant professor of surgery at the MCG School of Medicine and winner of the 2009 Excellence in Practice Award for Clinical...

SICK POLL QUESTION: "SHOULD CONGRESSMAN ADAM SCHIFF BEAT HIS WIFE PUBLICLY?" I got an email from Congressman Adam Schiff (Democrat-Pasadena, California) today with one of his hoaked up opinion poll questions: "Should the health care reform bill include the public option?" (the buzz words "public option" means an option for a government run insurance policy as well as private insurance policies). This type of question already is conclusionary that a health care reform bill will be passed by Congress. In other words, the results are already loaded in favor of health care reform. The question is dishonest. It doesn't ask...

I just wanted to shout about how fortunate I am! Today my father turned 90! Mom will be 90 next July.

The very small world of Paul Mason - the world's heaviest man weighing in at 70 stone By Andrew Levy Last updated at 11:16 PM on 20th October 2009 * Comments (145) * Add to My Stories Languishing in a reinforced bed with treats and entertainments close to hand, this is the world's heaviest man at home. Paul Mason, who weighs 70 stone, is rarely able to leave his bed and so spends much of his life in the room, eating and playing computer games. The 48-year-old consumes around 20,000 calories a day - more than eight times what the...

KASESE, Uganda – For years, Charles Wesley Mumbere worked as a nurse's aide in Maryland and Pennsylvania, caring for the elderly and sick. No one there suspected that he had inherited a royal title in his African homeland when he was just 13. On Monday, after years of political upheaval and financial struggle, Mumbere, 56, was finally crowned king of his people to the sound of drumbeats and thousands of cheering supporters wearing cloth printed with his portraits.

I'm putting a new section on my website and I would like to get your opinion of my first section. I'm calling it "Health Watch" and I'd like for everyone to take a look and leave thier comments on it.

Patients with chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who drink three or more cups of coffee per day have a 53% lower risk of liver disease progression than non-coffee drinkers according to a new study led by Neal Freedman, Ph.D., MPH, from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The study found that patients with hepatitis C-related bridging fibrosis or cirrhosis who did not respond to standard disease treatment benefited from increased coffee intake. An effect on liver disease was not observed in patients who drank black or green tea. Findings of the study appear in the November issue of Hepatology,...

Here’s the trailer of the upcoming film “Race Across The Sky” featuring Lance and a mob of other elite and amateur mountain bikers as they tackle the Leadville (Colorado) 100 mile race. This is a high definition video and the scenery is spectacular! Video Link

DETROIT — Autopsies were planned Monday a day after three half-marathoners collapsed during the Detroit marathon and died, organizers said.

The Pasadena Star News reports on a religious "vigil" held Monday night at the Pasadena City Hall by a group of about 100 health care reform advocates reportedly from various churches in the area (All Saints, Cavalry Chapel, Altadena Baptist, Jewish synagogue, etc.) propounding a big lie that there are medical "uninsured" in California who do not receive medical treatment. Read here: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_13594645 This propaganda should not go unchecked. For the record, there are no people living in California who are denied medical treatment. Everyone is potentially eligible for Medi-Cal, which is partially subsidized by the Federal government. We already...

Doctors fighting to save the life of the world's heaviest man are considering calling in an RAF Chinook to move him 150 miles to a specialist centre that will treat him. Paul Mason, who weighs 70 stone, needs the help of weight-loss doctors and possible surgery to lose tens of stones. But the treatment will have to take place in Chichester, West Sussex, a considerable distance from his home in Ipswich. The Health Service has introduced a number of the specialist ambulances designed to transport massively overweight patients but it is not clear if one can be made available to...

The current Health Care Reform (HCR) plans channeling through the halls of Congress will go into affect only in ’13; will cover only 94% of the legal population (up from the 87%-90% that are already covered), and will rely heavily on tax increase. The Republicans (can) have a cheaper plan that can be operational by next year, and cover EVERY American that chooses to be covered, all this if Republicans want to go with this one. Here is the plan (some parts of which that are already being considered in Congress and others already written about). it’s long, but worth...

A devoted couple each died of a heart attack within minutes of one another, neighbours said tonight. Stewart Whitfield, 56, had just dialled 999 for his wife, Olga, 61, when he too suffered heart failure. Police and paramedics arrived at their red-brick terraced home in West Boldon, South Tyneside, and found them dead. It is believed that Mr Whitfield, a pipe fitter, collapsed at his wife's side as he waited for the ambulance to arrive. Mrs Whitfield, a grandmother, had two daughters from a previous relationship whilst her husband also had a daughter. Police said Mr Whitfield called the ambulance...

Campbell's Healthy Request condensed vegetable soups ranked among top affordable, nutritious optionsDENVER, October 19, 2009 – A new food rating system that analyzes both nutrition and cost value of food may now make it easier for people to find budget-friendly, nutritious foods in today’s tough economy. The Affordable Nutrition Index (ANI), unveiled today at the American Dietetic Association’s Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo by leading nutrition expert Adam Drewnowski, PhD, professor at the University of Washington, is the first and only tool that assesses food’s nutritional profile and cost value to create a nutrition-value-per-dollar score. The ANI is guided...

Congress is showing contempt for the American people by excluding them from the crafting of Obamacare The president promised in his campaign he’d deliver transparency, saying, “I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table” with everybody involved. Those that can’t make it would be able to see “the negotiations televised on C-SPAN.” Too bad this isn’t happening: yet another broken Obama promise. The media report that the only people at this negotiation are the liberal political elites, including Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) (author of the Vapor Bill), Senate Finance...

It is seldom recognized, commented historian René Dubos, that each society and every civilization creates its own diseases.1 Is the peanut allergy epidemic man-made? And if so, how has it been created in millions of children in just 20 years and who or what are its architects? The features of the epidemic continue to puzzle doctors. In the US alone, 5.6 million people – 2% of the population – are allergic topeanuts and nuts almost all having experienced onset as toddlers. This epidemic tipped into critical mass around 1998 when the first flood of allergic children entered kindergarten sending a...

The Pasadena Star News posted a public notice online (since removed) that an interfaith group is to hold a health care "vigil" at Pasadena City Hall on Monday night, October 19. It seems to this writer that any such "vigil" is an exercise in what Theodore Dalrymple calls "moral exhibitionism," which is defined as "generosity of spirit at other people's expense; "the desire to feel more compassionate-than-thou" without regard for the larger consequences. No doubt this "interfaith" coalition is comprised of those "usual suspects" who also have advocated affordable housing, among a number of other social justice "causes," only to...

Medical care in the United States is derided as miserable compared to health care systems in the rest of the developed world. Economists, government officials, insurers, and academics beat the drum for a far larger government role in health care. Much of the public assumes that their arguments are sound because the calls for change are so ubiquitous and the topic so complex. Before we turn to government as the solution, however, we should consider some unheralded facts about America’s health care system.

So now we are seeing kids falling like flies from the swine flu [H1N1], and what drastic measures are being taken by the school system? Zip, zero, nadda. The dirty little secret is that schools are paid according to attendence. Kids need doctors' notes -- yadda-yadda. Bottom line -- sick kids are "noble" for toughing it out in school and spreading illness. If the safe school tsar gave half a tinker's fig, he would start fining schools that have obvious sick kids in class. Obama doesn't really care, his administration doesn't care, the teachers' union doesn't care -- it's all...

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=G44NCvNDLfc