Health Insurance For All: Panacea or Peril?

September 15, 2007

There is a strong push for all Americans to gain access to health insurance. While this may sound logical and beneficial on the surface, we must dig deeper. The real issue is that we want all American children, pregnant women, young parents, the self-employed, the working poor, and the elderly to have access to quality healthcare. The problem is this is not what universal health coverage will provide. There are enormous problems inherent in the current system of healthcare coverage, and extending a flawed system to more people is shortsighted.

The current system reimburses services that are administered by conventional medicine while ignoring effective treatments with the potential to reverse or eliminate diseases. Ensuring adequate nutrients to assist the body to rid itself of illness is not covered, nor are detoxification strategies to safely eliminate the deadly toxins that accumulate in our bodies over our lifetimes. These two factors are the root cause of virtually all chronic illnesses that plague our people and threaten to bankrupt our healthcare system. Yet these services are neglected in the current payer system, which serves to benefit the expensive patented drugs and costly diagnostic procedures currently employed in medical care.

By extending healthcare coverage to all, we are extending the ability to afford more costly medications with dangerous side-effects while failing to provide effective prevention of disease through less costly measures such as providing all children with wholesome food that is not laced with pesticides, life-giving water that is not loaded with toxic chemicals, and access to medical providers who test for and treat nutrient deficiencies and toxic exposures before (and after) diseases have a chance to develop. (Many of these preventive and proven medical tests are not covered by the conventional system)

Extending the current medical model serves only to use our tax dollars to expand the market that pharmaceutical and medical diagnostic corporations exploit with their expensive products and services. Patients with existing coverage are forced to pay out of pocket for the services they really want and need when they become ill. These services are not part of the conventional medical system and are rarely covered.

While attending a pharmaceutically supported meeting earlier this week, an expensive new medication was being discussed. When the physician assistants in attendance inquired about the cost of the new medication, which was an outrageous 3 dollars per pill, the pharmaceutical agent simply stated not to worry about the price because it would be covered by insurance. I have heard this message repeatedly from drug reps, but it is not an adequate response. These pills may be covered by insurance, but we are indirectly paying the price through our astronomical health insurance premiums if we are fortunate enough to be covered. So by prescribing or taking costly medications, we are indirectly responsible for raising premiums and shutting more and more people out of the health care system.

It is time for a change. It is time we spent our hard-earned money on techniques to prevent illness rather than costly treatments that line corporate pockets. Each American citizen should be provided with a water purification system or have a public water supply that is not loaded with toxic chemicals. Toxic releases should be further reduced to insure that each American has clean air to breathe. Pesticide, irradiation, growth hormone, genetically modified, additive-free food should be offered at prices affordable to all Americans, not just the wealthy. Corporate polluters should be held accountable and swiftly made to clean up their messes (after all they are making a fortune at the expense of our air and water quality) so taxpayers aren’t left footing the bill while the corporate executives are slapped on the wrist and left with ample resources to move on to other polluting endeavors.

If these changes were made, we would see a dramatic reduction in the incidence of acute and chronic illness in adults as well as our precious children. There is a reason that the cancer rate has skyrocketed from 1 in 8000 in 1901 to nearly 1 in 2 today. Arguing over how to pay for coverage of expensive treatments is a mute point. Let’s prevent Americans from getting sick in the first place! This is not an unrealistic goal if we cease sponsoring pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies through third-party payers and crack down on corporate pollution.


College Students Taking Rocket Fuel

September 13, 2007

College students trying to earn a little cash may be taken advantage of. Read about a new threat on campuses.

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College Students Taking Rocket Fuel

September 5, 2007

Did you know that poor college students have been used as guinea pigs? In 2000, Students at Loma Linda University in California were paid $1000 to participate in a study funded by defense contractor Lockheed Martin. The students were required to take a daily dose of perchlorate, rocket fuel, for 6 months. Those who were taking the highest dose, were taking an amount that was 83 time higher than California’s Action Level for rocket fuel in drinking water. Healthy males were also recruited at Harvard and Oregon State Universities to drink water laced with rocket fuel. The US Air Force may be conducting similar studies at other locations.

Rocket fuel is a known toxin that decreases thyroid hormone function and interferes with normal brain function. Nearly one in ten people are believed to have an undiagnosed thyroid condition, particularly low thyroid hormone production. Chemical contamination by rocket fuel, pesticides, dioxins, and PCBs are likely suspects.

Lower levels of thyroid hormone can cause attention deficit disorder, poor learning ability, depression, anxiety, unexplained weight gain, fatigue, and sexual apathy. While sexual apathy might be considered a desirable trait in college students, the inability to learn is certainly not.

According to the National Institutes of Health’s International Review Board (IRB), children over the age of 18 do not require parental permission to participate in research studies. Students are solicited by want ads in college papers and on advertisements on public transportation. Research is portrayed to be safe because it is conducted at respectable institutions. A website geared toward students downplays the risks claiming that “doctors will always go to great lengths to make sure you’re safe. So as long as you answer all the doctor’s questions honestly, any bad reaction will be a completely freak occurrence.” The website goes on to denounce “those pesky ethicists [that] have made an outcry against these types of trials”. (www.soyouwanna.com)

In 1996 a 19-year-old University of Rochester student died after undergoing a procedure as a volunteer subject in a research study. The study was to determine the role that airborne chemicals play in lung cancer. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the host of the study, responded by stating that the procedure that killed this young nursing student “carries a low risk”.

So before you pack up your child and ship them off to college, please be sure they know that research studies are not always safe . The potential for harm may outweigh the monetary benefits.

(References: Sharp, Renee and Walker, Bill. Rocket Science: Perchlorate and the Toxic Legacy of the Cold War. Environmental Working Group. July, 2001. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1996/wandeath-0410.html. http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/guineapig/guineapig.html.)