More corruption exposed at the FDA

Remember Vioxx? There's a lot more where that came from. Remember According to the NYT, more corruption has been uncovered at the FDA. According to the unanimous conclusion of FDA's scientists, a medical device called the Menaflex was unsafe. But after receiving what an F.D.A. report described as “extreme,” “unusual” and persistent pressure from four Democrats from New Jersey — Senators Robert Menendez and Frank R. Lautenberg and Representatives Frank Pallone Jr. and Steven R. Rothman — agency managers overruled the scientists and approved the device for sale in December. According to the story, the members of Congress each received significant campaign contributions from the manufacturer. The FDA is now considering rescinding approval for the device. All of this raises an interesting question: Who would be more qualified to determine whether a medical device should go to market, A) a medically trained scientist or B) members of Congress who receive campaign contributions from the manufacturer of the device? Easy call, right? Anyone with a high school education should know that politicians shouldn't override scientists on matters of science. If this were a just world, one or more people would be going to prison for this corruption which has endangered (and potentially, injured) many of those people purchasing the defective device.

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Is the goal of health care reform merely to save lives?

Is the goal of health care reform merely to save lives? If so, there are much better ways to do it than universal health insurance, as indicted by Daniel Akst in The Atlantic:

A new Harvard study estimates that lack of health insurance kills about 45,000 Americans annually, which is 2.5 times as many as the previous best estimate commonly cited in the health care debate. This is a big difference (27,000 additional lives). But it still pales in comparison with the more than one million Americans who die annually by their own hands--which they use to light cigarettes, lift forks and convey too many alcoholic beverages to their lips.

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Garrison Keillor describes his stroke

What's it like to have a stroke, then get really lucky? Garrison Keillor tells it like only Garrison Keillor can tell it:

[A] neurologist shook my hand and said: "I hope you know how lucky you are." That was pretty clear as I walked down the hall, towing my IV tower, and saw the casualties of serious strokes. Here I was sashaying along, like a survivor of Pickett's Last Charge who had suffered a sprained wrist.

What's it like to get world class treatment for your stroke when you have a strong sense of social justice?

Rich or poor, young or old, we all face the injustice of life -- it ends too soon, and statistical probability is no comfort. We are all in the same boat, you and me and ex-Gov. Palin and Rep. Joe Wilson, and wealth and social status do not prevail against disease and injury. And now we must reform our health insurance system so that it reflects our common humanity. It is not decent that people avoid seeking help for want of insurance. It is not decent that people go broke trying to get well. You know it and I know it. Time to fix it.

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Ideology Be Damned!

This is the reason we need healthcare reform in this country. Crystal Lee Sutton has died at age 68 because her insurance company diddled and dawdled over whether or not it would pay for the medicine necessary to save her life. Don't know who Crystal Lee Sutton was? She was the real-life inspiration for Norma Rae, Sally Fields' excellent portrayal of a small-town union organizer who went to bat for workers' rights. This kind of thing should not happen. When profit---or overhead, however you wish to consider the problem---is placed ahead of life, those arguing against reform should hang their heads in shame. They cling to an ideology about free markets and consumer choice as though such things are part of the Ten Commandments (which most of them don't follow either) and always at the expense of lives. Dammit, people, we're talking about a system which should operate for people's benefit, not for its own. A system is simply a method of approach, a way of doing something, and if it can be changed once, it can be changed again if the reforms are found insufficient! It is no argument to reject reforms on the basis that the reforms might cause harm, since the present system is already causing harm. It is a foulness to our present system that many people find that in order to vouchsafe their own health or the health of their loved ones they must fight for the very thing they were told they had purchased in the first place. This is in no way different from lending predators who lied to people in course of borrowing money to buy a home. The average person has neither the time or expertise to understanding every clause and addendum in a complex contract and must rely on what he or she is told. Either you have insurance coverage or you do not. It should not come as a surprise after you are already sick and discover that there are codicils which protect the insurance company from having to pay out what in principle they obligated themselves to do if not by the letter of the policy then by the spirit of agreement with a customer. Yet thousands, millions of consumers daily learn to their dismay that they don't actually have what they thought they had bought. This is not a game. If the private sector is more concerned over profit margins than providing service, then they should lose the privilege of offering said service.

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Snoring: The Upshot

Google "snoring" and you'll get a flood of how-to advice on how not to, and a lot of reasons to stop. Not surprisingly, the majority of links recalled were advertisements for devices, medications, surgical maneuvers, and their purveyors. In today's pharm-centered universe, the vibration caused by air traveling through our airways has been pathologized and vilified as the destroyer of otherwise sound relationships. Not only is it bad for your love life. Snoring is deadly! According to snoring alarmists, snorers who have the audacity to continue sleeping noisily can look forward to myriad cardiovascular disorders including heart attacks, atherosclerosis, and stroke, marital and erectile dysfunction (chicken-or-the-egg?), drowsiness, lack of focus and...Zzzzzzzzz. Admittedly, I'm no doctor, but let me suggest that there are some positive effects of snoring (besides the possibility that it keeps you healthy by means of temporary asphyxiation). It's a much cheaper and more effective method of subjecting those around you to intense jealousy ("Please, please, make him stop so I can lose consciousness ASAP") than, say, buying a pair of Jimmy Choos. Then again, I don't usually begrudge those masochists the pain of walking around... But I digress. If you would rather not invest in a medical solution, you could try banishing the banshee by learning a new instrument. You guessed it: the Didgideroo! Ah, it's time for bed. Maybe the lumbering Saint Bernard downstairs will give it a rest so I can, too.

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