On the Link Between Alcohol and Breast Cancer

In 2018 Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones published a truly sobering article that deserves repeated attention:"Did Drinking Give Me Breast Cancer? The science on the link is clear, but the alcohol industry has worked hard to downplay it."

The statistics would be difficult to ignore, if they weren't downplayed by those who find these numbers inconvenient to an activity they enjoy:

Researchers estimate that alcohol accounts for 15 percent of US breast cancer cases and deaths—about 35,000 and 6,600 a year, respectively. That’s about three times more than the number of breast cancer cases caused by a mutation of the BRCA genes, which prompted Angelina Jolie, who carries one of the abnormal genes, to have both her healthy breasts removed in 2013. . . . But alcohol-related breast cancer kills more than twice as many American women as drunk drivers do. . . . [A] woman who consumes two to three drinks a day has a lifetime risk of about 15 percent—a 25 percent increase over teetotalers. By comparison, mammography reduces the death rate from breast cancer by about 25 percent. “Alcohol can undo all of that at about two drinks a day,” [Harvard Epidemiologist Walter] Willett says.

In addition to increasing the risk of breast cancer, the CDC reports that drinking increases the risk of cancer to the mouth, throat, larynx, esophagus, colon, rectum and liver.

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Resisting Wars of Discretion Could Save Lives at Home

Our belief in war as a solution to our foreign policy issues, despite the lack of clear objectives and confirmatory metric of "success," is hemorrhaging the U.S. budget. Where are the voices of politicians demanding that we justify this annual military spending by pointing to real life successes?

In the meantime, many Americans are going bankrupt in an effort to get the necessary medical care to stay alive (2/3 of all bankruptcies). Others simply give up and die.

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Out-of-Network Medical Insurance Hell

What Happens When You Don’t Pay a Hospital Bill? This article in the Atlantic gives detailed accounts. Every day you wake up not needing a hospital, you need to give gratitude. Where are all of the free-marketers when this rampant out-of-network bullshit is destroying people's lives. The government is not causing this, but it could offer solutions. Desperate and unconscious people WITH health insurance should not be unwittingly signing up for lives of harassment and economic destitution when they enter hospitals seeking medical care.

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The cost of asthma inhalers in the United States compared to other countries

I'm traveling abroad, a trip centered on teaching law school for a week in Istanbul. On the way out of the U.S., I had an asthma attack while walking through the perfume area of a Duty Free store in Atlanta. I had an inhaler, but it was getting low (my inhaler is the red Albuterol inhaler on the left. It costs about $70 or $80 WITH the insurance price. My first stop overseas was in Beirut, Lebanon, where I entered a pharmacy without a prescription. They didn't have Albuterol but the pharmacist sold me the Lebanese equivalent called Salres. Total price was $5. When I arrived at Istanbul Turkey, I visited a pharmacy and paid less than $2 for their equivalent, "Butalin," the one in the middle Again, no prescription needed, and the pharmacist assured me that this was an equivalent prescription. I am now in Madrid. Yesterday, I visited a pharmacy here, no prescription, and they sold me the "equivalent," the inhaler on the right. Price was 2.5 Euros (about $2.85). I spoke with the pharmacist in Spanish. I told her that in the United States, my inhaler costs about $80 with the insurance rate, $300 without. Her immediate reaction was shock at the price. The she became angry, and asked "What do children do when their families cannot afford the medicine?" I told her that I don't know, and that it is a terrible situation and that there is no excuse for it.

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Shall We Meet for Lunch or Hold a Walking Business Meeting in the Park?

“Let’s have lunch, OK?” That used to be my suggestion when I wanted to talk with someone, whether it be catching up with a friend or the need to discuss business. That was before the biometrics of Fitbit, among other things, nudged me to reach for a different way to conduct a small business meeting. Now, when I need to talk business, I often ask whether, instead of lunch, my acquaintance would like to talk while we walk in a park. I started doing this a couple years ago, and to my surprise the great majority of people would rather walk than sit in a restaurant or coffee shop.

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