Food, Inc.: Taking a closer look at the food you eat

Tonight, my wife and I watched Food, Inc., a highly informative 90-minute documentary that takes a close look at the food we eat and where it comes from. We were expecting to see many revolting pictures of animals being butchered. There certainly were a fair amount of butchering scenes, although the creators of the film constantly focused on presenting useful information rather than trying to shock the viewer. This video was not made to appeal unfairly to the emotions. It was made to present compelling information about an important series of food-related issues. Watching this video reminded me of something that was quite disturbing. The mainstream media and our own government do not starkly peel back the happy veneer of the food production industry. Thus, Food, Inc. also serves as a meta-indictment of those failed institutions of government and the media. Each of the eleven topics covered was compelling, and each of them was presented with a fair amount of balance, despite the fact that most of the corporations running factory farms refused to appear in the video. Consider that Wal-Mart (and a few other companies) was presented as a corporation that was actually trying to make some changes that would benefit the health of Americans-it was not presented as a perfect corporation, but it was given credit for trying to make some changes in the right direction. One corporation in the video was presented as notoriously evil: Monsanto, based in my hometown of St. Louis Missouri. What else could you say about a corporation that refuses to allow farmers to use seeds from their crops, and surreptitiously watches farmers with a team of 75 intimidating investigators, bringing many of them to court for daring to reuse their seeds. This has never before happened in the history of the world that a farmer has lost the right to use his or her own seed crop as he or she wants. If you're thinking, "Well, they should never have signed up to buy that genetically modified seed in the first place," the video will have you thinking again. Some of the victims are non-Monsanto-customer farmers in nearby fields, who were forced to defend themselves in court at great expense after Monsanto accused them of illegally using Montana's product, whereas the seeds often blow onto their property from neighbors' fields. The episode about the seed-washer sued by Monsanto is heartbreaking. After watching Food Inc., you'll never think the same way about corn. I'm not talking about enjoying a fresh meal of corn on the cob--get that image out of your head. I'm talking about highly processed corn. Almost anything you might purchase at a typical grocery store is pumped full of empty calories and questionable substances derived from processed corn (and soybeans). If you're wondering why corn-based sodas and chips are so cheap, and broccoli and peas are so expensive, the answer lies in federal subsidies controlled by huge agribusinesses. Imagine a world where healthy foods were cheap and where foods injected with corn fructose were not subsidized-- that's certainly not the world in which we live. The video reveals that many of the purportedly great variety of fast foods are actually dressed up processed corn. One of the most memorable lines for me was uttered by an especially articulate man who raises organic meat (you know, where animals were not confined in small dark spaces and forced to eat corn, but are actually allowed to eat grass and to graze). He suggested that if huge meat factories (chicken, hogs and beef) were forced to make their factories with transparent walls, people would stop buying their products. It was interesting that the only footage from inside the factory farms was through the use of hidden cameras. The big factory farms refused to give tours to the producers. One exception was a woman farmer who had had enough of it, and went on camera to give a tour of her chicken farm, which was actually run in a much more humane way than most of the dark enclosed factories where the great majority of America's chickens are raised and slaughtered. Even her operation, considerably more humane than most factory farms (it actually was open to sunlight) still wasn't a pretty sight. Another thing I found revolting was the way that it illegal immigrants work hard to produce food for the rest of America, some of them for a dozen years or more, but they are unceremoniously rounded up from their trailers up in a constant stream of police raids. All of this while the companies that have made constant use of the hard labor of these undocumented people are left unscathed. There are very few raids for illegal immigrants at the factory farms-this would interfere with the profitable assembly line. Image by Raman at Flickr (with permission) Image by Raman at Flickr (with permission) There's a lot more to Food, Inc. then I've described in this brief post. I highly recommend that you watch Food Inc. if you care about what you're putting in your stomach. Even if you think you have a cast-iron stomach, take a look at Food Inc. and you'll be primed to start eating more smartly. Although much of the information presented in this video is disturbing, the video is full of good suggestions for what you can do about these problems. So is the movie's website (with regard to each of these topics, simply click the "Learn More" link).

Continue ReadingFood, Inc.: Taking a closer look at the food you eat

Killing antibiotics

How is it that super-germs are difficult to find in Norway? It's because Norwegians have severely cut back on the use of antibiotics. This approach has saved many lives in Norway and it could save tens of thousands of lives in the United States. What do Norwegian doctors do instead of providing antibiotics?

Norwegians are sanguine about their coughs and colds, toughing it out through low-grade infections. "We don't throw antibiotics at every person with a fever. We tell them to hang on, wait and see, and we give them a Tylenol to feel better," says Haug. Convenience stores in downtown Oslo are stocked with an amazing and colorful array — 42 different brands at one downtown 7-Eleven — of soothing, but non-medicated, lozenges, sprays and tablets. All workers are paid on days they, or their children, stay home sick. And drug makers aren't allowed to advertise, reducing patient demands for prescription drugs.
Full story can be found at MSNBC.

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No option for those killed or injured by medical devices

When it comes to scrutinizing the use of new medical devices, the FDA has fallen down on the job.

Two new studies find shortfalls in the Food and Drug Administration's approval process for heart devices such as pacemakers and stents. Safety targets often weren't clearly spelled out in the research submitted by device makers and important patient information was missing. . .
If you are killed or injured by a defective medical device, you can still sue the manufacturer though, right? No longer true. State products liability suits are no longer available. They have been preempted by the U.S. Supreme Court case of Riegel v. Medtronic. These two revelations demonstrate that safety of consumers of medical devices is not the highest consideration of lawmakers.

Continue ReadingNo option for those killed or injured by medical devices

The nebulous nuts and bolts of health care reform

How is that "health care reform coming? New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a savvy businessman with a long and successful career, is skeptical regarding the pending health care reform bills. This is what he had to say on Meet the Press today:

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: You know, if you really want to object to something in this bill, number one, I have asked congressperson after congressperson, not one can explain to me what's in the bill, even in the House version. Certainly not in the other version. And so for them to vote on a bill that they don't understand whatsoever, really, you got to question how--what kind of government we have. Number two, when they talk about bending the curve, as, as the governor said, bending the curve is a flimflam euphemism for increasing costs, but we're going to say we'll do it at slightly lower rate than we would have otherwise.

GOV. PATRICK: That's not what I'm talking about.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: I understand that. But they are not talking about reducing costs, they're talking about chancing the first derivative.

MR. GREGORY: Slowing it, right.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Slowing the growth down. And when you look at where the cost savings are going to be, well, they're going to cut something out of Medicare and Medicaid. Now, anybody that runs for office will tell you, you don't do that.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: I mean, the bottom line is it's so politically explosive, it really would be a first time in the history of the world if they ever cut anything out of either of those two programs.

I suspect that based upon the utter inability of any credible knowledgeable person to frankly state the cost of "health care reform," that Americans are in for a rude awakening. Consider the starting point: the terrible financial condition of Medicare. Here's how bad it is:

The present value of unfunded obligations under all parts of Medicare during FY 2007 over a 75-year forecast horizon is approximately $34.0 trillion. In other words, this amount would have to be set aside today such that the principal and interest would cover the shortfall over the next 75 years.

No private non--criminal corporation would submit operating budget this insane. Yet this is the type of program that we have come to expect from Congress, and it is based upon scores of accounting tricks. These sorts of tricks and traps are exactly what has been alleged about the current proposals for "health care reform." Consider the arguments articulated in the November 13, 2009 issue of Reason.

Congress is using "every budget gimmick in the book" to conceal hundreds of billions in healthcare-reform costs that will lead to "massive tax increases" and higher insurance premiums, one of the country's leading healthcare experts warns.

Early on, Obama originally pledged that his plan would save the typical American family $2,500 a year in healthcare costs. The main purpose of health care reform was "cost control." (see Obama's State of the Union Address from February 2009). Where is this cost control in the current bills? How can we possibly cover tens of millions of people who can't otherwise afford coverage, yet save lots of money for those who are paying their way? Both of the current proposals both depend on a government-funded free-market program administered by for-profit insurance companies. Paul Krugman has argued, however, that the free market doesn't work regarding health care.

[Y]ou don’t know when or whether you’ll need care — but if you do, the care can be extremely expensive. The big bucks are in triple coronary bypass surgery, not routine visits to the doctor’s office; and very, very few people can afford to pay major medical costs out of pocket. This tells you right away that health care can’t be sold like bread. It must be largely paid for by some kind of insurance. And this in turn means that someone other than the patient ends up making decisions about what to buy. Consumer choice is nonsense when it comes to health care. And you can’t just trust insurance companies either — they’re not in business for their health, or yours.

The second thing about health care is that it’s complicated, and you can’t rely on experience or comparison shopping.. . .

We are a country filled with people who abuse their bodies and then depend upon the health care system's expensive treatment. The annual cost of obesity alone in the U.S. is $200 Billion. In fact, we spend less than one percent of total health care spending on prevention. Where is the "stick" (or the "carrot") in the current proposals that will actually make obese, chain-smoking and otherwise reckless Americans change their wasteful and destructive ways? These are my concerns about the current proposals. Well, those concerns and these and these and these . And now we have the business-savvy mayor of NY stating that he has yet to find a member of Congress who understands how the current proposals would really work. And we have a Congress with a history of not actually dealing with fiscal catastrophe, but only putting it off for a few years. We have a system that has yet to explain how it will force Americans to live healthier life styles, in order to save that money. We have competing 2,000 page proposals loaded with lots of stuff that will only be revealed AFTER "reform" is passed. I can already hear it: "We didn't catch that obscure language inserted by [financially interested corporation] that will cost taxpayers an additional $40 Billion every year"). What sustains the momentum is that we will purportedly be insuring thirty million more people, even though it is not clear what we will be giving up in order to do that. Things that motivate the idea of "health care reform" are some low-hanging fruit such portability and restrictions on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. I've advocated that we should pass laws regarding these obviously needed measures separately, so that we can then really look carefully at the rest of the proposal separately, to just it on its own merits, if we can cut through the morass of accounting gymnastics that apparently serve as the backbone of most of the package. Another thing that motivates passing "health care reform" is the name of the legislation itself. Who could possibly be against "health care reform." A good title does wonders for ramming through indecipherable legislation. This is the current health care "reform," as best I can discern it. It's not looking promising, because it's not looking financially sustainable.

Continue ReadingThe nebulous nuts and bolts of health care reform

Firedoglake on why we need to kill the current health care bill

I received the following mass emailing from Jane Hamscher of Firedoglake. How bad is the current bill?

Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations -- whether you want to or not. If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS After being forced to pay thousands in premiums for junk insurance, you can still be on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses. Massive restriction on a woman's right to choose, designed to trigger a challenge to Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. Paid for by taxes on the middle class insurance plan you have right now through your employer, causing them to cut back benefits and increase co-pays. [more . . .]

Continue ReadingFiredoglake on why we need to kill the current health care bill