Man in coma for 23 years now fully conscious?

You've heard stories of people waking up from comas, but how often is it claimed that a person in a vegetative state for 23 years wakes up and can suddenly communicate with his family in sophisticated ways? That is the claim in this story, but not so fast! If you read the entire story, you'll see that family members are taking the man's fingers and pointing at a special keyboard. He's not able to move his hand himself. He's not able to speak. Does this sound suspicious? Check out this quote:

The therapist, Linda Wouters, told APTN that she can feel Houben guiding her hand with gentle pressure from his fingers, and that she feels him objecting when she moves his hand toward an incorrect letter. Arthur Caplan, a bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said he is skeptical of Houben's ability to communicate after seeing video of his hand being moved along the keyboard. "That's called 'facilitated communication,'" Caplan said. "That is ouija board stuff. It's been discredited time and time again. When people look at it, it's usually the person doing the pointing who's doing the messages, not the person they claim they are helping."
So there it is: Yet another case of hope prevailing over the evidence. This same issue of "facilitated communication" once swept the United States among people with severely autistic children. Many parents who desperately wanted to believe that their severely autistic children were suddenly writing sophisticated phrases have been devastated to learn that it was actually a case of "automatic writing," displaying the thoughts and the attitudes of the facilitators rather than the patients.

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Colonoscopies: a sure way to save thousands of lives every year.

Every year 50,000 Americans die of colon cancer or rectal cancer (combined, they are referred to as colorectal cancer). If Americans over 50 years of age (and those in other higher risk categories) were screened for colorectal cancer as recommended, 80% of these cancer deaths could be avoided. These numbers are staggering. To put them in perspective, about 3,000 Americans died during the 9/11 attacks, which caused this country to become apoplectic to the point where it started an entirely needless war that is currently in its seventh year. Needlessly undiagnosed colon cancer takes the lives of more than ten times as many Americans as 9/11 every year. Needlessly undiagnosed colon cancer killed enough Americans over the past twelve months to fill an entire major league baseball stadium. So where is the "war on colon cancer? My insurance company just send me a mailer reminding me of the importance of obtaining a colonoscopy, the gold standard for detecting and preventing colorectal cancer. The statistics are so stark that it would be irrational for anyone to not proceed with this procedure, even though going through with it are less than pleasant. Given that I'm 53 and I've never had such a procedure, I signed up. I started looking for information on the internet and found this highly informative video introduced by Katie Couric and featuring Dr. Jon LaPook, a gastroenterologist, who undergoes a colonoscopy on camera to demonstrate both the preparation and the procedure. After viewing this video, the entire thing looks a lot less daunting.
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Use nudity when potentially child-killing chemicals don’t garner enough attention

Back in September, Senator Al Franken and Rep. Steve Israel has introduced the "Household Product Labeling Act," which will enable consumers to determine whether potentially harmful chemicals are present in the household cleaning products they use. Here's the full text of the Senate version of the Act. Here's the problem:

In many households across the country, the entire family pitches in on household cleaning chores. The effort is obviously intended to keep everyone healthy by cutting down on germs, bacteria, and mold. But unfortunately, many of the ingredients in commonly used cleaning products may be dangerous themselves. Current law requires that product labels list immediately hazardous ingredients, but there is no labeling requirement for ingredients that may cause harm over time. Many chemicals contained in household products have been shown to produce harmful health effects. Consumers have a right to know which of these potentially harmful chemicals might be present in their kitchen and bathroom cupboards. This information is particularly important to families with small children, who as we all know have more direct contact with floors and household surfaces. This legislation simply makes that information readily available to consumers, giving them the opportunity to make an informed choice about the chemicals they bring into their homes.
This is an incredibly important bill, because consumers should have a right to know the chemicals to which they are exposing their families (see here for related post). How do you promote a bill when the "mere" sickness and death fail to attract enough attention? A private company called Method decided to shoot this clever (and somewhat provocative) video:

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Tear up the health care bill and start over.

I wrote a comment on this same issue last night, but I wanted to make it into a post as well, given the importance. Marcia Angel, M.D., former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, is highly critical of the proposed "health care reform." Although she admits that it accomplishes a few things, it is worse than doing nothing.

It throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system, with only a few improvements at the edges, and it augments the central role of the investor-owned insurance industry. The danger is that as costs continue to rise and coverage becomes less comprehensive, people will conclude that we've tried health reform and it didn't work. But the real problem will be that we didn't really try it.

Read the full post at Huffpo for Angel's clear and understandable ideas for meaningful (and not corrupt) health care reform. I agree with Angel that the current bill is an industry-coddling joke and that it is worse than doing nothing, for the reasons she offers. The House bill has a few pieces of low hanging fruit (e.g., portability), but at great unnecessary expense and waste. We need to tear up this celebrated new bill (celebrated by the Democrats, anyway) and start over. For more on Angell's ideas for reform, also see her recent appearance on Bill Moyer's show.

Continue ReadingTear up the health care bill and start over.