Quotations of Note - No Food for You

If I want to stop poisonous partisanship, I have to stop jumping on political opponents with glee and disdain. So hard to be civilized. And so important.

Trump wants to take food stamps from the working poor. Spectrum of thoughts below the video which supplies relevant facts. Yes, Virginia, there are facts. 

When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich. 

Jean Jacques Rousseau

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

Ezekiel 16:49

If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.
John Steinbeck

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Henry Louis Mencken

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.
 Mahatma Gandhi

The State of Missouri is a Sexpig Rapist Peeker Pervert.

Graphic by Favianna Rodriguez.

What is happening in Missouri? 

“It is the moment that we have long been warning about,” Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, director of state media campaigns at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Vox: “the day that abortion access is eliminated without ever overturning Roe.”

I did a series about the pervert sexpig males who populate the wombnazi movement. I had to quit because I was giving myself bad dreams. I am a rape survivor. Nevertheless, I have to write about this sexpig being paid by a US State to humiliate and degrade women. So without further comment meet Dr. Randall Williams, director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

I am at a loss for words. Sickening? Perverse? No word or words seem adequate to describe State sponsored rape-stalking. Run the tape. How you like the bow tie?

FANghazi ! - Update

Skeletor rides again. I know PROGRESSIVES will whine now and call me looksist. Up their giggy. Implying Governor Rick Scott of Florida is a monster is right on point. See the article below. I think this would make a fabulous Halloween costume.

Better yet. Read the article in its entirety at the provided link. Then ask yourself:

Self - is this the kind of medical mind we want to have in charge of public health in the time of Ebola and antibiotic resistant Tuberculosis? And now Zika?

Essentially, Scott created a incurable virulent public disease vector to save money? So, how good is he on Zika? No good. Scott is offering Zika kits, we are told. Funny thing is, nobody knows where the kits are or how to get one.

I have been thinking and reading for awhile about this subject. If you feel like it, Cher Reader, kindly leave a comment and tell me what your Self thinks. I get lonely in the kitchen.

Rick Scott Shuts Down TB Hospital Amid 

"Worst Outbreak in 20 Years

Despite a warning from the Centers for Disease Control, it's the latest move by the Florida governor to gut public services.

—By Adam Weinstein\

Welcome to the Sunshine State: Republican-run since 1998, tea party-controlled since 2010, and fast becoming one of the lowest-service states in the nation. Which helps explain how lawmakers shut down its only tuberculosis clinic last month, just as the worst outbreak of the infectious disease in America's recent history flared up with a vengeance in Jacksonville, Miami, and who knows where else—an outbreak that state and local officials sat on until last month, according to an investigation published by the Palm Beach Post.

Tuberculosis—the lung-liquefying disease of "consumption"—is the world's second-biggest infectious killer, but had been largely eradicated in America in the early 20th century, owing to improvements in health services. A few flare-ups, mostly of foreign origin and mostly affecting indigent populations, continued to occur sporadically in the United States, which was why Florida in 1950 opened the AG Holley State Hospital in Lantana, just west of Palm Beach. AG Holley's website (which has since been taken down by the state) billed the facility as "the only public health hospital in Florida," a safe place where TB victims could be quarantined and cured, and one of the last such facilities in the US. ... read more at Mother Jones.

SuperBugs

I wrote two articles on SuperBugs. Sometimes I hate to be right. This is one of those times. I wrote one in 2013 and one in 2014.

The Poster Art comes from the WPA. I am just a small voice crying in the wilderness. 

SuperBugs in Our Food

and

A Vast Wasteland May Soon Be Upon Us

Guess what. SuperBugs are here now.

Superbugs are routine bacteria that have learned how to avoid being killed by antibiotics. When this ability extends across multiple different types (classes) of antibiotics, the bugs are deemed multi-drug resistant (MDR) and qualify as “superbugs”.

We are now entering a dangerous time in the control of superbugs. For each of the four superbug categories we know the control solutions but ensuring these get implemented is a key challenge to our health system and society.
-. M. Lindsay Grayson, Professor of Infectious Disease, University of Melbourne

Our government as a whole dithers around worrying about who pees where and does nothing. Worst Congress ever. To be fair, I must commend Obama for his actions during the Ebola crisis. But then, Obama is not Congress.

The pharmaceutical industry works only to develop drugs they can market quickly and make a huge profit on before the inevitable class action suits arrive. Many of these superdrugs, quickly developed and marketed on TV, kill and maim people. 

Work on new antibiotics, do they? GO HERE for a report on that and maybe tell me what you think. I think the large pharmaceutical companies are little more than legal drug dealers.

Congress works on keeping people from having drugs they need as a solution in the War on Drugs. See Mike Evans for how well that is working.

Third Leading Cause of Death and Misery is Medical Mistakes

I am going to share some of Mike Evans writing today about a mutual concern.

I have been putting the task off because it means ferreting around in the feelings I had when I fell in my garden and got badly hurt. I experience ptsd when I go into my garden.

I am still going to grueling physical therapy twice a week. So trauma is still very fresh in my mind. I could not remember where I put whatever crap I wrote about falling and not receiving proper medical treatment. I am still feeling the results of concussion.

As I find stuff, I will add to this essayette. So Mike and you, Cher Reader, can read them. I might have put it under the label Torture. 

So this is what Mike Evans wrote. He spoke to my condition. You can contact Mike Evans directly with any feedback at:

5702450544@windstream.net

https://disqus.com/by/6abcmember

Art by Favianna Rodriguez.

Philadelphia doctors accused of selling $5M in pills (6abc.com)

Editorial page

commentary by @6abcmember:disqus

posted Fri May 13th 2016

Sorry Jim. But the "ugly truth" and far greater crime behind this story is how the DEA's forcing our nation's doctors (thru intimidation and outright threats) to stop writing prescriptions for painkillers of any kind regardless of a patient's health circumstances and genuine medical need for them.

The untold truth is millions of patients every day are being given no alternative but to purchase whatever they can get off the black market or continue suffering in constant chronic pain. Isn't that a wonderful choice for lifelong decent law-abiding citizens to be forced into having to make?

Why don't you do some genuine investigative research and reporting into that unspoken part of this story rather than simply towing the all too familiar self-aggrandizing government line? "Oh, look at the wonderful deed we just accomplished today. Everyone paste a gold star upon our forehead and pat us on the back for a job well done!"

Our nation's DEA has turned into yet another rogue Draconian government agency that's become totally out of control and now biting the very hands which feed it. Please make a sincere effort to report the hidden truth behind this greatest portion of the overall story rather than parrot the latest stream of Orwellian newspeak oozing from the government pipeline.

The black market for painkillers exists solely because a genuine medical need for them exists. The DEA has artificially and intentionally created that situation to justify its own existence and self-perpetuation. Get off the backs of our medical professionals and let them do their jobs!

The DEA is wholly unqualified to make any such medical or judgement calls thus has no business inserting themselves into our lives as if they did. What PhD's do they hold ensuring they're the least bit qualified to make any medical decisions and judgement calls which profoundly affect our daily lives and physical well being? None, nada, zip!

Get in a serious car accident where you break several ribs and are struggling literally every passing second in agonizing pain with each breath you take as your rib cage expands and contracts worsening the already unbearable pain.

We'll see what you think about the need for any serious kick butt painkillers then. I've been thru that very scenario not just once but twice during the past decade so fully understand their purpose and need.

I've also been in a few car accidents and serious winter season falls which injured my spine and neck. Try sitting at your desk in front of a TV camera doing your job at the 6ABC studios under those difficult circumstances.

An Rx grade analgesic becomes absolutely necessary to reduce the pain level just sufficiently enough to make it thru your workday. I've also been thru that scenario well over a dozen times during the past 59 years. You'll be stunned to discover just how dramatically slower clocks run when under such physical duress.

Not many of us are as fortunate nor well off as you benefit and salary wise where we might have the luxury of taking a day or two off under such difficult circumstances. Many can't afford to take even a single day off without being unable to pay our grocery and other monthly bills.

Without the proper level of pain medication (such as Morphine) when medically necessary given severe injury or trauma a patient will quickly go into shock and die before anything can be done to reverse the situation.

Anyone who's ever served on the battlefield has witnessed and knows this cold hard reality. In fact, it's how most everyone will eventually die. The body lapses into a state of shock for one reason or another and completely shuts down organ by organ like a chain of dominoes in very short order.

Respectfully, Mike Adams

Signs of the Month - Albuquerque in April 2014 - UPDATE

UPDATE 2: The man murdered in the video, James Boyd, was shot in the back and that is the shot that murdered him. The citizens of Albuquerque are battling their own police force.

ALBUQUERQUE — The 13 protesters who stormed the mayor’s office here and were arrested and jailed Monday said they were spurred by renewed outrage over the latest development in a string of fatal police shootings: An autopsy released last week showed the bullet that killed a homeless man, James Boyd, had been fired into his lower back.

UPDATE: See the raw video of the citizens of Albuquerque kicking butt and taking names. Way to go Albuquerque! We need more of this populist political participation. God bless voters. It is a long video and it is a thing of beauty. God bless voters. God bless America.

I had no trouble picking the political signs this month. These signs are from the Albuquerque Police Protest.


Police Assault Protest Against Police Violence

 Lauren McCauley, staff writer, Common Dreams

What began as a peaceful protest against the Albuquerque Police Department’s systemic abuse of force and frequent shooting of unarmed civilians spiraled into chaos Sunday evening after police officers—many mounted on horses and in riot gear—assaulted the demonstrators with tear gas.

Photo: Sergio Ximenez via Daily Lobo

Mental health consumer here, occasionally medicated for public safety. My Doctor suggested I not buy a gun.

UPDATE: Because of the Isla Vista mass murder by a mentally ill man, I thought it would be useful to publish this essay again. My apology to those who have already read it. I wrote this precisely a year ago. Not much has changed. In fact, the gagging of doctors has gotten worse. 

Do you want the government telling your doctor what to say to you? Or what S/he must not say to you? Did Nancy Lanza's doctor ask her about guns?

Gagging doctors and scientists or giving them a script to follow seems to be a right wing hobby these days. Who do we thank for the proliferation of bills dictating what your doctor can or must say to you? Is it ALEC, the NRA, the Republican Party or the Religious Right? 

AMA Supports Blocking Illegal Florida Gun Gag Law 

CHICAGO - The American Medical Association (AMA) today filed a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the State of Florida’s attempt to revive a law preventing doctors from asking patients and families about guns in the home. The brief condemned government-sponsored censorship of private medical discussions between patients and physicians.

It is easy to see why medical personnel might ask clients about guns. Take a look at the leading causes of death per the CDC. Suicide is #10. Chronic depression and bipolar disorder can and do kill patients and others who know them.

I wonder if Nancy Lanza was afraid of her son? Many parents of mentally ill children live in fear. The Police routinely ask medical professionals if they are aware of guns in the home in the course of investigations, for their own safety as well as ours. Do we really want to tell medical professionals they cannot ask about guns?

Psychiatrists and Psychologists who have clients like shooter Jared Loughner and the Lanza boy are understandably confused. They are damned if they do report a scary or aged client and damned if they do not. "Why did you not know they were dangerous?" we accuse. They may get sued if they speak about a client's behavior or their guns. And sued if they do not. Add gun gag laws to the mix. No wonder malpractice insurance is so high.

I think the President has got this. Now let us all make a lot of noise and help him out!

Obama enlists doctors for gun violence prevention

The president reassures physicians that they can ask patients about guns in the home and inform authorities if they believe someone might harm others.

By CHRISTINE S. MOYER, amednews staff. Posted Jan. 28, 2013.

 President Obama’s multifaceted plan to reduce gun violence calls on physicians to play an important role in decreasing shooting deaths and injuries in communities nationwide.

Obama clarified that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors from discussing gun safety. He assured physicians that they can report credible threats of violence without fear of penalties from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule. He also authorized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research the causes and prevention of gun violence, work that was suspended in 1996 after a National Rifle Assn.-backed push to block the study’s funding.

Dr. Denise Dowd

“We need to counsel our families about how to keep our children safe,” regardless of whether that involves bicycles, guns or swimming pools, said Denise Dowd, MD, MPH, a pediatric emergency physician and director of research in the Division of Emergency and Urgent Care at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo. 

Dr. Dowd said Obama’s clarification on this issue was needed, because some physicians were confused by language in the ACA that prohibits the collection of any data pertaining to firearm counseling, language inserted by pressure from the NRA.

Update: Kansas legislature proposing a Bill to prevent doctors from asking questions about gun ownership. Five other states have gag laws in the works. Why? 

 Sec. 9. No physician, other than a psychiatrist, shall inquire of any patient in conjunction with obtaining the patient's personal information and medical history, whether the patient has any firearms in such patient's home or on such patient's property and shall not require such information before providing treatment.

 

A Vast Wasteland May Be Soon Upon Us

UPDATE: I wrote the original essay below in October 2013. I so hate to be right.

Antibiotic resistance now 'global threat', WHO warns

By Pippa Stephens

We need the Affordable Care Act. Why is the government shut down to prevent us from having health care? I have nothing funny, happy or partisan to say about this debacle. I say this:

CDC Threat Report: ‘We Will Soon Be in a Post-Antibiotic Era’

• BY MARYN MCKENNA
 

The agency’s overall — and, it stressed, conservative — assessment of the problem:

• Each year, in the U.S., 2,049,442 illnesses caused by bacteria and fungi that are resistant to at least some classes of antibiotics;

• Each year, out of those illnesses, 23,000 deaths;

• Because of those illnesses and deaths, $20 billion each year in additional healthcare spending;

• And beyond the direct healthcare costs, an additional $35 billion lost to society in foregone productivity.

“If we are not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, said in a media briefing. “And for some patients and for some microbes, we are already there.”

WPA Poster

We are in bad shape. We are 37th in health care outcomes among all the nations. And we pay the most for health care. That is bad, it is true. It is worse than folks think. Some Governors are resisting the ACA. Their solutions to these serious disease issues are, for example:

1. Defund women's health clinics which diagnose and treat men and women for STDs;

2. Close the only public tuberculosis hospital in the state and house the contagious patients in an old motel in a large city.

This creates active disease vectors in major population areas. These diseases will bubble upward from the poor, who cannot get medical treatment, to the rich and privileged. Disease is no respecter of gated communities, security guards, or wealth. Everyone has heard of Typhoid Mary, right? As ye sow, so shall ye reap. Do we really want to go back to 1940s? Those who do not remember and learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Penis Pumps? Say what?

Pantalone

I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked. Why aren't the Roman Catholic Bishops foaming over penis pumps like they are foaming over birth control?

98% of Catholic women use contraception. Now we get an inkling of the reason they must use it. Self defense.

Women should not want contraception with no copay sayeth the Bishops. This is said in a world of government penis pumps and no copay viagra for Senior Men. Because chastity. Say what?

I wonder: Did the Bishops fight the ACA so hard because they are PRO or ANTI government funded penis pumps? Did penis pumps even cross their mind? No matter. You go, GrandPa. Gummint has your back. Shaking my head. So it goes.

Penis pumps cost U.S. government millions, watchdog cries waste

WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Penis pumps cost the U.S. government’s Medicare program $172 million between 2006 and 2011, about twice as much as the consumer would have paid at the retail level, according to a government watchdog’s report released on Monday.

The report by the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services said Medicare, the government health insurance system for seniors, paid nearly 474,000 claims for vacuum erection systems, or VES, totaling about $172.4 million from 2006 to 2011. Yearly claims for the devices nearly doubled from $20.6 million in 2006 to $38.6 million in 2011.

The Explainer-in-Chief is here to explain what is really UP. 

Are you listening, Congress?
Our Bill. He's a slut and I love him. 

SuperBugs in Our Food?

“If we are not careful, we will soon be in a post-antibiotic era,” Dr. Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director, said in a media briefing. “And for some patients and for some microbes, we are already there.”

Some very bad bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics. The Center for Disease Control has released a new report Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States 2013.

A number of these antibiotic resistant bacteria result in food borne illnesses. Antibiotic use in food animals can result in resistant bacteria, Campylobacter for example, that can spread to humans through the food we eat. Remember what Mom told you: Wash your hands! Wash your hands!

The CDC warns us:

The use of antibiotics is the single most important factor leading to antibiotic resistance around the world . Antibiotics are among the most commonly prescribed drugs used in human medicine. However, up to 50% of all the antibiotics prescribed for people are not needed or are not optimally effective as prescribed .

Antibiotics are also commonly used in food animals to prevent, control, and treat disease, and to promote the growth of food-producing animals . The use of antibiotics for promoting growth is not necessary, and the practice should be phased out . Recent guidance from the U .S . Food and Drug Administration (FDA) describes a pathway toward this goal.

It is difficult to directly compare the amount of drugs used in food animals with the amount used in humans, but there is evidence that more antibiotics are used in food production . 

What can you do to help with this serious health concern? The CDC answers many questions HERE. One way, and an increasing popular way to protect yourself and your community from antibiotic resistance, is to become a Vegetarian and/or reduce your consumption of commercially produced meat. The money quotation from the article:

Q: How can I prevent antibiotic-resistant infections?

Only use antibiotics when they are likely to be beneficial

A: By visiting this website, you are taking the first step to reducing your risk of getting antibiotic-resistant infections. It is important to understand that, although they are very useful drugs, antibiotics designed for bacterial infections are not useful for viral infections such as a cold, cough, or the flu. Some useful tips to remember are:

1. Talk with your healthcare provider about antibiotic resistance:
   • Ask whether an antibiotic is likely to be beneficial for your illness
   • Ask what else you can do to feel better sooner
2. Do not take an antibiotic for a viral infection like a cold or the flu.
3. Do not save some of your antibiotic for the next time you get sick. Discard any leftover medication once you have completed your prescribed course of treatment.
4. Take an antibiotic exactly as the healthcare provider tells you. Do not skip doses. Complete the prescribed course of treatment even if you are feeling better. If treatment stops too soon, some bacteria may survive and re-infect.
5. Do not take antibiotics prescribed for someone else. The antibiotic may not be appropriate for your illness. Taking the wrong medicine may delay correct treatment and allow bacteria to multiply.
6. If your healthcare provider determines that you do not have a bacterial infection, ask about ways to help relieve your symptoms. Do not pressure your provider to prescribe an antibiotic.