over-fluoridated water might lower IQ

2.13: summary:
. usa's legal fluoride limit may be
higher than needed to control cavities;
and cavity-fighting levels of fluoride
may not significantly lower IQ;
but fluoride is an unnecessary expense:
only people who eat grains and sugar
get the cavities that need to be
patched by this added fluoride .

#quackwatch mineral supps deemed useless

12.17: web.health/selenium
/#quackwatch mineral supps deemed useless:
editorial by a medical journal:

"Fortmann et al reviewed trial evidence to update
the usa's Preeventive Services Task Force recommendation
on the efficacy of vitamin supplements
for primary prevention in community-dwelling adults
with no nutritional deficiencies .
[ and no mineral deficiencies -- notice that .]
. after reviewing 3 trials of multivitamin supplements
and 24 trials of single or paired vitamins
that randomly assigned more than 400,000 participants,
the authors concluded that there was no
clear evidence of a beneficial effect
of supplements on all-cause mortality,
cardiovascular disease, or cancer ."
". the only supplements not gaining in popularity
are beta-carotene (some uses increased lung cancer)
and vitamin E (some uses increased all-causes mortality)."
"... mineral supplements are ineffective for
preventing mortality or morbidity
due to major chronic diseases."

. since most cancers happen to the elderly,
cancer could be considered to be
"morbidity due to major chronic diseases";
so, the editor of this journal
seems to be asserting that
mineral supplementation would prevent no cancers .

healthcare, christians, devils, & dollars

7.1: co.apt/pol/healthcare/
christians against obamacare are not middle class:. a born-again -furious child is chanting:
"( everyone needs to **** !! ),
[a word that can humorously mean both
{ practice birth control
, grumble incessantly}]
 . hearing this child has me kidding about
obamacare pressuring us to eat right;
but seriously, the problem with our economy
is the unfair christian,
demanding we have freedom of diet*
yet also demanding we subsidize
medicalization of bad diets
with emergency room care that is paid for
on the backs of middle class insurance payers
-- not paid by the poor and rich
where most christians come from .
* [9.27: to be fair:
. christians don't necessarily agree with
freedom of diet;
in fact, gluttony is a "(deadly 7) sin .]

7.5: co.apt/pol/healthcare/
how could they hate obamacare?:
. how could the masses hate obamacare?
do they know how the middle class
is getting gouged by mandatory e.r. care?
[9.27:
. most who still have jobs don't pay healthcare,
and that's exactly why fewer of us have jobs!
. after seeing the steeply rising trend of
healthcare benefits due to free e.r. care,
employers are outsourcing our jobs
to countries with more sensible policies .]

7.8: todo.web/pol/healthcare/obamacare assumes
everyone is getting healthcare through insurance!
. I thought the whole point of needing to use the ER,
is that doctor's and hospitals wouldn't let you pay
except through an insurance agency .

7.18: co.apt/healthcare/obamacare won't keep costs down:
. did you know we give $25 billion to diabetics?
 . just a five % decrease in diabetes
 could save an estimated $25 billion every year!. that's a lot of money,
 and things like dialysis are inately expensive,
 but did you see how much our doctors cost?
 could we get them to take $40k  instead of $400k?
 we could hire 10times more of them,
 and give them a needed break . no way!
 obamacare couldn't even get them to
 agree to at least getting paid only
 relative to their worth:
 by how much they improved health
 rather than how many scripts they wrote .
 . you know why?
 because we are ***heads!
 [@] {arrogantly gluttonous, like drug fiends}
 . the doctors know that wellness starts with
 patients who listen to "(you need a diet)
 but they know patients ignore such advice
 and then demand a pill for their problems .
 -- how can you make any money
 getting paid to make the ***head well ?!

7.12: co.apt/pol/healthcare/
cheaper doctor is complicated:
. finding a cheaper doctor is complicated:
they are not just healers but drug police;
and, high trust is expensive;
eg, suppose we get laborers to be doctors;
if they abuse drugs and lose their medical license
they just go back to being laborers;
but make doctors high,
and they will fall hard .
. another thing that raises cost is that they are
only getting paid if they share air with you?
that's not a very smart use of a rare resource:
they should be seeing patients by video
to do most of the interviews;
how often do you really need
a physical exam? consider this:
if doctors would just get to know
you, your habits, and listen
to your perceived problems,
they might have your problems solved
without having to share your germs .
[9.27:
. one way to lower the cost of interviews,
is to get college students to do the them;
they can write the doctor a report,
and the doctor can add to the report
after making an additional, shorter interview .
. also, you can call any time
to add things to your file,
and a nurse will do just that
and read back what was written .]

7.19: news.pol/healthcare/
Rush speechless about Canada's success:
. Rush's Limbaugh's agenda today
includes informing us that
while usa wealth slides,
canada's wealth has risen
-- now higher than usa's --
but he has no comment on this news?
nothing to say about gluttonous socialists, Rush?
. could it be that universal healthcare
was very good for Canadian business?!
ha!

7.26: news.pol/healthcare/
a doctor's take on care's high cost:
the people who profit from healthcare.
(more)

. there are a number of overfed cats in health care
who are being given all the food they meow for.
Here are a few examples:
# Drug companies:
If government and private insurers
were not paying for most of the drug costs,
we wouldn’t buy most medications
-- the full price is impossibly high.
Even many generics are over $100 per month.
Would you trade a $500K payment from gov
for a $20K check from the consumer?
No more than my cat would turn down
the third bowl of cat food.
# Hospitals:
Stents ‘R Us hospital in our town
just built a large cardiology wing
They did this using money from a procedure
that has not been shown
to prolong life or save lives.
# Ancillary Services:
Why does a CT scan in India
cost a fraction of the cost in the U.S.?
because they can be, due to third-party payors
who shield consumers from the cost .
They pass them on to the taxpayers
or raise the rates of the insurance policies.
It doesn’t hurt them to pay so much,
so they just keep feeding the kitty.
# Doctors:
Why do docs see so many patients
that they can’t offer good care,
and why do specialists take home
3/4 of a $million ? Because they can.
Someone keeps filling the bowl.
. the third-party payor system
hides the cost from the consumer
and gets us all used to the idea of
paying for all that cat food.
All of this money is thrown at care,
and what does it get us?
Does it get us better care?
Does it get us longer lives?
Does it get us happier patients,
or satisfied doctors?
-- Rob Lamberts, MD,
is an internal medicine-pediatrics physician
who blogs at More Musings (of a Distractible Kind).

7.26: co.apt/pol/healthcare/3rd-party payer syndrome
started with medicaid and nixon's cheap food program:
( reviewing 6.20: news.pol/purges/reaganomics/
republican nixon criticized for price-raising trade barriers). could anyone ruin this country more than nixon?
 trying to beat inflation with cheap food
he had devastated the food quality;
at the same time,
he had just started to give away
free medical (medicaid) to welfare cases;
and that is when people's health
went straight down the toilet
even as health care costs
were going straight up .
[. medicaid is what started that culture of
3rd-party payer syndrome
where they can ask for any price, because,
the person that actually pays is the taxpayer
who doesn't even see
how the money is being spent,
while the medicaid consumer
knows how it is spent,
but has no idea how much is spent .
. the politician apparently doesn't care
because the corporate profits translate into
both corporate taxes and campaign contributions .

The Shangri-La #Diet debate replays #Atkins

2011.11.9: web.health/diet/shangrila diet:
[2012.1.17: summary of news:
.  psychologist professor Seth Roberts
had written The Shangri-La Diet:
The No Hunger Eat Anything
Weight Loss Plan (2006)
. the point of the title is that
the book was not so much about dieting
as it was about retaining your dieting results
by the use of associative learning theory
for lowering your Body-Fat Set Point .
. having some personal anecdotal evidence,
he wrote the book to ask the public
if they would like to join an online experiment
(Shangri-La Diet forums at sethroberts.net).
. Dr.Ford accused him of abusing his professional title:

"( Dr. Roberts has not been shy or circumspect about
touting his credentials as an
associate professor at University of California, Berkeley.
However, despite his status as an academic,
he has opted to bypass his own colleagues
and the checks and balances of his own profession.
Rather he chose to go straight to the lay press.
Obviously by mentioning his university affiliation,
he intended to give the added weight to his conclusions
that such a position would appear to justify.
Why wouldn't he have studied his diet
the way researchers normally do
when they want to establish the validity of a hypothesis
(and I don't mean with a sample size of one)
before publishing widely? .)]

my reaction to Dr.Ford:
. what is the point of science?
pretty spendy isn't it?
you hear about $millions involved .
. and of course, "(the quacks always say that!)
-- and also predictably,
the quacks point out that if you follow the money
there is a conspiracy between FDA, BigPharma,
and Medical professionals (Doctors, Consultants, ...) .
. it might even seem true when you find out
BigPharma essentially funds the FDA
-- essentially funding your own watchdog?!
. and Doctors don't look too saintly either
with their medical cartel artificially creating
a shortage of doctors to keep their wages high .
. yet quacks make outlandish claims,
and there is a good reason for quackwatch;

but then I watched them take down Dr.Atkins,
despite his referencing good science
-- science that did apply to his program .
( well, I didn't read Atkins' first book ...
let's assume he was always well-referenced: )