Tne End of a Fight that Shouldn't Have Happened

In New York, a battle over patients rights was about to go to court:

NEW YORK (AP) — A 12-year-old New York City boy whose family battled a Washington hospital over his care has died in the hospital, the family's lawyer said Sunday.
Motl Brody was pronounced dead Nov. 4 by Children's National Medical Center in Washington, but a machine continued to inflate and deflate his lungs.
His remaining bodily functions ceased Saturday, the lawyer, Jeffrey Zuckerman, said.
...
Motl had been diagnosed with severe brain cancer and was at the hospital for six months.
His parents, who are Orthodox Jews, had clashed with the hospital over the hospital's desire to disconnect the ventilator. Although Motl had been pronounced dead, his heart was still beating with the help of a cocktail of intravenous drugs and adrenaline.
That heartbeat prompted Motl's parents to refuse the hospital's request to remove all artificial life support.
...
The family had asked the hospital to leave the breathing machine on and keep administering drugs until the boy's heart and lungs no longer respond.
Disagreements between families and medical providers over when to end care for terminally ill patients are common, experts say, but this case wound up in court with unusual speed.
On Nov. 2, the family asked a federal judge to block the hospital from doing any further tests for brain activity.
The hospital responded by asking a District of Columbia Superior Court judge for permission to discontinue treatment.

Let us make this clear. There should have been no disagreement. And that a hospital took legal action to discontinue treatment of a patient is absolutely outrageous.

The role of the doctor is to provide expert medical advice. One that has been given, it is the right of the patient or caregivers of the patient to refuse or accept that advice. Even if it is hopeless, it is the right of either the patient or the family to continue to continue to fight, and receive care up until the moment of death.

The medical profession, having long ago given up, do no harm, has gone further and further away from the goal of treating patients without the tradition, and clearly understood doctor patient relationships...in favor of abritrarily deciding who gets to live and who gets to die.

It is not the job of doctors to discard people who are too costly, too old, too sick, or have too little of a chance of survival, but rather to treat patients and follow the wishes of the sick and injured without bias. That fights between doctors and terminal patients (or their families) about how much care they deserve is a frightening development in medicine. One we should all be leary of. That the courts can be used by doctors to get rid of inconvenient patients is terrifying.

No Duh Story of the Day

Botox is Dangerous!

Months after US authorities sounded the alarm, European officials are warning of dangerous possible side effects from the wrinkle-smoothing injection Botox, according to a German news report.
The London-based European Medicines Agency had by August 2007 recorded more than 600 cases of negative effects potentially linked to the popular cosmetic treatment, Focus news weekly reported in its issue to be released Monday.

In 28 cases Botox users died.

While potentially devestating news to people trying to pretend they're 16 again, once you realize what botox is, it's not all that shocking.

The botulinum toxin is a natural poison found in decomposing food that is 40 million times more powerful than cyanide.

Injecting poison into yourself is bad? Whoda thunk it?

We banned wood treated with CCA because it contained small amounts of arsenic. Yet the FDA only notes that injecting something 40 million times more toxic than cyanide is a bad idea. No ban? What the hell good are they?

HPV Vaccine Not Safe

From ABC:

First, Gardasil's long-term effectiveness is unclear. Because cervical cancer takes years to develop, critics say the current information is insufficient to determine whether Gardasil works.
"The overall effect of the vaccines on cervical cancer remains unknown," Dr. Carolyn J. Haug, the Journal of Norwegian Medical Association's editor, wrote in the New England Journal editorial. "The real impact of HPV vaccination on cervical cancer will not be observable for decades."
...
"Most of the information people have right now leads them to believe that if they're vaccinated with Gardasil, they're protected for life, and that's just not true," said Dr. Diane Harper of Dartmouth College.
There is also the issue of side effects. FDA records reveal that, since Gardasil's approval, nearly 9,000 girls had "bad health events" after receiving their shots. These included 78 reported outbreaks of genital warts, 18 deaths and six cases of Guillain Barre Syndrome, which can result in paralysis. It is unknown whether there are unseen side effects, like decreasing the body's ability to fight off other strains of the HPV virus.

To compare this against an unsafe drug...Fen Phen had less than 200 negative side effects, and 1 death, when it was pulled from the market. Guardasil has about 4500% more health problems related and 1700% more deaths than the "unsafe" Fen Phen. Far from being considered a health risk, it is potentially going to be forced on young girls by several different states. By any objective standard of risk, this drug qualifies. The lead toy, and date rape drug toy scandals of last Christmas claimed no lives, and injured few, yet they held the headlines for days. This drug has killed almost 20 and has maimed thousands, and yet may be forced upon unwilling teens?

Where the hell is the FDA?

Why We Should Adopt the British Health Care System!

Because it's so damned cost eficient!

Patients 'should not expect NHS to save their life if it costs too much

The NHS should not always attempt to save someone's life if the cost is too much, the medical regulator has ruled.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Guidelines (Nice) has ruled for the first time that saving a life cannot be justified at any cost, in a review of its ethical guidelines.
Nice is facing growing criticism over the number of drugs it is now rejecting which are available throughout Europe and in America. Last week, it refused to sanction four kidney cancer drugs which can double life expectancy.
It has now rejected the so-called "rule of rescue" which stipulates that people facing death should be treated regardless of the costs. The rule is based on the natural impulse to aid individuals in trouble.
In a report on "social values judgement" the regulator says: "There is a powerful human impulse, known as the 'rule of rescue', to attempt to help an identifiable person whose life is in danger, no matter how much it costs. When there are limited resources for healthcare, applying the 'rule of rescue' may mean that other people will not be able to have the care or treatment they need.

It should be noted that the British system, always touted for it's fairness, is rejecting drugs that are being used everywhere else in the world. Yet here we have a system which is seemingly more worried about costs than our American system.

Nice is facing increasing accusations that it is giving undue weight to financial considerations - rather than medical benefits - when making decisions on whether to allow drugs or other treatments on the NHS. Doctors and patients have alleged that they are treated with contempt by the organisation and that life-saving drugs are being unfairly denied.

THE UGLY SPECTOR OF CAPITALISM STRIKES AGAIN!

The Daily Telegraph disclosed yesterday that Nice is preparing to offer patients advice on the medical benefits of drugs that are not available on the NHS. The disclosure is likely to anger patients who face paying tens of thousands of pounds for expensive drugs which may prolong their lives.

And why shouldn't it anger them? The system is supposed to cover all of their medical expenses, and the taxes are quite a bit higher to cover it. And yet, the system has created an Edwards-esque "Two Britains", one where the rich can buy medicines and live, and the other where the poor are just out of luck.

It's kinda clear that if we're really concerned about cheap, widely accessable health care...Britain is not the system we should follow.

Pro-Choice Advocates Charged with Hypocracy

From OneNewsNow.com:

A pro-life activist says Democratic White House hopefuls who are promoting universal abortion coverage on the campaign trail are speaking out of both sides of their mouths.
Mark Crutcher, the president of Life Dynamics, Incorporated, says the American abortion industry's "choke-hold" on the Democratic Party is evidenced by the fact that at least two of the party's leading presidential candidates are promoting universal abortion coverage. Democratic presidential candidates Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) and John Edwards have announced their universal healthcare proposals would provide insurance coverage for abortions.
Elizabeth Edwards recently told the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that her husband's plan would cover "all reproductive health services, including pregnancy termination." Crutcher says the Edwards and Obama plans reaffirm that the Democratic Party is "owned lock, stock and barrel" by the abortion industry -- and expose the two candidates as "hypocrites and liars."
"Out of one side of their mouth, they say that abortion is none of the government's business and the government has to stay out of it -- but on the other side of their mouth, they say the government has a responsibility to pay for abortion. Now which one is it?" he asks.
The conservative commentator also adds that in order to be the standard-bearer in the Democratic Party today, one must be "completely and unashamedly sold-out to the wholesale slaughter of the unborn."
"It's the threat of a gun, basically," he explains. "They're going to take money out of our pocketbook -- and when I say the threat of a gun, understand something: if you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail. And they're going to take money out of your pocket and out of mine to pay for what we know is the murder of a child."
Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has yet to unveil her healthcare plan, but Crutcher notes that in the eight years of her husband's presidency, there was only one group Bill Clinton was completely loyal to -- the abortion industry.

Unfortunately, the guy's right. You can't have it both ways. You can't argue that it is an inherently personal choice that the government has no business being involved in...and then demand the government get involved. You can't say that the Government has no business in reproduction, and then force the governmental foot in the door.

The end result of this policy is simple. It gives very simple legal argument to the government having control over abortion. Everything the government funds it controls, period. Maybe liberals will never use this control on abortion, but if Republicans get back into power, they will. And no one will be able to use the argument that the government can't regulate it. Because by the government paying for something, it invariably controls it.

Liberals everywhere had better hope this never passes, otherwise it puts government in direct control of the womb, and takes your opinion out of it.