What Change Looks Like

This legislation will not fix everything that ails our healthcare system, but it moves us decisively in the right direction. This is what change looks like. In the end, what this day represents is another stone laid firmly in the foundation of the American Dream. Tonight we answered the call of history as so many generations of Americans have before us. When faced with crisis, we did not shrink from our challenge; we overcame it.

-- President Barack Obama, regarding the new healthcare bill, Democracy Now, 22 March 2010

Walking And Bicycling

The DOT policy is to incorporate safe and convenient walking and bicycling facilities into transportation projects. Every transportation agency, including DOT, has the responsibility to improve conditions and opportunities for walking and bicycling and to integrate walking and bicycling into their transportation systems. Because of the numerous individual and community benefits that walking and bicycling provide -- including health, safety, environmental, transportation, and quality of life -- transportation agencies are encouraged to go beyond minimum
standards to provide safe and convenient facilities for these modes.

-- Secretary Ray LaHood, in the US Department of Transportation Policy Statement on Bicycle and Pedestrian Accommodation Regulations and Recommendations, 11 March 2010

Any Little Change

Anything you put in that book, any little change you make, has huge implications not only for psychiatry but for pharmaceutical marketing, research, for the legal system, for who's considered to be normal or not, for who's considered disabled.

-- Dr. Michael First, professor of psychiatry at Columbia, on proposed changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, New York Times, 10 February 2010

Safe To Assume

Although CREW has been unable to uncover the demographic makeup of [these companies], it seems safe to assume the vast majority of their employees are not pregnant women, infants and children, young adults up to 24 years old, and healthcare workers.

-- Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, after more than a dozen companies were given the vaccines, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, 5 November 2009

I Don't Know

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just really don't know.

-- Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana), on his health plan's chances of passing, New York Times, 28 October 2009

Tobacco

This is a historic step, changing the nature of tobacco in society forever.

-- Clifford E. Douglas, director of the University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network, on legislation allowing the government to regulate cigarettes, New York Times, 12 June 2009

AppleTrotts

Saturday evening through early Sunday morning, the AppleTrotts team raised $308.51 selling chili dogs, chips, and drinks at Piatt County Relay For Life, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. That's 5 members of the Appleman family plus 5 members of the Trott family. Not too bad for a first effort, earned almost entirely on-site the night of the event.

Here, Have Some Flu

For the first couple of days this week, the national & local TV news reports did their best to beat the drum of panic regarding "swine flu".

Yesterday, that changed. They started discussing simple, rather than draconian, measures to avoid contracting flu. On both the national news (NBC) and the local news (NBC affiliate) the reporters ate pork on-air, and explained that pork is not a vector for transmission of what they now call "H1N1 influenza". Gotta protect those pork producers. They pointed out that only a fraction of people get the flu, and only a tiny fraction among those get a serious case, with a fraction of those dying.

And they (finally) pointed out that, in an average year, 36,000 Americans die of the flu, with 13,000 fatalities so far in 2009 (>100 per day) from "seasonal flu". That's something on the order of a 12% infection rate and a 0.1% kill rate (among the infected) for seasonal flu.

The big unanswered question for H1N1 is, what's the kill rate? Apparently it's higher ... but they're unsure how high, because so many cases are so mild that they go unreported. We're also entering into summer, which allegedly helps reduce the severity of a flu outbreak. If it kills only a few thousand Americans, its impact may be lost in the noise of average flu fatalities. But because they/we are paying attention to it, it'll come off as a really big deal. Imagine the headlines if we have a month of H1N1 flu with an average of >100 fatalities per day!

I'm not convinced.

Killer Economy

For over 30 years, Dr. Harvey Brenner, a sociologist and public health expert at Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Texas Health Science Center, has been carefully studying the link between economic fluctuations and the nation's physical and mental health. Based on the experience of the last half century, he has even estimated how many more deaths, suicides, heart attacks, homicides, and admissions to mental hospitals we can expect when unemployment rises.

After crunching the numbers, Brenner calculated that for every one percent increase in the unemployment rate (an additional 1.5 million people out of work), we can expect an additional 47,000 deaths, including 26,000 deaths from heart attacks, about 1,200 from suicide, 831 murders, and 635 deaths related to alcohol consumption.

-- Peter Dreier, E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College, "This Economy is a Real Killer," Huffington Post, 10 March 2009

Innovative Products

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

-- Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain in the September/October 2008 issue of "Contingencies", the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries

Champaign Park District Mini Triathlon

On Saturday 08-02-08 I participated for the second time in the annual Champaign Park District mini-triathlon. I did OK, though I didn't win any prizes. It was a 400 meter swim, 6 mile bike ride, and 2 mile run. My time was 48:41.4, an improvement of 4:23 over my previous performance.

I finished 5th of 17 in my age group (men age 44-49), 56th of 142 among men of all ages, and 82nd of 305 among all men and women for the entire event. Of the 223 people I beat, 187 were younger. Of the 86 men I beat, 74 were younger.

I hate running, but I like both swimming and biking. If I can convince myself to do some training next summer, I should be able to improve on both my time and my placing.

I signed up 8 weeks ahead of time, but the event was full, and I was #43 on the waiting list. Usually only a handful of people drop out in time for the people on the waiting list to be helped. This year, I got a call with just 17 days to go stating that they were expanding the field by 50, so I was in. I hadn't been running at all, but was able to leg out a number of 2-mile runs to get ready.

Eight To Twelve Minutes? No Way

The Unhealthiest Drink in America
Baskin Robbins Large Heath Bar Shake (32 oz)
2,310 calories
266 g sugar
108 g fat (64 g saturated)

Let's look at America's Worst Drink in numbers:

73: The number of ingredients that go into this milkshake.
66: The number of teaspoons of sugar this drink contains.
11: The number of Heath Bars you would have to eat to equal the number of calories found in one Baskin Robbins Large Heath Bar Shake.
8-12: The average number of minutes it takes to consume this drink.
240: The number of minutes you'd need to spend on a treadmill burning it off, running at a moderate pace.

-- Mens' Health Magazine, via health.yahoo.com,
19 May 2008

Abstinent

People can be abstinent, and it's not weird.

-- Jami Waite, a teenager in Hallsville, Texas, New York Times, 18 July 2007

RIP Albert Hofmann

Deliberate provocation of mystical experience, particularly by LSD and related hallucinogens, in contrast to spontaneous visionary experiences, entails dangers that must not be underestimated. Practitioners must take into account the peculiar effects of these substances, namely their ability to influence our consciousness, the innermost essence of our being. The history of LSD to date amply demonstrates the catastrophic consequences that can ensue when its profound effect is misjudged and the substance is mistaken for a pleasure drug. Special internal and external advance preparations are required; with them, an LSD experiment can become a meaningful experience. Wrong and inappropriate use has caused LSD to become my problem child.

-- Albert Hofmann (11 January 1906 - 29 April 2008), Swiss scientist best known for first synthesizing Lysergic acid diethylamide, "LSD: My Problem Child" (1980) Foreword

Out The Window

Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them.

-- Dr. Martin Henry Fischer

New Questions

The New Questions to ask your physician:

1. If I don't have any symptoms, how are you going to keep me healthy?

2. How would you treat me if you didn't have your prescription pad?

3. How are you going to find and treat the cause of my disease, not just the symptoms?

4. Will changing my food habits and life style contribute to healing me faster?

5. Do you keep records of the treatment prescribed by you to me?

-- Dr. Amit K. Saiya, 2 April 2008, blog excerpt

http://dailymusingsofamit.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-questions-to-ask-your-physician.html