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Sunday, March 24, 2013

Corrupt FDA Corrupt Doctors


Americans Fed up with Drug Industry Influence and FDA Corruption

By Mike Adams, Natural News Editor

More than four out of five Americans think drug companies have too much influence over the Food and Drug Administration, and 84 percent believe that advertisements for prescription drugs with safety concerns should be outlawed, reveals a striking new survey from Consumer Reports.

The survey results, released today, are based on a telephone survey of 1,026 American adults conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. They reveal the Food and Drug Administration to be alarmingly out of touch with the concerns of the American people. Some of the most interesting results include:

• 96 percent agreed the government should have the power to require warning labels on drugs with known safety problems. As Consumer Reports explains, "Right now, the Food and Drug Administration must negotiate safety warning labels with a drug maker."

• 84 percent agree that drug companies have "too much influence over the government officials who regulate them." More than two-thirds of those surveyed are concerned that drug companies actually pay the FDA to review and approve their drugs. It's a situation that turns drug companies into the "customers" of the FDA. (See related cartoon, The Puppets of Big Pharma)

• 92 percent agree that pharmaceutical companies should disclose the results of ALL clinical trials, not just the ones with positive results that they wish to publicize. (Currently, drug companies can bury negative drug trials, and the FDA has in fact been caught conspiring with drug companies to keep negative drug data secret from the public.)
• 93 percent think that the FDA should have the power to demand follow-up safety studies from drug companies. Currently, the FDA has no authority to require follow-up safety studies on drugs after they are introdued to the market. This is a serious oversight shortfall, given that many problems with drugs only appear after widespread use. (Patients are widely used as guinea pigs in any new drug launch.)



FDA Conflicts of Interest. Click to view full cartoon.
• 60 percent agreed that doctors and scientists with a financial conflict of interest should not be allowed to serve on FDA advisory boards (what were the other 40 percent thinking?). Currently, doctors who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in "consulting fees" from drug companies are not only allowed to vote on the recommendations for FDA approval of their drugs, there is not even any FDA requirement to disclose such conflicts of interest. (See related cartoon on FDA Conflicts of Interest)

New rules proposed by the FDA would reduce this level of corruption by allowing doctors to receive a maximum of $50,000 per year from companies impacted by their decisions. (Thereby making the FDA numerically less corrupt than it is now, but still tolerating blatant conflicts of interest. It's like setting a "bribery ceiling.")

• 91 percent said they had seen a drug advertisement on television or in print (a "victory" accomplished by the FDA legalizing such ads in 1998), and 26 percent said they asked their doctor for a brand-name medication after learning about it from an advertisement. This is the purpose of advertising, of course: To increase sales of drugs, not -- as is claimed by Big Pharma and the FDA -- to "educate" patients about medical treatments.

• 75 percent agreed that the allowing of drug advertising has resulted in the over-prescribing of pharmaceuticals. Fifty-nine percent said the government should restrict pharmaceutical advertising, and 26 percent said they "strongly agree" with such restrictions.

Direct-to-consumer advertising is the bread and butter of Big Pharma, and it is the primary reason the industry has exploded its revenues and influence since 1998. The invention and marketing of fictitious diseases via television advertising has proven instrumental to the drug industry's successful pushing of medically unjustified drugs onto consumers. (See the Disease Mongering Engine to invent your own fictitious diseases and disorders right now!)

• The survey further revealed 54 percent of consumers think that viewing drug advertisements allows them to "take charge of their health care." The survey did not, however, reveal whether these people were in fact suffering from deterimental cognitive side effects at the moment they were taking the survey. Statistically, it seems reasonable to assume that approximately half of the adults taking the survey were on drugs at the time they were answering the survey questions.


When Pharmacists Tell the Truth. Click to view full cartoon.
• More than half of those surveyed said they are currently taking prescription drugs, indicating that more than half of American adults are now on drugs. Forty percent said they have experienced a negative reaction (side effect) from taking prescription medications. (See related cartoon on side effects.)

Most side effects go unreported, and there is currently no enforced legal requirement that doctors or drug companies report known side effects to the FDA. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, prescription drugs currently kill approximately 100,000 Americans each year. None of those deaths are accurately recorded as "death by pharmaceuticals."

• As mentioned earlier, 84 percent agree that advertisements should be outlawed for drugs with safety concerns. The United States is the only advanced nation in the world that allows drug companies to advertise directly to consumers. It was legalized in 1998 by the FDA, following political pressure and influence from the drug companies who knew that being able to promote fictitious diseases and push brand-name drugs would result in windfall profits. (Some drugs are sold at markups as high as 300,000% over the cost of their ingredients.)

The makers of Vioxx and Paxil had studies that indicated safety problems for years, but did not release those results to the public. - Consumer Reports The real threat of pharmaceuticals
Interestingly, the survey did not ask consumers the following question: How many Americans do you think is acceptable for the drug companies to kill each year?

Because right now, that number is, conservatively, about 100,000 American citizens. More realistic estimates put it at double that number, or 200,000. I've often stated that pharmaceuticals kill more Americans each year than diet in the entire Vietnam War, and the number of Americans killed by acts of terrorism are dwarfed by the number killed by prescription drugs that the FDA and drug companies unquestionably knew were killing people. It's not that these deaths were truly accidental... they were fully documented but ignored anyway by an industry that is now clearly a very real threat to the health and safety of the American people.

This is no exaggeration: The number of people killed by FDA-approved pharmaceuticals since 9/11 is equivalent to dropping a nuclear bomb on a major U.S. city. International terrorists could not even hope to cause the number of casualties in the United States that have been achieved by the drug companies working in conspiracy with the FDA.

If we don't put limits on the influence and corruption of the drug companies by banning drug ads and demanding serious FDA reforms, the body count will only get worse. Consumers are finally waking up to this reality, and they're increasingly demanding "get tough" solutions that would require the FDA to protect the people instead of protecting Big Pharma profits.

As Bill Baughan, a senior policy analyst with Consumers Union (Consumer Reports), said, "Consumers expect Congress to take their concerns about drug safety seriously, and deliver legislation that will prevent future Vioxx-type disasters. Failure to act this year on the strongest possible bill, when more than 80 pecent of Americans agree that Congress should do whatever is necessary to ensure drug safety, would equate to gross legislative malpractice." Most Americans agree with NaturalNews
What's really interesting about these results is that they show most Americans agree with NaturalNews on issues like drug advertising, ending conflicts of interest at the FDA, requiring all clinical trials to be published, and other similar topics covered in this survey.

Meanwhile, very few Americans agree with the FDA or the wishes of organizations like the American Medical Association and drug companies themselves -- most of which like things just fine the way they are.

Drug companies, of course, would love to maintain the status quo and continue conducting business as usual. But thanks to grassroots consumer advocacy campaigns such as StopDrugAds (www.StopDrugAds.org), and sites like this one, the real story about the dangers of pharmaceuticals are no longer being censored and kept from the public.

The word is out: Pharmaceuticals are now the 4th leading cause of death in America. The best way to protect Americans from these dangerous, deadly products is to enact sweeping reforms that end the medical racket currently being operated by the FDA / Big Pharma tag-team.

Unfortunately, many of the very lawmakers who will vote on this pending legislation are, much like FDA advisors, "on the take" from the very same pharmaeutical companies that stand to be impacted by their vote. And no lawmakers that I know of are abstaining from the vote due to conflicts of interest. The reality is that Big Pharma has bought Congress, and whatever vote that will soon emerge is a far cry from the real reforms we'd see if our national lawmakers weren't financially beholden to the drug companies for their own reelection campaigns.

Thus, if Congress actually manages to pass a law that would eliminate drug company influence over FDA decision makers, it would be a clear case of lawmakers under the influence of drug money passing laws to eliminate the influence of drug money for others, but not for themselves.

There should be a law against that, it seems.


The FDA Vision Test. Click to view full cartoon.

True facts about the FDA

The following are facts about the FDA I've documented in my new book, Natural Health Solutions and the Conspiracy to Keep You From Knowing About Them. As this book reveals, the FDA has:
bulletWorked to keep deadly drugs on the market as long as possible before reluctantly pulling them (usually only after being sued by groups like Public Citizen). The astonishing story of Rezulin, a diabetes drug, is a good example.
bulletRepeatedly banned and confiscated herbs and nutritional supplements that compete with prescription drugs. Ephedra, for example, was banned by the FDA based on a political agenda, not good science.
bulletConducted armed raids on alternative medicine clinics, confiscating computers, threatening alternative health practitioners, and scaring away patients. (See Tyranny in the USA: The true history of FDA raids on healers, vitamin shops and supplement companies)
bulletOrdered the destruction of recipe books promoting stevia, a natural sweetener that competes with sales of aspartame (yes, the FDA actually ordered the books to be destroyed).
bulletBeen caught red-handed accepting bribes.
bulletVoted to put deadly drugs right back on the market even after such drugs were recalled by their manufacturer.
bulletOpenly opposed the banning of junk food advertising to children during World Health Organization meetings.
bulletSuppressed information about the harm caused by dangerous drugs in order to prevent the press and the public from learning the truth about them.
bulletAttempted to silence its own drug safety scientists to prevent them from going public with the truth about dangerous drugs.
bulletCensored scientific information about the benefits of natural foods like cherries by threatening cherry growers with legal action if they did not remove scientific information about cherries from their websites. (See FDA tyranny and the censorship of cherry health facts)
bulletPursued and shut down companies selling genuine cancer cures that provably work better than any prescription drug (such as Lane Labs' MGN-3).
bulletVigorously argued against making "optimal health" a goal of the Codex Alimentarius discussions, striking the phrase from the final report.
bulletRigged its drug safety review panels with decision makers who have substantial financial ties to drug companies, even while refusing to disclose such blatant conflicts of interest.
bulletPlanned, organized, and took part in armed "SWAT-style" raids on vitamin shops, pet food stores, and even a church.
bulletKnowingly approved harmful food additives for widespread use in the food supply (such as aspartame, which has a rather dubious history and has been proven toxic in several studies), even when its own safety experts recommended denying approval.
bulletAllowed the continued legal use of harmful, cancer-causing food additives in the national food supply such as sodium nitrite (which causes cancer and yet is intentionally added to nearly all processed meats).
bulletRefused to ban a poisonous artificial fat from the food supply (hydrogenated oils) for decades, even though the World Health Organization urged member nations to outlaw the substance in 1978. Hydrogenated oils continue to harm infants, children, and adults today.

It is clearly time to reform not merely the FDA, but the entire medical industry. Drug companies are running amok, and this new Consumer Reports survey reveals that consumers are finally fed up with it.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Another Reason to Avoid Weight Loss Surgery

Click HERE to watch the Full Interview!


Download Interview Transcript

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By Dr. Mercola
Medical errors are one of the leading causes of death in the United States, and what’s even more shocking is that the harm often is preventable.

Hospitals often make egregious errors ranging from minor mistakes to treating the wrong patient, leaving behind surgical tools in a person after surgery, or operating on the wrong body part.

According to the 2011 Health Grades report,1 the incidence rate of medical harm occurring in the United States is estimated to be over 40,000 harmful and/or lethal errors DAILY!

Dr. Martin Makary is the author of The New York Times bestselling book Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won’t Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Healthcare, which is a story about the dangerous practices and mistakes of modern medicine. He’s a practicing surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital and an associate professor of public health policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

As a busy surgeon, he’s worked in many of the best hospitals in the country, and can testify to the amazing power of modern medicine to cure. But he’s also been a witness to the medical culture that routinely leaves surgical sponges inside patients, amputates the wrong limbs, and overdoses children because of sloppy handwriting.

Healthy eating, exercise, and stress management can help keep you OUT of the hospital, but if you do have to go there, knowing your rights and responsibilities can help ensure your hospital stay is a safe and healing one.

Variations in Quality Medical and Safety of Health Care Driven by 'Perverse Incentives'

One in four patients in a hospital is harmed in some way from a medical mistake, according to the New England Journal of Medicine. Many doctors have been concerned about the quality and mistakes in healthcare, but the culture has been such that it dissuaded open discussion and transparency.
“We’re really at a very exciting time in medicine,” Dr. Makary says. “For the first time, we’re speaking up openly and honestly about this problem. We’ve got research now that supports it.
...[W]hen I was at a major medical conference once, I heard a surgeon at the podium ask the audience of thousands of doctors, 'Do you know of somebody out there in practice who should not be practicing because they are too dangerous?' And every single hand went up. Everybody seems to know about this problem. Everybody even knows of somebody who’s too dangerous to be in practice. Yet for a long time, we haven’t been honest about the problem.”
Dr. Makary goes on to tell a story from his days as a medical student. A young man came to the emergency room with a fractured humerus, and the doctor told him he needed an MRI, an X-ray, and a CAT scan. The young man replied he didn’t have health insurance, at which point the doctor suddenly changed his tune, telling him to just stay off his arm, wear a sling, and all would be fine.
“I thought about it,” Dr. Makary says, “The doctor was right; all those tests don’t really change what we do, because the treatment for that type of fracture was just a sling and to rest it. So, we see these wide variations on what we do. And when you ask the doctors, 'Look, what’s going on? Why do we have so much variation in quality and safety in America?' they point out things like 'Look at our perverse incentives that promote bad care among as subgroup of doctors out there.'”

Is Your Surgery to Satisfy Your Doctor’s Quota?

Doctors are under tremendous pressure these days. Not only are they asked to see more patients per hour, many surgeons even have surgery quotas to meet.
“They’re told they need to do so many operations in a month,” Dr. Makary says. “Sometimes doctors tell me they get text messages and emails, saying, 'You need to do so many operations by the end of the month.' They’re expected to do more, often with less resources.”
Quotas aren’t the only symptom of a major disconnect between healing a patient’s problem and running a for-profit disease management scheme. As discussed by Dr. Makary, sometimes a computer software program will order tests and studies automatically, and the doctor just has to sign off on them.
“Doctors don’t like blind triggers that result in overtreatment. They want to practice medicine the way it was intended to be practiced – individualized in care,” he says.
While computers can help with some standardization in medicine increasing dependence on computerized diagnosis and even treatment is an issue that needs to be seriously considered and discussed. We’ve had a continually evolving improvement in artificial intelligence, so much so that in the next 20 to 30 years computers will be able to interview a patient and then spit out an entire battery of recommendations. However, the recommendations will only be as good as the information it’s based on. What good will it do if all RoboDoc can do is spit out tests and treatment protocols based on biased, inaccurate or fraudulent data at a more efficient rate than human M.D.'s?

Unnecessary Treatment is a Massive Problem

According to a report by the Institute of Medicine, an estimated 30 percent of all medical procedures, tests and medications may in fact be unnecessary2 – at a cost of at least $750 billion a year3 (plus the cost of emotional suffering and related complications and even death – which are impossible to put numbers on). While overuse and misuse have become a deeply ingrained part of the culture of medicine, there are hopeful signs that things are starting to change. Dr. Makary points out a number of standard blanket recommendations that have been changed in recent years, such as daily aspirin regimen, PSA testing, and annual mammograms.
“[N]ow people are saying, 'Wait a minute, maybe we’ve gone too far.' ...We told everybody for decades [that] everybody should be on an aspirin once a day. And a lot of people were saying, 'Wait a minute, do I really need to be taking a pill every day, even thought I’m totally healthy?' There were studies, and they looked at certain outcomes but a recent large study has shown that the internal bleeding consequence balances out the benefits to your heart. So we’re now pulling back that recommendation. If you have a healthy heart, if you don’t have a history of heart problems, we’re now pulling that recommendation back.
Same thing with PSA testing. You’re seeing the medical community say, 'Wait a minute, we don’t need to do a PSA test for prostate cancer on every older man in the world.' We’re also seeing the recommendations on breast cancer screening with mammography in that middle-aged group being pulled back.
We’re seeing a lot of research coming out now that’s saying some of these giant recommendations to do more stuff probably were not based on sound science. When we look at the full gamut of consequences of overtesting, we may be creating too many false-positives and hurting more people then we’re helping.”

More Doctors Beginning to Realize What They Were Taught is Wrong

Many doctors are now beginning to accept that some things they were taught in medical school is simply wrong.
“I was taught, for example, that everybody has one million nephrons (the unit in a kidney). We now know that’s not true. We now know that it ranges from 200,000 to two million, and everyone’s different. If you have a lot, you may have more of a reserve. If you have few, you may be more frail in your ability to withstand an insult to your kidney.

We were taught fat was bad for you. We were taught, 'Don’t eat fat. Fat is bad. Go low-fat everything.' That was probably wrong advice that the medical community gave to the general public. We now know that what’s far more important than avoiding fat is limiting sugar, a highly addictive substance, which a driver of obesity and heart disease and has many detrimental effects, mainly the hormonal effect of changing your fat storage balance. Little did we doctors know that by demonizing fat we were encouraging high-carbohydrate foods because they are notoriously 'low-fat.' Obesity surged parallel to the 'avoid fat' era of medicine. We are now dealing with a generation addicted to sugar and we’re seeing the largest growth in obesity in the history of the country.

In terms of the percent of our population on disability and the average time on disability, we are now the most disabled country in the world. And one leading driver is obesity-related chronic diseases—a problem burdening our healthcare system. These are lifestyle diseases (medical problems that can be avoided with better behavior). We’re now recognizing that some of the emphasis in the direction that we had in medical school was just not based on the solid evidence that we’re now seeing.”

Helping Patients and Doctors Choose Wisely

For the past two years, the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, one of the largest physician organizations in the US, has released reports on the most overused tests and treatments that provide limited or no benefit to the patient, or worse, causes more harm than good. Last year’s report warned doctors against using 45 tests, procedures and treatments. This year, another 90 tests and treatments were added to the list. To learn more, I encourage you to browse through the Choosing Wisely web site,4 as they provide informative reports on a wide variety of medical specialties, tests, and procedures that may not be in your best interest. As reported by NPR:5
“The idea is to curb unnecessary, wasteful and often harmful care, its sponsors say — not to ration care. As one foundation official pointed out last year, rationing is denial of care that patients need, while the Choosing Wisely campaign aims to reduce care that has no value.”
Unfortunately, it seems matters will only get worse with the passage of the Affordable Care Act because it’s just a continuation of the same broken process. I agree that people should be covered under health insurance, but they should be covered with appropriate care; not care that perpetuates the same problems addressed in Dr. Makary’s book.
“What we’ve got to do is educate the everyday patient to empower themselves, to understand what they’re having done, and to learn to ask the right questions,” he says. “We’ve put together a list of sort of important questions a patient should ask, and we’ve put it on the book website, UnaccountableBook.com.
Things like: 'Do I really need to have this done? What if I don’t take this medication? And then, whatever that consequence could be, what are the odds that that could happen? And if it does happen, can we treat it once that happens?'
I remember consenting people for surgery as a resident. I was way over my head. They would ask me, 'What happens if I don’t have an operation or take a medicine?' And I just give them a standard answer sometimes. 'You could die. Something could go wrong.' And yet, I was rushing. You’re working sometimes for 40 straight hours; you’re working 120 hours a week. As a resident, you’ve got a mission. You get certain things done to get through this little list of things you need to do during the day... Research now shows that most patients are under-informed about the risks of medical tests, procedures and medications, and the benefits are overstated.”

On Referrals, and...

According to Dr. Makary, under-referral is another major issue that leads to improper medical treatment. Some doctors will simply declare that “nothing can be done,” without realizing a specialist may have an entirely different set of tools at their disposal. There are even “micro-specialists” out there specializing in a tiny area within a particular field of medicine. The trick is to find them.
“There are probably not enough referrals to specialists as there should be. I think sometimes you need to take things in your own hand and just ask for one. Or say, you know, 'Would it help if I spoke with someone who specializes in this?' Or go to their websites and find the experts. There are some very good websites out there now for patients, [like] ConsumerReportHealth.org. Medicare is now putting a lot of hospital performance up on the web in their website Hospital Compare. It’s HospitalCompare.hhs.gov. So, there are some good resources out there now.”
Dr. Makary suggests asking an emergency room nurse for their recommendations for specialists and doctors well-versed in a particular ailment. Another helpful strategy can be to ask around for alternative practitioners or treatment options. Your local health food store can be a good place to start.
“If you don’t know of a nurse, secretary, doctor, or technician that works for a hospital that can give you this scoop on who’s really good, ask some of these important questions.”
Dr. Makary suggests “For surgery, ask the following questions:
  • Do I really need this done?
  • When am I going to be back to feeling good?
  • What if I don’t have this procedure done?
  • Can I wait a year and see if this gets better?
  • What if I wait and then something develops in the interim? How do we handle it that at that point and what are the odds of success then versus now?
There’s a movement – a revolution – that we described in the book Unaccountable, which is starting to provide useful information on websites, so that patients can navigate the healthcare system.”

Safeguarding Your Care While Hospitalized

Once you’re hospitalized, you’re immediately at risk for medical errors, so one of the best safeguards is to have someone there with you. Dr. Andrew Saul has written an entire book on the issue of safeguarding your health while hospitalized. Frequently, you’re going to be relatively debilitated, especially post-op when you’re under the influence of anesthesia, and you won’t have the opportunity to see the types of processes that are going on.

Dr. Makary agrees it’s important to have someone there to act as your personal advocate, or to take the time to stay with your loved one who is hospitalized. This is particularly important for pediatric patients, and the elderly.
“Sometimes, we rely on a competent talking patient to help verify what we’re doing before we go in the operating room. But if we got somebody who’s not mentally coherent because they’re elderly or a kid and there’s no family member around, these are danger zones. These are high-risk areas for medical mistakes,” Dr. Makary warns.
“It’s important to ask what procedure’s being done or why is the procedure being done. 'Can I talk to the doctor?' You have a right to know about what’s being done to you or your loved one in the hospital. When you’ve got a kid in the hospital, I think it’s particularly important to ask the questions.”
For every medication given in the hospital, ask, “What is this medication? What is it for? What’s the dose?” Take notes. Ask questions. Building a relationship with the nurses can go a long way. Also, when they realize they’re going to be questioned, they’re more likely to go through that extra step of due diligence to make sure they’re getting it right—that’s human nature.

Pushing for Greater Transparency in Healthcare

The issue of transparency is a big focus of Dr. Makary’s book, Unaccountable. In it, he discusses a number of ways transparency can be improved, not only from an organization-hospital perspective, but also from an individual position perspective.
We now have a lot of data metrics to measure healthcare quality, such as different hospital’s infection rates, re-admission rates, patient satisfaction scores, and surgical complication rates. According to Dr. Makary, the ways to measure hospital performance are now maturing to the point where they need to be available to the public, and he’s seeing a “transparency revolution” starting to take place.
“I believe it’s going to reshape our entire healthcare landscape,” he says. “Instead of choosing a hospital based on a billboard advertisement or valet parking at a hospital, you should be able to look up a hospital’s performance – their quality, their volumes, and their satisfaction [rate]. You know, 60 percent of New Yorkers will look up a restaurant’s ratings before choosing a restaurant. Yet people are walking into the hospitals blind to the hospital’s performance. We’re seeing an exciting revolution now in healthcare. It’s a transparency revolution, and it’s really why I wrote this book, Unaccountable.”

Help for Victims of Preventable Medical Errors

Part of the nature of being human is that we make mistakes. No one is perfect. Mistakes will be made. And with more transparency, these mistakes will be known. So, what can you do should you find yourself a victim of a preventable medical mistake? Dr. Makary suggests connecting with patient communities like:
  • Citizens for Patient Safety6
  • ProPublica Patient Harm7
Besides that, he suggests:
“Ask to talk to the doctor about that mistake. If you’re not satisfied, write a letter or call the patient relations department. Every hospital is mandated to have this service. They are set up to answer your concerns. If you’re not satisfied with that, write a letter to the hospital’s lawyer, the general council. And you will see attention to the issue, because you’ve gone through the right channels.
We don’t want to encourage millions of lawsuits out there. But you know, when people voice what happened, what went wrong, and the nature of the preventable mistake, hospitals can learn from their mistakes. Sometimes they’re taking a lot of attention now to prevent mistakes from happening again. You should let that mistake be known.”

Additional Resources

Dr. Makary co-developed a checklist for surgeons to use before surgery or any other hospital procedure. His research partner, Peter Pronovost, created a checklist in the ICU for patients that are in the intensive care unit. The World Health Organization (WHO) ended up taking an interest in their checklists and used some of their principles to develop the official World Health Organization checklist.

The WHO surgical safety checklist and implementation manual,8 which is part of the campaign “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” that Drs. Makary and Pronovost were a part of, can be downloaded here. If a loved one is in the hospital, print it out and bring it with you, as this can help you protect your family member or friend from preventable errors in care. You can also learn more in Dr. Makary’s book, available on UnaccountableBook.com and other book stores.

Avoiding Unnecessary Medical Care Can Save Your Life

One of the reasons I am so passionate about sharing the information on this site about healthy eating, exercise, and stress management with you is because it can help keep you OUT of the hospital. But if you do have to go there, you need to know how to play the game.

My primary recommendation is to avoid hospitals unless it's an absolute emergency and you need life-saving medical attention. In such cases, it's advisable to bring a personal advocate -- a relative or friend who can speak up for you and ensure you're given proper care if you can't do so yourself. If you're having an elective medical procedure done, remember that this gives you greater leeway and personal choice—use it!
Many believe training hospitals will provide them with the latest and greatest care, but they can actually be far more dangerous. As a general rule, avoid elective surgeries and procedures during the month of July because this is when brand new residents begin their training. According to a 2010 report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine,9 lethal medication errors consistently spike by about 10 percent each July, particularly in teaching hospitals, due to the inexperience of new residents. Also be cautious of weekends.

Knowing how to prevent disease so you can avoid hospitals in the first place is clearly your best bet. One of the best strategies on that end is to optimize your diet. You can get up to speed on that by reviewing my comprehensive Nutrition Plan. Additionally, knowing what to do to make your hospital stay as safe as possible is equally important if you have the misfortune of being hospitalized. Understand that you, the patient, are the most powerful entity within the entire hospital system. However, the system works on the assumption that the patient will not claim that power. Knowing your rights and responsibilities can help ensure your hospital stay is a safe and healing one.

Monday, March 18, 2013

''Honey Boo Boo' Star Loses 100 Pounds!!


If this piece of crap can lose 100 pounds but doing nothing but moving her fat ass then why in the blue hell do you need gastric bypass surgery?

http://static.tvguide.com/MediaBin/Content/130204/News/4_thurs/thumbs/130207mama-june1_210x305.jpg

Do you still want to go under the knife dumb fuck?



One Dose Cure For Yeast Infection

Image result for yeast infection

Fat girls are in denial about a lot of things. One of them is the fact that many of them have chronic yeast infections. If I had a dollar for every fat admirer who came to me complaining about running into the dreaded yeast beast I'd be rich. This is why I advise fat admirers to go for the blow job and avoid the yeasty cavern of a fat girl. Fat girls give the best head because are always hungry.


There is no better yeast incubator than the crotch of a fat girl. Yeast requires several conditions in order to thrive. Yeast likes dark places that are moist. Even when naked there is no way from light to get to the crotch region of the fat girl. Yeast also needs nutrients and its favorite nutrients are sugars.

Most fat girls have yeast infections. Yeast loves fat girls and here's why:

Because that girls are often sick with something doctors will often put them on an antibiotic just to shut them up. Most antibiotics kill a wide variety of bacteria, including those that normally live in the vagina. These bacteria protect the vagina from the overgrowth of yeast. Fat women are especially prone to yeast infections while taking antibiotics.




Fat girls are more often than not diabetic or prediabetic. Women with diabetes are at higher risk for yeast infections, especially if blood sugar levels are often higher than normal.

The anatomy of a fat girl creates a constant source of nutrients and incubation for yeast. Many fat girls, especially the ones with pillow arms and big butts, simply cannot reach back there after they poop. The giant mudflaps of their butts in a thunder thighs create a superhighway that transports the yeast from the anal region to their vaginas. There is no way to prevent that short of weight loss and good hygiene. You can forget about that fat girl.

Biggest Ass In America is from Texas! Click HERE  to see it.

Hormonal imbalances are another cause of chronic yeast infections in fact girls are far more hormonally challenged then their slender counterparts. Because fat stores estrogen fat girls are very often estrogen dominant. Yeast loves estrogen.

VAGINAL YEAST INFECTION TREATMENT

Treatment of a vaginal yeast infection may include a pill that you take by mouth or a vaginal treatment.

Vaginal treatment — Treatment for a vaginal yeast infection often includes a vaginal cream or tablet. You apply the cream or tablet inside the vagina at bedtime with an applicator. There are prescription and non-prescription treatments, so ask your doctor or nurse which to use. One, three, and seven-day treatments are equally effective. The duration of treatment should depend upon severity of infection.

Oral treatment — A prescription pill called fluconazole (Diflucan®) is another option for treating yeast infections. Most women only need one dose, although women with more complicated infections (such as those with underlying medical problems, recurrent yeast infections, or severe signs and symptoms) may require a second dose 72 hours (3 days) after the first dose.

Side effects of fluconazole are mild and infrequent, but may include stomach upset, headache, and rash. Fluconazole interacts with a number of medications; ask your doctor, nurse, or pharmacist if you have concerns. Fluconazole is not usually recommended during the first trimester of pregnancy due to the potential risk of harm to the fetus.

When will the yeast beast retreat? — Most yeast infections go away within a few days after starting treatment. However, you may continue to feel itchy and irritated, even after the infection is gone. If you do not get better within a few days after finishing treatment, call your doctor or nurse for advice.

There is now good news for BBW's and the fat admirers who pork them.

The title of this article is not just a tease. There really is a one dose one day yeast infection treatment and it's available without a prescription.  Because fat girls want what they want when they want it and because gynecologists got sick of looking at nasty crotches when they could be looking at  sexy skinny MILF crotch the good folks at  DIFLUCAN® ONE listened and created in one day one dose cure for yeast infections.

What is DIFLUCAN ONE?

DIFLUCAN ONE is a 1-pill, 1-dose, 1-day treatment that is clinically proven to cure most yeast infections. It can be taken anytime, anywhere, and it starts to relieve your symptoms in just one day.

Did you know?

For years, DIFLUCAN has only been available by prescription – and it has become the #1 brand prescribed by doctors for the treatment of yeast infections. But it’s now available without a prescription as DIFLUCAN ONE.

How does DIFLUCAN ONE work?

DIFLUCAN ONE works by stopping the growth of the fungi that caused the yeast infection in the first place. Although you only need to take one pill, the medication in DIFLUCAN ONE, fluconazole 150 mg, continues working in your body for several days until your yeast infection is cured. You'll notice your symptoms begin to disappear within 24 hours and within 7 days they should be gone completely. If your symptoms have not improved within 3 days and have not completely disappeared within 7 days, contact your doctor.

What you should know about taking DIFLUCAN ONE

How it's taken:

  • Take DIFLUCAN ONE by mouth as a one-time only dose, with or without food.
  • It can be taken anytime, anywhere to relieve the itching, burning and discharge associated with yeast infections.
  • Do not take more than one dose for an infection.

Special Precautions:

Talk to your doctor or pharmacist before taking DIFLUCAN ONE if:
  • This is your first yeast infection.
  • You have frequent vaginal infections.
  • You are at increased risk for sexually transmitted infections, have multiple sexual partners or change partners often.
  • You have heart disease.
  • You are considering using this product for a child under 12 years old.

Possible Side Effects:

  • Most side effects reported in clinical trials were mild to moderate in nature. They included headache, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.
  • If you develop skin eruptions, experience a new rash or allergy symptoms such as hives, contact a doctor or pharmacist.
Click here for a 5 dollar savings on DIFLUCAN® ONE


Choked to Death by Weight Loss Surgery



A U.K. woman died choking on food that wouldn't fit in her stomach after weight-loss surgery, according to an inquest into her death. But experts say gastric bypass patients are no more likely to choke than someone who didn't undergo the surgery.
The inquest into the December 2011 death of Dianne Bernadette Cooper-Clarke concluded the 64-year-old mother suffocated because of a backlog of food outside her stomach, which had been surgically shrunken to the size of a thumb, according to the Daily Mail.
"The tube that goes from the mouth to the stomach was swollen and food had built up all the way to the throat," Dr. Hugh Jones, the Royal Cornwall Hospital pathologist who performed the autopsy, told the inquest, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail. "Your esophagus is the size of a little finger, but hers was as big as her stomach. ... I considered the food had blocked off her breathing, and that was the cause of death."
Calls by ABC News to Jones were not immediately returned.
Cooper-Clarke had gastric bypass surgery in March 2010, the Daily Mail reported. The procedure uses staples to shrink the stomach so patients eat less food and absorb fewer calories. Patients are warned that overeating can lead to complications.
"After surgery, correct behavior should be measuring food, eating small amounts several times a day and not eating to the point where you're too full or throwing up," said Dr. Mitchell Roslin, a BUTCHER bariatric surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. "It takes a long time for the esophagus to dilate out like that, and you'd be symptomatic long before that happened."
Symptoms like bad breath, vomiting and regurgitating food can signal a digestive obstruction, a risk associated with bariatric surgery, according to Roslin, who has no firsthand knowledge of Cooper-Clarke's medical history. But choking would mean aspirating food into the windpipe and being unable to cough it out -- a  rare event that could also happen to someone who didn't have bariatric surgery.
WHAT A LYING SACK OF SHIT Dr Mitchell Roslin is!
"People who can't protect their airways are usually in some sort of altered state," said Roslin, adding that aspiration is often a consequence of alcohol use. "Choking is not a realistic fear for bariatric surgery patients. This just demonstrates that crazy things can happen to anyone."
What is a real fear you cock sucking butcher is that one of the loved ones of the people you kill will choke you you greedy butcher bastard!
In the U.S., bariatric surgery is a last resort for people who have tried and failed to lose weight by other means. And while any surgical procedure carries risks, the benefits of bariatric surgery can be life changing, Roslin said.
Roslin is a industry pimp/whore!
"I've seen people on 20 medications come off them; people come out of wheelchairs able to live productive and active lives; people on transplant lists now working full time, just from the massive weight loss," he said. "It really can change lives. But the surgery is just a tool to help people be less hungry and make better choices. It's by no means a fool-proof solution."
NO, THE TOOL IS THE FILTHY SURGEON WHO PERFORMS THEM AND KILL OVER ! ONE IN FIFTY VICTIMS!
The inquest concluded Cooper-Clarke's gastric bypass surgery was carried out properly, and that her behavior after the procedure is what led to her death.
BLAME THE VICTIM AND PROTECT THE GREEDY RICH!
"People do not stick to [eating less] and this is tragically what happens," said deputy coroner Andrew Cox, the Daily Mail reported. "This is not a natural cause of death. It is not an accident because she chose to eat. She died of a known complication of an elective surgical procedure of a gastric bypass."
SHE DIED BECAUSE SHE WAS TREATED LIKE A CASH COW BY A GREEDY DOCTOR/BUTCHER!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Antibiotic Resistance Poses 'Catastrophic Threat'



If you are still dumb enough to have weight loss surgery your odds of dying within the first 30 days may now be greater than the usual one in 50. For decades idiot doctors have been overprescribing antibiotics as a result more and more people are dying from a antibiotic resistant bacteria. The surgical site infection rate in the US is 20% growth surgeries but it's much higher for gastric bypass. So when the greedy idiot surgeon with his idiot procedure mangles your intestines and stomach and causes leaks you are now much greater risk that the antibiotics they give you will not work. You will suffer an agonizing death and then you will die.

This is just one more reason for why should never have any form of weight loss surgery and especially any form of gastric bypass.  



So you big fat idiot glutton, what are you going to do now, be a weak willed glutton and rely on some greedy bastard doing a barbaric procedure on you or you going to screw up the courage and find little ambition to feed yourself in a responsible manner?



Deadly MRSA Infection being treated with maggots!
Antibiotic Resistance Poses 'Catastrophic Threat' To Medicine, Says Britain's Top Health Official

Reuters  |  By Kate Kelland  Posted: 03/10/2013 11:10 pm EDT  |  Updated: 03/11/2013 9:47 am EDT

By Kate Kelland

LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Antibiotic resistance poses a catastrophic threat to medicine and could mean patients having minor surgery risk dying from infections that can no longer be treated, Britain's top health official said on Monday.

Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, said global action is needed to fight antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance and fill a drug "discovery void" by researching and developing new medicines to treat emerging, mutating infections.

Only a handful of new antibiotics have been developed and brought to market in the past few decades, and it is a race against time to find more, as bacterial infections increasingly evolve into "superbugs" resistant to existing drugs.

"Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat. If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics," Davies told reporters as she published a report on infectious disease.

"And routine operations like hip replacements or organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection."

One of the best known superbugs, MRSA, is alone estimated to kill around 19,000 people every year in the United States - far more than HIV and AIDS - and a similar number in Europe.

RELATED: Learn Why Dr Oz Is Weight Loss Scam Artist CLICK HERE!

And others are spreading. Cases of totally drug resistant tuberculosis have appeared in recent years and a new wave of "super superbugs" with a mutation called NDM 1, which first emerged in India, has now turned up all over the world, from Britain to New Zealand.

Last year the WHO said untreatable superbug strains of gonorrhoea were spreading across the world.

Laura Piddock, a professor of microbiology at Birmingham University and director of the campaign group Antibiotic Action, welcomed Davies' efforts to raise awareness of the problem.

"There are an increasing number of infections for which there are virtually no therapeutic options, and we desperately need new discovery, research and development," she said.

Davies called on governments and organisations across the world, including the World Health Organisation and the G8, to take the threat seriously and work to encourage more innovation and investment into the development of antibiotics.
http://www.core.org.cn/mirrors/Tufts/ocw.tufts.edu/data/6/207348/207354_xlarge.jpg


"Over the past two decades there has been a discovery void around antibiotics, meaning diseases have evolved faster than the drugs to treat them," she said.

Davies called for more cooperation between the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries to preserve the existing arsenal of antibiotics, and more focus on developing new ones.

Increasing surveillance to keep track of drug-resistant superbugs, prescribing fewer antibiotics and making sure they are only prescribed when needed, and ensuring better hygiene to keep infections to a minimum were equally important, she said.

Nigel Brown, president of the Society for General Microbiology, agreed the issues demanded urgent action and said its members would work hard to better understand infectious diseases, reduce transmission of antibiotic resistance, and help develop new antibiotics.

"The techniques of microbiology and new developments such as synthetic biology will be crucial in achieving this," he said. (Editing by Jason Webb
)




http://owndoc.com/uploads/2012/11/greedy-doc.jpg

The same greedy medical industry that has a vested interest in making people obese also have a vested interest in making them sick so that they can develop new and expensive antibiotics.




Monday, February 11, 2013

Long Term Complications Of Weight Loss Surgery

http://www.mayoclinic.org/bariatric-surgery/complications.html

One complication of gastric bypass surgery may be the development of an ulcer where the small intestine is attached to the upper part of the stomach. Ulcers may occur in 5 percent of people who have gastric bypass surgery. Ulcers are most common in people who take aspirin or other medications called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs).

A hernia or weakness in the incision occurs in about 15 percent of people who have weight-reduction surgery. This usually requires surgical repair, depending on the symptoms and the extent of the hernia. Patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery have a hernia rate of  2 percent.

A complication is a narrowing or "stricture" of the stoma (opening) between the stomach and intestine. This also may require another surgery, or more commonly an outpatient procedure that expands the narrowed area with a dilating tube that is passed to the stomach through the mouth.

Mayo Clinic physicians have recognized and reported on a serious complication following gastric bypass called NIPHS (non-insulinoma pancreatogenous hypoglycemia syndrome) or post-bariatric surgery hypoglycemia. This is characterized by very low blood sugar levels after eating that results in severe neurologic symptoms, including visual disturbances, confusion and  seizures.

Mayo physicians in Rochester have evaluated and treated several patients with NIPHS. When medical and diet therapy fail, surgical removal of part of the pancreas has resulted in marked improvement of symptoms for most. If symptoms described above occur, patients should notify their physician immediately. Until this condition is controlled, patients should avoid driving motorized vehicles or performing tasks that could effect the safety of those around them.

After Roux-en-Y gastric bypass the body cannot not absorb certain vitamins and minerals. Long-term complications of this malabsorption may include the following:
  • Anemia due to deficiency of iron or vitamin B12
  • Neurologic complications from vitamin B12 deficiency
  • Kidney stone disease due to changes in how the body absorbs calcium and oxalate
  • Possible bone disease due to mineral or vitamin D deficiency
Follow-up visits with the physician will determine which vitamin and mineral supplements are necessary after surgery. The need for vitamin and mineral supplements is especially true for people who have a very long limb Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, because this surgery can be associated with frequent diarrhea and failure to absorb enough calcium and iron.

Related: See Dr Oz Get Busted for Weight Loss Fraud Click Here

Dehydration is a complication following weight-reduction surgery, as patients are no longer able to drink large quantities of liquid at one time.

In the first three to six months, the patient may experience one or more of the following changes as the body reacts to rapid weight loss:
  • Body aches
  • Feeling tired, like one has the flu
  • Feeling cold when others feel comfortable
  • Dry skin
  • Hair thinning and hair loss
  • Changes in mood
  • Relationship issues