3rd Trimester Abortions: Rare And Needed

"Though third-trimester abortions are rare, they make up about 1% of abortions in the United States and are often the most stigmatized. They are legal in only a few states, and just a fraction of providers perform them.

"To better understand the real science behind abortions later in pregnancy, guest host Sophie Bushwick talks with Dr. Katrina Kimport, professor of obstetrics, gynecology & reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco; and Dr. Cara Heuser, a maternal and fetal medicine physician who specializes in high-risk pregnancy and complex abortion care, based in Salt Lake City, Utah."

Click on the link below for the details:

The Science Behind Third-Trimester Abortions

The Truth About Medical Errors

"It's one of the Internet's favorite perennial false claims, and it's so persistent that it remains today a current political talking point. It concerns medical errors, which are things like patients being given drugs they're allergic to; bedsores resulting in infection; healthcare-acquired infections; failure to spot things like sepsis; and misdiagnoses or wrong treatments or failure to follow treatment plans. The claim that medical errors like these are the third leading cause of death in the United States is one that you can find plastered just about anywhere you look for it, even though it was never true, and not even close to true. Volumes of papers have been published showing it to be false — and not just false, but false by more than an order of magnitude. Today we're going to find out where this urban legend came from, reveal how we know it's not true, and see why the heck so many people continue to repeat it."

Click on this link for the details.

A New Drug To Prevent Heart Disease?

"Doctors have long known that inflammation plays a significant role in triggering heart attacks and strokes. Now for the first time, an anti-inflammatory drug is on the market to prevent these cardiovascular events.

“It is a game changer,” says Ian Neeland, MD, Director of Cardiovascular Prevention at University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute.

“We’ve known that low-grade, systemic inflammation is a powerful determinant of recurrent cardiovascular events. Colchicine is the first drug we have on the market for inflammation that reduces this risk,” says Dr. Neeland."

Click on the link below for the details:

First Drug To Prevent Heart Disease Is Approved

Be Careful What You Rub On Your Skin

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use certain over-the-counter analgesic (pain relief) products that are marketed for topical use to relieve pain before, during or after certain cosmetic procedures, such as microdermabrasion, laser hair removal, tattooing and piercing. The agency issued warning letters to six companies for marketing these products in violation of federal law."

Click on the link below for the details:

FDA Warns Consumers to Avoid Certain Topical Pain Relief Products

The Truth About Medication Abortions

The conservative media, per usual, is spreading disinformation. This time, it is about medication abortions. Click on the following links from independent medical sources for the truth:

https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/medication-abortion-your-questions-answered

https://www.aamc.org/news/what-medication-abortion-your-questions-answered

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/18556/

Medical Regulation: Just Another "Protect Your Own" Establishment?

"John Oliver discusses state medical boards, how they often fail to protect patients from bad doctors, and what it all has to do with Melrose Place."

Click on the link below for the sad reality of failure to rid medicine of harmful practitioners: 

State Medical Boards

Leaky Gut: More Fantasy Than Real

"In her 2023 book Doppelganger, Canadian author Naomi Klein, often confused with conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf, uses the concept of the Mirror World to describe the alternate reality in which many people seem to live these days. In the Mirror World, our reality’s reflection gets distorted. Two Apple employees sitting in a restaurant and discussing the Apple Watch’s “Time Travel”, a since-abandoned feature allowing you to scroll through upcoming events and weather forecasts on your smart watch, becomes an overheard conversation about vaccine nanoparticles that let you travel back in time (true story). Everything gets misinterpreted in the Mirror World in the service of paranoia, distrust, and magical thinking.

"There is a kernel of truth to the leaky gut theory, but what you’re likely to see online is its warped, outsized funhouse-mirror twin."

Click on the link below for the details:

You Probably Don’t Have a Leaky Gut

Medishare: Let The Buyer Beware

 “Healthcare sharing ministries claim an exemption from federal and state insurance laws, so there's no guarantee that the organization maintains funds sufficient to pay claims and certainly no guarantee that they will, even if the funds are there,” Volk told Forbes. “There are no solvency requirements, no requirement to pay members in a timely way - no requirement to pay at all. It really is just a matter of faith that claims will be paid, though the marketing typically suggests otherwise.”

Click on the link below for the details. Be aware that a Google search is very opaque on these non-insurance operations:

FBI says that Christian Obamacare Alternative a Fraud

Medicare Is Under Attack By The Greedy

"Medicare, the largest health care payer in the nation, is also the single biggest source of revenue for pharmaceutical companies. Since Medicare’s creation, federal law has restricted the program’s coverage to items and services that are “reasonable and necessary.” Legislation introduced earlier this year, however, takes aim at Medicare’s foundational discretion to decide whether to cover a new product. These efforts are misguided—Medicare cannot and should not automatically cover every drug or device approved or cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Medicare’s ability to decline, limit, or condition coverage of medical products that lack robust evidence is crucial to safeguarding taxpayer dollars and protecting public health."

Click on the link below for more:

Protecting Medicare’s Discretion to Say No to Unproven Therapies

The Truth About Supplements

"Though many supplements are certainly beneficial to your health, evidence varies widely, and it’s important to know which can benefit your health and which may be harmful."

Click on the links below for the details:

5 Things You Need to Know About Dietary Supplements

What's really in that sports supplement?

Bottom line: do NOT take supplements without your primary care provider's supervision and after appropriate blood tests for vitamin and mineral deficiencies:

Vitamin Deficiencies And Nutrition Levels From Blood Testing

Oh, if the product is marketed as a "supplement", you can count on it NOT being tested medicine. Please look for the FDA disclaimer, such as:

On the positive side, Omega 3 Fatty Acids promote health and most people do not get enough.

Medicare Advantage Is A Fraud

"Medicare Advantage took your tax dollars only to deny your medical claims!! Why? To pay their executives millions of dollars in salaries & bonuses."

Click on the link below for more:

How Private Healthcare CEOs Robbed Medicare To Make Millions

Psychedelics Are Not Just Street Drugs

"John Oliver discusses psychedelic-assisted therapy: its history, its potential, and what it has to do with A$AP Rocky’s relationship to rainbows."

If society truly was science-based in its thinking, these drugs would have been standard medicine decades ago. Click on the link below for the details:

Psychedelic Assisted Therapy

Another Canary-In-The-Coalmine Is Dying

"America's doctors are leaving the profession in growing numbers, creating a crisis in the U.S. healthcare system. Some 117,000 physicians left the field in 2021, and one in five doctors say they will soon do so. In a recent op-ed for The New York Times, political anthropologist and physician Dr. Eric Reinhart explained fatal flaws in the country’s health system that led to this worrying trend. He shares with Michel Martin some potential solutions."

Look at what is happening within virtually all human services. Workers in these vital areas of society are leaving in droves. The US of A had best pay attention and vote out the you-know-whos. Click on the link below:

Why are Doctors Quitting?

Exploding Myths In Culture, Science, And Psychology

"We too readily accept whatever we are taught. Not Tomasz Witkowski! He sets an example that we all should follow: he questions everything! His questions lead him to discover that much of psychology, culture, and even science itself are not supported by credible evidence. This book will challenge you to reconsider some of your most cherished beliefs, and to realize that much of what you thought you knew is wrong. Prepare to be discombobulated by his revelations."

The most important trait of a science-based thinker is to realize that you can be wrong in your beliefs. After all, science is performed by imperfect humans with a limited knowledge base. Ironically, it is this trait that has advanced society through positive change based on objective evidence. Unfortunately, virtually all other worldviews are resistant to change.

Click on the link below for a book review concerning the above realities:

Fads, Fakes, And Frauds

Handling The Drug Overdose Problem With What Works

"John Oliver discusses why overdoses in the U.S. have been on the rise and what we should, and shouldn’t, be doing to prevent them."

Drug overdoses are a major blight on society and history shows the utter ineffectiveness of most programs. Click on the link below for some science-based approaches to the problem:

Harm Reduction: Last Week Today with John Oliver (HBO)

No Medical Treatment Is Risk-Free

"It is always risky to use a new treatment before all the evidence is in, but it’s also risky to let a serious illness go untreated. Paul Offit’s latest book You Bet Your Life is about the “long and risky history” of medical innovations, giving readers much to consider while trying to decide which risk is greater."

This is directed toward those who are giving Dr. Fauci, and other medical experts, a hard time over recommended management of COVID-19. Click on the link below for details:

Deciding Which Risks to Take

Treatment For Bacterial Infections Is In Trouble

"Drug-resistant bacteria — also known as superbugs — are on the rise globally, and they're now killing more people each year than either HIV/AIDS or malaria. And low- and middle-income countries are being hit the hardest by the rise in antibiotic-resistant infections."

For the last two years, medical science has been rightly focused on the treatment and prevention of a viral pandemic. What is being pushed to the back burner is the growing issue of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Click on the link below to understand the seriousness of the issue:

Why humans are losing the race against superbugs 

Healthcare: Individual Rights Vs The General Welfare

Points to ponder:

• Individual rights are not absolute 
• Libertarianism is a marginal idea and not a universal value
• Humans have evolved as social animals and have thrived from such
• The Preamble to the US Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
• The First Amendment to the US Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
• Morality comes from biology and socialization, not from an unevidenced God

Given the above:

• Why Catholic hospitals are bad for the US

The Role Of Sports In Youth

When I was growing up and active in athletics, the world of sports was quite a bit different than it is today. For example, the Olympics was truly an amateur event, and even so-called elite sports colleges had strict rules regarding receiving payments outside of scholarships. With the exponential growth of media coverage of not only professional sports events, but elite college and even high school events, athletes at all levels are under tremendous pressure to perform in the face of physical and mental disability, and, in many cases, financial stress. One only has to look at how some misguided people are reacting to Simone Biles' withdrawal from this year's Olympic events to understand how out of proportion to what is really important in life elite sports have become. While this link is looking at the psychology of the Olympic athlete, it puts big-time sports in general in perspective. 

Click on the link below for a podcast expose of the problems within today's culture of the "student-athlete:"

The Myth of the Student-Athlete

A Promising Legitimate Obesity Treatment

"New study in The New England Journal of Medicine finds impressive evidence that weekly semaglutide injections produce clinically significant weight loss as well as many other benefits, approaching the improvements seen with weight loss surgery. Not a definitive answer to obesity, but a very encouraging step in the right direction. Science works."

Click on the link below for more on this promising addition to legitimate treatment for clinical obesity, as well as an overview of treatment for obesity, good and bad, from a science-based perspective:

A New Medication to Combat Obesity