Fausta's Blog

This is what women in Cuba have to use since the country can’t produce paper goods, and doesn’t have money to import them: Pads made of fabric, that must be washed by hand since no one can afford washing machines,

Michael Moore and all of those touting “Cuban healthcare” probably don’t know about this detail of basic sanitation.

Now that there are shortages of tampons, pads, toothpaste, food, and paper goods in Venezuela, the chavistas have come up with a propaganda video extolling the pads made of fabric:

She claims it’s 100% biodegradable, reusable, and prevents you from participating in “savage capitalism.”

No mention of bacteria, stained clothes, or odors.

Meanwhile, someone else didn’t take well to this pre-industrial age idea (what am I saying? Pre-Roman times), and came up with snark,

“We couldn’t leave out [the] biodegradable Bolivarian tampons”

Risk of Deadly TB Exposure Grows Along U.S.-Mexico Border

Officials say that when drug-resistant cases show up in the U.S., there is often a Mexico connection. Of San Diego’s 14 multidrug-resistant TB cases between 2007 and 2011, half were either from Mexico or had a Mexico link based on the particular strain of the disease, said Kathleen Moser of the county’s Health & Human Services Agency, which sees many patients who live and work on both sides of the border.

Part of the problem, of course, is that Mexico’s rate of TB infection is much higher—in some cases 10 times higher. The resistant strains begin to breed, experts say, when doctors there give patients similar drug regimens over and over. Other times, patients who aren’t supervised closely abandon treatment before they are cured.

It’s worse because of the Mexican drug violence:

Funding isn’t the only issue. As a key part of prevention efforts, U.S. experts have regularly crossed the border in California and Texas to keep tabs on and help patients directly. But drug-related violence along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border has shot up, forcing workers to consult only from the U.S. side. Among them is Barbara Seaworth, the medical director of a TB center in San Antonio, who stopped a few years ago after making the trips for nearly 20 years.

Compounding the problem: Mexico lacks enough health workers to offer directly observed therapy to every patient.

Don’t get injured in New York City, because Nanny Bloomberg knows better than your doctor:
New York City to Restrict Prescription Painkillers in Public Hospitals’ Emergency Rooms

Under the new city policy, most public hospital patients will no longer be able to get more than three days’ worth of narcotic painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet. Long-acting painkillers, including OxyContin, a familiar remedy for chronic backache and arthritis, as well as Fentanyl patches and methadone, will not be dispensed at all.

How often is Oxycontin prescribed in emergency rooms anyway, and why is Bloomberg sticking his nose on this?

And lost, stolen or destroyed prescriptions will not be refilled.

After I came up with this post’s title I found out Stephen Green had it, too.

A mayor’s job is shovel the snow, catch criminals. Not this stuff.

If NYC has a problem with junkies and painkillers, I suggest they start dealing with the junkies. Instead, Bloomberg will crack down mostly on people who aren’t breaking the law, by doing what governments do best: Creating shortages of vital goods.

But fear not, the short, plump mayor knows what’s best for you.

UPDATE:
Howard Portnoy:

Michael R. Bloomberg isn’t a doctor, and he doesn’t even play one on television. But that hasn’t stopped him from practicing medicine. Last July, he ordered New York City hospitals to begin hiding baby formula so that mothers of newborns would be forced to nurse their infant children. A month earlier, he enacted a ban on soft drinks larger than 16 fluid ounces, seeming to understand that if he didn’t take action, his patients – er, subjects … er, constituents … would drink themselves to an early, sugary death.

Look up “Bloomberg” in the latest illustrated thesaurus & his photo pops up under “officious little pr*ck” faustasblog.com/2013/01/nanny-… @elbloombito

— Fausta (@Fausta) January 11, 2013

The Peak Time for Everything
Pack More in a Day By Matching Tasks To the Body’s Energy; Lung Power at 5 p.m.

with handy-dandy video and graphic

(more…)

Turns out that Phidippides, the Greek guy who died in 470BC after running 175 miles in two day, was trying to tell us something,
Excess exercise ‘hurts the heart’ and cause dangerous long-term harm, say scientists

Activities such as marathons, iron man distance triathlons, and very long distance bicycle races may cause structural changes to the heart and large arteries, leading to lasting injury.

Some people may overexercise since they enjoy the endorphins; psychology has named that the Jim Fixx syndrome

Some joggers, in order to heighten the pleasurable effect of the jogger’s euphoria, subject their bodies to excessive exercise. In this pursuit of pleasure, they may sometimes land themselves into serious trouble that has been described as the Jim Fixx Syndrome.

Fixx also dropped dead during jogging.

Now excuse me while I take a nap.

Aide says former Vice President Dick Cheney had heart transplant.

Cheney, born in 1941, has a long history of heart problems.

Smitty: BREAKING: Dick Cheney Refutes Rumors That He Lacked A Heart

UPDATE, Monday, 26 March:
Cheney doing ‘exceedingly well’ after heart transplant

The Daily has this headline,
Paula’s big fat secret
TV chef famous for Southern-fried decadence to reveal she has diabetes

Paula Deen — the queen of high-calorie, Southern cooking — is about to come clean and confess that she can’t eat her own dishes anymore because she has diabetes.

The Georgia-born chef — a Food Network star who has written five best-selling cookbooks — has been trying to keep her condition a secret, even after the National Enquirer reported in April that she has Type 2 diabetes, which is often associated with fatty foods and obesity.

Sources say Deen, 64, who never addressed the diabetes question, has worked out a multimillion-dollar deal to be the spokeswoman for a pharmaceutical company and endorse the drug she is taking.

The unnamed “sources” were wrong: James Joyner’s commenter PJ clarifies

Novartis, the pharmaceutical company, denies that she has signed a deal with them:

The rumors that Novartis has signed a multi-million dollar spokesperson deal with Paula Deen for a Diabetes treatment are not true. Novartis is not working with Ms. Deen.

If Deen has made a lot of money frying Twinkies, that’s fine by me.

There are two things that bother me about this type of story:
1. The outrage over Paula Deen making money from her own private enterprise. Face it, she’s a self-made successful entrepreneur who didn’t ruin a state and lose $1.2 billion of her client’s money.

That she became morbidly obese is her own responsibility, too, which brings me to
2. Deen’s not at your house making you fried twinkies (or whatever), and putting a gun to your head to make you eat them. You and no one else is responsible for what you ingest. Somebody go tell that toNanny Mike Bloomberg.

Added:
Recommended reading,

UPDATE,
Linked by Peach Pundit. Thanks!
Linked by Georgia Slate. Thanks!
Linked by Cynthia. Thanks!

Yeah, yeah, you’ve been lectured about health habits until you could puke. But this one’s entertaining, it makes sense, and it’s only 9 minutes:

Gerard says, “Works for me and I wish I’d started it before my heart stopped.”

Why Placebos Work Wonders
From Weight Loss To Fertility, New Legitimacy For ‘Fake’ Treatments, and interestingly,

A 2001 study published in Science found that placebo was effective at improving Parkinson’s disease symptoms at a magnitude similar to real medication. The placebo actually induced the brain to produce greater amounts of dopamine, the neurotransmitter known to be useful in treating the disease.

Dopamine

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them.

Could it be that the patient’s perception of the treatment provided directly affects its efficacy? Would the “bedside manner” directly influence the outcome?

I’m currently reading The Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton. The book’s premise is that

that genes and DNA do not control our biology, that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our thoughts.

It’ll be interesting to see, as years go on, how science finds this to be.

What the hey is an obesogen?

chemicals in the environment, newly termed obesogens, may lend a helping hand in the obesity epidemic, especially in babies and children. Studies show that these chemicals are found in the water and food supply as well as in other man-made chemicals

You mean, like the pervasive corn syrup and soy additives process foods contain, partly in thanks to the federal agricultural subsidies? No. They mean any chemical.

Ah, that clears that up: An obesogen is yet another excuse for more government regulation,

An article by Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) explains, “REACH stands for ‘registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals’ — the name of a massively bureaucratic program in the European Union. The EPA wants Congress to use it as a model for revisions to the Toxics Substances Control Act — and they even have started working on their version of the program while pushing for congressional authorization.”

Think about it: every thing you eat will be considered under the scope of the Toxic Substances Control Act.

It’s the perfect setup for the nanny state: Erase any sense of responsibility for the overeater, push in legislation and regulation, increase government control, and make everybody pay for it.

The obesogen, indeed, will bloat the bureaucracy.

Michelle Obama says on what you feed your kids, “We can’t just leave it to the parents.” National Review has a few things to say on that, but regardless of what they say, the obesogens have arrived to stay.