Although it’s clear that the motivation of Big Pharma is avarice, and the FDA’s problem is their incestuous relationship with Big Pharma, it’s still puzzling how doctors who  enter their profession because of a desire to contribute to the health and well-being of others sell out to a system that shuns the use of effective natural treatments.

The majority of doctors don’t know much about nutrition and seem to have forgotten the “roots” of their profession.  Many doctors not only don’t take advantage of alternative medicine but aggressively denigrate the entire idea that anything other than drugs and surgery might be beneficial in their profession.

Doctors receive very little education in nutrition in medical school.  Just how little?  In some schools no more than 8 hours.  For an illustration of how little importance the doctors give to nutrition consider the food served to patients in the hospital – fried foods, mashed potatoes and gravy, macaroni and cheese, Salisbury steak with gravy, homogenized milk, vegetables with all the nutrition cooked out of them, and dessert.  That’ll help you recover quickly – yeah right!

Pharmaceutical companies start building their relationship with doctors early, paying for medical school textbooks and holding special vacations (oops – seminars).  Then they continue to build the relationship paying for more educational junkets and making sure they are assigned a “detail rep” to drop by doctors’ offices frequently to drop off free drug samples and many enticing gifts.  In 2004 there was one drug rep for every four and a half office-based doctors.

Pharmaceutical companies keep track of how much of their product a particular doctor prescribes to his patients.  Generics are available for most drugs, but the next time you get a prescription from your doctor look at it closely.  If you see “DAW” written on the prescription, it means “dispense as written”.  Your doctor is telling the pharmacist to give you a particular brand of drug from a particular pharmaceutical company.

The FDA opposes nutritional products and has used any excuse to try to regulate nutritional companies out of business while from time to time permitting the continued sale of drugs discovered to injure or kill people.  By law, proponents of natural health products not only can’t claim that their products can be beneficial in the prevention or treatment of chronic disease or illness, they must actually say that they don’t.  On the other hand, according to an article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine published in 1996, 42% of the material doctors received from drug reps made claims that were in violation of FDA regulations, and only 39 percent of the material referred to scientific evidence to support its marketing claims.

Many medical practitioners want to do the right thing, but they are battling a medical system focused almost entirely on the marketing of drugs and surgical procedures.  In the medical profession there are documents called “clinical guidelines”.  Actually designed to give doctors confidence that they are making sound patient care decisions in accordance with the best available scientific evidence the guidelines often don’t meet established standards.  A report in The Lancet found that only one out of 20 clinical guidelines examined met established quality.  However, these guidelines provide standards by which the quality of a doctor’s care can be judged and they can be used as evidence in medical malpractice cases.  If your doctor violates a clinical guideline that calls for the use of a particular drug he or she could face a malpractice suit and loss of their medical license.

Are you as frustrated about this as I am?  Well, here’s a news flash!  Frustration is not the worst thing that can happen to you or your family because of this system.  If you or your family have a life threatening illness or disease, it could cost you your life!

This short, yet powerful hospital documentary film tells about a New Zealand farmer who almost died from swine flu due to the refusal of the medical team to try high dose vitamin C as the family requested.  The doctors wanted to take him off life support because they said there was no hope he would live.

Don’t be bullied to an early death.  Consider alternative medicine and nutritional products.  Ultimately, you are responsible for your own health, so utilize information to educate yourself.

Among the most typical and the most devastating of the kidney issues is polycystic kidney sickness. It is a genetic problem which is marked using the presence of many cysts showing in the kidney; as a result its title polycystic kidney illness was derived. Enjoy a lot types of kidney diseases, PKD provides symptoms which incorporate abdominal discomforts, hematuria, urinary tract an infection, hypertension, abdominal crowd, heightened serum creatinine, renal discomfort and eventually renal failure. Unique to PKD is imaging consequence exhibiting cystic kidneys.

Polycystic kidney treatment is mostly a palliative approach. Quite a few tries to withstand kidney rejection in PKD individuals possess been ineffective. Therefore, polycystic kidney treatment is mainly a palliative approach. Hypertension which is among the predisposing components of PKD and known to hasten disease progression is sought to be controlled. Lower blood pressure slows straight down disease process. The body type’s renin-angiotensin system which is responsible for elevating blood vessels pressure is also suppressed via the use of a multidrug mindset.  Quinolones which are chemotherapeutics representatives and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole antibiotics are the favored therapy for infected kidney cysts.

Because polycystic kidney treatment is generally supportive, it aims to reduce individuals’ capacitating symptoms and symptoms. Discomfort is a common warning sign skilled by individuals with PKD. To deal with pain, sufferers are to go through cyst drainage and sclerotherapy.
When the disease has progressed to end phase renal disease, polycystic kidney remedy will now include hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis. Patients who passed for a renal implant screening may also undergo nephrectomy, or the treatment of the diseased kidney.

Polycystic kidney remedy, although it aims for a cure is mostly darted in the direction of lowering the suffering of a patient which is implicated by the deteriorating kidneys. It deals with what manifestation is present and is very relative to the patient’s condition. The search for the treatment of polycystic kidney disease has a long way to go. Patients using the dysfunction can solely go on to preserve lifestyle by slowing straight down disease progression until the ultimate treatment is produced.

healthcare costs

The government and private sector looks to workplace health as becoming a key issue in lowering healthcare costs. On average, the everyday worker spends more than one third of his or her life in the office and it?s only logical that programs at work should tackle employee health as this is shown to lower overall national healthcare costs. A good program at work results into employees being more interested to work, more happy and generally are healthier. You can get the best fruit sydney information by visiting this website.

As said, on a national level workplace health plays a vital role in shaping up a nations healthcare system. The family, relatives and even friends of workers who are taught at the workplace are also enlightened about good health practices. Solving the puzzle that is healthcare becomes easier when government and private companies both address the same issues.

This article discusses common workplace health programs that not just affect companies but entire nations. We take a closer look at health programs aimed to detect and educate about AIDS, breast cancer and cervical cancer, and programs on smoking and eating and nutrition. In the end, readers should have a better understanding of what they can do themselves to promote good health in their own respective fields of work.

While it doesn?t seem very much related to the workplace AIDS is very much a concern throughout the world, and with more and more sexual relationships among coworkers it is important to create employee awareness on the seriousness of AIDS. Employees need to know about the dangers of AIDS, the ways of transmitting it and why safe sex is best. Simple workplace health programs like this can make a huge lasting difference in eliminating AIDS altogether. Visit this site for further information on fruit baskets sydney.

Companies are now filled with women employees from the most menial of jobs to the top of the corporate ladder, and company workplace health programs should reflect this. Issues like breast cancer should be included in any company health initiative. Besides creating awareness, a good idea for companies is to shoulder regular mammography screening for women.

The dangers of cervical cancer and how to prevent it and treat it are some of the things women employees should know. Promoting the cervical cancer vaccine is a another great way in assisting its women workforce. Vaccines for some is enough to prevent cervical cancer, but for some it may not be enough, so the best way is to continue keep the workplace health healthy is by having regular Pap smear screening for women. Sadly, most people know that smoking is bad for their health, yet they continue to take cigarette breaks after cigarette breaks. Because of the stress in the office and how smoking is equated to relieving stress, there is actually more smoking done at work than at other places. Smoking should never be allowed at work as it is proven smoking does not help anybody especially and deteriorates good workplace health.

Eating is one the biggest factors in making us healthy or not and should be part of any company workplace health program. Commercialized food that is filled with sugar, carbs, msg and preservatives really don?t do anything positive for the body. If the company shoulders the meals and snacks of the employee, it is very easy to make sure employees get the healthiest meals and treats.

Workplace health concerns are wide and varied, and cannot be studied in one sitting. It was only with the hopes of a partnership between company and employee that this article was written. As a lasting thought, everyone has to do their part to live healthy lives and no one can do it for them.

Improving Healthcare Quality and Cost with Six Sigma

Green homes

In this city on the mend, hundreds of state-of-the-art sustainable, energy-efficient homes are being built in lower-income neighborhoods, a trend that’s outpacing most of the rest of the country.

More than 500 homes are being built with features such as solar panels, rain-catching cisterns and eco-friendly materials in neighborhoods that received the brunt of the damage from the 2005 floods following Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds of other homes are being given green upgrades.

“New Orleans is certainly a leader in that regard,” says Suzanne Watson of the Washington-based American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. “The scale at which they’re doing it is remarkable.”

Green building has traditionally been left to higher-end homes, whose owners can afford the costlier solar panels and other elements, says Forest Bradley-Wright of the New Orleans-based Alliance for Affordable Energy. But as New Orleans began to rebuild, non-profits stepped in with innovative development techniques and eco-friendly plans to rebuild lower-income neighborhoods such as the Lower 9th Ward and Pontchartrain Park, he says.

“The destruction caused by Katrina necessitated almost every one to rethink how to rebuild their home,” Bradley-Wright says.

Other American cities are building sustainable, energy-efficient housing for lower-income families. The Boston Housing Authority will receive $63 million in federal money for energy-efficiency improvements, the largest public-housing project of that kind in U.S. history. And the Seattle Housing Authority is revamping one of its public housing complexes into 1,700 green energy-efficient units.

But it’s rare for a city to develop so many sustainable and affordable single-family homes, such as New Orleans is doing, as opposed to apartment complexes, which is more the national trend, Watson says.

“What’s happening in New Orleans is incredibly impressive. It shows the tenacity of those working there,” says Dana Bourland, a vice president of Enterprise Community Partners, a Maryland-based non-profit that supports affordable housing efforts nationwide.

New Orleans projects include:

• Five sustainable homes, an 18-unit apartment complex and a community center in the Holy Cross section of the Lower 9th Ward developed by California-based Global Green USA.
• 150 eco-friendly homes planned for the Lower 9th Ward by Make It Right, the initiative started by actor Brad Pitt. So far, 34 of the homes have been built.
• Plans to build more than 100 green homes in the city’s Gentilly neighborhood on a $20 million pledge from the New York-based Riggio Foundation.
• More than 150 elevated, energy-efficient homes are being planned for the Pontchartrain Park area, an initiative led by actor Wendell Pierce, a New Orleans native best known for his role in HBO series The Wire.

The completed Lower 9th Ward homes range in price from $120,000 to $160,000 and energy bills are 75% lower than comparable homes, says Jon Sader, Make It Right’s construction director.

One of them went to Neal Dupar, 48, whose previous home was destroyed in August 2005 by more than 10 feet of water. He lives with his wife and five children in a new four-bedroom home with solar paneling and improved insulation on the same lot as his previous home. He pays $300 a month less on energy and water bills than in the old house, he says.

“It’s helped a great deal,” Dupar says. “I’d never be able to afford this on my own.”

Next to Green Homes: New Ideas for Sustainable Living

Window Energy Film

City officials and Los Angeles’s power company are sparring over big increases in electricity rates that the utility says it needs to pay for a push into renewable energy.

So far, the city council is balking at the requests. But both sides agree the utility will need more revenue, making some substantial increases likely later this year.

Los Angeles’s case could serve as a warning to officials in other cities and states who are also trying to change the energy mix of local utilities, substituting more power from renewable sources, such as wind and sun, for power from coal- or gas-burning plants.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the nation’s largest municipal utility, says it needs to collect significantly more money to manage costs associated with an ambitious plan to get more electricity from renewable resources and less from coal.

The utility currently gets about half of its power from coal, an unusually large amount for a utility in California, a state with no significant coal deposits.

The city’s goal is to get 20% of its electricity from green sources by the end of the year, which it is on track to achieve. It hopes to raise that to 35% to 40% by 2020.

Renewable power from sources such as wind turbines and solar farms, however, is considerably more costly than the coal-based electricity it replaces.

The city council had authorized the utility to raise rates 5%, or 0.6 cents a kilowatt hour, on April 1. That plan dissolved Thursday, when the utility’s board instead moved to impose an increase of about 5.7% and was halted by the city council, postponing any action for three months.

Jan Perry, a city council member who is chairwoman of an energy subcommittee, said the appointed utility board “overplayed its hand” in thinking it could ignore the wishes of the city’s elected officials.

Other council members accused the utility of extortion for threatening to withhold a $73 million payment to the city, which is running a deep deficit, until the department gets a satisfactory rate increase.

A looming revenue shortfall at the Los Angeles utility prompted its board last month to demand a double-digit increase of 2.7 cents a kilowatt hour this year, broken into several increases.

The budget crunch stems from lingering effects of high fuel costs two years ago and, more recently, increased purchases of renewable energy. The utility has been unable to charge customers the full amount of its rising costs because the city council has capped rates.

“The utility needs to raise rates. The mayor’s main concern is to make sure the citizens get something back for it, like cleaner energy and green jobs,” said Sarah Hamilton, press secretary for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Many businesses oppose rate increases in a weak economy. On Tuesday, the city council heard objections from residents and business owners. A representative of brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, for example, indicated the rate increase could cost it up to $2 million a year.

Others said the city’s goal to generate green jobs was undercut by high electricity prices that would drive businesses from the city.

“We’re going to lose a lot of jobs,” warned Councilman Greig Smith. “And this proposal doesn’t shut down a single coal plant.”