Health & WellnessS


Smoking

E-cigarettes are a calming vapor for inmates

Timothy Williams
The New York Times
Thu, 23 Jan 2014 10:15 UTC
e-cig smoker
© Christopher Berkey/NYTLogan Smith with his e-cig
As city governments and schools across the country move to ban or restrict the use of electronic cigarettes, one place increasingly welcomes the devices: the rural county jail.

Though traditional cigarettes are prohibited from most prisons and jails because of fire hazards and secondhand smoke, a growing number of sheriffs say they are selling e-cigarettes to inmates to help control the mood swings of those in need of a smoke, as well as address budget shortfalls, which in some jails have meant that guards are earning little more than fast-food workers.

Inmates are addicted to cigarettes and pay what the market bears to get their fix. Prisons and jails earn a little extra money to pay their guards and provide a safer environment for inmates. Everybody wins. It is obviously not a utopia, but this system logically seems to be one where everyone is relatively content with the outcome.

The trend stands in contrast to restrictions on e-cigarettes approved in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and other big cities. County jails in at least seven states have permitted the sale of a limited selection of flavors of e-cigarettes to inmates. They have quickly become one of the most sought-after items in jail commissaries. And although federal prisons ban e-cigarettes, the inmate market has so much potential that Chinese and American manufacturers now produce "jail-safe" versions made of plastic instead of metal.

Comment: A good example of the benefits of smoking on mood. Here's more:

5 Health Benefits of Smoking

Health Benefits of Smoking Tobacco

'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!

Read More...
Sun

Heat the body, heal the mind

Julie Huynh
The Daily Wildcat
Wed, 22 Jan 2014 22:24 UTC
FIR for depression
© Charles RaisonA participant lies in a tent that elevates his core body temperature using infrared heat. Preliminary data suggests that the treatment is effective at reducing symptoms of depression.
University of Arizona researchers are using heat to treat depression.

The ongoing study, led by UA psychiatry professor Charles Raison, is examining the effectiveness of a technique known as whole-body hyperthermia as a treatment for depression. Early results show that the technique works, Raison said.

"This is one of the first studies of depression treatment that is not directly targeting the brain itself," said Clemens Janssen, one of Raison's graduate students at the UA's John and Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Raison's interest in the link between body temperature and mood was inspired by Tummo meditation techniques, used by Tibetan Buddhists to reach a euphoric state by increasing their body temperature.

Comment: For more on the benefits of infrared heat see: Use Infrared Heat for Pain Relief and Other Health Benefits

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Smoking

If smoking is so bad for us, why legalize marijuana?

Mark Janda
fredericksburg.com
Sun, 26 Jan 2014 05:50 UTC
Image
Government gives green light to get stoned, and the red light to get thinking.
Regarding "Reefer madness: Why the big rush to legalize pot?" [Viewpoints, Jan. 19]: I've heard on the news and read several articles this past week related to how cigarettes are more addictive than ever. There was a New York Times editorial on Jan 19: "Smoking is worse than you imagined."

Smoking kills even more Americans than previously estimated with 480,000 per year dying from smoking-related illnesses. This costs us between $289 billion and $333 billion in medical care and lost productivity. The article states expectedly that the cause of all the deaths and costs are due to marketing from the tobacco industry freely not the individuals who choose to smoke.

The solution? The FDA should put regulations on all tobacco products. Thanks to the government, they will protect us from ourselves. This in addition to Obamacare, which will for the most part restrict all tobacco products so that the government will save all of those billions of dollars, right?

Comment: Wrong!

But we share the author's skepticism. The whole anti-tobacco/pro-marijuana thing stinks.

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Health

Medicaid swells with Obamacare

Sharon Begley and David Morgan
Yahoo News
Wed, 22 Jan 2014 17:39 UTC
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More than 6.3 million Americans were deemed eligible for government healthcare plans for the poor since the October 1 launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare law through December, federal officials reported on Wednesday.

The swelling rolls for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) reflect both an expansion of Medicaid under Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA) and what healthcare policy analysts call an "out-of-the-woodwork effect," in which people who heard about Obamacare sought to obtain health insurance and discovered that they had qualified for Medicaid even before the law expanded eligibility.

"We have people who for the first time will have some health security that they never had before," Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said of the Medicaid numbers at the winter meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C.

It was not clear how much credit goes to the healthcare law, however.
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Clipboard

Study Shows: Obamacare is a bad deal for the young, cheaper to be uninsured

Lily Dane
Activist Post
Fri, 24 Jan 2014 15:10 UTC
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The success of Obamacare largely rests on the shoulders of the estimated 2.7 million "young invincibles" whose premiums are needed to subsidize healthcare costs for others. People in the 18 - 35 age group are needed to create a balanced risk pool.

Now a study shows that coverage through the ACA is just not a good deal for those young adults.

The study, conducted by The American Action Forum, concluded that for 86% of that demographic, ACA coverage is just not worth it:
The ACA's perverse economic incentives are well documented. The law makes health insurance more expensive for many young adults, while at the same time making the decision to go without health coverage exponentially less risky than it previously was. It is impossible to predict how many young adults will ultimately enroll in coverage, but it is clear that many young adult enrollees will be worse off financially if they decide to purchase health insurance.
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Info

5 shady ways Big Pharma may be influencing your doctor

Martha Rosenberg
Alternet
Thu, 23 Jan 2014 14:28 UTC
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Until 2010, when the Physician Payments Sunshine Act passed, requiring doctors to disclose payments, the only thing better than working for Pharma was being a doctor wined and dined by Pharma.

Pfizer jetted 5,000 doctors to Caribbean resorts where they enjoyed massages, golf and $2,000 honoraria charges to sell its painkiller Bextra (withdrawn from the market in 2005 for heart risks). GSK sent doctors to lavish resorts to promote Wellbutrin, the Justice Department charged. Johnson & Johnson bestowed trips, perks and honoraria on Texas Medicaid officials to get its drug Risperdal preferred on the formulary, a state lawsuit charged. Bristol-Myers Squibb enticed doctors to prescribe its drugs with access to the Los Angeles Lakers and luxury box suites for their games, California regulators say. In China GSK is charged with using a network of 700 middlemen and travel agencies to bribe doctors with cash and sexual favors, and Victory Pharma, an opioid drugs maker, was charged with treating doctors to strip shows. Nice.
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Arrow Up

Demand grows for hogs that are raised humanely outdoors

Stephanie Strom
New York Times
Mon, 20 Jan 2014 13:43 UTC
Image
© Karsten Moran for The New York TimesCraig and Sophie Meili raise pigs in a pasture on their family farm in Amenia, N.Y., not in barns or in the confinement stalls used in large-scale industrial settings.
Shushan, New York - Turn down the road to Flying Pigs Farm here, and two or three of Michael Yezzi's pigs are probably standing in the middle of it.

"They're the welcoming committee," Mr. Yezzi explained recently.

These particular pigs, three Gloucestershire Old Spots that could easily find work in Hollywood, had exploited a fault in the electrically wired fence and gone exploring. "I'm sure you've heard that pigs are very smart," said Mr. Yezzi, a lawyer turned farmer. His farm is about 20 miles east of Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

For the last four or five decades, spotting lone pigs in a field was almost as rare as finding a hen's tooth. But Mr. Yezzi is one of an increasing number of farmers raising pigs on hoof, in contrast to the barns and confinement stalls used in large scale industrial settings.
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Green Light

Here's how Vladimir Putin stays in shape

Benjamin Bell
ABC News
Sun, 19 Jan 2014 09:07 UTC
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© Unknown
Russian President Vladimir Putin, known for showcasing his physicality, often without a shirt, offered up details of his personal fitness routine and diet regimen in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos just weeks before the opening of the Olympic Games in Sochi next month.

The Russian leader, 61, said there is no silver bullet for staying in shape, but consistency is key.

"How does one control weight? By not overeating. How does one stay in shape? One plays sports. There are no magic pills here," Putin said during an interview for "This Week."

"I spend a little time every day to play sports. Last night, I was skiing here until 1:30 in the morning. I hit the gym this morning. I swim almost every day, a thousand meters," he said in an interview conducted Friday in Sochi.

During the interview, Putin invoked a Russian saying when describing his approach to fitness.

"You know there's a Russian saying: 'grain by grain, and a hen fills her belly,'" he said.
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Comet 2

Madagascar faces plague epidemic

Mary Boland
Irish Times
Tue, 21 Jan 2014 16:34 UTC
Experts warn former French colony faces Black Death epidemic unless it slows spread of rodent-borne disease
Madagascar black death
© Stephane de Sakutin/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesA young boy carries a tank to collect water in Antananarivo in Madagascar. Malagasy officials announced last month that the city’s coffers were empty and there was no funding for rubbish collection. Refuse has been piling up, encouraging the growth of the rodent population.
The director of Toliara jail in southwest Madagascar is wary of giving a wrong impression. "Sure we have rats, but lots of places do," says Serge Idriss Hasambarana. "We catch maybe 10 or so a month. Maybe more. The Pasteur Institute gave us traps."

Some 600 prisoners are held here in four cramped cells, a situation Hasambarana insists he is powerless to change. "Look around," he says, pointing to the crumbling walls and peeling paint of his sparse office and adjacent buildings. "This place was built by the French, and it hasn't been touched since. We need a lot of improvements around here but we don't get any money for it."

Comment: For a different perspective on the nature of the Black Death, read and consider the following SOTT Focus research:

New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection

Read More...
Comet

Bubonic plague outbreak in Madagascar leaves 32 dead and 100 quarantined in prison

Steve White
Mirror
Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:24 UTC
Black Death burial
© PABlack death: Workmen uncover a 14th century 'plague pit' burial ground in London earlier this year
The disease wiped out a third of Europe in the 14th Century and has returned to parts of Africa and Asia in recent years

Bubonic plague, which 700 years ago wiped out a third of Europe, has broken out on Madagascar.

At least 32 people on the East African island have died from the 'Black Death' with another 100 suspected cases. Surviving victims are being held in a prison.

The disease is spread by fleas carried by rats. If left untreated, it is fatal within 24 hours.

Comment: For a different perspective on the nature of the Black Death, read and consider the following SOTT Focus research:

New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection

Read More...