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Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Health Policy, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Can 5G Make You Sick?

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr. Patricia Powers, MD, Col., US Army (retired) – https://www.americaoutloud.news/dr-patricia-powers-col-us-army-can-5g-make-you-sick/

We are living in a world where a new technological device pops up every day. Many of these devices, such as cordless phones, cell phones and wireless internet routers use radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetic fields (Electromagnetic radiation (EMR) or electromagnetic fields (EMFs). And then there’s smart meters many utilities companies have installed to monitor your gas and electric use remotely.

Although radio communications and human exposure to radio frequency energy have been around for 100 years, these energy fields seem to be inescapable these days. There is almost no business establishment, school, or library that doesn’t have wireless technology.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared 5G safe but note that more research is needed. Many physicians and scientists such as the BioInitiative Working Group, have concerns about its safety. Experts disagree about the interpretation of the studies, what standards to use, what level of proof is needed, short-term vs long-term effects, performing separate studies on the very young, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with illnesses vs the average person, and importantly excluding people with conflicts of interest in the outcome of the research.

Given the uncertainty of the effects of electromagnetic radiation, it is disturbing that the federal government in its effort to expand broadband to the whole country, (the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023(HR 3557)) could eliminate state and local control in cell tower and cell placements – including schools and playgrounds.

My guest will discuss health problems and practical ways to reduce exposures to electromagnetic radiation.

 To find Dr. Patricia Powers:  drpattypowers.com

Virginia Medical Freedom Alliance – https://vamfa.org/

Virginians for Safe Technology – https://virginiansforsafetech.org/say-no/

Environmental Health Trust  –  https://ehtrust.org/

Electrosensitive Society  –  https://www.electrosensitivesociety.com/

Dr. Magda Havas PhD  –  https://magdahavas.com/

The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg 2020

EMF*D by Joe Mercola

EMF-Portal  –  https://www.emf-portal.org/en

Tech Wellness  –  https://techwellness.com/

Defender Shield  –  https://defendershield.com/

EMF Practical Guide by Lloyd Burrell 2019  –  https://ehtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/5G_What-You-Need-to-Know.pdf

Bio

Dr. Patricia Powers was an active duty Army doctor (pediatrician and then pediatric endocrinologist) for 25 years and retired at the rank of COL in 2004. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Dr. Powers received her MD from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, in Bethesda, MD and had her residency in pediatrics at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. She has trained in anti-aging and functional medicine and is a member of the International Society for Environmentally Acquired Illness and the National Association of Environmental Medicine.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Health Policy, Healthcare Reform, Medicine, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Health Freedom Is More Than Insurance Coverage

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Charles Frohman –https://www.americaoutloud.news/health-freedom-is-more-than-insurance-coverage/

Covid brought out the brewing distrust of the government to do what is best for the general populace, not merely their biggest donors. There are attacks on our health freedom from many directions. The Biden administration wants to limit the duration people can have less costly short term health insurance back down to 3 months. Of course, there are drawbacks, including high deductible and co-pays, and no coverage for pre-existing conditions. But that is an area for transparency. If that’s is what you want, knowing the drawbacks, you should be able to get it.

Another ridiculous push from the executive branch is continuing and worsening the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA Section 6001) limits on physician-owned hospitals. Thanks to the ACA, with a few exceptions, new physician-owned hospitals cannot be built and they are prohibited from expanding facility capacity. This is despite evidence that these hospitals provide high quality care at lower cost. According to new transparency data, both commercial negotiated prices and cash prices in physician-owned hospitals were about one-third lower than their competitors across eight common services. Let’s hope the recently-introduced Patient Access to Higher Quality Health Care Act of 2023 which would remove the ACA’s ban on the creation and expansion of physician-owned hospitals gets some traction.

Speaking of our health, I’d like to mention our food. They say you are what you eat. With our increasing diabetes and obesity, there is emphasis on eating more healthful foods. Food not only is made from gene-altered seeds but so-called real chicken is being made in the lab. Maybe it’s just fine, but the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved the lab-chicken as safe in one year. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave the final stamp of approval to two companies to sell the lab-grown or “cultivated” chicken. The companies will start by selling their product to high-end restaurants. Be careful where you eat. The way so many institutions consider informed consent optional, I wonder if and how this new chicken product will be labelled.

Today my guest and I will discuss various forms of unnecessary government intervention into our overall health and some solutions rooted in freedom.

Please visit Charles’ websites: Substack, Freedom Hub show, and NHF campaigns.

Bio

Charles Frohman is a lobbyist for the National Health Federation to restore informed consent, healer freedom, and end special interest capture of the bureaucracies. After graduating in 1988 with a Government B.A. from the College of William and Mary, he landed at the Cato Institute, and lobbied for a variety of nonprofits focusing on medical freedom. , including Health Ventures for Pain Medicine Rights, Consumer Health Reform, and Natural Health. Since 1990 I have helped politicians, trade associations, think tanks, nonprofits and corporations innovate – and raise their profile. Mr. Frohman is also connecting an innovative health plan with families, entrepreneurs and associations seeking empowerment of patients and healers. advancing the NHF’s health-freedom agenda.

Culture & Society, Doctors, Featured, Health Policy, Healthcare Reform, Medicine, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Save Money on Your Medical Bills

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Marshall Allen –https://www.americaoutloud.news/how-to-take-charge-of-your-medical-bills/

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), health spending represents 18.3 percent of our gross domestic product (GDP). Americans whether individually, through insurance, or through the government spent $4.3 trillion ($4,255.1 billion) or $12,914 per person in 2021. Out of pocket spending was 10.2 percent or $433.2 billion. Out of pocket expenses are coinsurance, deductibles, and services not covered by insurance but does not include insurance premiums.

As health expenditures grow year after year, politicians relish using costs and access as a campaign issue but only in the last few years have pushed for price transparency – that’s the buzzword of the day. Only in health care do we routinely make use of a product or service without knowing the cost beforehand. According to one study, employees who used a price transparency tool paid between 10 percent and 17 percent less than employees who did not have access to the service.

For the last few years, hospitals have been required to post online, in a consumer-friendly format, the rates they’ve negotiated with insurers for 300 common medical services. Unfortunately, these prices are written in billing jargon and hard to understand. Moreover, the prices differ within the same institution depending on whether the bill is paid by Medicare, private insurer or self-pay.

One thing we’ve learned so far with this data is that physician-owned hospitals both commercial negotiated prices and cash prices in physician-owned hospitals were about one-third lower than their competitors across eight common services and have higher quality care.

Recently, Congress has put forth a few transparency bills designed to let the consumer know the inner workings of their insurance contract. The Hidden Fee Disclosure Act (HR 4508) requires disclosure of the details of contracts of pharmacy benefit manager and third party administration services for group health plans contracts. The Health Data Access, Transparency, and Affordability Act or Healthcare DATA Act (HR 4527) would ensure that a group health plan’s fiduciaries may access de-identified information from providers, third party administrators, and pharmacy benefit mangers relating to health claims. The Transparency in Coverage Act (HR 4507) would  convert a 2019 rule into a law requiring health insurance plans to publicly share negotiated rates and cost-sharing estimates, and the number of claims that are denied, among other things.

But it could be that insurance is the root of cost evils. Even with the inappropriately named Affordable Care Act, the premiums have gotten higher every year. The average person in America pays $456 per month for marketplace health insurance.  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), in 2021, the average cost of employee health insurance premiums for family coverage was $22,221. The average annual premium for a self-only plan was $7,739. Employers paid about 80 percent of those premiums.

Surveys published by the American Hospital Association in July 2023 looked at the effects of the practices of commercial insurers. The surveys found that some 80 percent of patients, nurses and physicians say insurer policies and practices are reducing access to medical care, driving up health care costs and increasing clinician burden and burnout.

So, what is the immediate answer for you to pay less for your medical care? My guest will discuss some tools for fighting a system that is not looking out for you.

Key websites to visit:

https://www.marshallallen.com

Newsletter – https://marshallallen.substack.com

Allen Health Academy (videos) https://www.allenhealthacademy.com

Medical Care Prices – https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org;
https://www.healthcarebluebook.com/explore-home/;
https://turquoise.health;
https://healthcostlabs.com.

Bio

Marshall Allen is a journalist who has spent more than fifteen years investigating the health care industry, exposing the insidious ways the system preys on vulnerable Americans: price gouging, sloppy billing, fraud, insurance denials, unnecessary treatment and more. He is also the founder of Allen Health Academy, which produces a curriculum of short on-demand videos to equip and empower employees to navigate the health care system. He is the author of “Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win.” Mr. Allen’s work has been honored with several journalism awards, including the Harvard Kennedy School’s 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and coming in as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting. He also has a master’s degree in Theology. Before he was in journalism, Mr. Allen spent five years in full-time ministry, including three years in Nairobi, Kenya.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Health Policy, Law, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Doctors and Patients or Bureaucrats: Who’s in Charge of Our Medical Care?

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Andy Schlafly, Esq. –https://www.americaoutloud.news/doctors-and-patients-or-bureaucrats-whos-in-charge-of-our-medical-care/

We live in strange times. Police, physicians, and patients are treated like criminals while thieves are given the green light to steal at will. Some activists have even decided that looting is reparations. According to Newsweek magazine, a Chicago Black Lives Matter organizer stated, “I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci or a Macy’s or a Nike because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes. . . That’s reparations. That is reparations. Anything they want to take, take it because these businesses have insurance. They’re going to get their money back. My people aren’t getting anything.”

Employees are forbidden from engaging thieves. The higher-ups do not want the liability—the possibility of injury or worse. But the message this sends to the thieves-in-waiting is “Come on in for your five-finger discount.” Of course, we all pay for lawlessness with higher prices and, more importantly, the loss of a sense of safety and civility.

Police risk their lives daily. Rather than merely on an Instagram post, we should be seeing on the network nightly news the numerous heroic acts of police, such as pulling people from cars engulfed in flames. (Georgia, Virginia, Ohio to name a few). Or showing the police connecting with the community, including having fun with children of color. Not a chance. The media prefer to relentlessly focus on a few incidents, mainly by bad apples. When all the facts come out—most times in the police’s favor—the story loses its luster.

Meanwhile, the thought police are in full force. The state of Michigan passed a bill (HB 4474) that could make using the wrong pronouns in a manner that makes a person feel threatened or frightened a felony “punishable by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or by a fine of not more than $10,000.”  How is a person to gauge how a person will feel?

Maybe there is hope: In the Colorado web designer case, 303 Creative LLC et al. v. Elenis et al., the Supreme Court recently reaffirmed that the government cannot compel people to say things they do not believe in—even if they are “misguided or hurtful.”

Medical freedom for doctors and patients is becoming a distant memory. Physicians are afraid to go into pain management for fear of being labelled a pill pusher. They are bullied by medical boards with the specter of losing their licenses. Patients with chronic pain are resorting to getting heroin on the streets rather than be put in a government database.

Let’s make it our mission to tell anyone in power who will listen: Our bodies and minds belong to us, not to the government.

Attorney Andy Schlafly a wonderful friend of the show is here today to discuss some the recent cases challenging governmental authority over the practice of medicine and beyond.

Bio

Andy Schlafly is general counsel to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. He received a B.S.E. in electrical engineering and certificate in engineering physics from Princeton University. After graduating from Princeton, Mr. Schlafly briefly worked as a device physicist for Intel, then became a microelectronics engineer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He then attended Harvard Law School along with Barack Obama. For two years Mr. Schlafly was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, Schlafly served as an adjunct professor at Seton Hall Law School and worked for a large law firm before beginning private practice. Mr. Schlafly created the wiki-based Conservapedia in November 2006 to counter the apparent liberal bias in Wikipedia.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Featured, Medical Ethics, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: I Have 5 Words for These Legislators: Stay Away From Our Children

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr. Diana Blum –https://www.americaoutloud.news/i-have-5-words-for-these-legislators-stay-away-from-our-children/

Who on earth came up with the idea that having a race to the bottom would close the achievement gap among minorities and Whites and Asians. Some schools are going gradeless, and cancelling honors classes, and not informing students that they received National Merit scholarships. This is carrying diversity, equity, and inclusion too far. As Booker T. Washington said, “No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race, he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.” The whole point is to raise the achievement level of underachievers, not to stunt the progress of the high achievers to even things out.

This reminds me of various programs in 1964’s War on Poverty that sought to raise people out of poverty but resulted in, for many, intergenerational dependence on the government and for many, stagnation at subsistence level.

The tactics of the War on Poverty included AFDC—Aid to Families with Dependent Children—where if there was a man in the house, there were no welfare benefits. What happened to keeping a family together during troubled times? What happened to encouraging families to lean on one another and discuss and hopefully resolve their financial issues?

The thought process behind AFDC was only the beginning of the state’s new role of in loco parentis. This goes beyond co-parenting: parental rights are under assault. Laws are emerging that allow teachers more control over the intimate details of our children’s lives than their parents have. In multiple states children can have abortions with no parental involvement, irrespective of possible harm due to abuse in several states.

A proposed California law (AB665) would allow any minor as young as age 12 to seek mental health services and go to a government “residential shelter” without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Current law quite reasonably allows parents to be out of the loop only if the child presents as danger of serious physical or mental harm to themselves or others or to be the alleged victim of incest or child abuse.

Another California bill (AB957) that has passed through the assembly “would include a parent’s affirmation of the child’s gender identity as part of the health, safety, and welfare of the child.” This would become as factor in determining whether as parent is guilty of child abuse in custody hearings. How is this in the best interests of the child when this bill applies to children of all ages, not just, for example, 12 and up? So, the parent who “affirms” gets custody and the other parent is labeled a child abuser.

I have five words for these legislators: stay away from our children.

My guest and I will discuss some policies of some of our schools that intrude on parental rights, many times resulting in harm to children medically and educationally.

Bio

Dr. Diana Blum is a board-certified neurologist who completed her medical school training at the University of Chicago, Pritzker school of Medicine and her Neurology Residency training at Stanford University Medical Center. She is currently in private practice in Silicon Valley, California where she focuses on the chronic management of patients with Parkinson’s Disease. When not practicing clinical medicine, Dr. Blum is a fierce patient and physician advocate, defending Hippocratic oath medicine and the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship through education and activism.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Health Policy, Law, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: The War on Drugs Is a War on All Americans

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Colleen Cowles, Esq. – https://www.americaoutloud.news/the-war-on-drugs-is-a-war-against-all-americans/

Soporifics and mind-altering drugs tap into man’s desire to avoid or lessen suffering whether physical or emotional. Throughout the world, alcohol, opium, mushrooms, and coca leaves have been used for at least 9,000 years. (After all, we are born with opioid receptors.) During our American Civil War, opiates were a boon to injured soldiers. Soon morphine became an ingredient in most health tonics. Cocaine was also widely used for its ability to generate feelings of well-being. Cocaine was even used to cure morphine addiction. But over the late 19th and 20th centuries, drugs were seen as a scourge on society.

The modern day War on Drugs started with the Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1971. Despite billions and billions of dollars thrown at the War, we are losing.  Half of Americans aged 12 and older have used an illicit drug at least once. In 2020, 21.4 percent of Americans aged 12 and over (59,277 million) have used illegal drugs or misused prescription drugs within the last year. And 13.5 percent of Americans aged 12 and over used drugs in the last month, a 3.8 percent increase from the previous year.

According to a 2017 U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) report, approximately 20.2 million adults aged 18 or older had a past year substance use disorder (SUD). Of these adults, 16.3 million had an alcohol use disorder and 6.2 million had an illicit drug use disorder. This is not merely a Skid Row problem. Substance use disorder hits all socioeconomic classes.

Patients and physicians alike have been demonized and turned into criminals over the use of certain medications. Over thirty years ago, physicians were told that pain is the 5th vital sign and to treat pain with any medication available. Get that pain down to zero. They complied. Relying on pharmaceutical companies’ reassurance that’s their new opioids were non-addicting, physicians liberally prescribed them. Then we were told patients were becoming addicted and to stop with the prescriptions. Pain be damned. What happened? Opioid prescriptions have been nearly cut in half in 10 years due to the new guidelines and rules, but overdoses and illegal opioids have nearly doubled. The patients went to the streets and now are getting drugs tainted with fentanyl and accidentally overdosing.

The War to keep our countrymen free of illicit drugs was another government plan that sounded like a good idea at the time. Now, the tactics of the War on Drugs fits with Mike Tyson’s famous saying: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

My guest will discuss the endless drug war, its consequences and solutions to reduce harm.

P.S. Companies that made, sold, or distributed opioid painkillers are paying out $54 billion in settlements over the next 20 years. Cities, counties, and states have received $3 billion so far.

To find how much settlement funds your locality has received:

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/lookup-how-much-opioid-settlement-cash-by-locality/

Details on how states use settlement money: https://www.opioidsettlementtracker.com/publicreporting

Bio

Colleen Cowles is an attorney, author, speaker, teacher, advocate, and a mother who personally experienced addiction and chronic pain in her family. Her 15 years of research, interviews with experts, work with clients and personal experience give Ms. Cowles practical insights into this urgently important minimizing the pain that families experience, improving outcomes for those suffering from substance use disorder and/or chronic pain, and advocating for reform of the criminal justice system and overall drug policy. She offers proven solutions in her new book, War on Us – How the War on Drugs & Myths About Addiction Have Created a War on All of Us, and in her online course, A Parent’s Guide to Addiction: Moving Past Punishment.

Culture & Society, Current Events, Health Policy, Healthcare Reform, Medicine, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: The Superhighway of Medical Progress or the Road to Nowhere?

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr. Jane Orient –https://www.americaoutloud.com/the-superhighway-of-medical-progress-or-the-road-to-nowhere/

I used to enjoy watching medicine changing over the years. When I was an intern, we had to drill holes in the skull to diagnose a subdural hematoma. Now a quick CT scan without surgery gives a world of information. Ultrasound for pregnancy was a new thing. Surgery with the laparoscope (“belly button surgery”) was in its infancy. Now you are hard pressed to see a gallbladder removal done with a full abdominal incision.

I remember the days when humanity in medicine prevailed. You could get around the utilization reviewer’s bright green checkmarks that let you know that it was her opinion that the patient needed to be discharged from the hospital. We could exercise our empathy; the bean counters didn’t control us. I fondly remember letting an elderly patient stay a few extra days through Christmas because his only friend was also in the hospital.

The social changes in medicine are a far different story. It was a true step forward when all medical schools accepted not only women but students of all races. We saw all sorts of patients from many socioeconomic backgrounds, including patients on the prison and wards. We treated all of them to the best of our ability.

Now with schools latching on to this new twisted version of diversity and equality, I worry what happened to people merely treating one another like fellow human beings. What is motivating the rich and powerful to decide that we should be categorized in perpetuity by race instead of our individual characteristics? Divide and conquer comes to mind.

And what happened to the concept of not harming patients? What caused medicine to ignore science and like trained seals, agree that men can be women?

What caused educate persons to fall in line with grammatically incorrect and sometimes bizarre pronouns? Take for example, Dr. Jane Orient’s biography at Healthline.com: “Dr. Jane Orient, MD is an Internal Medicine Specialist in Tucson, AZ. “They” [emphasis added] specialize in Internal Medicine, has 47 years of experience, and is board certified in Internal Medicine.” I seriously doubt that wording was approved by Dr. Orient. Not only is she a she, ‘they’ is grammatically incorrect.

Bio

Dr. Jane Orient is the Executive Director of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a voice for patients’ and physicians’ independence since 1943. She has been in solo practice of general internal medicine since 1981 and is a clinical lecturer in medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Dr. Orient received her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Arizona, and her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Orient’s op-eds have been published in hundreds of local and national newspapers, magazines, internet, followed on major blogs and covered in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times as well as several novels and non-fiction books, including Sapira’s Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis in its fourth printing.

 Association of American Physicians and Surgeons site: https://aapsonline.org/

Dr. Orient’s nonfiction and fiction writings: https://www.janemorient.com

Culture & Society, Doctors, Health Policy, Medicine, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: The ABCs of Drug Addiction and Treatment

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr. Molly Rutherford –https://www.americaoutloud.com/fentanyl-is-now-the-top-cause-of-death-among-u-s-adults-drug-addiction-treatment/

Fentanyl ushered in a new era of anesthesia making outpatient surgery safe and ultimately, commonplace. In contrast to morphine or meperidine (Demerol®), fentanyl is very short-acting, allowing patients to emerge from anesthesia faster. The downside for the safety profile is that fentanyl is 100 times more powerful than morphine. Of course, anesthesiologists (unlike the vast majority of drug users) are trained professionals and are constantly monitoring a patient’s oxygen, breathing, pulse, and blood pressure.

Now that fentanyl has become a street drug, it has become a quick path to death. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fentanyl is now the top cause of death among U.S. adults (ages 18-45)—more than COVID-19, suicide and car accidents. Out of 2022’s 105,452 drug overdose deaths, 19 percent were due to fentanyl. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), in 2021 fentanyl killed more Americans than guns and traffic crashes combined.

How did it become so popular? Seventy-five percent of overdose deaths are due to opioids. The legal prescriptions for hydrocodone, oxycodone, oxymorphone had been the main cause of overdose deaths. But after these medications came under scrutiny and became the subjects of multiple lawsuits, fentanyl hit the streets. Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin. A lethal dose fits on the tip of a pencil. And fentanyl is synthetic—meaning it can be made in a lab from chemicals. (Heroin is made from poppies). But because fentanyl is so cheap, it is slipped into other illicitly-obtained prescription pills unbeknownst to the buyer of the drug.

Fentanyl and its ingredients are mainly smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico by drug cartels and is much cheaper ($4 or $5 per pill) than other opioids ($30 per pill). Fentanyl is a very versatile drug: it can be injected, snorted/sniffed, smoked, taken orally by pill or tablet, and spiked onto blotter paper. Teens have become a large portion of its victims as fentanyl has been sold via some social media outlets. Fentanyl was identified in more than 77 percent of fatal overdoses among adolescents in the first half of 2021.

I’m disturbed that all I am hearing about is naloxone, better known as Narcan®. This drug immediately reverses the effects of narcotics. An over-the-counter version of Narcan®, a nasal spray, was approved for purchase without a prescription by the FDA in March 2023. While this may save a life in the short term, it doesn’t stop drug use. I wonder whether it will make it worse if the user knows there is a reversal. Anecdotally, what I’ve seen after working in the ER, experiencing an overdose does not scare off an addict from using drugs again.

What’s wrong with Americans that’s they consume so many mind-altering drugs? Hopefully the $50 billion in settlements by drugmakers will go to prevention of addiction in the first place.

For information on newer trends in pain management: The Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force Report

https://www.hhs.gov/opioids/prevention/pain-management-options/index.html

Dr. Molly Rutherford is the founder, medical director, and physician at Bluegrass Family Wellness—a direct primary care clinic in Kentucky. She is board certified in Family Medicine and Addiction Medicine, and employs a holistic approach to her patients’ physical health. She has more than a decade of experience treating opioid addiction. She was chosen to be part of the federal Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force.

Culture & Society, Health Policy, Law, Medical Ethics, Medicine, Politics, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: The Myth of Medical Privacy

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From my podcast with Twila Brase, RN, PHN – https://www.americaoutloud.com/the-myth-of-medical-privacy-with-twila-brase-rn/

Back in 2018, Amazon made a software application that can mine a patient’s medical data and convert it to a searchable database. Amazon could customize the database for pharmaceutical companies, insurers, hospitals, researchers, and clinicians. Amazon claims the application would comply with HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. By the way, isn’t it interesting that the word “privacy” is not in the title of the law that everybody thinks is a law that protects privacy?

Worse, some electronic health records had an embedded app (developed by Xealth, Inc.) that prompted doctors to recommend health products to their patients that—surprise!—were sold on Amazon.

Amazon is being hailed as a “disruptor” in medical care with its online clinics. For a flat fee, you can get in touch with a clinician of some sort and describe your symptoms or needs. As one customer testimonial reads, “Amazon Clinic was incredibly easy and convenient to get my thyroid medical refilled. No hidden fees, no in person visit. Also for someone without health insurance the cost was the absolute best part.” But there is a giant “but.” Amazon’s health clinic requires patients to give Amazon the authority to redisclose their health information in the future.

Cost effective, yes; but Amazon clinic’s terms of use raise the question: How much is your medical privacy worth? I remember the attempt to discredit Daniel-Ellsberg who exposed damaging information regarding the Viet Nam War with the release of the “Pentagon Papers”. Operatives dispatched by the President broke into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office looking for juicy tidbits. Imagine how easy that would be now. Hacking into electronic databases has become child’s play.

We’ll talk about this and so much more with my guest, a nationally recognized expert in the field of medical privacy.

Twila Brase, RN, PHN is President and Co-founder of Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF), a national patient-centered, privacy-focused, free-market policy organization established 25 years ago in Minnesota to support health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy. Her efforts led to a national law requiring parental consent for research using newborn DNA.  Ms. Brase is author of the eight-time award-winning book Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth About Electronic Health Records.

Ms. Brase’s “Health Freedom Minute” is heard weekdays by more than 5 million listeners across the United States. She provides testimony at state legislatures, meets with members of Congress and health care policymakers, and has been featured in major news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

Culture & Society, Current Events, What's New

America Out Loud PULSE: Epidemic of Loneliness

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From my America Out Loud Pulse podcast with Dr. Renée Kohanski –https://www.americaoutloud.com/the-government-imposed-epidemic-of-loneliness-study/

The Surgeon General recently published a detailed study of loneliness in the United States. Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. Social isolation and loneliness increase the risk for premature death, heart disease, stroke by some 30 percent—or the same as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Socially isolated older adults have a higher chance of developing dementia than their peers.

A medical study cited in Surgeon General’s report struck me as really rich: “the lack of social connection may increase susceptibility to viruses and respiratory illness.”  Where was the reliance on this report by the “experts” when they locked us in our homes for Covid?

The federal government’s solution to this deadly epidemic is its plan to establish a “National Strategy to Advance Social Connection”. Maybe this is exactly what is wrong. Since the Great Society programs in the 1960s, the federal government’s ever-expanding regulation of our lives has encouraged us to look to the government for help instead of each other.

The National Strategy includes “Cultivating a Culture of Connection”. But then why do Washington D.C.’s power-brokers, the media, and various hustlers of all colors insist on telling us that white people have inborn bias and manipulate us to shunning those who are not of our skin color or sexual preference? “Culture of connection” my eye!

And one more thing. It is curious that simultaneously artificial intelligence is promoted as the next great best thing in medicine—even replacing mental health therapists. Ironically, research has shown that the patient physician relationship can be more therapeutic than some medications. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t want to talk to a machine. Even the drive through at Jack-in-the-Box has real people behind the microphone.

My guest and I will discuss these things and a whole lot more today.

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