A paralysed man wants the law to be changed so that doctor-assisted suicide would not be classified as murder.

Tony Nicklinson is the man in question, and Fergus Walsh has written an article about this on the BBC News website. My sympathy is entirely with Tony Nicklinson. His life sounds intolerable to me and I'm sure it would seem so to most people. There are always other people, however, who object to the law about this being changed. They often invoke 'the thin end of the wedge' idea or the 'opening the floodgates' analogy to support a cruel, absolutist viewpoint. Thus, if the law were to be changed as Mr Nicklinson desires, the world and his wife would be pressing their grandmothers to clamour for doctor-assisted suicide in order that they would inherit her property sooner than otherwise. - And so, for the sake of those hypothetical grandmothers with their hypothetical, grasping relatives, real people in Mr Nicklinson's position should be compelled to continue to bear the unbearable, without respite, without hope, until the cruel God, in whom I venture to suppose Mr Nicklinson does not believe, finally releases him (and his loved ones) from his torment.

The meds that result in salt sensitivity don't just cause obesity; they damage every system in your body: heart, kidneys, liver, blood vessels, etc.

The many prescription drugs that result in salt sensitivity don't just cause morbid obesity, they damage every system in your body: heart, kidneys, liver, skin, blood vessels, metabolism, etc.

Drugs like tricyclic antidepressants, and like HRT and corticosteroids, and many other drugs, including anti-psychotics and anti-convulsants, cause relaxation of the muscles of the blood vessel walls, with sodium retention as a side-effect. This in turn leads to water retention because extra sodium/salt attracts water to itself. The relaxed state of the blood vessel walls and the impaired kidney function permit a greater blood volume, i.e. permit the incursion of more salt and its accompanying water. If the drugs are taken for long enough, the extra fluid in the body (salt water/fluid retention in the veins = extra blood volume) results both in higher blood pressure (because of the extra pressure on the walls of the blood vessels) and, obviously, in weight gain from the extra volume of blood. The blood vessel walls become weakened and the kidney function impaired by the extra blood volume to have to deal with. A general term for this sort of problem (not always caused by prescription drugs) is salt sensitivity. Since more and more drugs are being prescribed by the drug-oriented medical profession, more and more people are becoming sensitive to salt, and therefore gaining weight, especially if they eat a lot of processed food, well-known to contain a lot of added salt. (I’ve never understood or agreed with the usual claim that relaxation of the blood vessels lowers blood pressure. Maybe this is with people who are not sensitive to salt. – I don’t know.)

Extract from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/sodium/NU00284

“Your kidneys naturally balance the amount of sodium stored in your body for optimal health. When your sodium levels are low, your kidneys essentially hold on to the sodium. When sodium levels are high, your kidneys excrete the excess in urine.

But if for some reason your kidneys can’t eliminate enough sodium, the sodium starts to accumulate in your blood. Because sodium attracts and holds water, your blood volume increases. Increased blood volume makes your heart work harder to move more blood through your blood vessels, which increases pressure in your arteries. Such diseases as congestive heart failure, cirrhosis and chronic kidney disease can make it hard for your kidneys to keep sodium levels balanced.

Some people’s bodies are more sensitive to the effects of sodium than are others. If you’re sodium sensitive, you retain sodium more easily, leading to fluid retention and increased blood pressure. The extra sodium can even lead to high blood pressure, which can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney disease and congestive heart failure.”

Although the Mayo Clinic mentions arteries rather than veins, people who are extremely sensitive to salt, like me, are far more aware of swollen veins and the problems and pain they cause, since the changes are very obvious and visible, rather than problems with arteries, even if these are possibly more dangerous than the over-stretched, fragile, agonisingly painful veins.

Novartis: Criminal Cover-Ups and Jawbone Damage from Zometa and Aredia

In a devastating blow to Novartis, a federal judge denied a bid to overturn a verdict in which a jury decided the drugmaker failed to adequately warn about the risks that its Zometa and Aredia bone-strengthening meds caused severe jaw bone damage. And in making his decision, he writes that the jury was shown sufficient evidence to conclude a cover-up was undertaken with “the knowledge and approval of high-ranking officials.”
Read article at pharmalot.com

Pfizer Research Scandal: FDA debars fraudster doctor, Scott Reuben

He was accused of faking research for a dozen years in published studies suggesting after-surgery benefits from Vioxx and Celebrex. Last year, he was sentenced to six months in jail plus three years supervised release after pleading guilty to fraud. The former chief of acute pain at Baystate Medical Center received grants from various drugmakers but never performed the studies, fabricated patient data and submitted info to journals that was unwittingly published. Now, the FDA has permanently debarring [sic] him from providing services in any capacity to a person that has an approved or pending drug product application, according to the debarment order, which was published today in The Federal Register.
Read article at pharmalot.com

Personally, I favour avoiding painkillers. - I've had two major operations and I refused painkillers for both of them. Yes, it hurts a lot when you come round from the anaesthetic, but you know the pain will gradually get less severe and you can steel yourself to cope with it. But with painkillers - especially the 'strong' ones - there are always adverse side-effects. And, as in this case, you cannot be sure that you have been given the facts about drugs. Drug companies indulge in criminality, including bribing key opinion leaders such as Scott Reuben was, to recommend their drugs, falsifying drug trial data, corrupting medical journals, etc. Painkiller drugs in particular seem to be problematic. The most recently publicised settlement for criminality of a drug company of which I am aware is the Merck/Vioxx scandal reported on the BBC News website last Tuesday. (Vioxx was a prescription painkiller.) Sadly, although Merck have had to pay almost $1bn (£640m) in settlement, this will not deter them from their criminal practices. That huge sum is insignificant in comparison to the colossal profits they garner from the sales of their dangerous products. Criminals, in my opinion - criminals whose crimes destroy the lives and health and happiness of millions of innocent people the world over - should be punished with the utmost rigour of the law, and that should, of course, mean imprisonment for the people at the top of the company, the people who instigate, fund and perpetuate the criminality.

I wanted to sing for my father as he lay dying

I wanted to sing for my father as he lay dying. I tried to sing for him, but I could not. Someone's radio was on in the ward and a lovely song from a film musical was being sung. Knowing it was one of 'my' songs, my father asked me to sing it for him. I tried. But I could not manage it because of emotion and tears. I tried, but I could not. He understood. But how I wish I could have sung to him!

When someone is near to death I think we should do anything they ask us to, if it is possible, especially if it is something really important to them, something they feel the need to get done before they die, something for which they are using their last precious hours and breath. I loved my father very much but I was young and foolish, and when he wanted to talk to me about some things that he wanted to be done after his death I interrupted him, passionately saying that he mustn't talk about dying: he wasn't going to die. But he knew he was dying. I should have heard him out. There can surely be no more appropriate time to talk of dying than when death is near. - If not then, then when? What needs to be said remains unsaid.

Drugs companies exploit Indian 'guinea pigs'

Illiterate patients say they never agreed to take part in trials run by industry worth £189m
Western pharmaceutical companies have seized on India over the past five years as a testing ground for drugs – making the most of a huge population and loose regulations which help dramatically cut research costs for lucrative products to be sold in the West. The relationship is so exploitative that some believe it represents a new colonialism.
Read article in The Independent (UK)

EU food is still heavily contaminated with dangerous pesticides.

The 2009 EU report on pesticide residues, published today by EFSA, shows food on the European market is still heavily contaminated with cocktails of pesticides. The percentage of EU food in shops and markets with multiple residues remains at a high level of 25.1%, meaning only a slight improvement in the last 5 years of reporting. The highest reported number of pesticide residues in one food item remains at 26: One sample analysed in the Netherlands (raisins from Turkey) with 26 different pesticides!
Read press release at pan-europe.info

Shame on the Royal Society of Chemistry!

In pursuit of a cheap, filling meal in the name of austerity, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has resurrected, and is publicising, an economical dish from Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. The dish in question is a Toast Sandwich. You can read about it in this BBC News report. The 'meal' consists of a slice of thin toast sandwiched between two slices of buttered bread, with salt and pepper added to taste. You can listen to the Today programme's interview with an RSC employee here, and you will find that swapping the butter for margarine instead is even recommended as being more healthy! - I think not!

What an unhealthy meal the Royal Society of Chemistry is advocating! Bread is high in salt and is the main food source of salt intake for the average person in this country, and we are constantly being enjoined to eat less salt in order to reduce high blood pressure, reduce risk of stroke, heart disease and heart attack, reduce risk of developing type 2 diabetes and reduce risk of countless other degenerative conditions. And you even suggest adding more salt! - Spot on there, then, RSC, I don't think! - Bread's also high in carbohydrate: wheat flour and sugar. - More baddies, RSC! - Yeast and gluten are other ingredients problematic for many consumers. Factory-produced bread also contains undesirables like flour 'improvers', preservatives and other unnatural ingredients.

You point to bread as containing additives of calcium, iron and B vitamins making it extra nutritious! - Shame on you, RSC! - This is not a nutritious meal! - At an estimated cost of 7½p, this is a cheap travesty of a meal and a cheap way of damaging your health, endorsed and promoted by a respected institution that should know better!

Crumpled faces

A couple of weeks ago I watched a very interesting TV programme but found that I was at times distracted by the presenter's face. Such a crumpled face! This was an older man, but by no means an old man. I felt sorry for the owner of the face, as I always do feel sorry for people with crumpled, 'quilted' faces. I think how difficult it must be to wash the face, to clean each wrinkle and furrow, each soft, wobbling line. I wondered why the fellow's face was so crumpled: it could not simply be that he had been out in the sun too much most of his life.

A few days later, by strange coincidence, I came across a possible explanation. Strange, because in all my life I had never heard about it before. The likely answer seems to be GLYCATION. - Go on! - Look it up using your favourite search engine! - It seems that glycation can occur when protein and sugar combine in the body. The Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs) that result are undesirable signs of accelerated ageing, which can include wrinkles, cataracts, peripheral nerve damage and many more. So if your poor face has started to look crumpled, or you'd rather like to prevent it ever starting to look crumpled, perhaps you'd like to cut down on the sugar and sugary stuff you eat. Stay as sweet (and young and beautiful) as you are by avoiding the sweet stuff! And reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes...

Today is World Diabetes Day

Today, November 14th 2011, is World Diabetes Day. November 14th was the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, the Nobel Laureate who, in 1922, discovered insulin. If you have diabetes, I believe you would find the following articles interesting:

Paleolithic diet much better for diabetics than conventional ‘diabetes diet’

Vitamin D has potential to combat Type 2 diabetes

Conflicts of interest rife in those setting diabetes and cholesterol guidelines

Black Bin Bags made of Recycled Plastic

Black bin bags made of recycled plastic smell absolutely VILE! I bought some months ago and had to discard them as the smell was so foul and it didn't wear off. Nor was it a rogue pack, because when I got some more they were the same. Better to do without these useful rubbish bags than to be assailed by that noxious smell.

I was reminded of these bastard progeny of the recycling industry when, weeks ago, I encountered carpet underlay made from recycled rubber tyres. - The ghastly stink was orders of magnitude worse even than that of the black bags...)o: And goodness knows what its half-life is! - Several centuries, I'd guess - long, long past the demise of any room or occupants thereof that had to endure its presence...

Recycled paper: I've not got much against that. Recycled cloth: well that has a long and respectable history. - But tell me exactly how poisoning the purchasers of recycled black plastic bin bags and carpet underlay made from recycled car tyres can be justified in the name of saving the environment? - Speaking for myself, I favour natural products unadulterated by synthetic chemicals and with the minimum of processing.

Thousands of deaths caused by clinical negligence in the NHS

The Telegraph reports on the latest statistics about thousands of deaths caused by clinical negligence in the NHS. "The figures cover some of Britain’s worst hospital scandals including up to 1,200 people dying because Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust put Whitehall targets and cost-cutting ahead of care."

Until death because of negligence by NHS staff is appropriately punished, after trial of the negligent individuals in a criminal court, clinical negligence will continue as a prominent feature of NHS 'care'. The present scandalous unaccountability of NHS healthcare professionals naturally does nothing to discourage negligence.