On The Health Front

There are concerns that the Avian (Bird) Flu is making the shift to a more easily human to human communicable form. The recent cases of Avian Flu in Turkey has Europe, and Health officials concerned. Researchers from the UK National Institute of Medical Research have been tracking the virus as it has surfaced across Asia. At least one of the children who died last week of the flu in Turkey had a mutated form of the virus that attaches more easily to human cell receptors than to bird receptors. This is causing great concern in Europe and elsewhere.

I know that there are some who feel that the Avian Flu is being blown out of proportion, or poses no significant threat to human beings. While I would agree that, like any issue, it can be manipulated to draw attention from other issues, I do think that this is a virus that deserves watching and preparations. Pandemics are no joke or hoax, the the world is woefully unprepared for any kind of highly communicable disease. I also believe that the United States, among the so called "developed" nations, is at enormous risk from an epidemic. All other developed nations have national health care. The United States does not. It is estimated that at least 44 million people in the U.S. do not have health care coverage. There are probably at least three times that many who have very poor coverage. The public health care system is under-funded, and bias rears its ugly head in the treatment of the poor and people of color. These issues combine to create a situation where a disease could go unreported, and undetected, until it was too late to contain or control it. The U.S. also has no publicized plan for voluntary quarantine, nor any way to facilitate it economically.

Genetically Modified foods are making the headlines recently. On the health front, a study done by the Russian Academy of Sciences found that pregnant mice who were fed a diet of genetically modified soy had sic times higher fetal mortality rate than those who ate unmodified soy (GM: New Study Shows Unborn Babies Could Be Harmed). The referenced article also notes that a secret study from Monsanto indicates that a GM diet may impair the immune system. That study fed GM corn to rats, who then had under-sized kidneys and higher blood cell counts. The Russian study also showed an increased level of being severely underweight.

Lest one think that the tradeoff of infant mortality, compromised immune systems, and starvation are just trade-offs for addressing world hunger, a recent study by Friends of the Earth neither the cost, nor quality of GM crops have come close to meeting promises. Further, the safety of those crops from the perspective of not cross-fertilizing with non-GM crops has failed dramatically.

Finally, thousands of elderly and disabled have been left without prescription drug benefits in a messed up switch to the highly advertised Medicare Prescription Drug Plan. People who were on Medicaid and were supposed to be automatically transferred to Medicare have found themselves unable to get needed medications. While there is no accurate count of the number of people caught up in the system error, four states have intervened to provided the medication. Those states are Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Vermont. Since the problem is not a state problem, but a federal problem, one has to ask how many people are being denied needed drugs in the rest of the country. The Vermont Secretary of Human Service, Michael Smith stated "The federal system simply is not working." Well isn't that a surprise. My guess it won't be the last one as many Medicare recipients have been stymied just trying to figure out how they are supposed to select a prescription plan in the overly complex program.