Government Rationed (er, Controlled) Health Care

[EDIT 2/25/09: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is now law, as everyone with a TV, radio or computer has surely heard. I was not able to find anything saying the health care provisions had been removed. In his State of the Union address last night, President Obama made it clear that he wants health care reform to happen this year. Hopefully the majority will allow the people to know what's going on, and we can debate whether or not we want government doing comparative research and making decisions for us.]

Yesterday, the Senate passed the economic stimulus bill, and with it, provisions to move our country toward socialized (government-run) medicine. These provisions are frightening on many levels, and if Americans actually had a chance to vote on this, its failure would be sure. Instead, the majority in the House and Senate are trying to rush it through under the cover of night and get it quickly to President Barack Obama for signature.

The Heritage Foundation's Nina Owcharenko summarizes it this way: "Veiled under this massive economic stimulus proposal are profoundly controversial and far-reaching health care provisions that would set the country on a path toward more fiscal irresponsibility, mounting unfunded entitlement liabilities, and less control of families over their personal health care decisions." She explains that the bill would "establish a framework and funding for comparative effectiveness research and health information technology," which would open a portal to "direct government intervention in the clinical decisions by physicians and other health care providers."

To read more of the Heritage Foundation article, click here. You can also find more articles at Townhall.com, such as this one by Rep. John Shadegg (R-Arizona). This Bloomberg.com article is also informative. According to Tom Daschle (whose handiwork is reflected in the provisions), doctors have to give up autonomy and "learn to operate less like solo practitioners," the article reports.

For anyone who cares about freedom of medical decisions and doesn't want the government making personal health choices for them, this "economic stimulus" package is impossible to support in its current form. It is of utter importance that as many Americans hear about these provisions and make phone calls and send emails to the Hill. The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121 (you'll need to tell the operator where you're from so he/she can connect you) and you can use the House and Senate Web sites to look up direct numbers or email addresses for your representatives. Please spread the word.

One Congresswoman who is in the minority party has started a blog to keep us folks "outside the beltway" up to date on happenings on the Hill. I look forward to seeing if it actually turns out to be useful! You can check out her blog here: http://majoritytracker.wordpress.com/

To put it like one blog commenter said, "I have a hard time thinking of anything that the government runs better than the private sector." Who is a better decision-maker for your health care than you and your doctor? What about for your children? People living in countries where health care is run by the government would gravely warn us about falling into this trap. Please act.

Sample E-mail (thanks to Nina Owcharenko's article for some of the wording!) to your reps:
Dear ______,
I am writing today to urge you to please do your part to remove or revise the health care provisions in the economic stimulus bill. I ask you to please remove the funding for the comparative effectiveness and health information technology. If Congress wants to enact such provisions, it should do so not tagged on a fast-tracked stimulus bill but with a full and public debate so that the American people understand the impact of these health care decisions on their lives. Any other course would be a betrayal of the President's promise of openness with American people.
Please do not allow this great nation of ours, where personal freedom and entrepreneurship are beacons of our heritage, to move toward socialized medicine. This is not the right direction for the American people.
Sincerely,
________

Washington 101 (Part 1)

I am constantly feeling like I want to DO something whenever I read about parental rights being threatened, vaccines harming children, or normal Americans being marginalized for questioning the untested vaccine schedule. Having a 14-month-old in the house, however, largely hinders me from doing much. Congressmen and lobbyists go on about their inside-the-beltway, day-to-day politics, and little moms from small-town America can easily be ignored.

But ... that doesn't mean we don't speak up anyway. A few years working in a lobbying organization in DC taught me a small bit, and I wanted to post a few more useful links.

1) Finding your officials is probably the easiest and most important first step. Once you know their names, you're well on your way. Congress.org allows you to type in your zip code and instantly see who your federal and state officials are. (There's a box on the left side of the page, and at the top right inside the navigation bar.)

2) Now that you have your representatives' names, just write down this phone number and keep it handy: Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121. When your call is answered, just say to the operator, "Senator _____'s office, please," or "Could you please direct me to Representative _______?" or something to that effect.

Sometimes this number gets very busy and it's hard to get through. You can try this number in addition: (202) 225-3121, and you can always use the House.gov or the Senate.gov Web sites to find additional phone numbers and email addresses for your legislators.

... Now, this may be elementary to most, but just as a refresher, every American has two Senators (no matter where you live in your state, your Senators are the same -- there are 2 for each of the 50 states) and one Representative in the House (different depending on your geographic location). All in all there are 535 members of Congress - 100 in the Senate and 435 in the House.

Tips on calling your Representatives/Senators:

- Don't be afraid to pick up the phone on the spur of the moment to voice your opinion. Your legislators work for you. I preach to myself when I say we need to make our voices heard. It literally could take only one or two minutes to call and speak three sentences while you're washing your dishes.

- The phone is probably being answered by a college-aged intern or an entry-level staff member (though sometimes the higher-ranked staff answer). This person may sound completely disinterested, but don't let that hinder you from saying all you want to say. Even if they only write down part of your comments or merely make a hash mark next to a topic showing that their boss got a call, your call is better than no call, and if asked for details later, they may recall some of what you said. Remember to be polite!

- This person also may not be able to explain the Rep./Senator's positions or answer "why" questions, such as, "So why did your boss vote in favor of such-and-such?" You can try, but don't be surprised if they keep mum.

- If you have lots of questions, ask if you can speak with the L.A. (legislative assistant) who works on (whatever issue). You might even be able to find a name before calling by going to the representative's Web site and looking up staff and issues. Some members provide this information. If your issue is vaccine safety, this topic may fall under something broader like "Health and Human Services." If you aren't sure, you can always just ask the person on the phone. ("Which L.A. can I speak to regarding ______?")

In-person visits can sometimes be scheduled in your vicinity when your federal Representative/Senator is home for a recess (such as in August). Or, you can call the local office and ask about meeting with staff regarding an issue anytime. Be sure to have clear talking points and handouts ready if you decide to pursue this route.

Next "Washington 101": How to Research Congressional Bills

Measles

This blog can not possibly serve to dish out all the information that exists about measles, or any other disease for that matter. But here are a few sources I have found helpful regarding the first "M" of MMR:

• National Vaccine Information Center MMR page
• Think Twice MMR page
• Book: Vaccine Safety Manual by Neil Z. Miller (I am reading the previous book, Vaccines, Autism and Childhood Disorders, but I imagine this one is much more extensive)
• DVD: Vaccines: The Risks, The Benefits, The Choices by Dr. Sherri Tenpenny
• Congressional Testimonies from doctors and parents

You can read the MedLine information on measles here.

The CDC handout from the doctor's office (PDF downloadable from http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm#mmr) reveals the following risks with the vaccine:

Moderate Problems
• Seizure (jerking or staring) caused by fever (about
1 out of 3,000 doses)
• Temporary pain and stiffness in the joints, mostly
in teenage or adult women (up to 1 out of 4)
• Temporary low platelet count, which can cause a
bleeding disorder (about 1 out of 30,000 doses)

Severe Problems (Very Rare)
• Serious allergic reaction (less than 1 out of a million
doses)
• Several other severe problems have been known to
occur after a child gets MMR vaccine. But this
happens so rarely, experts cannot be sure whether
they are caused by the vaccine or not. These include:
- Deafness
- Long-term seizures, coma, or lowered
consciousness
- Permanent brain damage

(Kinda sounds like autism to me....) Here, the CDC's own literature says that they do not know if permanent brain damage, coma, seizures, or lowered consciousness are actually caused by the vaccine. My question is, if I can't rely on them to be sure, why should I rely on the statement that reactions are rare? (Not to mention, shouldn't they be sure??? Have they become that lackadaisical about public health?) The FDA and CDC know that the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is flawed. Doctors are not required to report. And anyone whose child has had a reaction to a vaccine knows that it takes a lot of arm-twisting and hospital tests before a doctor will even consider that it was the vaccine.

Here is a quote from the meeting minutes taken from the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines Conference Call in March of last year (2007). I got this right off the HHS Web site:

"VAERS also has its weaknesses. VAERS is often missing data or has inaccurate data. There is underreporting to VAERS. Accuracy rates are not known. VAERS is better at detecting events that occur in close time proximity with vaccination, than events with long latency periods. There is a lack of an accurate denominator or number of people that are vaccinated. There is also a lack of a control group. All of these weaknesses result in the near inability to assess causality."
-- Dr. Ann McMahon, Food and Drug Administration (italics mine)

(Aside: It was estimated in a Journal of the American Medical Association study that reporting of adverse events may be as low as 1% to 10%. There were 128,035 adverse events reported in a less-than-five-year time span (around the middle of 1999-beginning of 2004). So does that mean that there were possibly 1.28 million to 12.8 million adverse events in those 5 years?)

The manufacturer of the MMR vaccine warns that it "has not been evaluated for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential." (Source: Physician's Desk Reference, 55th edition, as quoted by Neil Miller) ... Not been tested for the possibility to cause cancer?

"Severe afflictions affecting nearly every body system -- blood, lymphatic, digestive, cardiovascular, immune, nervous, respiratory and sensory -- have been linked to this 'preventative' inoculation." -- Neil Miller, Vaccines, Autism and Childhood Disorders

Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, a pediatrician for almost 30 years, wrote in his 1984 book How To Raise a Healthy Child...In Spite of Your Doctor that the measles vaccine side effects included "even a relationship with Hodgkin's disease and cancer." He describes the reluctance of some doctors to even vaccinate their own children during a Los Angeles measles epidemic: "Unlike their patients, who weren't told, they realized that 'slow viruses' found in all live vaccines, and particularly in the measles vaccine, can hide in human tissue for years. They may emerge later in the form of encephalitis, multiple sclerosis, and as potential seeds for the development and growth of cancer."

Dr. Mendelsohn also noted that "in a 1978 survey of 30 states, more than half of the children who contracted measles had been adequately vaccinated." The World Health Organization has said that the chances of catching measles are about 15 times greater for those who are vaccinated than those who are not. Similar data on the inefficacy of measles vaccines is recorded by Neil Miller, whose sources are the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and several editions of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Here's why I do not think this particular disease is worth the risk of the associated vaccine for my child. (Again, this is just me; this is not medical advice.)

In 1920, 1.6% of measles cases ended in death.
In 1955, it was only 3 in 10 million.
Vaccination began in 1963.
(Source: MMWR 4/2/1999 - thank you, Dr. Tenpenny)
So the disease was already on its way out before vaccination began.

Much of what I have read indicates that measles is a pretty innocuous disease that rarely leaves behind any complications in healthy, well-nourished children. Treatment consists of bed rest, drinking fluids, and administering calamine or other lotions to relieve itching. Vitamin A has also been shown to be an important part of helping the body to fight the disease. Doctors will bring up the risk of measles encephalitis (brain infection), but I question the likelihood of this occurring in a healthy child. This is just one parent, assessing the risk for my child. (Well, and my husband makes two parents, deciding together!)

Entire books and Web sites are dedicated to the CDC/FDA/HHS/AAP/AMA-denied link between autism and the MMR. But it didn't take me much reading to be haunted forever by those three little letters. Once you start reading testimonies from parents just like you, who love their kids like you love your kids, you just can't look back. I will never look at public health policy in this country the same way.

I leave you with an excerpt from one of the Congressional Government Reform Committee meetings, that took place on April 6, 2000. The words of Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana):

"Liz Burt was one of the hundreds of parents who contacted us. Her five-year-old son, Matthew, has been classified autistic. He was developing normally. At age 15 months, following his MMR vaccine, he began to regress. Since the time of his vaccination, he’s had chronic diarrhea. This is very prevalent in autistic children. He also didn’t sleep on a regular basis for over three years. Liz took her son to numerous gastroenterologists in prominent medical facilities in the United States. with no resolution. Finally, this past November, Liz took her son to London, to the Royal Free Hospital. A team of medical experts there examined Matthew. They felt that he had a bowel obstruction. To the family, this seemed impossible since he had constant diarrhea. An x-ray indicated that Matthew had a fecal mass in his colon the size of a small cantaloupe. After the obstruction was cleared with laxatives, Matthew underwent an endoscopy and colonoscopy. The lesions in Matthew’s bowel tested positive for the measles virus."

You do the math.

[EDITED 5/2/2008 TO ADD: OK, now I see who Liz "Burt" was - her name is actually spelled "Birt," and she was a champion for autistic families. I found a bunch of information on her after her tragic death in 2005 on Adventures in Autism.]

The Gentleman from Indiana

Since today is my son's birthday, I don't have much time to post, but I wanted to put up a link to some very compelling Congressional Committee Meeting testimonies. Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana) has been a champion for parents and their injured kids on Capitol Hill. I know they are long, but even just looking at the April 6, 2000, testimony would be a good start.

I found these through a book my chiropractor lent me. (Most who've blazed this trail before me know that chiropractors often --or always? -- do NOT vaccinate... I just found that out, but I am curious to know what they are learning that the medical schools are not teaching M.D.s ...) The testimonies, given to the U.S. Committee on Government Reform, are unfortunately not available on the Library of Congress Web site (THOMAS), because they do not archive committtee meetings. I spent a few minutes looking for them on the Government Printing Office site and the Reform Committee site but couldn't spend any more time. Thank goodness for vaccine safety groups and moms with autistic kids who are fighting tooth and nail to keep this information from being buried forever in some drawer in Washington.