Mandated Free Medical Exams Are NOT Free For Many!

The Affordable Care Act mandated free annual medical checkups. But medical crooks are finding many ways around that, and too many Americans are receiving large bills for those "free" exams. The following is part of an expose by The Washington Post about this:

When Kristy Uddin, 49, went in for her annual mammogram in Washington state last year, she assumed she would not incur a bill because the test is one of the many preventive measures guaranteed to be free to patients under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The ACA’s provision made medical and economic sense, encouraging Americans to use screening tools that could nip medical problems in the bud and keep patients healthy.

So when a bill for $236 arrived, Uddin — an occupational therapist familiar with the health-care industry’s workings — complained to her insurer and the hospital. She even requested an independent review.

“I’m like, ‘Tell me why am I getting this bill?’ ” Uddin recalled in an interview. The unsatisfying explanation: The mammogram itself was covered, per the ACA’s rules, but the fee for the equipment and the facility was not. . . .

The ACA’s designers might have assumed that they had spelled out with sufficient clarity that millions of Americans would no longer have to pay for certain types of preventive care, including mammograms, colonoscopies and recommended vaccines, in addition to doctor visits to screen for disease. But the law’s authors didn’t reckon with America’s ever-creative medical billing juggernaut.

Over the past several years, the medical industry has eroded the ACA’s guarantees, finding ways to bill patients in gray zones of the law. Patients going in for preventive care, expecting that it will be fully covered by insurance, are being blindsided by bills, big and small.

The problem comes down to deciding exactly what components of a medical encounter are covered by the ACA guarantee. For example, when do conversations between doctor and patient during an annual visit for preventive services veer into the treatment sphere? What screenings are needed for a patient’s annual visit?

A healthy 30-year-old visiting a primary-care provider might get a few basic blood tests, while a 50-year-old who is overweight would merit additional screening for Type 2 diabetes.

Making matters more confusing, the annual checkup itself is guaranteed to be “no cost” for women and people age 65 and older, but the guarantee doesn’t apply for men in the 18-64 age range — though many preventive services that require a medical visit (such as checks of blood pressure or cholesterol and screens for substance abuse) are covered.

No wonder what’s covered under the umbrella of prevention can look very different to medical providers (trying to be thorough) and billers (intent on squeezing more dollars out of every medical encounter) than it does to insurers (who profit from narrower definitions).

For patients, the gray zone has become a billing minefield. . . .

Unfortunately, there is no federal enforcement mechanism to catch individual billing abuses. And agencies’ remedies are weak — simply directing insurers to reprocess claims or notifying patients they can resubmit them. . . .

And while each bill might be relatively small compared with the stunning $10,000 hospital bills that have become all too familiar in the United States, the sorry consequences are manifold. Patients pay bills they do not owe, depriving them of cash they could use elsewhere. If they can’t pay, those bills might end up with debt-collection agencies and, ultimately, harm their credit score.

Perhaps most disturbing: These unexpected bills might discourage people from seeking preventive screenings that could be lifesaving, which is why the ACA deemed them “essential health benefits” that should be free.

GOP Radicals Are Willing To Kill Women To Oppose Abortion

 

The actions of many abortion opponents is truly frightening. They are willing to let women die instead of allowing abortions in life-threatening situations.

The following op-ed is by Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times:

It’s getting hard to keep track of all the stories of women being denied care for miscarriages and otherwise having their lives endangered because of state abortion bans.

The Washington Post reported on a woman who had to travel to Michigan after a doctor in her home state refused to end an ectopic pregnancy because of the presence of fetal cardiac activity. (Ectopic pregnancies, in which an embryo implants outside the uterus, never lead to a live birth and are the leading cause of first-trimester maternal death.)

In an interview with The Associated Press, a doctor described a patient who was miscarrying in Texas and had developed a uterine infection. She couldn’t get the necessary treatment — an immediate abortion — as long as the fetus displayed signs of life. “The patient developed complications, required surgery, lost multiple liters of blood and had to be put on a breathing machine,” The A.P. reported, all because, as the doctor said, “we were essentially 24 hours behind.”

A doctor in Wisconsin, Carley Zeal, told The New York Times about caring for a woman having a miscarriage who had been denied treatment at a hospital. By the time she found Dr. Zeal, The Times reported, “the woman had been bleeding intermittently for days,” which the doctor said put her at “increased risk of hemorrhage or infection.”

Some in the anti-abortion movement insist that the doctors refusing to treat these women are mistaken about what the laws in their states say. “To the extent that doctors or attorneys are confused about whether necessary women’s health care is forbidden under pro-life laws, the fault lies in large part with pro-abortion activists, who have been intentionally muddying the waters,” tweeted Alexandra DeSanctis Marr, a writer for National Review and the co-author of “Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing.”

If that was the case, one might think abortion opponents would be eager to see their laws clarified. After all, the suffering caused by mismanaged miscarriages doesn’t serve the cause of fetal life. Ultimately, it will likely be detrimental to the anti-abortion movement. In Ireland, it was the death of Savita Halappanavar, who developed septicemia after being refused a termination while she was miscarrying, that spurred the successful campaign for legalized abortion there. Preventing such deaths should be as urgent a priority for those opposed to legal abortion as for those who champion it.

But it isn’t. Last week, the Biden administration released guidancethat under federal law, hospitals must provide abortions when they’re necessary to stabilize patients suffering medical emergencies, or transfer them to a hospital that will. Texas is suingto prevent that policy from going into effect, saying it would “transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.”

Idaho’s Republican Party recently changed its platform to call for the criminalization of all abortions without exception. According to a blog post by Idaho Reports, a public policy television program, some delegates shared concerns about ectopic pregnancies and proposed an exemption in the platform when a woman’s life is in “lethal danger.” The exemption proposal was voted down, 412-164.

In The Times, the president of Texas Right to Life, John Seago, acknowledged that abortion bans could delay intervention during miscarriages. Doctors, he said, cannot decide that “I want to cause the death of the child today because I believe that they’re going to pass away eventually.”

I thought I was sufficiently cynical about the anti-abortion movement, but I admit to being taken aback by this blithe, public disregard for the lives of women, including women suffering the loss of wanted pregnancies.

I suspect that part of what’s happening is the right following its own rhetoric to its logical conclusion. It’s common for abortion opponents to claim that abortion is never medically necessary. Among conservative elites, this argument relies on semantic trickery, defining the termination of pregnancy to save a woman’s life as something other than abortion. Hence when the president of Americans United for Life testified before Congress, she argued, about the high-profile case of the 10-year-old rape victim, “If a 10-year-old became pregnant as a result of rape and it was threatening her life, then that’s not an abortion.”

This stance allows some abortion opponents to avoid reckoning with the consequences of the laws they support. Others, however, see those consequences fully and are fine with them. Scott Herndon, an Idaho Republican who recently unseated an incumbent state senator, was the politician who proposed the abortion criminalization language in his party’s platform. A website he runs, Abolish Abortion Idaho, says, of legislation he pushes, “Doctors may not intentionally kill the child in their medical attempts to treat the mother.”

On the day Roe v. Wade was overturned, Herndon posted a Facebook video arguing for murder prosecutions for abortion patients as well as abortion providers. “This body inside the mother’s body is not her body, and we need to get over the lie that mothers are not accountable,” he said. Men like him are making laws now. Don’t expect mercy.

Abortion Bans Are Keeping Life-Saving Medication From Many

The following thought-provoking article is by Liz Plank at MSNBC.com. Here is part of what she wrote:

For many people with disabilities and chronic illness, having access to the right medication is vital. But since Roe v. Wade was struck down by the Supreme Court last month, women are being cut off from their medication by doctors or insurance companies, often without being offered an alternative, because those drugs are considered “abortifacients.”

Because some medications used to treat lupus, cancer or rheumatoid arthritis, for example, can cause a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, women deemed of childbearing age are being told that having a uterus precludes them from having access to the drugs required to function in everyday life. Even in states where abortion is protected, some providers are afraid of state penalties or criminal consequences of anti-abortion laws that criminalize aiding and abetting an abortion, even if the female patients are being prescribed these drugs to cope with conditions that are completely unrelated to pregnancy.

There are reports of children suffering from juvenile arthritis being denied the drug until they can show evidence that they have not been impregnated. Some pharmacies are also afraid of failing to meet the requirements of the various abortion restrictions and bans and have stopped filling prescriptions for methotrexate altogether. When questioned by Fox 5, CVS refused to comment directly on the issue but said they “encourage providers to include their diagnosis on the prescriptions they write to help ensure patients have quick and easy access to medications.” This uncertainty has left a lot of female patients confused, bewildered and feeling completely left in the dark as they receive phone calls or letters informing them they can no longer have access to the treatment they need. . . .

The Arthritis Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for people living with arthritis, sounded the alarm in a statement a few days after Roe was overturned, warning that female patients’ prescriptions weren’t being filled. “Unfortunately, arthritis patients who rely on methotrexate are reporting difficulty accessing it. At least one state — Texas — allows pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for misoprostol and methotrexate, which together can be used for medical abortions.”

Chronic illness advocates are stupefied. Nitika Chopra, the founder of Chronicon, an online and in-person community for people dealing with chronic illness, says that she has been flooded with messages from women who are terrified. . . .

The irony of course is that there is nothing “pro-life” about obstructing women from having access to life-saving medication. It’s merciless and inhumane. It reveals the true extent of an ideology that relies on emotional delusions like calling abortion, a procedure that can save a person’s life, “murder,” or unscientific parables like “life at conception” that, when taken seriously by lawmakers, creates irrationally cruel consequences — like refusing a person the medicine they need to live.

There’s also nothing “pro-life” about forcing a woman who is sick to get off a medication that would prevent her from having children she does not want. “Denying people access to medication that allows them to live the best life possible is the very opposite of pro-life,” Chopra said. “You are taking away our opportunity to actually live, without pain and further damage to our health. There is nothing life-affirming about that at all.”

Post-COVID Patients Are Having New Medical Problems

 

Who Does Public Trust To Give Them Medical Advice?

The chart above reflects the results of the new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 19th and 21st of a national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,222 registered voters). The margin of error for both adults and registered voters is 3.2 points.

Donald Trump has resumed giving updates on the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, but this time he is doing it alone -- without any doctors, public health officials, or the CDC.

This is probably a big mistake, because most people consider him dishonest and untrustworthy (see chart below).

When asked who they trusted to give them medical advice (see chart above), Trump was the least trusted. Joe Biden was trusted a bit more, and both Dr. Fauci and the CDC were trusted a lot more.

One Third Put Off Medical Treatment Because Of Cost

The chart above is from a recent Gallup Poll. The survey was done between November 1st and 14th of a national sample of 1,015 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.

It shows the percentage of Americans who have put off treatment for a medical condition (33%) or a serious medical condition (25%) because of the cost. Those are shocking numbers. In no other developed nation does a quarter of the population put off getting medical care for a serious issue, or a third put off getting medical care for any medical issue. In other nations, health care coverage is guaranteed for all citizens.

But in the U.S., millions have no health insurance, and many more have insurance that won't cover enough of the cost of treatment. This must be fixed. And it won't be fixed as long as the Republicans remain in power. For them, medical care is just a product to be sold to those who can afford it -- not a right of every citizen.

Remember this when you vote next November.

Millions Of People In The U.S. Know Someone Who Died Because They Were Unable To Pay For Medical Care

These charts are from a recent Gallup Poll. It was done between September 16th and 30th of a national sample of 1,099 adults, and has a margin of error of 3.7 points.

The poll highlights the shameful state of the United States health care system. Note that 13.4% of United States citizens know someone who has died in the last five years because they could not afford to pay for medical care they needed. (NOTE -- 13.4% of the population is about 43.8 million people.)

No other developed nation has this problem. That's because they all cover all of their citizens with decent health insurance or medical care. It's only the United States that leaves millions of its citizens without any kind of health insurance (and many of them with no way to access life-saving preventative medical care).

This is why there's currently a majority of Americans that want health care changed. They want every citizen to have decent and affordable health insurance.

Many would like to see a single-payer government-run health insurance system (something like a Medicare-For-All system). Others would like to see a public option available for those who want to buy into it or who can't afford to buy private insurance.

I like the idea of Medicare-For-All, but I doubt the country is ready yet for that. Too many people like their company-provided private insurance. But it is obvious that most Americans are ready to support a public option for health insurance which would provide coverage for all citizens. It needs to be done.

More also needs to be done to make prescribed drugs more affordable. The sad fact is that even some with health insurance cannot afford all their prescribed drugs (and those without insurance are in real trouble trying to afford the drugs they need).

The charts below are from the same poll. It shows that too many people are going without the drugs they need because of the cost, and a huge majority believes the cost of drugs is much higher than it should be. Most also don't believe the Trump administration has done enough to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

This must change. The cost of drugs must be lowered and controlled, and all citizens must be covered with decent health insurance. But it will not happen as long as Republicans retain power in our government. They view health care and drugs as products to be sold to those who can afford it -- not the right of every citizen to protect their good health.

They are wrong and they must be voted out of power.

Trump's New Policy Takes "Cruel & Inhumane" To New Level

It's been obvious to decent people that Trump's immigration policy is cruel and inhumane -- especially regarding immigrants seeking asylum. He seems to believe that cruelty will convince brown-skinned immigrants to not come to the United States -- even though they are doing so to save their lives in many cases.

Now he has taken that cruel and inhumane treatment to new and dizzying heights. He is deporting immigrants who have come to this country to receive life-saving medical treatment -- treatment they cannot get in their country of origin. That deportation is nothing less than a sentence of death.

That's right -- Trump is now killing people to show his racist base how much he hates brown-skinned people (including children)!

Here is how MSNBC reports Trump latest cruel policy:

On MSNBC Tuesday, Rachel Maddow reported on the Trump administration's abrupt ending of the "medical deferred action" program that allows non-citizens to remain in the U.S. to continue receiving life-saving treatment. Families in this program are now being given 33 days to leave the country.

A growing number of families with sick children are receiving notices from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of a recent policy change, attorneys said Monday. They are being told that the agency will no longer renew any applications to stay in the U.S. under the  program.

Maddow profiled at least four children who are relying on U.S. medical care to stay alive, and who now have received letters stating they must voluntarily leave the country within 33 days.

“This is not something the Trump administration announced with great fanfare… they didn't make any public pronouncements about getting rid of this program... [But] they’re singling out the families of sick children to facilitate their deaths by sending them to places they can no longer get treatment," said Maddow.

Jonathan Sanchez, who has been getting treatment for cystic fibrosis in Boston over the past three years, is not sure what he will do if he is forced to return to Honduras. The 16-year-old spoke to radio station WBUR in tears, saying,  “If they deny the program, then I’ll need to go back to my country. I will probably die, because in my country there is no treatment for CF (cystic fibrosis)."

“We’ve reached the most inhumane of all of Donald Trump’s policies,” said  Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) at a briefing about the subject at an immigrant center.  

"This was a program that existed on the assumption there was some humanity left in the U.S. government," said Anthony Marino, immigration legal services director of the Irish International Immigrant Center, on MSNBC.

"I don't know how they expect people to pull children from their hospital beds, pull them from life-saving treatment, and go somewhere where they know the child is going to die… and if they don't, they’ll drag them through deportation proceedings."

Obamacare Is Responsible For Cutting Bankruptcies In Half

This is an effect of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that we don't talk enough about -- bankruptcies. It's just a fact that the leading cause of bankruptcies in the United States among individuals is unmanageable medical costs.

Back in 2010, before Obamacare was passed and went into effect, the number of personal bankruptcy filings was 1,536,799 (and was rising each year). The current yearly rate of personal bankruptcy filings is 770,846 (and the trend is downward). The bankruptcies have been cut in half since Obamacare went into effect.

Some of that is due to a better economy (although many Americans are still struggling in our tepid economy), but most financial experts agree that Obamacare was one of the prime factors in the drastic cutting of bankruptcy filings. Thanks to Obamacare, far fewer families are facing crushing medical debt that forces them into bankruptcy.

We could do even better by fixing Obamacare's problems (by covering more Americans and controlling medical and insurance costs), but the Republican plans (both in House and Senate) won't do that. Instead, they throw 22-23 million people off the insurance rolls while doing nothing to control costs, and they would again let insurance companies sell policies with inadequate coverage. If either of those plans are passed (and signed into law), we could expect to see personal bankruptcy filings rise sharply.

The chart above is from Consumer Reports.

Posting May Be Light For A Couple Of Days, And Here's Why

Posting may (or may not) be rather light for a couple of days. It all depends on the healing powers of my rather aged body.

Back in September of 2005, I was shot in the abdomen by a carjacker. Doctors repaired my innards through an 11 inch incision.

Now, 11 years later, that incision is starting to pull apart in at least one area -- creating a hernia. Today (April 19th), I will be undergoing laparoscopic surgery to get it repaired. I'm not too worried about the surgery, but I've been told it will take a few days to recover and could be painful.

The blogging will depend on how I feel in the next few days. I plan to continue blogging, but my body may not agree. At any rate, I will be healed and blogging fully in a few days.

Hillary Clinton's Plan To Treat And Possibly Cure Alzheimers

(This photo is by Logan Anderson and is from the web site of Hillary Clinton.)

From hillaryclinton.com:

“If we’re the kind of nation that cares for its citizens and supports families, respects our elders, and takes care of our neighbors, then we’ve got work to do. And we need to do better when it comes to diseases like Alzheimer’s.”

HILLARY CLINTON, DECEMBER 22, 2015

Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and is the only cause of death in the top 10 that we cannot currently prevent, cure, or even slow. With the American population aging, the overall number of people suffering from Alzheimer’s is expected to grow almost threefold to nearly 15 million Americans—and could cost more than $1 trillion per year—by 2050. 

Hillary Clinton is proposing a groundbreaking commitment to preventing, effectively treating, and making a cure possible for Alzheimer’s disease by 2025. Her plan will: 

• Invest $2 billion per year in research for Alzheimer’s and related disorders. This past year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) invested $586 million in Alzheimer’s research, less than 1 percent of the annual cost of this disease. As part of a new investment in NIH, Hillary would rapidly ramp up our investment to $2 billion—the amount leading researchers have determined is necessary to prevent and treat the disease and make a cure possible by 2025. 
• Ensure a reliable stream of funding between now and 2025. Just as important as increasing our investment, Hillary will fight to make funding predictable and reliable between now and 2025 so that researchers can work consistently toward effective treatments and pursue long-term research that will pay off down the road.
• Establish a plan of action with leading researchers and health experts. Hillary will appoint a top-flight team to oversee this initiative and will consult regularly with leading researchers to ensure progress toward ending Alzheimer's. At each stage, her plan will embrace a range of approaches to discovering and advancing effective treatments.

Hillary understands the enormous weight that Alzheimer’s disease imposes on a growing number of Americans and their families. To help alleviate the burden, Hillary’s plan will: 

• Cover comprehensive Alzheimer’s care-planning services and help coordinate care among physicians. Beyond the difficulty of planning for Alzheimer’s care, the disease complicates the management of other conditions. The simple act of sitting down together—primary physician, patient, and caregiver—to map out a treatment plan can have a positive impact on a patient’s health. Under Hillary’s plan, Medicare will cover comprehensive Alzheimer’s care-planning sessions, as well as the cost of properly documenting every diagnosis and care plan.
• Help protect loved ones who wander. At least six in 10 Alzheimer’s sufferers will wander from home at some point in a state of profound disorientation—leaving them vulnerable and potentially unsafe. Hillary will work with Congress to reauthorize the Missing Alzheimer’s Disease Patient Alert Program, a cost-effective federal program with a reported 98 percent success rate in finding individuals reported missing.
• Ensure our seniors are aware and can take advantage of their Medicare benefits. Although Alzheimer’s cannot yet be cured, proper diagnosis and treatment can make a vital difference in quality of life—and allow patients to play an active role in planning for their future. Hillary will direct the Social Security Administration to raise awareness about the wellness visits, cognitive screenings, and other preventive benefits covered by Medicare. 

Hillary’s plan builds on her a long record of working across the aisle on behalf of patients and families dealing with Alzheimer’s disease. In the U.S. Senate, she consistently pushed for greater funding for Alzheimer’s research, including federally funded stem cell research. She also co-chaired the Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer’s Disease and introduced legislation to restore funding for the Alzheimer’s Association 24/7 Contact Center and for Alzheimer’s disease demonstration grants.

New Cancer Breakthrough Stops Growth Of Cancer Cells

(This image of differing types of cancer cells is from MedicineNet.com.)

Researchers at Florida's Mayo Clinic has made an astounding discovery. They have discovered a way to stop the growth of cancer cells and turn them into harmless benign cells. Here is how Sarah Knapton, science editor of The Telegraph, describes the new discovery:

Cancer cells have been programmed back to normal by scientists in a breakthrough which could lead to new treatments and even reverse tumour growth. 

For the first time aggressive breast, lung and bladder cancer cells have been turned back into harmless benign cells by restoring the function which prevents them from multiplying excessively and forming dangerous growths. 

Scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Florida, US, said it was like applying the brakes to a speeding car. 

So far it has only been tested on human cells in the lab, but the researchers are hopeful that the technique could one day be used to target tumours so that cancer could be ‘switched off’ without the need for harsh chemotherapy or surgery. 

"We should be able to re-establish the brakes and restore normal cell function,” said Profesor Panos Anastasiadis, of the Department for Cancer Biology. 

“Initial experiments in some aggressive types of cancer are indeed very promising. 

“It represents an unexpected new biology that provides the code, the software for turning off cancer." 

Cells need to divide constantly to replace themselves. But in cancer the cells do not stop dividing leading to huge cell reproduction and tumour growth. 

The scientists discovered that the glue which holds cells together is regulated by biological microprocessors called microRNAs. When everything is working normally the microRNAs instruct the cells to stop dividing when they have replicated sufficiently. They do this by triggering production of a protein called PLEKHA7 which breaks the cell bonds. But in cancer that process does not work. 

Scientists discovered they could switch on cancer in cells by removing the microRNAs from cells and preventing them from producing the protein. 

And, crucially they found that they could reverse the process switching the brakes back on and stopping cancer. MicroRNAs are small molecules which can be delivered directly to cells or tumours so an injection to increase levels could switch off disease.

“We have now done this in very aggressive human cell lines from breast and bladder cancer,” added Dr Anastasiadis. 

“These cells are already missing PLEKHA7. Restoring either PLEKHA7 levels, or the levels of microRNAs in these cells turns them back to a benign state. We are now working on better delivery options.” 

Cancer experts in Britain said the research solved a riddle that biologists had puzzled over for decades, why cells did not naturally prevent the proliferation of cancer. 

“This is an unexpected finding,” said Dr Chris Bakal, a specialist in how cells change shape to become cancerous, at the Institute for Cancer Research in London. 

“We have been trying to work out how normal cells might be suppressing cancer, and stopping dividing when they form contacts with each other, which has been a big mystery. 

“Normal cells touch each other and form junctions then they shut down proliferation. If there is a way to turn that back on then that would be a way to stop tumours from growing. 

“I think in reality it is unlikely that you could reverse tumours by reversing just one mechanism, but it’s a very interesting finding.” 

Henry Scowcroft, Cancer Research UK’s senior science information manager, said: “This important study solves a long-standing biological mystery, but we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. 

“There’s a long way to go before we know whether these findings, in cells grown in a laboratory, will help treat people with cancer. But it’s a significant step forward in understanding how certain cells in our body know when to grow, and when to stop. Understanding these key concepts is crucial to help continue the encouraging progress against cancer we’ve seen in recent years.” 

The research was published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Not Allowing Marijuana For Medical Use Is Just Wrong

Back in the 1930s, the United States government made marijuana illegal -- both for recreational use and for medical use. And in the 1970s, the Nixon administration doubled-down on that by declaring a "war on drugs" (and made marijuana one of the primary drugs they attacked).

The reason they gave for making marijuana illegal was that it was a dangerous drug. At the time, many people accepted that, but we now know it was just a lie to get people to accept the law. Marijuana is probably the safest drug known to man -- a drug that cannot cause death by overdose, and is much safer that almost every legal drug.

The truth is that the law wasn't passed because marijuana was dangerous. It was passed as a tool for social control -- first for the control of Blacks and Hispanics, and then later for White counter-culture young people. Fortunately, people are starting to realize that the government lied to them. More now know marijuana is not dangerous, and should never have been labeled as a dangerous drug.

But that was not the only lie the government told about marijuana. They also claimed there was no legitimate medical use for marijuana. That laughable, because marijuana has been used for medical purposes for thousands of years. And most doctors today will admit that marijuana has properties that can be used to treat many medical conditions.

Now we learn that marijuana may be even more medically useful than even its supporters knew. The federal government now admits that marijuana may well be useful in the treatment of cancer -- a vicious disease that afflicts far too many people in this country (and the world). Take note of this quote from a report by the National Institute of Health's National Cancer Institute (a U.S. government agency):

Antitumor activity

• Studies in mice and rats have shown that cannabinoids may inhibit tumor growth by causing cell death, blocking cell growth, and blocking the development of blood vessels needed by tumors to grow. Laboratory and animal studieshave shown that cannabinoids may be able to kill cancer cells while protecting normal cells.
• A study in mice showed that cannabinoids may protect against inflammation of the colon and may have potential in reducing the risk of colon cancer, and possibly in its treatment. 
• A laboratory study of delta-9-THC in hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) cells showed that it damaged or killed the cancer cells. The same study of delta-9-THC in mouse models of liver cancer showed that it had antitumor effects. Delta-9-THC has been shown to cause these effects by acting on molecules that may also be found in non-small cell lung cancer cells and breast cancer cells.
• A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in estrogen receptor positive and estrogen receptor negative breast cancer cells showed that it caused cancer cell death while having little effect on normal breast cells. Studies in mouse models of metastatic breast cancer showed that cannabinoids may lessen the growth, number, and spread of tumors.
• A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in human glioma cells showed that when given along with chemotherapy, CBD may make chemotherapy more effective and increase cancer cell death without harming normal cells. Studies in mouse models of cancer showed that CBD together with delta-9-THC may make chemotherapy such as temozolomidemore effective.

We already knew that marijuana was very effective for cancer patients in combating nausea, treating pain, and restoring appetite after radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Now it looks like it could be an effective treatment in killing off cancer cells.

Personally, I think marijuana should be legalized for possession and use by any adults. But one thing is becoming very clear -- that denying sick people the medicinal benefits of marijuana is unethical and immoral. Marijuana should, at the very least, be legalized for medical use in every state. And the federal government should investigate much more thoroughly the medical uses for this wonder drug.

A Major Breakthrough In Treatment Of HIV/AIDS

(This image is from medicalnewstoday.com.)

We don't hear a lot about HIV/AIDS in the news these days, but it still affects millions of people -- both in this country and the world. That's why it is great news that a major medical breakthrough has been found to fight the disease. It doesn't involve a new medication, but on when the current medications should be started. Here is how that breakthrough is described by Tara Culp-Ressler for Think Progress:

A major international clinical trial funded by the National Institutes for Health (NIH) has been cut short a year early, now that researchers have documented such compelling results about the right way to deliver HIV treatment.

The Strategic Timing of AntiRetroviral Treatment (START) study, which has been tracking more than 4,600 HIV-positive people in dozens of countries since 2011, aimed to figure out when patients should begin taking a combination of drugs that can effectively suppress the virus. 

Antiretroviral drugs are a major advance in HIV treatment that allow many HIV-positive individuals to live long and healthy lives. But, since the drugs can also come with significant side effects, global health experts have been hesitant to recommendprescribing them too early. The START study wanted to see whether it was better to start anti-retroviral therapy immediately, when HIV patients are still relatively healthy, or wait until their white blood cell count drops below a certain point. 

The clinical trial, which was initially scheduled to conclude at the end of 2016, randomly assigned participants to early and later treatment groups. But it became clear that the first group was delivering dramatically better results. Among the HIV-positive people who received early treatment, the risk of dying or developing a serious illness was reduced by 53 percent. 

The researchers considered those results to be so significant that they decided it wouldn’t be ethical to continue the study for another year. Instead, they’re halting it now and giving all of the participants immediate access to antiretroviral drugs.

“We now have clear-cut proof that it is of significantly greater health benefit to an HIV-infected person to start antiretroviral therapy sooner rather than later,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which funded most of the research, told NBC News. “These findings have global implications for the treatment of HIV.”

Indeed, the NIH’s results may have a demonstrable impact on the estimated 35 million people living with the virus. Although the World Health Organization has recently updated its treatment guidelines to recommend starting antiretroviral treatment early, it still stipulates that patients’ white blood cell count should fall below a certain threshold before taking the drugs. START’s results could spur the international community to endorse treatment for everyone diagnosed with the virus — the position that the United Nations’ AIDS agency took after the study’s findings were publicized.

“Every person living with HIV should have immediate access to life-saving antiretroviral therapy,” Michel Sidibé, the executive director of UNAIDS, said in a statement. “Delaying access to HIV treatment under any pretext is denying the right to health.”

The results aren’t necessarily a surprise to researchers in the field, who have increasingly been documenting the benefits of early HIV treatment. But they provide the most compelling evidence so far that the potential side effects of the drugs are not serious enough — and the benefits to patients’ personal health are too great — to justify delaying treatment, even for people who still appear to be healthy. Dr. Jens Lundgren of the University of Copenhagen, who helped sponsor the START study, called it “an important milestone in HIV research.”

Not every country, of course, will be able to immediately begin providing this treatment to everyone with HIV. The global health community is continuing to work toward universal access to HIV treatment, but we’re not there yet. Although the price of antiretroviral drugs has recently dropped thanks to increased competition in the market, cost issues remain a concern.

The study results also underscore the importance of regular testing and early diagnosis, something that HIV prevention experts have been saying for years. 

Although routine HIV testing is now covered under Obamacare as an essential preventative health measure, there’s a long way to go here in the United States, where about 15 percent of HIV-positive Americans don’t know they have the virus. That number rises dramatically among young Americans between 16 and 24 years old, 60 percent of whom are unaware of their status. This particular knowledge gap contributes to the fact that — despite the advances in HIV treatment that ensure a diagnosis is not a death sentence — federal officials report just three in ten Americans living with HIV currently have the virus in check.