Medical Sentinel
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 4
Winter 2001
In the early 1950s, U.S. intelligence concluded that the KGB, Soviet intelligence, was working hard to develop "mind control" and behavior modification drugs. Supporting evidence included the public "confessions" of numerous high-ranking communist officials, the high-profile trial in Hungary of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty, who appeared to have been drugged as he confessed to treasonous crimes, and the unusual behavior of American POWs during the Korean War. The filmed testimony of American POWs telling the world that America was evil and that communism was a far superior form of government was an especially compelling example.
On April 10, 1953, Allen W. Dulles, newly confirmed CIA director, alerted a gathering of Princeton alumni to the problem. A "sinister battle for men's minds" was...
Tags: CIA, drugs, espionage, KGB, mind control, Soviet Union
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Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 4
Winter 2001
It has been known for centuries that a certain number of people survive epidemics unscathed. This was true for the waves of Black Death that eventually killed forty million people in Europe in the fourteenth century and for the numerous smallpox plagues that have swept through the world since it was first recorded in history, which killed over 500 million people. It has been observed over a century ago that survivors appear to be those who were the healthiest before an epidemic struck.
Millions were killed by epidemics of typhus during World War I. Several observers noted that soldiers who carried garlic cloves with them for snacking were often spared the disease. Later it was learned that garlic contained factors that acted as a powerful antibiotic. Since this early observation, numerous...
Tags: bioterrorism
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 3
Fall 2001
Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) commonly describes a combination of subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhage, and diffuse axonal injury (DAI) as the triad of diagnostic criteria. In some, the presence of rib or other fractures is also taken as a sign of abuse.(1-3)
The basic issue to be reviewed here is whether or not in some instances in which a father, family member, or caretaker has been accused of causing the death of an infant or child from the SBS, the true cause of death was a catastrophic vaccine reaction.
This article concerns an unpublished series of 25 cases involving accusations or convictions for the SBS, largely collected by attorney and jury counselor Toni Blake of San Diego, California (personal communication, 2000), as well as some from personal knowledge, which have the...
Tags: medicolegal issues
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 3
Fall 2001
Part I of this article discussed Medicaid eligibility requirements and regulations and chronicled the extensive growth in Medicaid caseloads and spending. Part I also reviewed how Medicaid is funded and how states have utilized funding schemes to increase the amount that is funded by the federal government. Part I chronicled the federal legislation that has been enacted in response to state Medicaid funding schemes and the subsequent states' responses to this legislation, including the use of provider taxes.
Part II will discuss the detrimental effects that Welfare and Medicaid have on society and the health care system. Part II will also discuss specific proposals for Welfare reform and health care reform.
Medicaid and the Incremental Assault on Health Care
It appears that...
Tags: health care reform
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 3
Fall 2001
ABSTRACT
We identified 60 rubella-susceptible mothers who were revaccinated in the postpartum period with either the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) or the monovalent rubella vaccine and whose children later received MMR vaccine. Forty-five of these women have children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD); another ten women have children with autistic symptoms, ADD/ADHD or other developmental delays; and four women have children with other health problems, mostly immunologic. These outcomes raise concerns about the practice of postpartum vaccination and suggest that an immune mechanism may increase children's susceptibility to ASD.
Background
Although parents continue to report that their previously typical children begin to display symptoms of autism and lose previously acquired...
Tags: health care policy, vaccines
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 2
Summer 2001
In 1965, Medicaid was established as a jointly funded federal-state entitlement program to pay for the medical services of qualified low-income people. At the federal level, the program is administered by the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).(1-3)
States are mandated to provide Medicaid coverage to certain population groups, including members of families with dependent children, pregnant women, and persons who are aged, blind or disabled. Mandatory Medicaid eligibility rules include infants in the first year of life born to a Medicaid eligible pregnant woman and children under age six and pregnant women whose family income is at or below 133 percent of the poverty level (with state options to extend coverage to...
Tags: health care policy
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 2
Summer 2001
In Part I of this essay, we discussed how Canada committed the fatal error of proclaiming that health care is a right and ended up with socialized medicine. In Part II, we will now discuss the long term consequences of this decision. Perhaps, the U.S. can learn from our mistake.
The Laws of Supply and Demand
To begin to understand some of the long term consequences of declaring medical care to be a right we must understand exactly what happens when a society makes such a declaration. What is it that actually takes place when what is clearly a product is considered to be a right? Other than giving liberals and conservatives alike the warm fuzzies, what is really going to occur?
The critical event is the breaking of the direct economic link between the producer of health care...
Tags: health care policy
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 2
Summer 2001
One of the best games in town is litigation, and litigating against physicians is even more popular than suing gun manufacturers. Physicians and their malpractice insurance carriers are well aware that litigators are constantly looking for new opportunities to sue. Let's talk about one of those new areas of liability exposure.
Nowadays, many physicians and other health care providers are engaging in the very risky, well intentioned, albeit naive and politically inspired, business of asking their patients about ownership, maintenance and storage of firearms in the home, and even removal of those firearms from the home. Some could argue that this is a "boundary violation," and it probably is, but there is another very valid reason why these professionals should not engage in this practice...
Tags: gun control, health care policy
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 1
Spring 2001
Gun Violence and Street Crime
Another favorite view of the gun control, public health establishment is the myth propounded by Dr. Mark Rosenberg, former head of the NCIPC of the CDC, who has written: "Most of the perpetrators of violence are not criminals by trade or profession. Indeed, in the area of domestic violence, most of the perpetrators are never accused of any crime. The victims and perpetrators are ourselves --- ordinary citizens, students, professionals, and even public health workers."(6) That statement is contradicted by available data, government data. The fact is that the typical murderer has had a prior criminal history of at least six years with four felony arrests in his record before he finally commits murder.(17) The FBI statistics reveal that 75 percent of all...
Tags: Constitution, gun control, guns, mass shootings, public health, science, violence
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 1
Spring 2001
The thought of violent death both fascinates and terrifies us, so it is understandable that homicide and suicide are the subjects of voluminous commentary. Regrettably, much of this commentary is based on emotion rather than reason, and it is propped up by incorrect "facts" that have been repeated so often that they have become widely accepted.
Examples of these "facts" include the following: Violence has reached "epidemic proportions." America is in the grip of an unprecedented wave of violence, with the highest homicide rate in our history, or in the industrialized world. Homicide and suicide rose in the 1980s in response to callous social policies of the Reagan administration. Homicide and suicide rise when leaders are "macho" but fall when the government is "caring." Homicide and...
Tags: crime, economy, gun control, homicide, statistics, suicide, the depression, violence
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 1
Spring 2001
There is something wrong with medicine in Canada today. This conclusion can and probably has been reached by any member of the profession who has paused from his or her daily endeavors to consider the current state of medicine in this country. Despite rather remarkable advances in the art and science of medicine patient care is deteriorating. The availability of medical services is diminishing and waiting lists are growing longer. Patients are often obliged to seek medical care in facilities far from home. The cost of health care in Canada has been spiralling upwards out of control, and predictions for the future portend the collapse of what was once an excellent health care system.
Caught in the middle of the unfolding disaster is the Canadian physician. On one side the profession finds...
Tags: health care policy
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 6
November/December 2000
Is America the most violent nation on earth? Those who blame this country for most of the ills of the world would have us believe so. They frequently refer to high rates of homicide and suicide, though they rarely cite actual data. But before fear impels us to shred the Bill of Rights, we should determine whether our fear has a factual basis.
The accompanying table below gives suicide and homicide rates for all 86 nations for which data are available. Rates are per 100,000 population and come from the United Nations 1996 Demographic Yearbook published in 1998.(1) Note that the latest U.S. suicide rate (for 1997) is 11.4, slightly below the 11.9 listed, while the 1997 U.S. homicide rate is 7.3, far below the 9.4 listed here. Figures exceeding published U.S. figures are starred, while...
Tags: violence
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 6
November/December 2000
By now it is an all too familiar nightmare. Violent armed robbers take over a restaurant, terrorizing employees and customers. The predators herd the hapless victims into a refrigerator with the intention of killing them. Shots are fired, and the gruesome disaster ends.
Wait. This isn't the story of a Wendy's restaurant in New York City last week. It is the eerily similar drama played out in a Shoney's restaurant in Anniston, Alabama in 1991. But this story had a just, if not exactly happy ending. That time, it was the criminals, not the good guys, who were shot.
In nearly identical scenarios --- the violent takeover of a restaurant by armed criminals --- one outcome was a hideous tragedy, and the other a triumph of courage. The difference in results was no...
Tags: violence
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 6
November/December 2000
In regard to the deleterious changes that have taken place in the field of medicine, the regulatory agencies that have had the most damaging effect on the Constitution are the FDA and HCFA. Indeed, the history of the government's involvement in medical care provides a textbook example of the natural history of a command (a managed or collective) economy. In a command economy, power is centralized, which means it is an authoritarian system. Furthermore, when power is centralized, rules and regulations to control the system, particularly costs, inevitably become increasingly oppressive, due to the lack of incentives for self-control that exist in a market economy. For example, most physicians know that the measures implemented by the government (HCFA) to control Medicare have become more...
Tags: FDA
Article Type: Feature Article
Issue Number: 5
September/October 2000
Introduction
Cuba's health services have come under attention recently.(1,2) Since 1963, Fidel Castro has been exporting health care personnel including physicians to countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. It is estimated that approximately 5 percent of the Cuban physicians working for Castro's MINSAP (Cuban Public Health Service) are involved in service abroad.(3) The so-called "doctor diplomacy" may have begun in the manner of an assistance program for guerrilla movements, but it soon turned into big business for Havana. In this article, we analyze briefly the current events that led to two physicians serving in Castro's "doctor diplomacy" in Africa to desert in a maneuver that turned dangerous for them and for innocent bystanders.(4) Furthermore, we analyze the recent offer from...
Tags: Castro, communism, Cuba, health care, health politics, perinatal mortality, socialism, socialized medicine
The Oath of Hippocrates
The Cancer Risk from Low Level Radiation: A Review of Recent Evidence...
Vandals at the Gates of Medicine — Have They Been Repulsed or Are They Over the Top?Special Issues
- Medical Ethics (March/April 1998)
- The Police State of Medicine (July/August 1998)
- The Modus Operandi of Managed Care (January/February 1999)
- Socialism, Euthanasia, and the Right to Health Care (July/August 1999)
- Vaccines, Viruses, and Chronic Illnesses (September/October 1999)
- Futility of Care and the “Duty to Die” (November/December 1999)
- Vaccine Scene 2000 — Infectious Diseases and Immunizations (March/April 2000)
- Lawyers, Public Health, and Labor Unions (May/June 2000)
- Medicine as a Tool of the State — Cuba (September/October 2000)
- Doctors and Guns (Part I) — A Failure of the Public Health Model (November/December 2000)
- Doctors and Guns (Part II) — A Failure of the Public Health Model (Spring 2001)
- Controversies in Clinical Medicine (Fall 2001)
- Bioterrorism in Our Own Backyard (Winter 2001)
- Neuropharmacology and Behavior (Spring 2002)
- Individually-based Medical Ethics vs Population-based Bioethics (Summer 2002)
- Medical Liability Crisis and Tort Reform (Fall 2002)
- Vignettes in Medical History (Winter 2002)
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