About Alzheimer's Disease

In my medical practice, and particularly in my roles as Medical Director of a women's retirement home and its nursing unit, I frequently dealt with patients who had Alzheimer's Disease  and their families. The beautifully written article, by Arthur Kleinman in Harvard Magazine, "On Caregiving" is worth reading..

They Used To Use Tar for Psoriasis Treatment

The TV report was very low key. There was an assistant head of a shrimper's group who said he was really concerned about the his health, his wife's health, his kids' health, his brothers' health and the health of the people working, not in the normal trades, but in the massive oil spill cleanup breathing that air that smelled so bad. In his direct honest way, he plaintively asked why there was so little information from the government or anyone else about the health effects on people of the oil and its fumes. He said that the people in the area had poor insurance, if any, little access to health care facilities, and felt adrift.

Then another TV scene, this of a lot of doctors at a Louisiana meeting, not of a government agency but of an important-sounding institute group. Lots of uniforms, very somber people. Their words were as guarded as a lawyer's  before the U.S. Supreme Court. Nothing to cause panic or to even raise alarm.  The big issue was skin rashes from irritation from the petroleum floating in the water and filming the marshes.  If you listened carefully, there was only the slightest hint of concern expressed about long-term effects.  What was most significant was the silence about serious health issues. What was most significant was that there was no responsible response to the shrimper's pleas for information about the health effects of the oil and its benzene-containing fumes and what they could expect in the short term and out eight to ten years.

When I was in medical school, various tars (often from coal derivatives) were used to treat conditions such as psoriasis. I was surprised that no one, recorded by the TV cameras,  said "consider the "up" side: smear some tar on your psoriasis and your skin might improve.

Link to CDC site for professionals added 7/1/2010:

BP's Oil Spill: The Next Propaganda Wave From Petrochemical Forces?

Most mutations are not particularly beneficial and result in non-sustainable life forms. Over billions of years, humans have evolved because of mutations which, in the Darwinian sense, have augmented human survival,  There is some religious, but no scientific uncertainty about these observations.  However, critics have developed sophisticated techniques for creating doubt, even about proved scientific conclusions such as evolution.

If you have followed the global warming debate, you may understand that a technique used by opponents of scientific acceptance of human activity's contribution to global warming is to inject "uncertainty" into the argument. Even when there is overwhelming evidence for human influence on global warming, the opponents argue that "we really don't know and so we shouldn't do anything," framing any sensible responsible activity aimed at stemming global warming as irresponsible.

Take a skeptical look at the inferences injecting uncertainty about the dangers of oil sludge  in today's New York Times article which discusses bio-organisms flourishing in areas of oil/gas presence on the ocean floors. My impression is that the article subtly suggests that the oil sludge in the Gulf of Mexico waters might really have an upside, resulting in the growth of beneficial marine organisms. Should the Times have demarcated the inferences by question marks?

Perhaps the next article will  suggest uncertainty as to the effects of BP's oil spill on the dead fish, birds and other life forms in the Gulf and along the Louisiana coast and a potential "upside" as life forms are recycled and today's oil-covered dead fish becomes food for new generations of gulf life.  Perhaps an article will claim that if we wait long enough, BP pollution of our water and shores will be an evolutionary godsend and perhaps worthy of a process patent. 

Is exposing our gulf coast population to the risk of mutation, leukemia and brain tumors, really something that can be sweet-talked?  Next, will we be showered with pictures of cute  (mutated) Ninja Turtles singing the praises of BP in local hospitals where kids with acute leukemia and brain tumors are to be treated?

The Great Vaccine That Your Parents Don't Get

Simple questions: if your parents were in an age group (over 60) where they were at risk of developing a common disfiguring painful debilitating, sometimes blinding or fatal, disease and you learned that they could get an effective vaccine which had about a 1-1/2% risk of a serious adverse effect, would you tell them to get the vaccine? And would the doctor have it to give to them?

The disease the vaccine has a 51% chance of preventing is shingles (herpes zoster), a viral inflammation of the nerves caused by the chickenpox virus, which is contracted in childhood. The painful complication the vaccine has a 67% chance of preventing is postherpetic neuralgia, a miserable disabling complication of shingles which requires expensive medicine for partial relief and may last for years.

According to The Medical Letter Letter On Drugs and Therapeutics (5/31/2010), citing various studies, only 2% of the over 60 years old patients in a 2007 study had received the vaccine. Cost ($194 wholesale),the requirement for freezer preservation, and Medicare Part D reimbursement, were factors affecting vaccine use.

The vaccine (Zostavax) is better than having shingles. Tell that to your parents and have them discuss it with their doctors. And if a doctor isn't familiar with the vaccine and won't take the time to learn about it, maybe it's time to seek out another doctor.

Judge For Yourself: Health Risk Information About BP's Crude Oil Disaster

 From the CDC, published today: "Occupational health and safety experts have questioned the Offshore Air Monitoring Plan for Source Control, BP’s plan to protect the health of the more than 24,400 workers cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, because they say it exposes workers to higher levels of toxic chemicals than is generally acceptable. The clean-up effort exposes workers to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are subject to federal regulations that do not specify safety thresholds. Because of this, BP is not currently required to supply respirators, evacuate workers, or take other precautions. Critics say the plan allows workers to remain in an area where vapors are four times higher than accepted practice. “This protocol seems to be written in a way that allows them to continue to work when conditions are such that, in any other setting, you’d pull your workers or you’d put them in better protection,” said Mark Catlin, a worker safety advocate and expert who worked on the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker spill. BP spokesman Ray Viator, however, said that the plan is aggressively monitoring toxins and protecting workers. “It’s being managed by professionals who have reviewed the plan and who are making sure it’s been implemented correctly. It involves graduated responses and we’re prepared to accelerate it if the situation arises,” he said. The Coast Guard approved the plan on May 25, and although the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reviewed the plan, the agency’s jurisdiction only extends three miles off-shore."

To form your own judgment on whether Americans in the affected area are receiving appropriate information from the federal government read and analyze the  CDC's evaluation of the BP Gulf  oil spill and consider applicable federal law pertinent to emergencies.

See Taylor's Miami Herald expert's analysis of the protection offered to works and residents of the affect area (referenced above).

And finally, if you can stomach it, take a look at Louisiana's May 5, 2010 information to its coastal citizens.

Did I Miss Something

And  in his June 15th, 2010 TV talk, President Obama said what about the potential adverse health effects of benzene exposure on the men, women and children downwind from BP's crude oil disaster?  And who is to assume financial responsibility for dealing with those effects as they become real? And how will the victims and their families be made whole? And who is monitoring the environmental health risks and results?  How have Americans been notified of their exposures and the adverse consequences of those exposures?

Sorry, but a "I've got the situation in hand"  political talk just doesn't deal with the reality of a toxic exposure which may have consequences far worse than any terrorist attack our nation has yet experienced.

BP's Gift That Keeps On Giving

At 6:15 AM today, on National Public Radio, I heard the word. A scientist was describing the conditions she encountered at the BP oil environmental catasrophe site and she said that she experienced a strong smell of benzene in the air.

Benzene causes bone marrow damage and cancer. Exposure of children, pregnant women, adults and the elderly to toxic benzene will have serious long term effects, including leukemia and other diseases caused by benzene's capacity to cause mutations. The problems BP has created will not be gone by Christmas; BP's gift will  create catastrophes for our people for many years.

Read for yourself and then start writing the White House and your Congress people, since both should shoulder the blame for allowing BP to cause this mess. Ask them to tell the truth about the environmental catastrophe BP has caused for people's health, not just the health of fish and birds and shrimp. Demand that the United States Public Health Service be responsible for tracking and publicly reporting the downstream health effects of BP's polution. Demand that BP pay all of the health care costs resulting from their pollution of the ocean and air, and not dump the costs on the government and its taxpayers. Demand that Congress adequately fund the agencies responsible for regulating oil drilling and that the White House staff the agencies, not with political cronies who will rubber stamp "APPROVED" on every harebrained idea proposed by oil companies which buy unregulated freedom through political contributions.

This was not just BP's failure. It was a failure of our government (the political and administrative actors are attempting to distance themselves from responsibility). Our children, men and women, workforce and industry are suffering from BP's destruction of our environment and continuing American government willful  incompetence.  Demand accountability.

Another Example of Severe Disease From Toxic Exposures

Not only did the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on New York have an immediate destructive effect on lives and structures, as  Aldrich and others' New England Journal of Medicine 4/8/2010 article concluded, carefull follow-up studies have shown a substantial number of rescue workers to have serious permanent abnormalities in lung function from their massive acute exposure to dust at the World Trade Center site both at the time of the attack and afterwards. The workers' health will never be the same.

Unlike today's  BP downwind exposure victims, politicians rushed to New York and the Pentagon to laud firefighters and Emergency Service Workers for their heroism and self sacrifice as they worked to save lives and property. The news media featured pictures of the rescue workers and highlighted their service above self-interest in the face of an horrific American tragedy. America recognized the sacrifices those people had made.

But the toxic exposure of children and adults in Louisiana downwind from BP's mess seems to merit no such interest although Obama has made cursory trips to the area and today's New York Times shows a sympathetic  picture of an oiled bird and an antiseptic picture of oil decontamination in Alabama. What about toxic exposure of the the adults and children  (who could not afford to run self-serving costly full-page newspaper ads, as BP did) to the fumes from  BP's flood of oil and the possible health consequences of that exposure. What is the extent of their exposure, what consequences can be predicted and why is our government and news media not talking about this issue?

Is there a conspiracy of silence?  Or is it just an election year? Or is BP advertising revenue a factor?