Posts Tagged ‘mammograms’

Dr. Elaina George

Are Total Body Scanners Safe? The Jury Is Still Out

by Dr. Elaina George

A few weeks ago we were told that CT scans and mammograms can increase the risk of cancer. Since the rush to deploy the new total body scanners in our airports has been a topic of hot debate. There has been a burning question that has not been answered that needs to be. If CT scans and mammograms are no longer considered safe, what makes the total body scanners safe to use?

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The technology used in the full body scanners is either backscatter x-ray or millimeter waves . Both use a form of radiation call terahertz photons (T-rays). T-rays are a form of infrared energy that lies between radio waves at the low-end and microwaves at its higher end. It may be non-ionizing unlike x-rays; however, the energy is able to penetrate tissue, clothing, paper, plastic, wood and ceramics among other things.

The TSA website represents the full body scanner as a safe method of screening. However, not only are we giving up our privacy, we are also playing Russian roulette with our safety. It is important to note:

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Posted Jan 11th 2010 at 12:05 pm in Defense, News | 53 Comments

Doug O'Brien

ObamaCare Won’t Work as Promised: Here’s the Proof

by Doug O'Brien

The controversy surrounding the recent mammography guidelines issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is a recommendation for swift and decisive defeat of efforts to expand federal oversight of health care.  It almost seems as if this was designed as a laboratory experiment to learn exactly what will happen under Obamacare.  The results validate some of the most compelling arguments that opponents have made over the past few months.

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When opponents claim that Obamacare will lead to rationing of medical services, defenders counter with an irrelevant but true retort that care is already rationed by insurance companies.  By this logic, everything is rationed by economics.  Housing is rationed by the availability of capital to invest in housing which is a collective market choice.  Cars are rationed in that you can’t just walk into a dealer and drive off the lot.  So, yes, currently the health care market, mostly in the form of third-party payers (insurers and public programs), rations care in that there are finite resources to pay for treatments and everyone cannot have everything any time they wish.

The reason that argument is irrelevant is that the debate here is about government rationing of care, which represents an entire new level of restrictions on individuals.  When the government sets up panels of “experts” to make recommendations of what kind of care is appropriate under what circumstances and those recommendations are implemented in the form of regulations over what care will and will not be paid for by both private and public insurance, it limits the rights of patients to control their care in consultation with their physicians.  It also destroys the market for those excluded treatments which then become either prohibitively expensive or entirely unavailable.

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Posted Nov 29th 2009 at 7:31 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 56 Comments

Carly Fiorina

Big Government the Wrong Answer on Health Care

by Carly Fiorina

Last weekend Democrats in the U.S. Senate took another step toward passing their government run healthcare legislation.  The more we have come to learn about this legislation, the more we all have cause to be concerned about this plan. It fundamentally does not focus on patients or on quality care.  In fact, it is a fiscal albatross for our already ballooning federal budget deficit.

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This proposal will cost taxpayers up to $2.5 trillion, create a massive new entitlement, raise taxes, add to the federal deficit and fail to solve our nation’s health care crisis.  It is the kind of big government answer that we have come to expect from Democrats, particularly my opponent, Barbara Boxer. It is the same answer that has proven to fail this country time and time again.

Among the many problems with this legislation, of significant concern is the impact it will have on the ability of doctors and individuals to make decisions about care, particularly for women. Last week a government appointed panel issued a set of recommendations regarding mammograms and self-exams for women in their 40s and 50s. Specifically, this panel discouraged women from self-exams, said women in their 40s should not get annual mammograms as is currently advised, and recommended women in their 50s get mammograms just every two years. As a breast cancer survivor who found my own cancer through a self-exam just two weeks after a routine mammogram, I was alarmed.  To be honest, if I had followed these recommendations I am not sure what my own prognosis would have been.

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Posted Nov 24th 2009 at 8:20 pm in Healthcare, News, Politics | 67 Comments