Very Short / Health
By Abby Tallmer
Senate Welches on Cheaper Drug Import Bill
In a shamefulness of concern to us all, the U.S. Senate has scuttled a Democratic proposal to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, a process now prohibited by law and one which would have been of sweeping benefit to approximately 43 million Medicare beneficiaries. The Senate vote was 55 for the measure (including six Republicans, none of whom are candidates for President) and 42 against, just five short of the 60 votes Democrats needed to override a veto. (Republican candidates Sam Brownback and John McCain were not present at the vote. Spokesmen said that McCain would have voted with Democrats in support of the bill had he been there, while Brownback would have voted against it.) On January 12, just eight days after Congress convened, the House had by a vote of 255 to 170 passed a similar bill requiring the U.S. Secretary of Health to negotiate drug prices. (The House bill would have mandated that negotiation, while the Senate bill would have permitted but not mandated it.) President Bush has threatened to veto both versions.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid expressed frustration and outrage at the more recent vote. “The Department of Veterans Affairs is able to negotiate for lower-priced drugs. HMO’s can negotiate. Wal-Mart can negotiate. Why in the world shouldn’t Medicare be able to do that?” Reid asked, adding that the Democrats had fallen short because of “the power of the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry,” both of which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying against the bill. Obviously, this defeat is bad news for every citizen and every senior citizen in particular. It is certainly not the last time the issue will be among us (with more success, one hopes, in the future). For more details see The New York Times coverage at: http://www.nytimes.com.
Bush vs. Congress and the Country on Stem-Cell Research
On June 20, President Bush, arguing that the measure conflicts with his deeply held religious belief in the sanctity of human life, vetoed a bill passed by the House on June 7 which would have authorized federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research. Despite overwhelming House support for the bill — the vote was 247 to 176, with more than 36 Republicans voting with the Democrats — Democratic leaders lacked the two-thirds majority required to override his veto. He accompanied that veto with a partisan and misleading statement claiming that “[i]f this legislation became [sic.] law, it would compel American taxpayers for the first time in our history to support the deliberate destruction of human embryos.” (Yahoo news, quoting Agence France Presse,)
Scientists and others had testified that permitting research with embryonic stem cells that would have otherwise been discarded by fertility clinics could have provided breakthroughs and major advances in the treatment of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and many other crippling, painful, debilitating, and often terminal conditions.
Bush’s vehement anti-stem-cell stance defies majority scientific and medical opinion as well as the intelligence of the American public. (Polls indicate that a marked majority of Americans support federal backing of stem-cell research.) Scientific and political commentators have suggested that Bush’s well-publicized veto — only the third of any kind that he has issued as President — was motivated more as an attempt to appease and mobilize the extreme “pro-life” Christian right wing that Bush depends upon for political support rather than out of deeply felt ethical principles or scientific fact. Researchers believe that the vague “alternative measures” that Bush and other stem-cell opponents have urged as a “compromise” would not serve the same purpose as generating new lines of embryonic cells from discarded human blastocysts, or very early embryos. Scientists also want to develop embryonic stem cells by nuclear transfer. A major benefit of nuclear transfer would be to, as The New York Times put it, “walk a patient’s cell back to an embryonic state so disease processes could be further understood.”
The debate on the floor of the House was impassioned, with paralyzed Congressman James Langevin (D-R.I.) testifying: “My education has filled me with tremendous hope, not only that stem-cell research might one day lead to a cure for spinal-cord injuries, but that one day … families will no longer watch in agony as a loved one with Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s gradually declines.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that “every family in America is just one diagnosis, one phone call, or one accident away from needing the benefits of embryonic stem cell research.” And in a quote that for many sums up the hypocrisy inherent in Bush’s absolutist “sanctity of life” stance, Representative Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.) remarked: “Being pro-life is about more than caring for the unborn. It’s about caring for the living as well.”
For fuller details this hotly debated bill, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08 or http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070621/pl_afp/healthusresearchstemcells.
Doctors: Obesity is Nation’s Greatest Health Risk
A recently released nationwide survey by Epocrates, the leading provider of handheld and Web-based clinical reference tools for healthcare professionals, says that “physicians consider obesity to be the single greatest public-health crisis today, taking a back seat to cigarette smoking and AIDS” (from the ArcaMax Health & Fitness Website: www.arcamax.com, then click on “Lifestyles” and, under that, “Health and Fitness” on leftmost column). “Even taking into account other serious public-health issues, doctors still identified obesity as the biggest problem,” says Dr. Liviu Klein, a cardiologist and heart-transplant specialist at Chicago’s Northwestern University Hospital. “This survey shows just how pervasive obesity is across the nation” (this and all other quotes from ArcaMax’s story can be found at http://www.arcamax.com/healthtips/s-194880-839365). Obesity in the U.S. has risen drastically over the past 30 years, and shows little sign of abating any time soon.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 66 percent of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese. Although many overweight/obese patients (and some scientists) often look to genetics as the causative factor for obesity, “… many physicians feel that lifestyle factors are the major determinants. Among the physicians polled, only 13 percent identified genetics as the most important cause of obesity. The majority believed that lack of exercise and super-sized food portions [the average portion size in U.S. homes and restaurants has increased by roughly a third over the past three decades] are the greatest contributors to this problem.” For more details on the survey and its results, see: http://www.arcamax.com/healthtips
Not enough to scare you into diet and exercise? Try reading this item:
Experts Credit Profound Drop in Heart Deaths to “Lifestyle Changes,” Say Would Have Had Even Larger Drop But for Increase in Obesity & Diabetes
Research just released by epidemiologists at the University of Liverpool [one of the U.K.’s leading research institutions] and the Heart of Mersy [a British coronary-heart-disease non-profit], based on previously gathered heart-disease data collected by the Centers for Disease Control, attributes fully half the credit for the great decline in heart-disease related deaths in the U.S. to “lifestyle changes” and the other half to advances in medical therapies. (It was previously believed that most of the credit was thanks to medical advances alone.) According to Senior Journal (www.seniorjournal.com), “In 2003, the age-adjusted death rate for heart disease [in the U.S.], the leading cause of death, was 60 percent lower than the rate in 1950.” Further, “[c]oronary heart-disease death rates in the U.S. almost halved between 1980 and 2000.” The new research by the British team found that “a decrease in smoking, cholesterol, blood pressure, and physical inactivity contributed [substantially to this] fall in [American] deaths from coronary heart disease” but found that “ … this decrease could have been substantially [15 percent] more had it not been for the increases in obesity and diabetes cases [in the U.S.].” (All quotes from Senior Journal unless otherwise specified; citation at end of item.)
Meanwhile, the New England Journal of Medicine (as reported in USA Today) backed up this data by printing another CDC-generated study, one that attributed declining U.S. heart deaths to “quitting smoking, lowering blood pressure, and reducing other health risks.” But CDC researchers also found that increasing rates of diabetes and obesity “have begun chiseling away at recent gains. ‘You could say without exaggeration that this is a warning signal. We’re already seeing an increase in heart deaths from obesity and diabetes,’ ” commented study co-author Darwin Labarthe. The CDC listed the total lives saved from heart deaths over the past 20 years by reducing risk factors at 146,610 (factors cited included: reduced rates of smoking (39,930 lives saved), reduced high blood pressure (68,800 lives saved), reduced blood cholesterol (82,800 lives saved), and reduced inactivity (17,450 lives saved). However, the study also attributed 59,370 lives lost to heart disease brought on by diabetes (33,470 deaths) and obesity (25,900).
These data are especially important to the 50+ community. According to Senior Journal, “Heart disease is [still] the number one cause of death in America, but just because it kills so many senior citizens. Those 65 and older are the only age group where it is the number one cause of death.” To read more about the British study, go to: http://www.seniorjouirnal.com/NEWS/Health/2007/7-06-07-Lifestyle.
To read more about the CDC study go to: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-06-06-heart-risks_N.htm
And lastly (for now) on the obesity front, here is some handy info on how, right at home, to determine if you’re obese:
Waistline Measure and B.M.I. Both Easy At-Home Tools for Obesity Self-Diagnosis
Ever wonder if your weight is putting your health at risk? It has long been believed that Body Mass Index, or B.M.I., provides an accurate measure of your body’s weight-to- height-to-fat content, and that the results determine if you’re overweight or obese. (The B.M.I. is an extremely easy test to take: All you need is access to a computer and willingness to spend 3 or 4 seconds inputting your height and weight measurement, whereupon your numeric B.M.I. results, and the concurrent meaning are instantly revealed on your computer screen. See end of this item for more details.) All true, to a point. According to The Times, the B.M.I. is an important test but one which has its flaws. “B.M.I. has limitations. Muscular men might have high B.M.I.’s, which make them seem fatter than they are. Old people often have deceptively low B.M.I.’s because they have lost so much muscle in the aging process.” Times health and medical reporter Gina Kolata recommends using the B.M.I. test, which is easy to administer at home, but not relying solely on it. In addition, Kolata proposes, measure your waist with a tape and consider this result as well. According to Kolata, “[a]n overweight woman with a waist 35 inches or larger, or an overweight man with at least a 40-inch waist, is at increased risk for diabetes and heart disease” and should consult his/her doctor to see if their weight is in a so-called “danger zone.”
To calculate your B.M.I. free of charge, go to the National Heart and Lung Institute’s Website at: http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bminojs.htm
Had enough of the grim stuff? Here’s an uplifting item for you:
Senior Population Grows, Along With Its Influence and Clout
From (http://seniorliving.about.com): “Seniors are the fastest-growing population in the world. “ The entry goes on to cite a recent report by the U.S. Administration on Aging (an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) which states that “ … the United States is experiencing a dramatic increase in the numbers of people who live to old age … In 2000, approximately 605 million people [worldwide] were 60 years or older. By 2050, that number is expected to be close to 2 billion. At that time, seniors will outnumber children 14 and under for the first time in history.” (All quotes from Senior Living.)
The article goes on to remind readers that this growth in senior numbers brings with it some vastly increased political, social, and economic power. “According to ‘Selling to Seniors,’ a monthly marketing report, people 50 and over [currently] control 77 percent of all financial assets in the United States, own almost 50 percent of all credit cards, and account for more than 50 percent of discretionary spending power – 2.5 times the average per capita.” As for direct political impact as a voting block, “… the U.S. Census Bureau confirms that 72 percent of all American citizens ages 65 to 74 voted in the 2000 presidential election – the highest rate of any age group. Seniors are also more likely than people in other age groups to write or telephone their state and federal representatives about an issue that is important to them.”
So 50+ers, make your voices heard! Senior Living (and this author) urge you to join senior advocacy groups like AARP, support businesses with employment and customer-service policies that benefit seniors, and participate in the political process at the local, state, and national levels. As Senior Living puts it, “You have the power to help shape the laws, policies, products, and services that will profoundly affect the quality of your life. Get involved – vote with your ballot and your wallet – and make your voice heard.”
