Jon Stewart on the Health Care Summit “Contest”
Bookended with some essential perspective on the media’s ridiculous amping up – and even worse, instigation – of bipartisan brawling:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Bipartisan Health Care Reform Summit 2010 | ||||
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And Speaking of Health Care, HealthDay Reports New Research on Coverage, Prevention, and Asthma
To add to my argument for a Let’s Move-like campaign for childhood illness and asthma in particular:
[H]ealth care for kids with asthma costs an average of 50 percent more than for other children.
And for my friend in the comments of that Let’s Move post, who appears to think obesity affects kids more than breathing problems do:
Even as more than 1 million children with asthma lack coverage, the nation is squandering health-care dollars on costly treatment while missing key prevention opportunities.
- Sara Rosenbaum, co-lead author
Asthma Meds, Vaccines, Tamiflu and Pregnancy
Boston University is starting new research on medication’s side effects during pregnancy, and asthma and flu drugs are first up.
Severe Asthma Research Program on Facebook
Join this group! SARP is the world’s most comprehensive study of adults and children with severe asthma , linking 4 leading university centers through a National Institutes of Health-sponsored network. But you can join SARP on Facebook even if you and/or your kid don’t have severe asthma. I’m in it, and AG’s a moderate-persistent. Epic Steve is one of the administrators of the group, and so is Dr. Sally Wenzel, asthma doctor extraordinaire and one of the principal investigators for SARP. Although I’ve never communicated with Dr. Wenzel one-on-one, Steve and Kerri have and they’re good people. I trust their judgment. Also, Dr. Wenzel posts on the group’s wall and apparently even answers emails. Let me tell ya, I’d have been all over this when my daughter was younger and I couldn’t get her to stop flaring.
Hooray for SARP, Epic Steve, and the AWESOME Dr. Wenzel!
<3
Thank you again Amy… i think i might actually need to set up a facebook account now.
Also, i was actually just wondering yesterday when i picked up my AG’s inhaler refills how on earth the pharmaceutical companies were allowed to make all the inhalers Brand. The CFC in them previously doesn’t appear to be a “key ingredient” – so why couldn’t there have continued to be generic versions? The cost of her Flovent is around $250. As we all know without it, the resulting costs of ER visits, x-rays and sometimes even hospitalization is considerably more costly. I really wish more could be done to ensure access of controller meds to ALL asthmatics. I know a lot of people are against paying for other’s healthcare, but that’s what’s already happening, and the ER visits for flares/pneumonia is costing a lot more that it would to provide the preventive treatment upfront to those without insurance. Also, I hope they end pre-ex exclusions. I often think about how my AG will need to keep creditable coverage throughout her life to ensure coverage for her asthma. I just add that thought to the LONG list of other freak-outs that run through my mind!
I’ll be interested to see what the study on meds during pregnancy shows. I was given terbutaline – a fast-acting bronchodilator – nonstop (via an IM line) for the last 8 weeks of my pregnancy. As a non-asthmatic, it was given to me for its off-label effect which stops contractions, as I was in preterm labor. I’ve often wondered if my son’s asthma is some weird result of that, or just a cruel irony. To add to the irony, I was likely in preterm labor because of problems I have due to my mother being given a drug called DES during HER pregnancy with ME. It is so frustrating to have to put blind faith in the doctors who say a drug is fine (especially if you need the drug for something like the ability to breathe…)
Lesley,
My sister was on that with my niece and she (my niece) doesn’t have asthma. She’s almost 20 now.
If it could, though, be hit-and-miss in who it causes problems for, though.
Off subject a bit, i was born with a condition that usually only affects first born boys (i’m a second born girl) – there was recently an article linking this condition with use of Erythramycin (sp?) during pregnancy. That’s at least 3 decades of maternal use with no previous connection!? I don’t know how long terbutaline has been used, but you may have to wait another decade or so for any studies to be done for the link.
On another note, though, don’t fall into the black hole of self blame!
Just a thought i had… was your son born early? I was induced early due to preeclampsia. Just wondering if there is a possible connection between being born early and developing asthma…?
Kelley–Def. join the group. Lots of discussion is going on in it already, and Dr. Wenzel’s posted a few times, too.
I know that with the inhalers now, HFA technology still falls under patent law and I think it stays that way until 2012, unfortunately. You’re right, though, and I couldn’t agree more–people argue about paying for others’ health problems, but hello? That’s how the whole concept of group health insurance works. And don’t even get me started on pre-existing conditions or I’ll be here all day.
Low birthweight–whether b/c of preterm birth or any reason–IS a risk factor for asthma. My daughter was preterm also, almost 6 wks early and 5lbs. at birth.
While he tried hard to be born early, we were able to hold on until 37 weeks for my son’s birth so he was not considered premature. And at 8 lbs he surely did not fit into the low birth weight risk factor
. Without the medication he would have been born really early which brings its own host of risks, so I feel like I didn’t have much choice in using it….but it does make me realize how much we are all affected by all the chemicals we encounter every day (and often don’t know or think about).