Wealthy Americans Turning To Europe For Medical Treatment

theodp writes "Fox Sports' Jay Glazer reports that prior to undergoing recent neck surgery, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning flew to Europe for stem-cell therapy that's used overseas but not yet in the United States. Earlier this year, Fortune reported that prior to his liver transplant, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took an unpublicized flight to Switzerland to undergo an unusual radiological treatment which was not available in the U.S. Some Americans are willing to go abroad to seek what they can't find at home in hopes of improving — or saving — their lives, and health providers are eager to respond. 'It moves fast, this industry,' said the director of Medical Tours International in 2007. 'They think, 'Look at all these sick, rich patients.''"

Comments

dodging anti-science?

[KingAlanI]

Could this have anything to do with dodging anti-science policies of the American far right?

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to be cool with Jesus....then I found out he hated science. :/

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dodgin antiscience he went to get stem-cell therapy?! I think this one belongs to the dodging science folder.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[lynnae]

add the FDA to that.

No, I'm not insinuating that other countries do dangerous things and the FDA is completely right to protect us wickle unedumacated people, just that the FDA does restrict procedures or hasn't yet approved procedures, that are safely available in other countries.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[KingAlanI]

Yeah, that made it pretty obvious to me as well.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[dougmc]

that are safely available in other countries.

To be fair, stem cell treatments aren't quite known to be safe (or effective) yet.

There is a lot of promise there, but as I understand it, many of them don't seem particularly effective yet and the safety is uncertain.

The FDA is very conservative -- that much is clear. Perhaps *too* conservative, especially in the case of patients who are dying -- but there's a good reason for them to be conservative.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[jbeaupre]

No, it doesn't.

It comes from the US law that medical devices and drugs cannot be marketed without FDA clearance. 21 CFR 820 and so on. That takes a lot of time and money.

It also comes from the US hospitals being very conservative when it comes to offering new procedures. Technically doctors can do just about anything. Even use devices and drugs "off label", by passing FDA requirements. But in reality, doctors must get approval from hospital IRB's before doing something experimental. IRB's are conservative, political, and slow. Most docs prefer to just stick with routine stuff.

But if you are rich, you can bypass those safety check and go to another country for experimental procedures using uncleared drugs and devices.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Could this have anything to do with dodging anti-science policies of the American far right?

No, it has nothing to do with that. There are unique, specialized treatments in every corner of the Earth. If they're successful, they'll spread.

Plenty of people travel in all directions to seek advanced care, even (especially) to your 'anti-science' America, and the wealthier the patient the easier it is for him to travel for medical care (or poorer, if they don't have insurance and are seeking affordable care).

Re:dodging anti-science?

[ArcherB]

Could this have anything to do with dodging anti-science policies of the American far right?

No. It has to do with the FDA making absolutely positively sure that a treatment is safe, or at least that we know all the possible risks associated with each treatment. This takes years to complete for each and every treatment, which means that during those years, any treatment under investigation or medical trials will be unavailable in the US.

Of course, don't let the facts stop you from making your anti-Christian remarks. You should blame those dastardly Christians for everything you see wrong in the world. On Slashdot, it will even get you modded "Insightful", even though your comment is based on no facts whatsoever. Kinda like what you accuse Christians of doing.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[ByOhTek]

Maybe dodging proper testing, but if he wants to be a guinea pig, I'd say he's not dodging proper science, he's helping it along by providing a test subject.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[ByOhTek]

I believe there are cases where the treatments are known to be effective.

As for safe, I think, due to the nature of the beast, we have 20-30 years of testing, minimal before we can determine that, due to potential long-term effects (however unlikely they may be).

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to be a guinea pig you can be a guinea pig here too, but insurance isn't going to pay for it

Re:dodging anti-science?

[nospam007]

"But if you are rich, you can bypass ..."

If you are poor, you can get a flight plus a multiple bypass in Europe for the sum of a couple of months insurance in the US.

For a couple of hundred bucks you can get a cheap flight plus an abortion in Amsterdam or London.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, it could have something to do with the fact that these procedures are only available to the obscenely wealthy in countries where 10 years of FDA trials aren't needed.

Whenever this debate comes up, I'm always reminded of the Christopher Reeve South Park episode. The mega-rich would probably dine on live infants if they thought it would prolong or save their lives.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Eunuchswear]

It also comes from the US hospitals being very conservative when it comes to offering new procedures.

But, but, duriing the health care "debate" we were told that all inovation came from the wonderful free market American system and the socilist eurofags would be screwed if they couldn't steal American ideas.

I'm so confused.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctor: Sorry, we can't do anything else. You have about 6 months at the most.
Person on deathbed: What about Stem cell theraphy or something such shit?
Doctor:NO NO!! They can KILL YOU!!
Person on deathbed: WTF????

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Eunuchswear]

Could this have anything to do with dodging anti-science policies of the American far right?

No. It has to do with the FDA making absolutely positively sure that a treatment is safe, or at least that we know all the possible risks associated with each treatment. This takes years to complete for each and every treatment, which means that during those years, any treatment under investigation or medical trials will be unavailable in the US.

And Switzerland is well known as a hot-bed of crazy risk taking

Re:dodging anti-science?

[MightyYar]

Could this have anything to do with dodging anti-science policies of the American far right?

No, because the stem cells that Manning received were not fetal - they were stomach cells.

I'm not certain, but I think the reason that procedure has not been approved in the US is that it has not passed the FDA criteria for efficacy. And, in fact, it appears to have not worked for Manning - he had another neck surgery after the treatment.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[CraftyJack]

But if you are rich, you can bypass those safety check and go to another country for experimental procedures using uncleared drugs and devices.

Yup, and if you are rich and looking to do something that's a bit outside the laws of your native country, you can always count on Switzerland to extend a helping hand.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[MightyYar]

But, but, duriing the health care "debate"

Yes, both sides grossly misrepresent the state of the current system to score political points. You probably shouldn't believe anything that a politician has to say without checking the "facts" yourself.

That said, the FDA is a wonder of the modern world.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Lumpy]

No, just to be further away from the filthy poor.

Those icky icky urchins that make less than $300,000 a year simply have an odour to them that is undesirable...

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Well, yes, of course; as with all things, there's no one explanation. Certainly the resistance by certain elements to stem cell research is going to have an effect on the state of stem cell medicine in the US or, more precisely, on the ability of doctors to practice it legally or at a price even the ultra-rich can afford.

I would say that the primary explanation, though, is the FDA, which is notoriously conservative (in a "reluctant to take risks" sense, not a political sense). I say that because these people are so rich that money is no obstacle for them at all. Steve Jobs could build his own radiology clinic and have it serve no one but himself if he wanted to. It would probably set him back fifty million bucks, but that's... well, it's not pocket change to him, but I'm sure he feels it'd be worth it to save his life. But you can't buy approval from the FDA no matter how much money you have (ask Merck about Vioxx).

Generally... generally I approve of the FDA's conservatism. I would like to see it applied a little better, though. Right now it seems like drugs to treat modest conditions like ADHD and allergies race through, whereas drugs which treat previously-untreatable forms of cancer get bogged down for years or even decades. I know the reason for this -- cancer drugs generally have really serious side effects -- but as others have pointed out, cancer patients with 6 months to live aren't that worried about an increased risk of heart disease five years down the road. In short, cancer (and sufferers of other life-threatening diseases) patients can't afford to wait, but hyperactive kids and sneezing adults absolutely can. Where the FDA seems to be lacking is in its ability to differentiate between those two groups of patients. I'm being unfair, of course; the FDA claims, and probably truthfully, that it fast-tracks treatments for serious conditions. But it doesn't do nearly as good a job as it should.

All that being said, though, I support the marketplace of ideas. It kind of sucks that the rich benefit from it more than I do, but on the other hand, their publicized forays into foreign medical systems can induce our politicians to bring some pressure on the FDA where appropriate.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[inode_buddha]

It might have more to do with the FDA and payola. Kinda like how radio stations do with payola to play...

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. It has to do with the fact that the US pays top dollar for medical care and still receives car 17th in the list. The US literally pays twice as much as it should and receives medical care at the 17ths spot. If you account for the amount paid for the care received, the US medical system falls to something like 50th in the world when looking at a care for dollar paid. And even when accounting for top tier car, frequently the US is only lucky to account for 1st quality care. Top car is more frequently at the 2nd or 3rd position in the US.

Anyone who fights against both medicare and hospital re-invention in the US is either ignorant and unworthy to have an opinion, or an idiot.

This trend has been ongoing for over a decade now. The world sees the US medical care system sucks ass at every tier. Yes, there are some exceptions, but finding an intersection of reasonable price and quality care is almost impossible anymore in the US. Hell, one of Mexico's fastest growing businesses is providing medical care, better than what is readily obtained in the US, for a fraction of the cost - while meeting or beating quality standards set by the US. Hell, even US insurance companies are starting to cover care because its better and cheaper than what can be obtained in the US - and frequently, the workers actually make MORE MONEY than their US counter parts.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[J'raxis]

The FDA is very conservative -- that much is clear. Perhaps *too* conservative, especially in the case of patients who are dying -- but there's a good reason for them to be conservative.

Why, exactly? It's better that people get sick or die naturally, than get sick or die from a treatment's side-effects?

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Nox3173]

Sorry, but just because the FDA hasn't given their oh holy stamp of approval does not mean a treatment you get overseas is untested or unsafe.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[NickDB]

"No. It has to do with the FDA making absolutely positively sure that a treatment is safe,” And yet they appear to still get it wrong, as per a recent article in Science Daily http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110917082746.htm And plenty of other examples over the years, I think it has more to do with the very litigious society in the USA, than with anti-science.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[elrous0]

It also has to do with dodging some of the costs of American health care, I suspect. When I was much younger and didn't have health insurance, I once flew to Spain for surgery. Even factoring in air fare and boarding, it was still a LOT cheaper than having the same surgery in the U.S., and the level of care was comparable. That can be a big consideration in a country where so many people don't have health insurance.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the fact that European healthcare is much better? Even public isn't bad here, and that forces the companies to try harder.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[tbannist]

Let's see, I think of 2 really good reasons why they should be conservative, they don't want people:
1) Spending all of their family's money on sham treatments that leave them penniless and then dying anyway
or
2) Getting an alternative treatment that actually has a higher mortality rate than the standard treatment and dying when they would have otherwise recovered

There are other reasons but those are two very good reason for the FDA to be conservative with new drugs. Even with the FDA's conservative behaviour, drugs which have a worse success rate than placebos occasionally get approved.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[TapeCutter]

Why, exactly?

Thalidomide and similar cock ups.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, so the half a century of litigiousness promoted by the left's "SUE!" mentality and unabashed backing of trial lawyers and resistance to any sort of tort reform has NOTHING to do with the abject fear that those in the medical profession have for trying anything different.

The Right has its own part to answer for in all this, but I just find it comical the way some of you partisan Kool-aid drinkers are so knee-jerk. Then the moderators mark you "insightful" instead of "flamebait". I blame myself for being stupid enough to delve into the comments.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[c6gunner]

You're right in that it has nothing to do with the anti-science far right. Your diatribe about christians, on the other hand, has nothing to do with anything. He never mentioned christians. Didn't even imply a religious component. Thou dost protest too much.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

It also comes from the US hospitals being very conservative when it comes to offering new procedures.

But, but, duriing the health care "debate" we were told that all inovation came from the wonderful free market American system and the socilist eurofags would be screwed if they couldn't steal American ideas.

I'm so confused.

The ruling class is desperate to keep you in your place. Primarily, that means keeping the USA a non-socialist corporate paradise. Make sense now?

Re:dodging anti-science?

[chihowa]

It also comes from the US hospitals being very conservative when it comes to offering new procedures.

But, but, duriing the health care "debate" we were told that all inovation came from the wonderful free market American system and the socilist eurofags would be screwed if they couldn't steal American ideas.

I'm so confused.

Actually, we do a lot of great medical research in the US. We just tend to collaborate with European researchers for human trials and ultimately they get to use the new techniques years (or decades) before we do (if we ever do). So they're not stealing our ideas (I know you were kidding), but we are prohibited from using ideas that we developed. It's still pretty screwed up.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[hedwards]

I find that hard to believe. Health insurance in the US is expensive, but it's not that expensive. When I spent 3 days in the hospital recovering from a heat stroke the bill the insurance company paid was $13k and that was mostly testing and bed space, the money that wouldn't have been anywhere near enough to pay fort heart surgery in Europe.

Unless, you're suggesting that in Europe, they allow us to freeload on their system, I can't imagine how it could be that much cheaper than in the US. A fairly typical cost for several months insurance would be a couple grand tops, and most likely not even a thousand.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[NeutronCowboy]

That's very true. But I would argue that this is an direct indictment of two positions that tend to go together: "American Medicine is the best in the world" and "We therefore can do no wrong when it comes to medical policies." It's obvious that the standard trope that the rich come to the US for treatment isn't really true anymore. From there, it is also clear that the US medicine isn't the best in the world anymore, and, as a matter of fact, socialist Europe with its nationalized healthcare is actually ahead of the US in certain fields.

Medical tourism is already true for monetary reasons, but that was already an accepted truth in the US. Now the rich engage in medical tourism because the care they receive would be better, which is going to result in some interesting contortions from politicians.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[andy1307]

No. It has to do with the FDA making absolutely positively sure that a treatment is safe, or at least that we know all the possible risks associated with each treatment. This takes years to complete for each and every treatment, which means that during those years, any treatment under investigation or medical trials will be unavailable in the US.

In another context, you'd call the approval process a "job killing regulation".

Re:dodging anti-science?

[hedwards]

They free load on our pharmaceutical industry mostly, but there are a few that operate over seas, most of them are based in the US.

As far as the rest of the industry goes, they have different standards, same goes for Canada. Ultimately, when you opt to circumvent FDA regulations in any fashion, you're taking your own life in your hands and it could work, or it could go horribly wrong. The standards are just different, they aren't necessarily higher or lower.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Eunuchswear]

They free load on our pharmaceutical industry mostly, but there are a few that operate over seas, most of them are based in the US.

Hahahhaha!

Of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies by sales six are based in Europe.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Wdomburg]

If you're alluding to the stem cell therapy, no. Manning had autologous stem cell therapy; i.e. he was injected with cells from his own body. Religious objection is almost exclusively to embryonic stem cell research and therapies. Those using adult stem cells are not just acceptable, they're actively funded by religious organizations (including the Vatican).

Re:dodging anti-science?

[ArcherB]

You're right in that it has nothing to do with the anti-science far right. Your diatribe about christians, on the other hand, has nothing to do with anything. He never mentioned christians. Didn't even imply a religious component. Thou dost protest too much.

No, he didn't mention Christians specifically. Can you tell me what other "far right" subgroup has been accused of being "anti-science"? What other group could he possibly be talking about?

Re:dodging anti-science?

[xaxa]

I think you'd be looking at $1000 for the flight (assuming you can't reasonably wait 4 months for the really cheap ones), and another $1000-$2000 for the abortion.

Abortion price list (though it's cheaper for Irish women, somehow. Presumably you could shop around.)

Given these prices (the first I found), I don't think you'd be anywhere near $13k for a simple procedure and three days of care here.

It would be interesting to see something similar from a US private hospital.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[xaxa]

For a couple of hundred bucks you can get a cheap flight plus an abortion in Amsterdam or London.

Please tell me where I can fly from London to the US and back for a couple of hundred bucks! I don't need the abortion, but I fancy a cheap holiday :-)

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Wyatt Earp]

Well since Manning's stem cell therapy didn't help and he still had to have the surgery he was trying to avoid, I think this has something to do with less rigid medical regulation.

But the clinic got over $100,000 in medical fees, so someone came out ahead.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[jtseng]

I find that to be somewhat ironic considering Manning is a member of the anti-science American far right:

http://newsmeat.com/sports_political_donations/Peyton_Manning.php

Re:dodging anti-science?

[jellomizer]

No not entirely.
It is a case where different countries have different laws for different procedures. A lot of people come to the US to get procedures that cannot be done in their country or isn't legal. Or Americans go to other countries to get procedures that isn't legal or isn't performed the best here.

If you are rich and a trip to anywhere in the world isn't a big deal you might as well find the best doctor in the world to fix what ails you. This is just one of the PANIC! THE UNITED STATES IS DOOMED... DOOOOOOMMMMEDDD!! I TELL YOU articles. Just to make people more scared that the United States is somehow going to implode all because of those Evil Demrublicratins, who's core ideology when practice to the full extent is quite dangerous.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could place your newborn child with an adoption service and be out no money.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[hedwards]

No, I didn't pay $13k, but that was roughly what the insurance company paid. I had insurance so I only spent a small fraction of the total out of my pocket.

The costs there are lower than in the US, but they're not that much lower, and some of the costs there are actually higher than in the US. Consultations typically get billed at $180 or so when they pop up on my summary, where as in that list the similar service is apparently $235 or so.

Hospital care and the large number of services required for something that's complicated is going to be expensive, and there's only so much cost cutting you can do. The system over there isn't that much cheaper than it is over here.

For bypass surgery you're looking at around $20k if things go well. Even in places like Canada you're still talking at least $10k, which is well over a years worth of premiums in the US.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[rkww]

According to this indicative - but fixed rate - price list, the lower end of the range for coronary angioplasty in the UK is £8800, which is about $14,000 so it's certainly in the same ball park as your bill for heat stroke.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

I support the existence of the FDA if it were to only make recommendations. A person should be allowed to do whatever they want to themselves.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[MightyYar]

A person should be allowed to do whatever they want to themselves.

So long as it does not endanger public health, I think I agree. A person with a communicable disease needs to have it treated appropriately.

I also think that it is important for the FDA to regulate commercial speech. A company should not be able to make claims about a drug that have not been proven. If someone wants to sell tablets of something-dioxide, fine. If they want to sell something-dioxide and make claims that it cures cancer - not fine.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[rkww]

But the elephant in the room is that we (here in the UK) don't pay anything for consultations, hospital accommodation or treatment (over and above what we've already paid in general taxes). Nor do we have to find or negotiate with an insurance company. In fact we generally never see the bill.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[c6gunner]

No, he didn't mention Christians specifically. Can you tell me what other "far right" subgroup has been accused of being "anti-science"? What other group could he possibly be talking about?

The far-right as a whole. For instance, being anti-AGW has nothing to do with christianity, but tends to be much more common on the right side of the political spectrum.

Personally I think it's a bit of a trollish phrase; there's as much anti-science idiocy on the left as there is on the right (eg. anti-nuclear hippies, anti-vaccine zealots, and all kinds of "organic", "natural", and "alternative medicine" fools). The phrase "anti-science far right" seems intended to elicit an emotional response. However, while a significant percentage of the anti-science positions on the far-right could probably be attributed to religion, the phrase itself does not require or imply a religious component.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[GreatBunzinni]

It comes from the US law that medical devices and drugs cannot be marketed without FDA clearance. 21 CFR 820 and so on. That takes a lot of time and money.

You make it sound like the EU is a libertarian paradise, and that no EU member has it's FDA counterpart. This is false. Even cash-strapped Portugal, which has a population of around 11 million (that's less than 4% the US population), has it's own version of FDA in the form of infarmed.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[nospam007]

"I think you'd be looking at $1000 for the flight (assuming you can't reasonably wait 4 months for the really cheap ones), and another $1000-$2000 for the abortion."

I did a quick check on http://www.skyscanner.net/ the cheapest price New York Amsterdam was 593€,
Abortions in the Netherlands are between 250 and 300€.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doctor: Sorry, we can't do anything else. You have about 6 months at the most.
Person on deathbed: Please, do something, anything. I'll take the slimmest odds. I'll give you all of my money, my parents' money, my children's money! Take my car, my house, my dignity, anything!
Doctor: I could sell you false hope through unproven treatments, but that would be unethical. I got into this game to improve lives, not fleece the dying.
Person on deathbed: WTF????
Snakeoil salesman: Hi there, I've got the cure in a can here. Well, maybe not the cure, but I've got something in a can. Let's call it hope for now. It ain't cheap.
Person on deathbed: Does it work?
Snakeoil salesman: Who knows? Would you rather confront your inevitable mortality?
Person on deathbed: I'll take two. Where do I sign?
FDA G-man: I can't believe I actually have to say this, but: No, you may not profit off the desperation of the sick. Only demonstrated effective treatments may be applied to the general population. Treatments that are still experimental may only be applied within controlled trials.
Sankeoil salesman: Curses, foiled again. Listen, PoD, if you've got the cash to ditch these squares and meet me overseas, I'll be waiting.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[ChrisMaple]

The FDA is very corrupt, and in the absence of significant bribes, expect to be persecuted.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Drugs are subject to essentially the same regulation in Europe. It's EMA here (www.ema.europa.eu). Stem cells, well, they're classified as Advanced-therapy medicinal products (ATMP) and are indeed subject to an experimental treatment regime. That means you get the whole "informed consent" talks etc.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[GameboyRMH]

Possibly, but on the other hand, a lot of the bullshit medicine that is outlawed in the US is legal overseas.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your not supposed to point out to Americans they are living in a country run by sociopathic christian fundamentalist.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[interkin3tic]

I'd guess it has more to do with liability and regulations, which is usually the case for questionable medical tourism. There are some valuable treatments being delayed by comparatively rigorous testing regulations in the US to make sure the treatment works and is safe. There are also a lot of people who will sell you snake oil.

If you do your homework, you will probably be able to distinguish the two faster than the FDA, but you also assume more risk and costs than the average american is willing to take on.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[WorBlux]

No, it has to do with the fact the FDA is much stricter than any comparable body in Europe.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[godrik]

Please, indicate me where you get a flight from the US to london for less than $400 and where you find a night anywhere in london for less than $100

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be specific, uncleared by the FDA, that doesn't mean you are bypassing all safety checks, just US ones. Unless we are claiming that healthcare in Switzerland is sometimes unsafe? Perhaps this is more an indication of the level of government bureaucracy.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

are you off your patented meds again?

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see your citations, and I hope one of them isn't the ridiculous WHO study that ranks US == Cuba. That one has been exposed for the ideological opinion piece that it is.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all Christians are on the far right, nor are all on the far right Christians. Conflating the two makes you look as ignorant as you imply the OP is.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[tehcyder]

But the elephant in the room is that we (here in the UK) don't pay anything for consultations, hospital accommodation or treatment (over and above what we've already paid in general taxes). Nor do we have to find or negotiate with an insurance company. In fact we generally never see the bill.

What's socialism ever done for us? Nothing, apart from free healthcare at the point of delivery, universal access to non-fee-paying schools and colleges, universal unemployment and social welfare benefits, universal state pensions, strong health and safety laws...

Re:dodging anti-science?

[tehcyder]

No. It has to do with the FDA making absolutely positively sure that a treatment is safe, or at least that we know all the possible risks associated with each treatment. This takes years to complete for each and every treatment, which means that during those years, any treatment under investigation or medical trials will be unavailable in the US.

In another context, you'd call the approval process a "job killing regulation".

Iif you had no government regulations and no government there would be no unemployment because there would be no official government unemployment statistics. QED.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Grishnakh]

This is something that's definitely not talked about, and makes healthcare in the USA for insured people very, very expensive, not in money, but in time. Every time there's an ER visit, expect to waste days of your time dealing with insurance companies, sitting on hold on the phone, arguing about why they're trying not to cover various things, etc. Basically, what a lot of insurance companies do in the USA is simply refuse to pay anything, hoping you'll pay it instead rather than spend your time on the phone with them.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Grishnakh]

If you look for travel deals, you can find trips between NY and London for under $500 pretty easily I think. However, don't expect a departure date convenient to your work schedule; it'll probably either be really far out, or it'll be tomorrow (i.e., they're trying to fill empty seats at the last minute).

If your schedule's open, however, there's lots of cheap travel deals out there. You just have to know where to look for them.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Grishnakh]

It seems like a lot of posts here are talking about Switzerland. Switzerland is no more a member of the EU than Thailand is, and is probably even less likely to ever become one. It just happens to be located right in the middle of Europe, geographically.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Grishnakh]

No. It has to do with the FDA making absolutely positively sure that a treatment is safe, or at least that we know all the possible risks associated with each treatment. This takes years to complete for each and every treatment,

If you're dying of pancreatic cancer or HIV or whatever, why would you care about knowing all the possible risks of a treatment? You have months to live if you're lucky, and can't wait for years or decades for a treatment to be fully investigated to be "safe".

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Grishnakh]

I'm not certain, but I think the reason that procedure has not been approved in the US is that it has not passed the FDA criteria for efficacy. And, in fact, it appears to have not worked for Manning - he had another neck surgery after the treatment.

Since when do treatments need to be effective? If there were a requirement for efficacy, then why does the FDA allow homeopathy, chiropractic, reiki, and Scientology? All these things do is bypass the FDA with some disclaimer ("these statements not evaluated by the FDA..."), so why don't they just do the same thing for other new treatments?

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Grishnakh]

The USA is doomed, and probably will implode in the next decade or two. You can't just keep racking up infinitely more debt.

This healthcare thing is only a tiny, tiny factor in the problems of the US right now.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[jellomizer]

A country that is the 3rd/4th largest in Land Masses, 3rd in Population, Borders two oceans, friendly relations with its borders. Huge amounts of natural resources....

You called that doomed?

Sure I can see the US loosing its number 1 spot to China, and India (Large populations make big economies), but it far from doomed or reaching its maximum growth. That is mostly due to the success of China and India who for the last century or so, were behind the times so they weren't competitive.

Now the US has its problem. The Debt isn't that big of a deal. Right now bond rates are below average inflation that means other governments are paying us to get a loan. Europe isn't doing so hot now too. And high debts do happen during a depression. Yes we are in a depression... It happens, most of us never been in a depression before so we are thinking that is it is one of those recessions.

But going on perclaiming DOOM, is not going to fix anything, even going on and pointing out the problems in nausea isn't going to help. We need solutions... If you are afraid to start a business, you probably have came up a lot of reasons why you are afraid to do so. Is there any thing the government can do to make it better, then tell your Representative at the correct level (City, State...). If not then what can you do to fix it.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Grishnakh]

A country that is the 3rd/4th largest in Land Masses, 3rd in Population, Borders two oceans, friendly relations with its borders. Huge amounts of natural resources....

You called that doomed?

Ask the Romans. Their situation was pretty similar.

As for friendly relations, the US does not really have friendly relations with Mexico, in fact the entire northern half of that country is a failed state.

Is there any thing the government can do to make it better, then tell your Representative

Won't help: this country's government is even more corrupt than Mexico's government. Unless you have tons of money to bribe your Representative with, it's useless talking to them.

pointing out the problems in nausea isn't going to help. We need solutions...

I have a solution: it's called dissolution. The country needs to break up into smaller pieces, so that there's less corruption and less internal friction. Parts that can't manage themselves (perhaps because their leaders are too corrupt or because they're making fundamentalist the law of the land) will become like Zimbabwe, while other parts will be able to prosper without these other parts holding them back.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[MightyYar]

why does the FDA allow homeopathy, chiropractic, reiki, and Scientology?

In the case of homeopathy, it's a stupid 1930s law:

Because of their long use in the United States, the U.S. Congress passed a law in 1938 declaring that homeopathic remedies are to be regulated by the FDA in the same manner as nonprescription, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, which means that they can be purchased without a physician's prescription. Today, although conventional prescription drugs and new OTC drugs must undergo thorough testing and review by the FDA for safety and effectiveness before they can be sold, this requirement does not apply to homeopathic remedies.

Even so, they do exert whatever control they are allowed over dietary supplements and homeopathic products. The internet is full of angry homeopathic victims who blame the FDA for pulling their favorite water or sugar pill.

As for the chiropractic profession, the FDA simply has no jurisdiction. Reiki and Scientology are religions.

I'd personally love to see all medical claims on products under the jurisdiction of the FDA, but I live in a superstitious society.

Re:dodging anti-science?

[Grishnakh]

As for the chiropractic profession, the FDA simply has no jurisdiction.

Why not? They have jurisdiction over real doctors and the treatments they provide.

Reiki and Scientology are religions.

Reiki bills itself as a health care treatment, not a religion, from what I've seen. Scientology calls itself a religion, but it's making medical claims (basically, "pay us $$$$ and undergo this scientific-looking medical 'treatment' involving electrical apparatus and we will cure you of psychological ailments"). If the pharma companies have to go through FDA testing before offering psychiatric medications, why don't the Scientologists have to do the same with their treatments aimed at the exact same ailments?

Re:dodging anti-science?

[MightyYar]

Why not? They have jurisdiction over real doctors and the treatments they provide.

I'm talking above my comfort level, but my understanding is that the FDA only got jurisdiction over NEW practices... in general. That means old practices, no matter how ineffective, were not allowed to be regulated. They passed a new law in 1994 that sort of re-affirmed this, and the FDA has been cracking down on "new" supplements and such but leaves the pre-1994 stuff alone. It simply was not politically possible to give the agency powers to wipe out old, established industries.

If the pharma companies have to go through FDA testing before offering psychiatric medications, why don't the Scientologists have to do the same with their treatments aimed at the exact same ailments?

It's a good point, though I suspect that if the Scientologists ever started injecting people with stem cells rather than waving hokey but harmless devices over people, you would see a crackdown. :)

religion

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe because most other countries in the modern world don't have a large rabidly religious and anti-science segment of their populations.

Re:religion

[DNS-and-BIND]

Actually, they do. Europe, especially. But I'm sure that has everything to do with the FDA wanting to make sure new treatments don't kill more patients than they save.

Re:religion

[icebraining]

Actually, they do. Europe, especially.

I think you missed the "large" part. 6% (and only 8% in 2030) is not large in any way.

And considering that both Egypt as well as Iran - two predominantly Muslim countries - have been developing embryonic stem cell research, the presence of Muslims in Europe probably won't affect it in any way.

Re:religion

[dunkelfalke]

Exactly that. And not nearly all muslims are enemies to the science. I used to date a muslim girl who has earned a master's degree in biology. Me being a militant atheist with a jewish parent. Life can be strange.

Re:religion

[pkphilip]

People travel out of the US for treatment not because US is lagging behind technologically, it is because the healthcare in the US is ridiculously expensive. A lot of people travel to places like Asia for treatment - and most Asians are known to be deeply religious - especially parts of South Asia where most people go for treatment - Thailand, India, Malaysia etc.

Face the facts - US is pretty advanced technologically including in medical science and for some types of treatment, US is absolutely the best. There are a LOT of people who travel to the US for treatment - even from Asia; but they are mostly the very wealthy because US is by far the most expensive place in the world for healthcare related services.

Re:religion

[cyberchondriac]

maybe because most other countries in the modern world don't have a large rabidly religious and anti-science segment of their populations.

It's got nothing to do with that; it's all about the FDA and safety concerns. But why is the FDA so anal? Because, in a nutshell, this country is overly-litigious, IMO. So the FDA has to play it conservatively, else there will be class-action lawsuits flying around quicker than you can blink. Lawyers, lawyers, everywhere.
I would think having a patient sign a waiver could avoid all that, but they'd still sue, claiming the drug's dangers were misrepresented or something. It's a lose/lose situation.

Re:religion

[AmberBlackCat]

Trust that, while it may not be Christian or Islamic, Slashdot is every bit as religious as everybody else.

Re:religion

[Kurofuneparry]

Why on earth does this get points for insightful?

This really isn't the issue. The treatments as given in the US are generally as good or better, with prostate cancer numbers being one of the classic examples.

The real issue is that the FDA in the US is comparatively slow and over-cautious in allowing these alternative treatments. In other words, the problem is that the US has over-regulated healthcare presently and we would have the same advantages that the rich seek in Europe if we had more deregulation.

Of all of the doctors that I've rotated with in medical school, each one that has spoken of the FDA has shared this opinion. Then again.... I'm an idiot...

Re:religion

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it say anywhere that Manning used fetal stem cells or his own? The religious have issues with aborted fetal cells, not a persons own. People who use their own stem cells gleaned from their fat tissue have shown some success.

Might the price issue, and the length of time for new treatments to become legal, have something to do with our legal system?

Re:religion

[Grishnakh]

A lot of people travel to places like Asia for treatment - and most Asians are known to be deeply religious

There's a big difference. The religions that Asians follow don't have proscriptions against medical science, whereas the fundamentalist religion that Americans follow does.

Ding, Ding, Ding

[cbope]

... you sir, are correct!

This can't be true!

[Anonymous Coward]

This can't be true. We have the best health care system on earth! I heard it on Fox News, so it must be true.

Re:This can't be true!

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that Steve Jobs is not likely to see 2012 and Manning out for the year. I think we might be ok for awhile.

Re:This can't be true!

[Dunbal]

No you have the most expensive health care system on earth. Per capita, Cuba has the best health care system on earth.

Re:This can't be true!

[gman003]

How do you even measure that? Health care quality is already normally measured in cases per thousand people (or ten thousand, or whatever).

Re:This can't be true!

[Dunbal]

Indicators (infant mortality, maternal mortality, life expectancy) versus cost per capita. It's measurable. Not my area of specialty but I am a physician. I remember discussing it at length both in biostatistics and family medicine courses. Cuba and Canada were always near the top, and the US usually ends up between 7th and 16th place. Of course this varies year by year but the trend is pretty obvious. Look it up! I'm sure the world heath organization must have some searchable tables.

Re:This can't be true!

[Eunuchswear]

No you have the most expensive health care system on earth. Per capita, Cuba has the best health care system on earth.

What does this mean? What are you dividing up "per capita"?

Re:This can't be true!

[dkleinsc]

Well, not exactly - Cuba gets the best bang for the buck, but in terms of patient outcomes the World Health Organization thinks France has the best health care system in the world. The US, by contrast, ranks 37th, and Cuba 39th, despite Cuba spending a fraction of what the US does per capita.

Re:This can't be true!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.... Cuba has the best hospitals. Almost as clean as a BAD truckstop bathroom.

Go see here is the brochure if interested.

http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm

Apologies to Truck Stops.

Re:This can't be true!

[geoffrobinson]

So if a country eats like crap, skydives off of tall buildings, and plays Russian Roulette, they will have "worse" health care than a country full of witch doctors who eat non-processed foods in a balanced diet.

Re:This can't be true!

[vlm]

How do you even measure that? Health care quality is already normally measured in cases per thousand people (or ten thousand, or whatever).

"Best" is pretty vague, but their life expectancy is higher than the us, child mortality is lower than the us, infant mortality is lower than practically anywhere in the world, blah blah. The US stats are generally closer to a 3rd world country than 1st world in every stat except dollars spent and executive salaries, so its no great achievement. None the less, if you have to get sick, my advice is get sick in Cuba.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba

What distorts numbers is Cuba's exported doctors are legendarily good. You gotta export "something" onto the world market, and Cuba is legendary for two exports, cigars and doctors. Maybe if we got rid of silicon valley and hollywood and Manhattan island, and focused all those resources on medical schools, we could massively outproduce Cuba, or maybe not, maybe its just something culturally ingrained to pump out good docs. Much like the middle east countries have a national strategy of exporting oil and terrorism, and the nordic countries try to export cellphones, Cuba has a national strategy of creating and exporting excellent doctors, and they've had considerable historical success. That in no way stops politician types around the world from latching on to tangentially related issues and claiming them as the direct cause of their great doctors, which is about as stupid as claiming owning saunas somehow magically astrological thinking style results directly in better cellphones, so therefore Apple must install saunas in their new HQ or something dumb like that.

Re:This can't be true!

[Anonymous Coward]

Infant mortality is about the worst measure. A country that takes extraordinary measures to save an unborn life will result in a higher infant mortality rate, but will also result in more lives saved that would otherwise have been given up on.

Re:This can't be true!

[Pascal Sartoretti]

No you have the most expensive health care system on earth. Per capita, Cuba has the best health care system on earth.

Using this (strange) metrics, the best system on earth would be to spend zero on health care...

Re:This can't be true!

[gman003]

That's not so much "best per capita" as it is "most cost-effective" or "most efficient". But thanks for the clarification.

Re:This can't be true!

[GlobalEcho]

One has to consider the metric used to select the "best".

For any individual, the question is what health care system is best for someone like them. The U.S. system is expensive but very high quality for the mid-middle class and above. That is to say, it is excellent for those who have health insurance and little chance of losing it. Below that income level, the quality of health care ranges down to nearly non-existent, bringing down the aggregate statistics.

For society as a whole, the aggregate statistics and economic efficiency in achieving them is the most important. By the first measure, Cuba is roughly on par with the USA. By the second, it is far ahead.

Re:This can't be true!

[Boona]

Cuba has some of the worst healthcare in the world. Here is a lecture by Yuri Maltsev, an ex-soviet economic adviser, describing one of his many trips to Cuba with some of his students. I've linked it to the relevant part of his lecture, it lasts about 5 minutes.

I read another one of your comments and you state something completely different, namely that for the amount they spend healthcare they have low infant mortality, low maternal mortality and relatively high life expectancy. This say nothing about the quality of their healthcare which is what you seemed to be saying in the comment I'm replying to.

I live in Canada near it's capital city and when my friend got a severe concussion and his head was bleeding it took him 12 hours in the emergency room to get help, they thought my sister had an aneurysm and it took 6 months before she got testing and it took my ex-girlfriend 8 months to get tested for cancer. There is a saying we have here: "There are those Canadians who love socialized medicine and there are those who have used it."

Re:This can't be true!

[hedwards]

In general yes, but once one ages into Medicare the outcomes for Americans in that age demographic are significantly better than anywhere else in the world.

The trick is surviving long enough and in good enough shape to gain access to it.

Anyways, I thought by best they meant the best system at ensuring that the unwashed masses can't have money in their savings accounts.

Re:This can't be true!

[Qzukk]

when my friend got a severe concussion and his head was bleeding it took him 12 hours in the emergency room to get help

That reminds me of the time I lost feeling in a leg and sat in the ER waiting room for hours before deciding that if whatever it was hadn't paralyzed me yet, it probably wasn't going to. I went back up to the desk and asked for my triage sheet back.

Ahh, the terrors of socialist Texas healthcare.

(In the end, it got better in a day or two. Doc decided it was some kind of problem with my sciatic nerve and told me to get a thinner wallet. Hasn't happened again.)

Re:This can't be true!

[jpapon]

On the other hand, I tore my ACL here in Germany (Im an American expat), and I had my ACL reconstruction surgery here within 3 weeks. All of it (including 5 months of rehab) cost me about 50 euros. That's including a 3 night hospital stay for the surgery; in the US, it is an out patient procedure.

Sure, socialized medicine can be bad, but it seems to me that the German model works quite well.

Re:This can't be true!

[jandrese]

Well, the US does have the best (paid) middlemen in the world. That's something right?

Re:This can't be true!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, not exactly. The World Health Organization relies on self reported information to generate their rankings. Most outside observers think Cuba is grossly exaggerating the quality of their health care system.

Re:This can't be true!

[sgt scrub]

No. That quite literally IS "best per capita".

Re:This can't be true!

[sgt scrub]

The infant mortality rate has the largest differences between the U.S. and Cuba; but, your correct. It is because 99.999% of Americans sky dive off tall buildings, play Russian roulette, and can only afford the dollar menu at McCrap.

Re:This can't be true!

[QKRTHNU]

Cuba has the best healthcare??? I'm guessing you got that tidbit from the Gospel of Michael Moore....

Re:This can't be true!

[Kurofuneparry]

Very poor methodology. The US actually has the best, what you're thinking of is 'best per cost'. That's very different. We're willing to pay for all kinds of treatments that aren't available in Cuba.

If I were sick, I would want to be treated in the country that had the best absolute results, not the one that spent minimally. If I were very sick, I would want to spend every effectual dollar, not just the ones that a bureaucrat approved.

Re:This can't be true!

[Kurofuneparry]

Cuba has also been known to drop some off of reports and only serve a limited, privileged class. It's very easy to have great bang for the buck when you limit the bucks and only serve the ones you'd rather serve. Such a proposition isn't effective in a nation 'by and for' the people.

Re:This can't be true!

[gman003]

No.

Let's make three theoretical countries. Let's also assume that mean lifespan is a flawless indicator of healthcare quality, since that simplifies things more than looking at a bunch of varying statistics.
Country A has a mean lifespan of 90 years, and the system costs $3 trillion/year to care for 200M people ($15K/person/year)
Country B has a mean lifespan of 85 years, and the system costs $800 billion/year to care for 100M people ($8K/person/year)
Country C has a mean lifespan of 65 years, and the system costs $1.5 trillion/year to care for 300M people ($5K/person/year)

Country A has higher-quality healthcare than any other, but is also the most expensive per person. Country C has the cheapest healthcare. Country B, however, has the most cost-effective - the highest indicator per dollar-person.

"Best per capita" doesn't even make sense. The quality indicators (mean lifespan, infant mortality rate, disease prevalence) are already per-person - you don't look at, say, total number of deceased infants, you look at deceased infants per thousand births.

Re:This can't be true!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a saying we have here: "There are those Canadians who love socialized medicine and there are those who have used it."

I've lived in Canada most of my life, and that's horseshit. I have never heard anybody say that.

I have a relative getting $5000 a shot eye injections, which US health plans don't supply at all. Another friend with MS is regularly inundated with MRIs galore. Personally I've had plenty of ER time due to unlucky accidents, and it's all been problem free and exactly $0 out of my pocket.

Go ahead and buy private health care if you think it's so great. Nobody is stopping you.

Re:This can't be true!

[sgt scrub]

You've been told to believe a Cuban hospital is a hut. You couldn't be farther from reality. http://cubamed.com/

Re:This can't be true!

[Grishnakh]

Much like the middle east countries have a national strategy of exporting oil and terrorism, and the nordic countries try to export cellphones

The only Nordic country that exports cellphones is Finland (which is barely Nordic; that term usually refers to Scandinavian countries), and they're not doing so well at it these days as Nokia has made way too many missteps.

The Nordic countries' main exports are actually oil, gas, and ships. Considering that building ocean-going ships has been part of Scandinavian culture since the Viking days, this probably would have been a much better example.

We should also mention what the USA's national export strategy is: crappy Hollywood movies and crappy corporate-made music.

Buthe US market produces a superiour health system

[samjam]

The US market produces a superiour health system doesn't it?

Or maybe it's what you get with a health-care system that's more about money than health...

Does this mean that health-care is a euphemism like health-and-safety?

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been going on for years. When dying of cancer Any Kauffman went to Mexico so a faith healer could stuff his colon full of coffee beans. Going to Europe for stem cell treatment is no different.

Medical tourism.

[knuthin]

I know a bunch of people who came from Israel and certain other nations for getting treated in India.

Medical tourism as they call it. And it has been on a rise, mostly because of the lower margins in healthcare insurance business. The problem is for people who don't have insurances and can't pay for traveling outside their nation. They are fucked either ways then. :/

Re:Medical tourism.

[dougmc]

The problem is for people who don't have insurances and can't pay for traveling outside their nation.

Fortunately, Mexico is quite close and can be visited cheaply, especially if you live in Texas or another close state.

I've got some friends who went down their for major dental work (nothing controversial or unavailable here) and paid a small fraction of what they were quoted in the US.

Re:Medical tourism.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because the doctors in Mexico don't have to cough up $100k or more in malpractice insurance premiums before they can every start practicing.

Re:Medical tourism.

[Chrisq]

My brother got a large amount of medical work done in Thailand, from one of the top clinics in Bangkok. This and a two week holiday touring in very good hotels cost him roughly the same as having it done at home. They were also fully insured - the only caveat being that remedial treatment would also have to be in Thailand and they did not cover travel and accommodation, though everything went fine anyway.

Re:Medical tourism.

[The Creator]

My brother got a large amount of medical work done in Thailand, from one of the top clinics in Bangkok.

I wish your sister the best of luck!

Medical Tourist

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this quite common? For example, people from Europe often go to places in Asia for surgery as a part of their holiday. There's a whole Wikipedia page on the topic.

More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[eldavojohn]

Could this have anything to do with dodging anti-science policies of the American far right?

I know it's fun to jump on the scientifically inept politicians but I might also cite general concern for what a stem cell treatment entails. Several medical professionals have explained to me that just randomly injecting stem cells into your body has unknown effects depending on the stem cells and the localization of the injection. This causes a variance of anything from magically cured to cancer-like growths. Stem cells aren't very well understood yet ... and some of that is to blame on halting embryonic stem cell research but even the Republicans are okay with non-embryonic stem cells. As we develop more ways to get stem cells, their hobbling of the US medical field becomes moot (assuming adult stem cells are just as awesome as embryonic stem cells -- something I don't know).

So, yeah, you know the FDA and other regulators are pretty slow moving to approve all this in the United States until that becomes more science than "Let's see, you take the syringe here and inject this shit there and ... are you cured yet? Oh, you died? Well, send in the next medical tourist!" Why doesn't the article explain what "procedure" or "treatment" Tonya Winchester was administered in Russia?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[PopeRatzo]

even the Republicans are okay with non-embryonic stem cells

So it's all about the fetuses.

I see...

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Jazari]

This causes a variance of anything from magically cured to cancer-like growths.

There is absolutely no danger in using stem cell to treat a fatal disease. So what if your stem cell injection may cause cancer in 2 years if your current disease will cause death in 6 months? Patients who are close to death should be allowed to opt into almost any treatment that has a plausible chance of success (unlike therapies which are proven frauds, like homeopathy, etc.)

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[definate]

Turns out that the problem with what you've pointed out, isn't necessarily stem cell treatments in general, but more so, those people were forced to go to Thailand. Why Thailand? Because it's also doing the treatments, but they're cheaper. This article is about the rich people, going to rich progressive countries, with well trained, and well staffed hospitals, and getting the kind of treatments that the scientifically inept politicians have banned... because, after all, politicians know better than doctors and scientists, especially when it comes to, you know, health care and science.

As such your complete argument is both retarded, and false. This IS happening due to the scientifically inept politicians. Unless you're saying that the Swiss are a reckless people with a terrible health care system. If so, the WHO begs to differ. So, for all your harping on, you're completely wrong, and your discussion on whether or not YOU or your unnamed sources believe it's correct/worthwhile/dangerous, is a red herring.

But thanks for your useless input.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[andydread]

Well those treatments probably would have been here if it wasn't for the endless regulation of the Federal Gubmint. Not to worry. The republicans want to get rid of entities such as the FDA, EPA, etc. So when they get back in power look for all these entities to be severely crippled. And people can get their treatments without having to worry about pesky things like safety.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[durrr]

Only allowing non-embryonic stem cell research makes it rather problematic to crossmatch what markers are typically embryonic and therefor more likely to result in teratoma-like growth patterns from induced stem cells.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[ByOhTek]

Yes, if you go to Thailand and grab yourself some Stem Cell treatment, they'll do that, and that is fucking dangerous.

However, there are other treatments, where they use the stem cells to grow differentiated cells (either in-situ or in-vitro), and use THOSE to treat the patient. It is still stem cell treatment, but not necessarily nearly as dangerous.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[ArcherB]

and some of that is to blame on halting embryonic stem cell research but even the Republicans are okay with non-embryonic stem cells [slashdot.org].

Your post is spot on, with one minor common misconception.

Embryonic stem cell research was not "halted". Since there was no federal funding for stem cell research at all, you may not halt something that never existed. President Bush's order forbade federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on new stem cell lines only. Research on embryonic stem cells from lines that existed at that time was to be funded, where it wasn't before, and there was no restrictions on non-embryonic stem cell research.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

If fetuses were a moral object along the lines of an ingrown toenail, there should be no problems with forcibly aborting fetuses who will need lifelong care.

I mean, if a woman had an ingrown toenail that would cause a cost to society of millions then yes, it would be forcibly removed.

Conclusion: Fetuses are not similar moral objects to hair sacks and toenails, even though that is the moral calculation deceitful mini-Machiavellian leftards like to present in order to demobilise and distract the peanut gallery.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[definate]

Good point. Though, as it stands, the government is more than happy to allow you to spend insane amounts of money on frauds. My mother actually deals with this a lot, as she works with the sickest people, in the worst circumstances, and watches them spend all their money on things such as (these aren't a joke)...
Belly Button Massage
Reiki
Prayer Circles
Crystals
Potions/Elixars
Chiropractors
etc.

These people come in promising the world, provide temporary happiness, followed by a crushing sense of what have I done, I've left my family broke, and I'm still dying.

In comparison, even the worst possible scenario you could see with medical practitioners doing trying 'dangerous' (READ: experimental) medicine, looks insignificant in comparison.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

You are making a lot of assumptions here. You assume this is a legitimate treatment (this particular treatment, not stem cell therapy), you assume the treatment is administered by doctors under the auspices of a legitimate hospital or research clinic, and you assume that the Swiss authorities approve of this treatment.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

In general, they can, the catch is that such unverified treatments are "experimental" and so not covered by most insurance - the insurance companies, rightly on behalf of those that pay into the program, don't generally cover experimental treatments.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[vlm]

There is absolutely no danger in using stem cell to treat a fatal disease ... Patients who are close to death should be allowed to opt into almost any treatment that has a plausible chance of success (unlike therapies which are proven frauds, like homeopathy, etc.)

I mostly agree with you, but the traditional responses are:

1) "Binary thinking for the fail" Other than, say, a gunshot wound to the heart, or decapitation, very few medical conditions are 100% long term fatal. I think we can safely assume that within the next 200 years I'll be dead, therefore my your argument is morally and ethically correct for me to take any treatment I want. Logic chopper types are gonna hack your argument up like a bad gintzu knife infomercial.

2) No danger to the patient, but there is one to society. Think of combos. Most diseases get a mix of treatments, all of which contribute. So, he took stem cells, homeopathy, astrological readings, and chiropractic treatments and that cured him 100%. Ignorant fool sees that result, says, self, I have no medical insurance and can't afford stem cell treatment, but I can afford homeopathy, astrological readings, and chiropractic treatments, so that means I "must" have a 75% success rate, right? This leads to all manner of foolishness.

3) All treatments, to some extent, cause harm to the world. Burning oil, wasting money that could have gone to govt selected winners instead of the average population, etc. So you gotta balance, call it government death panels, or insurance company profit margin improvement teams or living wills or whatever. Given a treatment that would result in an extra week of life at a cost of permanent lifetime poverty for all descendants, some choose one way, some choose another. Some treatments are outright dangerous to the population as a whole, like antibiotic treatments for a virus. Pump an HIV carrier full of antibiotics, all you'll get is a source of antibiotic resistant bacteria, which is bad for everybody.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Randomly firing bullets from your a gun in your hand can also have unknown effects. I don't see anyone using that reasoning to ban firearm possession. Randomly placing a checkmark on a ballot can also have very far-reaching consequences, but I don't see anyone using that as an argument against democracy.

Your point being?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're saying that the Swiss are a reckless people with a terrible health care system.

Not sure what the GP thinks, but I'll say that the Swiss are highly likely to look the other way when it profits them.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has a very stringent approval process. That is not to say that the Swiss are reckless, more likely the US FDA is overly cautious (in part because they don't generally get blamed for delaying drugs but get the torch and pitchfork treatment if they approve something that turns out to be dangerous). One classic example where this was a good thing was in the case of Thalidomide - a pain reliever that caused some very nasty birth defects, but which was never approved in the US as it was in Canada and much of Europe. The other thing to keep in mind is that every new procedure starts somewhere and for a little while, they will be the experts everyone turns to until it ends up in Tier I hospitals throughout the world and then regional hospitals. Also keep in mind that all Bush did with stem cells was say that federal funds could not be used on new lines. Existing lines and private money were still able to be used under those rules.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[MightyYar]

I mean, if a woman had an ingrown toenail that would cause a cost to society of millions then yes, it would be forcibly removed.

No, it shouldn't.

Nice try, though.

Pretending that fetuses aren't human is silly. Pretending that fetuses are fully human is also silly. Extremism is silly.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[poofmeisterp]

There is absolutely no danger in using stem cell to treat a fatal disease. So what if your stem cell injection may cause cancer in 2 years if your current disease will cause death in 6 months? Patients who are close to death should be allowed to opt into almost any treatment that has a plausible chance of success (unlike therapies which are proven frauds, like homeopathy, etc.)

You have a good point.. But try really hard to imagine that you're an insurance corporate executive (or someone right below that) that makes the decisions on whether these things are good or bad for the possibility of Human happiness -vs- your bonus at the end of the fiscal quarter based on the company's profits. Who would you (the corp person) choose? Yourself with more money and less work, or the good of the people which means more work and less money....? Don't think about answering on your OWN belief set. Answer that on behalf of the corp person who, themself, probably doesn't have cancer or any other major ailments that have changed their viewpoint on life.

Unfortunately, our government and economic system MAY BE BETTER than many others in the world (and in history), but one area it's SELFISH in is HEALTH.

What I said doesn't account for individual scientists or people who want health to be a priority; they're just overpowered and over-moneyed by others (I'll use that phrase :)).

I'm not trying to be mean or trollin' - I'm just pointing out what's before my eyes and in the bills that come in the mail almost every single day.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[ArcherB]

Good point. Though, as it stands, the government is more than happy to allow you to spend insane amounts of money on frauds. My mother actually deals with this a lot, as she works with the sickest people, in the worst circumstances, and watches them spend all their money on things such as (these aren't a joke)... ...
Prayer Circles ...

Anyone who spends money on Prayer Circles deserves what they get. I'm not judging the effectiveness of prayer. I'm judging those who would pay for something that so many will gladly do for free. If anyone charges you to pray for them, their prayers will not be heard. "Dear God. (customer's name) has paid me to pray for him, so I'm doing that. Please do what he asks. Amen." If you want prayer, call a real church and ask them to pray for you. They'll not only do it for free, but they'll probably do other things to help out your family. For example, when someone asks my church for prayer, we do that, but we also take food to your family and offer ourselves for other services such as yard work, home repair/cleaning, child care, or even financial assistance. And no, we do not charge for such services. Church membership is not required.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[ScentCone]

You're confusing "only allowing" non-embryonic research with "not using tax dollars for embryonic research." Not that I have a problem with it, but at least frame the debate in terms that actually represent the issue that some people have with it.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[bws111]

Fair enough. But, in at least one of the cases cited (Peyton Manning) there is no fatal disease involved. There is no disease of any kind. He wanted to use stem cell treatment to recover from neck surgery faster so his streak of consecutive professional football starts wouldn't be broken.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Extremism is silly.

You give no context here. An extremist could easily be correct. Argument to moderation.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Thalidomide wsn't approved for use in the US because it was a German product.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Hognoxious]

very few medical conditions are 100% long term fatal.

In the long term they all are.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Tsingi]

Cool how you got Chiropractors in there with belly button massage. Got an agenda?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[MightyYar]

The context is stem cells and fetal rights?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[St.Creed]

I mean, if a woman had an ingrown toenail that would cause a cost to society of millions then yes, it would be forcibly removed.

I'm not sure about that - it's pretty difficult to treat people who don't want treatment. Even if it costs money to society, the integrity of someones body is a quite important issue in law. We've had quite unpleasant experiences in the past with people who think that they should tell others what to do with their body, whether it was forced sterilization of undesirables, electroshock treatment, or not allowing (or forcing) women to have an abortion. If someone refuses a blood infusion nowadays, it's their right (Jehova's witnesses). Or if they refuse to eat or drink. The sole exception is where parents are deciding for children, who cannot yet make their wishes fully known and understood, and there the law is designed to try and protect the weaker party from harm.

And as for me: if a women wants to remove a fetus it has a bit more impact than removing a toenail. Compare it to removing a growth in the uterus. Apart from that, no big deal. It's her body. Not mine, nor yours, nor her employers or the states, or her husbands body. Hers alone. Anything else is a reduction of the woman to an object, used to fulfill the needs of others.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Hognoxious]

The problem is you have to duplicate all your equipment and keep track of what's used for what; nothing is allowed to be dual purpose. If a fax intended for the stem cell research group accidentally gets sent to a good and holy machine by accident, that's not allowed. You can't walk down the hall and put it in the right person's in-tray. No, got to tear it up, put it in a bin (not a government funded one!) and ask for it to be resent. And if a stem cell researcher pees in a government-funded toilet, baby Jebus will weep bitter salt tears!

Needless to say, it's all such a PITA that many organizations just decide not to bother.

This, of course, was the intent all along; banning it in practice, but allowing buffoons like you to claim they didn't.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[mosb1000]

Unless you're saying that the Swiss are a reckless people with a terrible health care system

The FDA is notoriously conservative when it comes to approving new treatments. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are easily the most strict in the world.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care if you're right, you are a waste of disk space.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Hognoxious]

Extremism is silly.

How silly?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[repapetilto]

source?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

but if you go to all those socialist countries with health care systems wont the death pannels get you anyways?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Extremism is silly.

How silly?

Extremely silly.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

and you assume that the Swiss authorities approve of this treatment.

Why Swiss authorities would need to approve? Why would politicians would have something to say in how anyone is spending their money on experimental health treatments?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, Mr. Moron, for another insightful ad-hominem that has a shred of insight as a tangent.

Newsflash: the FDA *is* too slow to approve new treatments. This is a fact. You can hold your breath until you turn blue in the face and keep insisting that it is 100% political, and you WILL BE WRONG. More like, 55-65%.

Go take YOUR useless input and jump off a bridge.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[FredFredrickson]

If prayer works, do it yourself.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[mikechant]

Cool how you got Chiropractors in there with belly button massage. Got an agenda?

Absolutely. Chiropractors can be dangerous since as well as being based on nonsense (Vertebral subluxation), certain manipulations, particularly of the neck, can lead to death or serious injury. Belly button massage is probably just largely pointless but harmless.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[tbannist]

Actually, extremists are never correct, by definition.

Of course not everyone labelled an extremist, is.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Cutting_Crew]

wait a minute. My wife is pregnant at 10 weeks. We went for a 7 week checkup and the heartbeat had already formed and was beating 167 bpm. Also the head and brain was forming, feet and arms as stubs. Are you telling me this isn't a living person? By the way the heartbeat is formed 18 days after conception. Is it a baby when hair grows? eyes open? are you suggesting that a baby doesn't have rights until out of the womb?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[InsectOverlord]

Got an agenda?

Yes! To get Dr Bob to join this thread with one of his "insights". Paging Dr Bob... Come on...

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Tsingi]

Subluxation, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Any doctor can be dangerous. Particularly the ones that take "bribes" for prescribing drugs.

Back problems are ~90% mechanical.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Few things:
1st - Adult stem cells are not as robust as embryonic. They have had a 10-yr head start on research due to the Bush Admin halting research on embryonic stem cells due to their religious objections. Embryonic research will allow the field to catch up and leap over the lesser adult stem cell industry.
2nd - Stem cells are used to create differentiated specialty cells for the specific treatment (liver cells for liver issues, eye cells for eye issues, etc.) No one in their right mind would just inject pure stem cells into someone unless you are in a back alley somewhere in China.
3rd - For the religious fuddies - there are methods of creating stem cells - without harming the embryo. The leading company in embryonic stem cell research - Advanced Cell Technology actually has a patent for the method of creating stem cells without harming the embryo. It called the "single-cell blastomere" technique. They have 2 of the 3 FDA approvals for stem cell trials in the USA.

If the NIH would move on the stem cell 'definition' listed for research grants, a lot more research would be performed here in the USA and we wouldn't need our NFL players to travel to Europe for treatments they should be able to get here. /rant

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Thing 1]

As we develop more ways to get stem cells, their hobbling of the US medical field becomes moot [...]

I'm sorry, no, no it does not. People died because our society was slowed down by mythological thinking. Your defense of their behavior sounds like the "broken window fallacy".

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[MightyYar]

Are you telling me this isn't a living person?

Of course not. I'm telling you that it is a half-baked living person

are you suggesting that a baby doesn't have rights until out of the womb?

Whether it does or does not have rights is not important. The question is what rights SHOULD it have?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[an unsound mind]

Take your baby out of the womb now and see if it's a living person or not.

A baby isn't a person until it develops enough of a nervous system to be sentient. Same reason why someone brain dead has no rights.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

wait a minute. My wife is pregnant at 10 weeks. We went for a 7 week checkup and the heartbeat had already formed and was beating 167 bpm. Also the head and brain was forming, feet and arms as stubs. Are you telling me this isn't a living person?

Yes. There are many non-person living things on this planet that have a heartbeat, head, brain, arms, feet, etc. A mouse for example. Your blob of living stuff isn't even up to mouse standards at the moment though. It's totally unable to live on it's own. It's sub-mouse.

You can't see this obvious fact because you and your wife's brains are broken. It happens to all parents. Logic and reason are completely absent when children are involved. Evolution likes it that way. That's good for kids because you people mindlessly sacrifice for them so they can grow big and strong, but it's bad for society as a whole because the lot of you are one big EPIC FAIL when it comes to matters of public policy that involve reproduction.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[an unsound mind]

But we should let any dangerous incompetent quack take people's money and then apply "treatments" that are nothing but bullshit! It's the American way!

... wait, wealthy Americans turning to Europe for medical treatment...?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Evtim]

If you are so angry (I supprt your view BTW) let
me introduce you to my personal grudge match
against the whole western mdical establishment
- phage treatment. In this dangerous times of
super bugs due to rampant antibiotics use phage
treatment should be use every time it works
(delivery in the body is the showstopper AFAIK
since you cannot use the blood stream ).
Research the subject starting with the Horizon
episode called "the virus that cures" and prepare
to be outraged. ..

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[hedwards]

You should give Reiki a chance. It's something you can do for yourself, definitely better than suggesting that it's bunk. Same possibly goes for chiropractors.

That being said, the implication that they're not really for life saving treatment would be correct. At most those two treatments would be helping quality of life, although, probably not that much when one is terminally ill.

Also, 2 years is an awful long time, the laws involving the right to die don't generally consider somebody to be allowed to take the option unless they have 6 months or less to live. Experimental surgery ought to be similarly marked, except possibly for investigative treatments.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[tycoex]

What counts as extremism? Just because an issue is polarized doesn't mean that one side isn't correct.

If I am certain that 2+2 equals 6, and you are certain that it equals 4, does that mean that we should be "moderate" and agree that 2 + 2 actually equals 5?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Chiropractors? Really, you put chiropractors in the same category as crystals and "potions/elixars"(sic)? Would you include pharmaceuticals as "potions/elixars"?

Methinks you know not of what you speak.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Toonol]

There are problems with that approach. When is a baby sentient? I have a three week old at home, and the cats are much more intelligent. Still, I would gladly torture you eternally if you hurt her.

If you define it by the first neurological activity, it's within the first couple months. If you define it by self-awareness, it's... well, undefinable.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Toonol]

You can't see this obvious fact because you and your wife's brains are broken. It happens to all parents.

You're arguing emotionally. You want to be correct, and so you're categorizing those who disagree with you as 'innately wrong'. There are rational reasons to consider fetuses persons, but you can't honestly appraise them with that attitude.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[mikechant]

Subluxation, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I don't 'keep using that word', I mentioned it once as part of the term 'Vertebral subluxation' because that is what Chiropractors use. See e.g.:
http://www.worldchiropracticalliance.org/consumer/subluxation.htm

By all accounts (apart from those of Chiropractors) their specific use of this term (as opposed to the proper medical use of 'subluxation') is pseudo-scientific nonsense - in particular the blaming of (e.g.) gut disorders and various other unrelated matters on 'Vertebral subluxation'

I suppose I should also point out that some Chiropractic back manipulations may be beneficial *for back problems*, not for unrelated ailments (the evidence is contradictory), but that doesn't mean that the basis of Chiropraxis is sound.

I hope this clarifies my comment.

 

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Toonol]

"not using tax dollars for embryonic research."

This point is so overlooked, and yet it completely transforms the debate. The problem is always framed in the context of the US Government forbidding stem cell research, even though that is absolutely false. It's legal to use fetal stem cells for experimentation RIGHT NOW, and has been since Bush's term.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[an unsound mind]

Defining it by first neurological activity would be sufficient for the current purposes.

Defining it by self-awareness - or development of memory - would be more along the lines, but eventually I don't see the advantage. Neurological activity is hard to dispute.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Tsingi]

Subluxation, you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

I don't 'keep using that word', I mentioned it once as part of the term 'Vertebral subluxation'

Maybe it isn't you. I seem to see that word used every other day on ./, and nowhere else. Anywhere. Ever. It smacks of verbal masturbation.

I took the opportunity to please myself in turn by abusing a quote from The Princess Bride.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Cutting_Crew]

Take your baby out of the womb now and see if it's a living person or not.

A baby isn't a person until it develops enough of a nervous system to be sentient. Same reason why someone brain dead has no rights.

who said people who are brain dead has no rights? is that somewhere in our legal system?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Cutting_Crew]

Yes. That's good for kids because you people mindlessly sacrifice for them so they can grow big and strong, but it's bad for society as a whole because the lot of you are one big EPIC FAIL when it comes to matters of public policy that involve reproduction.

what do you mean by "you people"? and "a lot of you"? curious as to how or what kind of category you are putting me in.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[TheLink]

It's better to pretend that humans are special, and so even their fetuses get special treatment.

That way there's a higher chance that the future posthumans and AIs continue believing that humans are special for at least a few extra years or even decades.

If you make it too easy to kill "half-baked humans", won't it also become easier to justify killing all the "half-baked" slashdotters here?

So we have to draw an arbitrary line (or more) on when a half-baked "cake" can legally be considered "cake" or "precake". Wherever you choose to draw it, It'll be a stupid arbitrary line, but given the numbers of people who want the right to abort it'll be even stupider to not draw a line somewhere.

For similar reasons I think human-animal hybrids (and "Strong AIs") are currently a stupid idea. Because if people can't even get this sorted out, imagine the problems determining when the hybrids/AIs/cyborgs are legally human.

Better to wait till Society is ready to deal with it.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[MightyYar]

What counts as extremism?

People unwilling to compromise.

Just because an issue is polarized doesn't mean that one side isn't correct. If I am certain that 2+2 equals 6, and you are certain that it equals 4, does that mean that we should be "moderate" and agree that 2 + 2 actually equals 5?

I'm not talking about issues such as mathematics, where there is clearly only one right answer. I'm talking about issues involving morality and other human endeavors, where all the rules are just made up anyway. It's hard for me to understand how anyone but an extremist would think that the issue of abortion can have a "correct" answer.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you're saying that the Swiss are a reckless people with a terrible health care system

The FDA is notoriously conservative when it comes to approving new treatments. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are easily the most strict in the world.

Given what the FDA allows to be sold as "food", it's a bit strange.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

I modded you back up because I have no idea why you were modded troll; I think you're spot-on.

I do wonder if there isn't a contradiction in the notion of Reiki being offered professionally. After all, it's about good will and sharing, and requires very little training.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[real gumby]

Cool how you fixated on the reference to Chiropractors out of a list of other charlatanry like belly button massage. Got an agenda?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[MightyYar]

So we have to draw an arbitrary line (or more) on when a half-baked "cake" can legally be considered "cake" or "precake". Wherever you choose to draw it, It'll be a stupid arbitrary line, but given the numbers of people who want the right to abort it'll be even stupider to not draw a line somewhere.

I completely agree - though it could also be a whole pile of imaginary lines. You could have one line for use of abortion as birth control, another line for people who need to cull fetuses in a fertility treatment, another line for people who's body for whatever reason didn't self-abort a chromosomal abnormality, another line for when the mother's life is at risk, and so on. The key is to recognize that the line is arbitrary, and that different people will have different ideas as to where it should be.

Better to wait till Society is ready to deal with it.

It wasn't so long ago that we had legal slavery and legal ethnic cleansing in the US. I have no doubt that when/if AI comes to be reality we will have a similar "dark period", but I don't think that is a good reason to hold back our technology. After all, what is worse - to invent something and then subject it to a great evil for some period of time, or to never invent it at all so that it cannot exist?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[MightyYar]

People who are brain dead are at the complete mercy of their guardian. They can be starved to death under current law. A simplification, but there's your answer.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, I see this and another moderation I did on this thread have been undone on posting, despite the "Post Anonymously" checkbox being checked. That box is not to be trusted.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Kielistic]

It's because of the Dr.Bob troll that used to spam every story about it. And now, in good slashdot form, a bunch of people have continued repeating a joke that wasn't funny to begin with.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Cutting_Crew]

the whole crux of what you just said is really the heart of the debate of abortion. That is, when is a fetus a baby, a human, a living person? Because if it is a human being then it does have rights, whether or not he/she is inside the womb or not. The heart of the debate that causes so much controversy is when exactly is it a human being and more importantly, are we to decide when life begins? If we are to decide when life begins then we also have the "ability" through law to decide when it should end and that is something that none of us on here should want for our future and our future kids and their kids. This last point fuels the debate that since God is the creator of all human life then we, as mere humans, should not be deciding such an event and therefore no one person can say definitively if it starts at conception or later. Why no err on the side of caution? What if we are wrong?

As i said before around day 18 the heart starts to beat. Is this human? Around week 3 the backbone spinal column and nervous system are forming. The liver, kidneys and intestines begin to take shape. Is this human? Week 5 the yes, legs, and hands begin to develop. is this a human? Week 8 the baby can now start to hear. Is this now a human? Around week 12 the baby has all of the parts necessary to experience pain, including nerves, spinal cord, and thalamus and vocal cords are complete. The baby can suck its thumb. I will not go over every week but those weeks are pretty eventful i would say. At week 20 is when partial birth abortions are performed even though the baby can hear his/her mothers voice. Are you telling me there is no human there?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Weedhopper]

What are you babbling about? The condition being human is 100% fatal.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[nbauman]

who said people who are brain dead has no rights? is that somewhere in our legal system?

Legally, people who are brain dead are dead. They can never be brought back to life. They have, or don't have, the rights of a dead body. You can pull the plug on their ventilator, and they'll stop breathing, but they won't die, because they're already dead.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[nbauman]

There is absolutely no danger in using stem cell to treat a fatal disease. So what if your stem cell injection may cause cancer in 2 years if your current disease will cause death in 6 months?

There is a danger of using untested treatments to treat a fatal disease. Your current disease might cause death in 2 years, while your stem cell injection might cause death in 6 months -- or 24 hours.

Patients who are close to death should be allowed to opt into almost any treatment that has a plausible chance of success (unlike therapies which are proven frauds, like homeopathy, etc.)

Legally, the patient can opt into anything he wants, including proven frauds. The providers have certain restrictions in this country, but in this case, they're doing it in countries with weaker regulatory systems.

But the important issue here is whether this stem cell therapy is a fraud like homeopathy.

If you define a fraud as a medical treatment that is promoted and sold to patients without a track record of safe and effective treatment, then it is a fraud.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[MightyYar]

That is, when is a fetus a baby, a human, a living person?

You don't have to have a set day or threshold. You can have a continuous, gradual transition from zygote to baby. You can make different rules as the fetus progresses along that line.

are we to decide when life begins?

As opposed to who? People are the only ones who can write laws.

If we are to decide when life begins then we also have the "ability" through law to decide when it should end

Capital punishment. War.

God is the creator of all human life

Not everyone agrees on this, and even when they do they can't agree no which God, nor on what He wants.

Are you telling me there is no human there?

Of course not. I'm telling you that an unfinished human is there. It is not an egg, it is not a baby. It is a fetus - still developing. It is different from a baby and also different from a sperm and egg.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Cutting_Crew]

so then i'll look forward to you telling me when a developing fetus is all of a sudden a baby.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[MightyYar]

I'd say most people call it a baby when it comes out. And then it's a slow development period all the way until death.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Thing 1]

If prayer works, do it yourself.

Most forms of energy healing have either a geometric or exponential effect when more human bodies are added to the healing process (I haven't experimented enough to say, but it's definitely more than an arithmetic progression). Yes, by all means, do as much as you can yourself; and try to find people of like minds so that you can benefit each other, without needing to pay a "special master". Personally, I have used (and felt) Jin Shin Jyutsu, and EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). The former is holding parts of the body and deep breathing; the latter is tapping a spot on the body several times before moving to the next spot. The former tends to help more with general health; the latter, with emotional issues; although both overlap, since their root is energy and exchanging of atmosphere -- most energy healing modalities include deep breathing, and even "just prayer" includes the clasping of hands, through which the energy flows strongest.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Thing 1]

Passion is often mistaken for anger. It is different; there is logic behind my words and actions. Thank you for the reference, I am watching it now. (Link, for others.)

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[StikyPad]

Not really. Being alive is just one of the many medical conditions affecting the population; it's just the most common one among living patients.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hear those rational reasons then. I, for one, don't believe there are.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[demonlapin]

The neural tube closes at day 27 post fertilization. That's about two weeks after the mother misses her period.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[konohitowa]

even the Republicans are okay with non-embryonic stem cells

So it's all about the fetuses.

I see...

I would point out that this was initially Clinton's executive order, but since we have over a decade worth of people referring to this as "Bush's ban" when it wasn't Bush nor a ban, I suppose it's way too late to be quibbling over facts.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Overzeetop]

But you'd probably put your cat down if it had a disease that would cost $100,000 to remedy.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[ChrisMaple]

The term elixir (note proper spelling) refers to a broad range of things (usually in a sweet alcohol solution). There is nothing inherent in the term elixir that means it isn't valid for medical purposes, nor that it is.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[GameboyRMH]

I think he meant the old-fashioned chiropractic quacks (like Dr. Bob) vs the modern chiropractors who usually call themselves "sports physiotherapists" or something like that to differentiate themselves.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[PopeRatzo]

If you make it too easy to kill "half-baked humans"

Nobody's trying to make it "easy". They just want to make it the decision of the fully-baked human who happens to have the fetus inside of her body.

Until you can give me an argument for why someone should have more authority to decide what happens to the fetus than the woman who is actually carrying the fetus in her womb then the woman, and only the woman, should decide.

Can we at least agree that until the baby is born, that the fetus belongs to the mother? I think the fact that it exists within the mother's body, and actually feeds off the mother's body is a pretty compelling argument for it being the mother's dominion, no?

And why do the "pro-life" people have such a low opinion of childbirth? To them, there's nothing special about being born because the fetus is a full person from the moment the sperm hits the egg. Childbirth is just a formality to them, apparently. As someone who's been present at the birth of a daughter, I can tell you that they are wrong. Childbirth is a pretty significant even in the life of a human person.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[FredFredrickson]

LOL

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[DaleSwanson]

There are many non-person living things on this planet that have a heartbeat, head, brain, arms, feet, etc. A mouse for example. Your blob of living stuff isn't even up to mouse standards at the moment though. It's totally unable to live on it's own. It's sub-mouse.

While I agree with the spirit of what you are saying, you must be careful about that standard. A six month old baby couldn't survive totally on its own, contrasted to an adult mouse, which could. While the six month old is able to survive longer, it still is not 100%. Does this mean that the mouse is more deserving of life? If the answer is no, then survivability and development isn't the only standard that matters.

My point here is that things are seldom black and white. We like to draw lines and say anything below this is one thing, while anything above it is another. However, they are arbitrary, and it's important to not get too caught up in defending them.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Urkki]

wait a minute. My wife is pregnant at 10 weeks. We went for a 7 week checkup and the heartbeat had already formed and was beating 167 bpm. Also the head and brain was forming, feet and arms as stubs. Are you telling me this isn't a living person? By the way the heartbeat is formed 18 days after conception. Is it a baby when hair grows? eyes open? are you suggesting that a baby doesn't have rights until out of the womb?

Well, it's still just a piece of tissue, and the heart isn't "complete", it's just the "incomplete" (at least compared to fully developed human heart, not so much if compared to something like an earthworm heart) muscle beating.

But IMO that's beside the point. Once we know there's a human developing in a womb, and we take action to end this development, we actively erase a human life. So then the hard question is, when do we have a right to make such a decision, decide that this individual shall not exist? We seem to have the right to end human life in war, in self-defence, when in a situation we have to decide who lives and who dies (reality for doctors, fire fighters, etc), sometimes when deciding about euthanasia or "pulling the plug"... So clearly the answer isn't automatic "no, we never have the right".

I'm just glad I'm not likely to need to make such a decision...

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

Log out first and then post.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

A six month old human baby is about equivalent to a 2 day old mouse which won't survive without its mother. Mice are capable of reproducing less than 3 months after they're born. If you're going to make that comparison you have to line up the stages of life, not simply the elapsed time.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Drachasor]

You do not have organized neuron firings until well into the 2nd trimester. Given that we have no reason to think the more or less random firings before that mean anything, I generally think late 2nd trimester or later abortions should be avoided unless there is a serious health risk. This handily covers the vast majority of abortions that do occur.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[mjwx]

Yes, if you go to Thailand and grab yourself some Stem Cell treatment, they'll do that, and that is fucking dangerous.

Spoken like someone who is truly ignorant.

You wont find embryonic stem cell therapy in a Thai hospital. Just the same type of therapy that can be found in European and Australian hospitals for a fraction of the price (because there is little in the way of liability in Thailand, that's your caveat emptor bit). A decent Thai hospital will be staffed by a lot of Thai doctors who got their medical degrees in western universities, Australian doctors will refer patients to these doctors for expensive elective surgery (I.E. cosmetic) because they have the same success rate as in Australia. A lot of Aussies get dental work done in Thailand as it's just as good as Oz and a fraction of the price for top dentists.

If you want an illegal treatment, you need to go to a back yard clinic and if you do that anywhere in the world, you're a complete idiot (or totally desperate, but the former is more likely).

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[tehcyder]

If anyone charges you to pray for them, their prayers will not be heard.

And how exactly can you prove that? Has od told you?

From my (atheist) point of view, all prayers only work as some sort of placebo effect anyway, so if paying someone to pray makes you believe in the prayers more, why shouldn't they work better?

It has often been observed that people generally respond better to psychotherapy if they pay quite a lot of money for it - this seems analogous to me.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[tehcyder]

Cool how you got Chiropractors in there with belly button massage. Got an agenda?

Apart from exposing quackery as quackery? I doubt it.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[tehcyder]

Unless you're saying that the Swiss are a reckless people with a terrible health care system

The FDA is notoriously conservative when it comes to approving new treatments. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are easily the most strict in the world.

I think this is one area where most people would agree that being extremely conservative was a good thing. Except for extreme conservatives, ironically.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots of half-baked humans that exist within society and feed off society.

Perhaps we should make it easy for society to get rid of them, just because society thinks they are an inconvenience or unwanted?

Yes childbirth is pretty significant. So is death too.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[renoX]

Even though chiropractors only fix some back pains but claim to cure many more thing, lumping them with all the other 100% ineffective quacks (short of placebo effect) is misleading..

PS: chiropracy (like normal medecine), do have risks so be cautious.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[mosb1000]

Yeah, but non-FDA approved procedures should still be available for people who want them. If you are willing to take the risk (maybe you have a terminal illness or something), shouldn't you be allowed to?

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Grishnakh]

Being alive isn't a medical condition, it's just a state of being. It's aging that's a degenerative medical condition. Someone just needs to figure out how to cure that condition.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[StikyPad]

Being alive is 100% fatal (assuming the universe ends at some point). Aging is a separate condition.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[PopeRatzo]

There are lots of half-baked humans that exist within society and feed off society.

You are wrong.

We ALL "exist within society and feed off society".

Every single one of us. There is no one, not one, who is "self-sufficient" or "self-made" or whose success is only a product of their own work and ability.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah but not everyone considers everyone half-baked.

Re:More Like Patients Dodging Federal Regulation

[Thing 1]

ORLY?

Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[argStyopa]

Let's see.

Middle income Americans go to Canada for their pharmaceuticals.
Thousands of US patients of all types go to Mexico and points south for all sorts of surgeries that aren't (yet, or ever) available in the US.
This story points to wealthy Americans going elsewhere for not-yet-approved 'edgy' radiological treatments, or stem cell therapies not practiced here.

Some on the left are going to see only that last one, and once again blame Bush for crippling US stem cell research. The fact is that is only seeing a single symptom of a more chronic condition: when you have a system crippled by politics and paralyzed by excessive litigation. when ideas, procedures, and research is circumscribed not by practicality or technology, but by policy set by science-illiterate representatives voted into their positions by a science-ignorant public for decades...well, what did we expect?

Clearly, some Americans are choosing with their WALLETS that value is more important than litiginous recourse - if you're buying a cut-rate surgery in Mexico, you're not really scrutinizing their malpractice coverage. If you're buying your heart medication from some website *.ca, FDA approval is clearly not your primary concern.

Don't get me wrong; anyone conversant with US history will recognize the consistency here. The US has always has a population that is non-intellectual, I believe even de Tocqueville commented on that in 1830. But like so many things in American popular culture, it seems the currents have somehow lately surged to tidal waves that threaten to swamp the whole boat.

Then again, that could just be me shouting "get off my lawn" like so many generations before ...

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound non-intellectual.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[ohnocitizen]

Americans look to Canada for drugs to avoid the price fixing set by the drug companies here (note that Adam Smith opposed the idea of monopolies, yet you need more than an invisible hand to shake those particular economic monsters from their stranglehold on the flow of resources). With regards to Mexico, I'm just seeing stories about Americans going south for cost reasons (perhaps because we don't have socialized medicine? Nah, can't be).

As noted above (http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2434238&cid=37439428), some of the rush to Europe has to do with trying procedures that have enjoyed less rigorous testing than here (which has its good and bad sides. I don't understand why allergy drops are not yet mainstream treatment in the US, but the risks of certain kinds of stem cell treatment does make sense).

Not to take away from your other points.

policy set by science-illiterate representatives voted into their positions by a science-ignorant public for decades

Now THAT is a valid concern indeed. There's no need to whip up Adam Smith or economics as the boogey man here, since it lack of regulation of drug company pricing, lack of socialized medicine coupled with strong regulation of new medical procedures and over regulation of medical research (stem cell research) are all the source of the medical tourism being described. (Excessive litigation has nothing to do with it, and it is getting annoying seeing that card played over and over again).

In other words, it isn't something as simple as "the market is winning, we need less regulation".

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Dunbal]

And you sound like you are talking to yourself.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Doc Ruby]

The litigation started to really ramp up when the FDA started "streamlining" the medine approval process to favor big incumbent medical corps, while making the cost of approval so large that only those big incumbents could afford to risk producing a new product. Meanwhile extending patent and other monopoly protections of profits far beyond what's required to protect required profitability and into extreme profitability. While limiting liabilities from when medicine is pushed on patients but fails in ways either known to be excessively risky during R&D or production, or known not to have been quantified as risks.

That time coincided with the capture by pharmacos and other medical product makers/marketers of medical professionals, starting in med school. So doctors and pharmacists are mainly retailers of medical products, not caretakers of patients' health. Of course the parallel growth of parasitic lawyers was inevitable, but without the medical infrastructure to feed on they would seek blood elsewhere.

I know this because I was pre-med in the mid-late 1980s, and have worked IT for many insurance businesses. Reagan reinvented the FDA, and along with it the medical education system in the US. The primary constraint on US medicine is the failure to produce more practicing doctors, which has slipped far behind the growth in demand for medicine (growing and aging population, excessive environmental risks including diet and toxins, newly available diagnostics and treatments). We should have at least double the number of doctors, but the medical industry "weeds out" candidates for the profession, selecting more on the basis of greed and tolerance of hazing than on compassion and intellect.

Adam Smith was right about supply and demand. The US has increased its demand for medicine while constraining its supply. Thus medicine is much more expensive. US politicians and officials are science-illiterate, but they're also compassion-retarded. Americans are easily fooled by corporate marketing trolling with theocracy and other social bigotry/stupidity. The results are found in Bush's choking stemcell research, but the causes are systemic.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Anonymous Coward]

No drug company in the US is a monopoly. Fail.
 
  Excessive litigation has nothing to do with it, and it is getting annoying seeing that card played over and over again
 
Care to dispell that in a meaningful way (as in, do you care to cite a source?) instead of just dismissing it with a shrug?

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Anonymous Coward]

Middle income Americans go to Canada for their pharmaceuticals.

Partially true. Brand-name patented drugs are price-regulated in Canada, and as a result are generally cheaper than in the USA.

But generics are far cheaper in the USA. I recall last year I had to get a refill for a generic antibiotic, it cost me $10 (and if I had gone to Walmart, it would have been $4). The cheapest I could find in Canada was $26.

Walmart actually has a long list of generics available at $4. US pharmacists hate Walmart for that, since they have to price-match.

And for any pharmacists out there, yes, I'm well aware of all the training & hard work it takes to become a pharmacist, and pharmacists do sometimes save lives. But my experience with pharmacists have entirely been "take the pills out of the big bottle and put them in the little bottle".

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[jopsen]

In other words, it isn't something as simple as "the market is winning, we need less regulation"

Agreed regulation is typically just want you need, especially when there's any big cooperation involved...

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has always has a population that is non-intellectual, I believe even de Tocqueville commented on that in 1830.

Yes, we do have religious nuts.. lots of them.. in fact too many of them.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[trout007]

The fact is medical travel exists in order to avoid government regulations. Ameicans go to Europe or Asia because there are treatments and drugs that exist that the FDA doesn't allow us to take because they are the masters of our bodies. People from all over the world come to the US for rapid access to treatment if they have the money because their countries socialist healthcare causes shortages and long lines. People in the US go to poor countries for treatment they can afford because the AMA keeps a stranglehold on medical schools and licensing to maintain their cartel. Drugs are expensive in the US because the government bans people from importing and because you require a prescription.

Notice all of the roadblocks put in between the patient and the product or service they want. Some are so bad people have to leave the country. Wouldn't a system where people and companies are actually free to deal with each other work better?

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Volante3192]

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2010/03/ohios_tort_reform_law_hasnt_lo.html

This means that four years after the state passed reform, health insurance for Ohio families in employer plans had gone up by 19 percent.
That compared with a national average rise of nearly 22 percent during that time.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[J'raxis]

They are all granted government monopolies: Patents.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/thanks_for_the_doctors_new_york_sC24DBxeqpvpApNcd0x5IP

"According to the Texas Medical Board records, they’ve picked up 1,271 New York physicians since September 2003, when Texas voters approved the Proposition 12 medical-liability reforms."

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[maztuhblastah]

Americans look to Canada for drugs to avoid the price fixing set by the drug companies here (note that Adam Smith opposed the idea of monopolies, yet you need more than an invisible hand to shake those particular economic monsters from their stranglehold on the flow of resources).

The rest of your post is not incorrect, but the above statement is somewhat erroneous. Americans look to Canada for drugs *because* of the price fixing by the drug companies there. One of the perks of single payer healthcare is that the .ca government can basically say "this is how much we're going to pay for $DRUG", and $DRUG_COMPANY basically has to suck it up and make the deal or refuse the market altogether. That's price-fixing, despite not having the same outcome as most instances of the term imply.

Contrast that to the US where the drug makers have a guaranteed monopoly for a period of time, yet are free to charge whatever they please.

Note: I'm not arguing the morality of either approach. I don't really care to get into a fight about which is "right" and "wrong". I'm simply pointing out how the pricing works.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[esocid]

So your proof that the free market prevails is that Americans go to Canada to take advantage of their subsidized medicine?

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[TapeCutter]

People from all over the world come to the US for rapid access to treatment if they have the money because their countries socialist healthcare causes shortages and long lines.

I'm pretty sure I could get treated for a serious ailment here in Australia much faster than I could organise a US visa.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Qzukk]

Care to dispell that in a meaningful way

McAllen, Texas

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[drinkypoo]

I'm pretty sure I could get treated for a serious ailment here in Australia much faster than I could organise a US visa.

A serious, life-threatening ailment? Absolutely. A serious, disfiguring ailment? I don't know about your system, but some systems might go ahead and let you become disfigured if the load is currently heavy. Or maybe, you know, just a little disfigured, because you're not important enough to bump up the queue. Mind you, I still think that's better than hoping that your private company not apparently beholden to anyone grants your request for care.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans look to Canada for drugs to avoid the price fixing set by the drug companies here

That's not entirely true: drug companies subsidize their Canadian and other parts of the world drug prices by charging Americans more. So if anything prices in Canada should go up to have ours go down.

I'm not sure where people think that money that goes to pay for drugs ends up going. Just into the company's pocket? They have to pay for salaries, R&D, etc. Yes some execs might get what seems to be outrageous salaries but even if they were paid zero it wouldn't cause the prices of drugs to fall.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[trout007]

Maybe your system works. How many hours do you have to wait to get a non emergency MRI?

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed completely.

Politics, litigation and their subsequent hyper-regulatory absurdity have almost crushed this country's ability to innovate, especially in the realm of medicine.

An example from way back when: In the fall of 1920 a doctor has an idea regarding the treatment of diabetes with insulin. 1922 the first tests are conducted. By 1923 insulin is being sold to druggists. Not to mention other discoveries of that decade: tuberculosis, whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus vaccines, penicilin...

Imagine the speed with which such medical breakthroughs would advance under the regulatory oversight of the FDA today. What would the body count be after 20 years of testing?

Maybe I missed it when scanning the article, but did the treatment Peyton or Steve received actually do anything for them? Is the point of this article that America's healthcare system so broken, all you have to do is go to Europe shell out a ton of cash and suddenly you're all better? Both examples seem to be telling a different tale.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[TapeCutter]

Dunno? However at 52 I am finding a lot of friends and relatives are having "elective surgery" and the waiting time from decision to cut and the actual cutting is around a month.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[TapeCutter]

Funny you picked serious disfigurement, Perth has world renowned burns unit and Adelaide has world renowned facial reconstruction unit. Surgeons from around the world come to both units to study and both units have enough spare time to do charity work, particularly in SE Asia.

The "queue" is based on medical need, so yes if there's an unusually heavy load you may become a little disfigured while the doctors with the requisite skills are busy preventing others from becoming a lot disfigured. Such a system is obviously not perfect but it is fair and ethical in the sense that money and social status are irrelevant to your position in the "queue" for the finite medical resources any conceivable system will have.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[tepples]

it lack of regulation of drug company pricing, lack of socialized medicine coupled with strong regulation of new medical procedures and over regulation of medical research (stem cell research) are all the source of the medical tourism being described.

The Republican Party solution is to end the "strong regulation of new medical procedures", and the Democratic Party solution is to end the "lack of socialized medicine". Which would be more effective?

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[ohnocitizen]

Do they have to be mutually exclusive? I'd like to see socialized medicine and the tiered FDA approval. Why not allow individuals who are properly informed to try beta trials of new procedures or drugs? That way we keep our stricter regulation and still give people more choice.

Re:Let's face it, US gov't: Adam Smith wins

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell can you say the US population, a group of over 300 million people of every conceiveable race and educational background, is non-intillectual? I agree that intillectualism is suffering in the US, mostly due to out terrible education system, but there are still millions of intilligent people talking about important ideas here.

Health industry of health system ?

[Pascal Sartoretti]

Although European countries have very different systems, they rather each have a health system whereas the US have a health industry. It shouldn't be surprising that one has better medical results and the other one better financial results...

Re:Health industry of health system ?

[Reservoir Penguin]

Insightful? Hardly, no amount of bold text will make a logical argument appear where there is none. You have not proven at all that a 'system' is better then 'industry'. North Korea also has a 'system' and I'm willing to be it does not produce results comparable to US 'industry'.

Re:Health industry of health system ?

[Pascal Sartoretti]

You have not proven at all that a 'system' is better then 'industry'

This was not my goal. Numerous sources have already shown that the US spend a bit more than Europe on healthcare (in % of GDP, see e.g. here), but have poorer results in life expectancy (see e.g.here). And don't tell me about correlation and causality...

North Korea also has a 'system' and I'm willing to be it does not produce results comparable to US 'industry'.

In the hierarchy of needs, food comes before healthcare...

Re:Health industry of health system ?

[afidel]

You know what, when the ultra wealthy in the middle east need heart surgery they inevitably come to Cleveland, Ohio, USA. You know why? Because the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital are the best in the world at heart treatment. The Mayo Clinic is similar for many forms of cancer treatment. Should it come as a surprise that there are specialties in other countries that exceed what is available in the US? No, I don't think it is in the least surprising that some institution somewhere else in the world should become the leading authority on some new procedure. The fact is that if you have a middle class or better income in the US you can get world class healthcare, if you are poor (approximately 20-33% of the population depending on how you look at the statistics) your chance of receiving world class healthcare are vanishingly small. That is the biggest divide between the US and Europe, not that we particularly trail in medical care, but that we have uneven access to the care that we do have.

Re:Health industry of health system ?

[MemoryDragon]

Not really better financial results. I guess the US spends more on health care than Europe, but we dont have any deatch sentence here by your insurance saying no to treatment. So in between there is something seriously broken with the US healthcare system. More cash less results but who gets the money which is drained?

Re:Health industry of health system ?

[cobrausn]

You mention food being more important than healthcare but then try to tell me the reason Europeans live longer has to be because of a healthcare system. Have you seen what we eat over here? And don't tell me about correlation and causality...

Re:Health industry of health system ?

[TapeCutter]

Insightful? Hardly, no amount of bold text will make a logical argument appear where there is none.

And your logical fallacy is comparing the US to a despot's playground, so lets compare the US to Australia .

1. Australia is ranked around 10th for health outcomes by the WHO, the US around 35th. I once researched what this meant and it turns out that the Aussie death panels need to kill an extra 20K people a year to catch up with the US.

2. The Aussie government spends a similar amount per capita on health care as the US government, but somehow manages to balance the budget and provide full health cover for ALL of it's citizens.

3. UHC is 1.5% of taxable income + $500 for "high income earners" who have no private cover. For example, I earn ~$100K/yr and pay $2k/yr tax levy for UHC, I would pay a $1500/yr levy if I was a the sole bread winner of a family or purchased $500 worth of private cover. From what I understand $1500 is comparable to what a family of four would pay per MONTH in the US for full cover. (Currently $1.00AU = $1.02US)

4. The Aussie government can't worm it's way out of paying the bill on a technicality that's clearly stated in (say) Appendix C, Paragraph 17, of an insurance contract.

5. No Aussie fears bankruptcy from medical bills. Prescription drug costs are capped at $1200/yr for a family, anything above that is "free".

6. UHC enjoys bipartisan support in Oz, it's a political football in the US. This more than anything explains why the US taxpayer gets such a woeful return on their labyrinth of publicly funded heath care "systems" (see point 2).

7. You can still buy private cover in Oz starting at around $500/yr but you're mainly paying for cosmetics, creature comforts, and "alternative medicine", you cannot use cash or private insurance to buy better or faster medical treatment.

8. The Aussie government invests in preventative programs such as free check-ups at work and health awareness campaigns in the media. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.

9. The Aussie government has reciprocal arrangements to treat tourists from other nations with UHC systems as they would their own citizens. I learnt this when I became violently ill in the UK. After being treated I wanted to know how to pay, "Just show the front desk your passport" was the doctors answer.

10. I can walk into a local clinic without an appointment and be talking to a doctor within an hour, within minutes if I'm spewing into a bucket or bleeding profusely.

Is the Aussie system perfect? - Far from it, but it's light years ahead of the US industry.

Rich people do things poor people can't News at 11

[OzPeter]

Why is this news? Rich people have more money than poor people (Duh - thats an indicator that they are rich) and that allows them to do things that poor people can't. Whether that is normal or medical tourism.
 
What would be news is reports of successful treatments that are available overseas but not in the US.

Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's the point of this?

Some treatments are simply more available in certain countries.

No, I'm not defending America's approach to healthcare, but I've seen the same bloody argument used from the other side for all the America-bound medical tourism from rich Canadians and Euros, and in the end it means absolutely nothing. Rich people travel a lot. Rich people min/max their medicine.

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[Anubis IV]

I'm glad someone beat me to saying it. Using a few outliers as representative of the whole is not sound thinking. Sure, what they're doing may be part of a larger trend, and if so, it's fine to tie that in to make an argument. But looking at these cases in a vacuum is misleading, since it ignores the multitude of cases where people travel to America for treatment, as well as anything happening to anyone besides the super-rich. As with you, I'm not defending what America has or suggesting we should throw out this information, but as /.ers, I'd hope we'd have the sense to place it in the proper context and understand it as being a very small part of a very large global system, rather than using it as proof positive that America is circling the drain or what-have-you.

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[thegarbz]

but I've seen the same bloody argument used from the other side for all the America-bound medical tourism from rich Canadians and Euros,

[Citation needed]

Flying to America for healthcare ranks about as desirable as flying to America to get randomly shot during a mugging. Unless that is tourists actually desire to see the insanely expensive, lawyer and politics riddled comic relief of what you call healthcare.

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. My son has serious medical issues and frequently is in Boston and Philadelphia Childrens' Hospitals. I cannot count the number of languages I've heard spoken by the other families I see around these places. Suffice to say they are not Latinos immigrants. I am only one data point, but from what I can read in your comment, you have no data points so I guess I win.

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[Pascal Sartoretti]

So what's the point of this?

Some treatments are simply more available in certain countries.

No, I'm not defending America's approach to healthcare, but I've seen the same bloody argument used from the other side for all the America-bound medical tourism from rich Canadians and Euros, and in the end it means absolutely nothing. Rich people travel a lot. Rich people min/max their medicine.

1) Please show us data regarding foreigners coming to the USA for health treatment....
2) Think one second about how a sick (and rich) person would feel at the time of immigration if he/she was refused entry to the USA because of illness
3) If you are really really really rich, you don't come to the USA to see the best doctor in the world, you pay him to come.

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[should_be_linear]

I am European and while I heard all types of affairs by rich and celebrities, I never heard of anybody going to US with cancer or whatever. I never heard of politician, director, actor, writer being trasferred from hospital in USA after he died, it is always local "elite" hospital. Quality of medical treatment is pretty much same accross whole EU and USA, excpet that in EU it is free and in USA you are supposed to pay large amounts of money. It makes zero sense to travel there ...

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[St.Creed]

(a) It depends on where you come from and (b) the average results of the US may not be great but there are some excellent hospitals. And don't forget that something like a proton knife is available in the US but not commonly outside it (yet - some local hospitals are installing them currently). If you have a difficult to reach brain tumor, that may make the difference between life and death (or severe disabilities).

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[bws111]

Google 'Mayo Clinic' and 'Arab'.

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is free for EU citizens and other residents who are eligible for social services.
Medical tourists have to pay the full price.

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Euros? Are you talking cash or people?

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[afidel]

Some of the richest men in the world (the family Saud) come to Cleveland to have heart operations. They rent out an entire floor of the 5 star intercontinental hotel (basically built to house high net worth individuals coming to Cleveland to have heart surgery as well as a few other internationally ranked specialties in the area).

Re:Euros travel to America, too, for treatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

but rarely do because we havent yet become quite so Merkinised as to repose your kidneys etc. yet.

Sick rich patients?

[The Immutable]

The medical industry doesn't care if you're rich when it's government funded and non profit, the way it should be.

Re:Sick rich patients?

[roman_mir]

Medical treatment and insurance are products, just like any other products, funding this by government covers corner cases but does a terrible disservice to the overall economy - the people.

Re:Sick rich patients?

[Dunbal]

No, they are services. You cannot quantify health. In fact you have a hard time even defining health. And no, it's not "the absence of disease".

Re:Sick rich patients?

[Anonymous Coward]

funding this by government covers corner cases but does a terrible disservice to the overall economy - the people.

Not if you do the math.
The cost to society for just having a single person go withput healthcare is huge. The lost taxes on the lost income adds up pretty quick. From societys point of view it makes fiscal sense to make sure that healthcare is always covered for everyone.
Wether it's fair or not is another matter.

Re:Sick rich patients?

[roman_mir]

I said that health care is a product, you can argue it's a service, but the point stays. Be it a product or a service (and it's both, as medicines and various instruments and machines and hospitals are products, but actual work that is done by physicians, surgeons, professionals are services.) It's the same thing with a restaurant or with facebook - they are products and services, market rules apply regardless.

Re:Sick rich patients?

[Dunbal]

I'm not trying to be pedantic but I find that Americans often confuse the two. I remember sitting on a Continental flight somewhere and watching the safety video where the CEO was telling me to enjoy the product. You can quantify a product. A service, however, has very subjective implications. McDonald's produces meals, and a fancy expensive restaurant produces meals, so you could think that they both produce a product: "dinner". However your experience with one or the other will vary greatly. So will the price.

So there is a lot more to it than just looking at the "product". Health care is the same - the end result is highly subjective. I can send patient A to have coronary artery bypass grafts and patient B can get stents and patient C can just continue to take pills without any intervention at all, and there really is no telling who is going to have a better quality of life at the end of it. There are even articles published that say that they are statistically equivalent. However trying to make sure each patient is given the right treatment choice and ensure that everyone is happy, that's a service. Almost impossible to quantify.

Going back to your point - legislators and insurance companies, however, tend to view hospitals as "health factories" and seem to think that medicine is all about empty bed/total bed and bed turnover ratios and patients seen per hour/day/year. Like a product. And this is what screws the whole thing up. I can give you a full hospital with lines outside the door and make sure everyone is absolutely miserable, even if I see more people than any other hospital in the state. Likewise I can give you a relatively empty hospital and make sure you have a healthy, happy population. You can't quantify it the way they want to quantify it. I think I agree with your point, but from a different perspective.

Re:Sick rich patients?

[roman_mir]

well, if you do the math then having some corner cases, where people have no insurance and are paying for extra-ordinary work done by medical professionals out of pocket or even declare bankruptcy, while having the majority of society have a good economy, which can help the unfortunate individual through charity is better. Especially if you do the math.

Having a policy that is created to cover corner cases, while destroying the economy in the process, will just corner everybody into an economic collapse, which will have the effect that nobody will be get any health care.

Re:Sick rich patients?

[roman_mir]

Well yes, there are products that are better or worse, what's the best way to figure this out than to have market look into it? The more people are involved in voting with their wallets basically, the greater are the chances that best quality product (whatever it is) is selected for.

The problem comes when government distorts this market process and just pumps money into the system. When government is the entity that is paying, then you can't figure out what is better and what's worse, and I think this is done by design.

Re:Sick rich patients?

[Pascal Sartoretti]

You cannot quantify health. In fact you have a hard time even defining health

Then tell the World Health Organization to stop trying to do it

FDA

[roman_mir]

Thank the Food and Drug administration for this. We had stories on /. about this before.

Government money in health care and insurance is the reason why these are so expensive now, when technology should have made all of the health care much cheaper (unlike many people believe, technology increases efficiencies and makes things less expensive, not more. Think about imaging methods that replaced exploratory surgeries. Think how many more patients a single surgeon can see today. Think cancer treatments done with drugs or machines, that would have required surgery. etc.etc. Increase in technology makes products cheaper, not more expensive).

But not only does FDA hurt you financially, they are a major reason for various techniques not getting timely approval, so again, as an example an abortion pill that was used for decades in Europe made it into USA decades later.

Of-course from my POV, FDA is just another government agency, standing in between you and your freedoms and liberties. Figuring out the safety of medical procedures is one thing, and it should be done privately too, by private competing certification agencies. Figuring out the efficacy should be left to the market because the market will do so much quicker and at a very low expense, when compared to the clinical trials that may last for decades and waste hundreds of millions of dollars to run them.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked in the health insurance industry, that is complete non-sense. The reason the costs are so high is due to law suits, high cost of med school, health insurance policies and inefficiency of handling claims. The government is a factor, but it's a small factor. Depending on the company, the cost of administering a policy is around 40-65%. Most health insurance companies are constantly trying to find ways to be more efficient, but it's a difficult problem to solve. You can blame the government all you want, but that's not going make your health insurance cheaper.

Re:FDA

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While there is room for debate as to whether one needs a state entity to do safety and efficacy trials, you really lost me when you asserted that "the market" will determine efficacy more quickly and cheaply than a clinical trial...

How, pray tell, will that happen?

Re:FDA

[Doc Ruby]

Europe's healthcare systems, where the treatments in this story are found, are much more regulated and government financed than in the US.

Government money isn't preventing the abortion pill. Theocrat money, that promoted Republican rule that you sucker "libertarians" voted for every chance you got, paid to prevent the abortion pill that's available in Europe. Where the government paid to develop and distribute it. Much to the dismay of "libertarians" and theocrats.

Once again, your dogma makes you attack government in the US, even by hitting it with actual socialism elsewhere. You are so dogmatic that you'll lie by ignoring the truth. And are putty in the hands of the theocrats for whom dogma and lies are a way of life.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

Oh really?

Nonsense, is it?

Nonsense?

Nonsense?

What about clear violation of their very policies on SAFETY? Nonsense?

But if you worked in "health insurance industry", you'd never want FDA to stop doing what they do, after all, any government involvement is beneficial for large corporations, who gain monopoly/oligopoly power by restricting access of small competitors, by forcing any innovator to seek sponsorship of large pharma company, by having government money in insurance, which is the reason that insurance premiums are as high as they are and climbing, having insurance attached to people's jobs, which is the reason there is a problem of "preexisting-conditions" in the first place, because once you change your job and if you have a "condition", it's that much harder to get coverage again.

In a free market an American would have been able to buy health insurance privately from any provider from ANYWHERE in the world.

Why can't an American buy health insurance from Singapore?

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

when you asserted that "the market" will determine efficacy more quickly and cheaply than a clinical trial...

- what do you think happened before FDA?

Look at the way doctors have cooperated in the past to pass the information they gathered about treatment of different conditions and different cases. Private market provides huge exposure to any type of treatment, and if it is safe of-course, it will quickly be understood whether there is enough evidence that the treatment works. People exchange information without government, did you know that?

Look at the way Mayo clinic was established - people were exchanging information and that made that clinic very competitive, people used to come to USA from all over the world to visit Mayo clinic because of CREDENTIALS, that were EARNED, not dictated by any government.

It was competition that drove people to that clinic, which quickly disseminated similar approaches to treatment and information sharing among professionals everywhere in the world.

It's like an iPhone - once one exists, everybody is going to emulate it based on success, which is measured in sales and profits.

Profits are the feedback mechanism, which is the way the market tells the entrepreneur that he is on the right track. This is the same with iPads and health care.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

There is nothing as regulated and government financed as what is found in USA.

SS, education loans, bank bailouts - these are things that are done in USA specifically in order to transfer funds from government to the preferred corporations, that lobby the politicians with the money, and the money that is transfered is ALWAYS greater in total amounts than what is found anywhere else in the world.

What is the exact mechanism that prevents the abortion pill from entering the US market would not be possible, were it not for FDA.

The rest of your comment is ad-hominem BS.

Re:FDA

[Spad]

Figuring out the safety of medical procedures is one thing, and it should be done privately too, by private competing certification agencies. Figuring out the efficacy should be left to the market because the market will do so much quicker and at a very low expense, when compared to the clinical trials that may last for decades and waste hundreds of millions of dollars to run them.

I believe the phrase is "what could possibly go wrong". You're welcome to your "tested by the lowest bidder" drugs, personally I prefer those that have been properly trialled and peer-reviewed; at least then there's a small chance of stopping the drug companies from ignoring patient safety wholesale.

Re:FDA

[Eunuchswear]

when you asserted that "the market" will determine efficacy more quickly and cheaply than a clinical trial...

- what do you think happened before FDA?

Uh, people died from adulterated food and drugs?

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

FDA is just another government agency, standing in between you and your freedoms and liberties.

When I don't read things like this often, but when I do, I read them in Andrew Ryan's voice.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

Here is FDA approved possible death in a bottle.

What do you think, no FDA approved drugs have death as a side effect?

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

However if you take into account that government should not be limiting liability of company management either (we had this discussion), then it stands to reason that personal responsibility will be increased, not diminished as it is today.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the people in China will disagree with you. The level of government regulation and control in China is far greater than the USA. You don't even have to look at socialist countries either. Plenty of other countries have more regulations with regard to health care than the USA.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

Nope. Not even close. Just by the amount of deficit spending and trade deficit, the amount of total debt, including Freddie/Fannie/FHA, all of the bailed out banks, all of the outstanding SS and Medicare benefits, students loans and all of the WARS. What are you talking about? USA is the front runner in all of these categories and everybody else is thousands of miles behind.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. Single-payer countries thoroughly disprove that government money is the cause for the high healthcare costs.

The real reasons are:
1) Healtcare should NOT be a market.
2) Private insurance companies help to drive up the cost.
3) Consumers of healthcare are not the ones making decisions. So market-based mechanism don't work.

Facts (you know, those stupid buggers) show that US system is broken. And market-based fixes are unlikely to fix it.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking moron.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank the Food and Drug administration for this. We had stories on /. about this before.

Government money in health care and insurance is the reason why these are so expensive now

actually, "Big Pharma" lobbying is the reason why these are so expensive now, pharma's pushed those laws and now USA is the best market in the world for them.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

What does FMac and FMae have to do with Health insurance regulation. Measuring by dollar amount is inaccurate at best and silly at worst. The only thing it proves is that large corporations are really good screwing up and then having the rest of us pay for it with taxes. Who benefits from that? Last time I checked, it was the corrupt executives that got away with screwing the rest of america. those pension funds and 401K that lost big when wallstreet f--ked america.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

"Government money in health care and insurance is the reason why these are so expensive now "

Interestingly, government money is what makes health care in Europe cheaper than it is in the US.

Re:FDA

[Doc Ruby]

You always hide behind whining about "ad hominem" when I point out that you are consistently wrong, and consistently for the same reasons. You don't know what "ad hominem" means. I'm not proving a point by pointing out your personal defects. I'm pointing out that your personal defects are ideological, which is why, after I've demonstrated how wrong your statements are, I can point out that you're always wrong.

Pointing out that someone arguing with you is a committed liar does not invalidate that point. It is an important point for anyone wondering how much attention to pay to the counterargument. It's also important in judging the quality of an argument that it's being defended with fallacious whining about ad hominem attacks.

Re:FDA

[Doc Ruby]

It has nothing to do with it. roman_mir is a raving ideologue who is interested in logic only when its lingo gives them an excuse to ignore reason when it's shoved in their face.

They started this thread insisting that Europe's socialist medical system is a better alternative to America's capitalist medical industry. They don't care about medicine. They care about only pushing whatever they can complain about. They're a stereotpyical deranged "libertarian" who can think of only one point at a time, while they whine, regardless of how that point invalidates their next whine.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

when technology should have made all of the health care much cheaper (unlike many people believe, technology increases efficiencies and makes things less expensive, not more.

This argument is demonstrably incorrect. While certainly, technology would have streamlined and make cheaper certain procedures, a lot of (very expensive) procedures are possible now ONLY BECAUSE of the new (again: expensive) technology. There was no CAT scan before CAT scanners, no MRIs, no gene therapy (yes, yes, lets not go into the effectiveness of it all). The point is that we now can do much more than before and so we DO much more than before. And a lot of those things are tremendously expensive. It is like saying that advances in airplane technology should have reduced the total money spent on travel. Well, it hasn't, because now we all travel far more and far greater distances.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

Didn't you turn the conversation to total government spending? Thus I must point out that in USA the total government spending and debt are the largest in the world, and the amount of bad debt owned publicly is also the largest in the world, and this includes Freddie/Fannie/FHA debt.

As to who 'fucked' America - the American people, when they bought into the idea that the government must be the entity providing them with stuff rather than remaining free in economic and political sense to provide for themselves.

Re:FDA

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If you look at my comment, you'll note that I never denied the ability of the private sector to conduct clinical testing(indeed, at present, virtually all FDA-approval data are provided by the research commissioned by the would-be drug seller). My question was what mechanism would be faster or cheaper than a clinical trial in determining efficacy.

The whole point of clinical trials, and blinding in particular, is to provide statistically strong information on efficacy, without(to the degree possible) interference from confounding factors of expectation, self-selection, and such. The private sector can, and does, run those just fine(when they aren't excessively motivated to cheat). My question was not of that ability; but of the claim that there is a way better than that. Mere profitability is weakly correlated with efficacy, being tied rather to belief in efficacy, and statistical power requires time and samples size, no way around it...

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

This argument is demonstrably incorrect.

- then demonstrate it.

There was no CAT scan before CAT scanners, no MRIs, no gene therapy

- all of these are supposed to make health care cheaper, not more expensive, as all of those are replacing something that is more time and labor consuming, require exploratory surgeries and resulting intensive care, etc.

The cost of the machines is negligible and goes down as they pay for themselves and they are becoming cheaper to manufacture.

Your argument is demonstrably false simply by pointing out that computers, aircraft, cars, machines of today do more than ever and cost per unit is always coming down, not increasing.

Re:FDA

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In point of fairness, it should be noted that the story linked is one of a feckless FDA failing to resist the pressure to approve based on outright falsified research conducted by the drug's manufacturer, and also contains a note that post-market reporting data are considered to be of very limited use in safety and efficacy research work...

Does it suggest that the FDA is regulatory-captured like nobody's business? Oh yes, yes it does. Does it make you want to run screaming from a brave new world of research conducted by the parties with the greatest financial stake in it? Quite arguably...

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi troll.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

Without FDA destroying the competition and causing the prices to go through stratosphere (well, and without gov't provided health "insurance" as well), the competition would be real and would push costs down.

I have stated here that costs of medical procedures must come down over time, not increase, due to the fact that there is money to be made, so more operators would come into the market and all of the technological innovations and discoveries, and all of the new machines that were created, new drugs, everything that people come up with, would push costs down.

Instead you have costs going up all the time, which makes no sense and is only happening because of government money and regulations in the field.

There are people here arguing that costs must go up since new technologies are invented and new machines are created and medicines, but this is nonsense. It does not work that way in any industry and health care is no different from car or computer industry in that regard - the more technology you have, the cheaper you can make your processes and the cheaper you can make the entire system (and quality goes up). If this didn't work that way, the computers and cars and TVs and phones of today would be completely inaccessible by non-billionaires.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

No, government money is found in either case. Europe obviously controls their monopolies more, which is what you have to do once your government creates the monopolies in the first place.

Of-course in both cases the people are worse off than if free market was allowed to operate health care and insurance.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

nope, not me. That was someone else that brought up total spending. My point is clear. There are plenty of other countries that have more stringent regulation and control of health care than the USA. There's lots of good things about US health care system. I've seen it first hand over the years. My first hand memory is that in the 90's I had cheaper and better health care coverage when it was regulated more heavily than now, after lots of de-regulation. Obviously there's no clear cut cause-effect relationship between cost and de-regulation. Costs go up on by itself regardless of government regulation. Scape goating the government doesn't do anything to solve the real problem of "how do we make health care high quality and affordable." Having worked in multiple health care companies based in Connecticut, the challenge of affordable coverage is caused by many factors. A small part of that federal regulation. A bigger factor is state level regulation, which congress has very little impact.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how big health insurance works. Health insurance is like Gas. Everyone needs it and no matter how expensive people think it is, they'll still pay for it. There is no empirical proof to back that argument "it should get cheaper" to my knowledge. Let's look it from several factors. Has the cost of medical school gone down? Has the cost of drugs gone down? Has the cost of running a hospital gone down? Has the cost of managing millions of subscribers gone down? Has medical treatment become more complex requiring specialization? Has liability insurance gone up? How often does a hospital upgrade their equipment and how long does it take to break even on that equipment? I don't know any source that gives a detailed analysis, but my guess is that at best cost might stay level for a while. The likelihood of costs going down over time is like saying inflation is -3%.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

Everyone needs it and no matter how expensive people think it is, they'll still pay for it.

- this is absurd, as it's NOT the individuals who are paying for health insurance in USA. It's the employers, who are paying for employee packages or it's the government directly via Medicare or Medicaid.

There is no empirical proof to back that argument "it should get cheaper" to my knowledge

- that's because you have no knowledge of history, as over the 100 years in 19 century USA, prices were coming down, ended up at half of where they started in the beginning of that century.

At the same time today countries with actual competition see lower and lower costs, I know of a number of clinics where costs are now lower than they were previously in such countries.

In USA you have a good example of this as well with lasic eye surgery. You can get it cheaper now than before, or at least it would cost you the same as it cost you 10 years ago, while the equipment quality and success rates are going up, so THERE IS empirical evidence even in USA and you don't even have to know history to see it in the past 10 years.

Has the cost of medical school gone down?

- THAT'S GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZED. That's part of the overall problem of costs going up because of government money in education as well as in health care and insurance. You can't say: here, prices are higher in education and that SHOULD be that way.

Education ALSO would have lower prices today than it had 50 years ago if it weren't for government money in it. After all, we have technology to make education more accessible, cheaper. The communication between students and professors, it's possible to have lectures recorded and replayed, this entire notion that you are in a free market and that's why prices are going up is insane.

Has the cost of drugs gone down?

- and I said on top of this thread: thank the FDA for that. You can look at the provided links, the majority of cost is added because of FDA.

Has the cost of running a hospital gone down?

- thank the Federal reserve for all the inflation.

Has the cost of managing millions of subscribers gone down?

- OF-COURSE! Substantially! That's what the computers are for - so that the costs go down, since it's easier to manage your information.

Has medical treatment become more complex requiring specialization?

- assembly line workers at Ford were very productive, though they had to become more and more specialized, this is exactly where the economies of scale kick in, and specialization makes things cheaper, not more expensive, since more people can be processed by the specialists rather than having generic physicians look at all your problems.

Has liability insurance gone up?

- you can thank the government for all the nonsense there as well, because with all the "free" education loans, there are too many people graduating with mortgages and no houses, and they are taking sociology and other BS stuff, and after they are done with one degree, they see the job market and go right back to school. But they shouldn't have been there in the first place and now they are looking at a terrible situation - a huge debt.

So where is the money? Their second "education" becomes law.

This is a complex problem, totally created by government money in education and inflation of value of degrees.

How often does a hospital upgrade their equipment and how long does it take to break even on that equipment?

- who cares?

How often does Intel build a new chip factory?

The likelihood of costs going down over time is like saying inflation is -3%.

- you are funny, but not really, in a sad sort of way.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

I can agree on one thing, if that's what you meant:

different states should not be able to prevent free trade between states by creating barriers to entry to out of state companies. People should be able to buy insurance not only across state borders, but also across nation borders, anywhere at all.

THIS is what the interstate clause is supposed to be for - increasing freedom of trade.

Re:FDA

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just employers. When I worked as an independent contractor, I paid for BCBS myself. You know what, it cost 3x more than when I worked at a fulltime employee. I shopped around. It wasn't until Romney passed the health insurance law that it became cheaper for independent contractors and self-employed. Before the federal reserve was created, we already had inflation. Look back even further in history of other countries. The rate of inflation was lower, but it was still there. Once you have a government that actually provide public services, you're bound to get inflation. So are you suggesting we abolish all forms of government? I'm not for or against government, but it is an important question to ask. The high cost of drugs is because drug companies want to make money. Many insurance companies put up barriers to customers getting it. In the industry it's call drug pre-approval. Basically you have to go through dozens of steps before they will pay for expensive perscription drugs. FDA has issues, but that is independent of other cost issues. Ford factory comparison to medicine is silly. The amount of training and knowledge needed to specialize in something like neurology is completely different than building brakes for a chev camaro. If a factory worker screws up on the brakes it's not that big of a deal. If a surgeon screws up with your brain, you're a pumpkin. In the time that I've worked with health insurance companies, the cost of managing subscribers has actually gone up. That's not me saying it, that's the financial guys at the big companies in Connecticut. Most of it is due to poor management and mis-management. When a company gets beyond a certain size, getting everyone to work nicely in unison is like moving a mountain. I've seen this first hand. It has nothing to do with governments at all. It happens in every sector and isn't unique to health insurance.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

I am suggesting that US reviews the Constitution and returns to it, but also makes it illegal for government to meddle with private economy in every single way.

Gov't has a role - border security, criminal and contract law, basic protection of freedoms and liberties. Everything else better be left to the market.

The entire 'interstate' clause should be reviewed to specify that the only thing meant by it must be leveling of the playing field between states, so if one state hands you a driver license, it's valid in other states, same with all professions - you get your medical or investor license in one state, it should be valid in others. There should be protection of liberties of people by the government, protection of liberties of people to be free and to choose what they want in terms of all products and services and money and government shouldn't be dictating any of it - that should be the job of the federal government, protecting your liberty to buy your health insurance form a provider in Hong Kong.

Re:FDA

[afidel]

When you talk about "abortion pill" are you talking about RU-486? Because that's available in the US, but some very rural citizen may have trouble accessing it during the effective period due to doctors refusing to dispense it on "moral" grounds (it can not be dispensed by pharmacists but only by specially licensed doctors in the US). Or are you talking about progestin levonorgestrel (aka plan B in the US) which is also available and can be replicated by a 4x normal dosage of common birth control pills?

Re:FDA

[Doc Ruby]

Both of those products were kept from Americans for as long as possible by theocrat money. The continued hassle shows the theocrats still have power over our healthcare: theosocialized medicine.

Re:FDA

[sjames]

- what do you think happened before FDA?

Children died when their cough syrup was formulated with antifreeze because it was cheap.

Re:FDA

[afidel]

Yes, because politics and religion have *nothing* to do with the available treatments or availability of abortions to most of the citizens of the EU. *snicker*

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

Nope, that happened on FDA's watch, so what did FDA do about that exactly?

AFAIC nothing. Just like SEC does nothing stopping the real investments disasters - Federal reserve destroying the money supply.

As to antifreeze - that's where private industry would provide much more support to consumers than any gov't agency could, because there would have been more competition in the field, and nobody is interested in killing their customers. The system that did kill these kids is the current system.

Re:FDA

[sjames]

There was an FDA but it was powerless to insist on proof of safety or efficacy, so it wasn't at all what we are now familiar with. It only had the power to pull the product from the shelves after the deaths on the technicality that it wasn't technically an elixir as the label claimed. However, they DID use that technicality to yank the deadly product from the shelves. I should correct myself though, it wasn't cough syrup, it was a sulfa preparation.

That was the very private industry you claimed would never do that. It DID do that. The owner of the company rather infamously claimed that it was simply fulfilling a demand for the product and bore no responsibility for the deaths that resulted, and that's why the FDA was given teeth.

Note that exactly this sort of thing has been seen just recently in China, both with melamine adulterated baby formula and pet food and with diethylene glycol in toothpaste. Perhaps they need better regulation over there, the market doesn't seem to be up to the job.

Note, I am hardly a fan of the FDA as it stands today. They manage to fail in their primary function and at the same time drive up prices through unwarranted excesses of regulation. I would like to see it disbanded in it's entirety and replaced with a new organization. They should not have as much power as they do now. For example, there should be no such thing as a prescription only drug, they should be prescription suggested drugs. They should have the power to insist that any marketing claim is backed by appropriate trial data and that any and all risks are faithfully reported in full.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

That was the very private industry you claimed would never do that. It DID do that - nope. I didn't say just 'private'.

I said FREE MARKET, which means market free of government intervention and which means market that provides competition.

As to killing people - there is already criminal law against killing people, even if it's done by negligence, the law would still apply.

Re:FDA

[sjames]

So, what evil government interference drove the fine upstanding businessman to add poison to the sulfa elixir in order to save a buck? Why then did he claim he was just meeting a market demand and so, blameless?

I'm beginning to believe there will never be a market that meets your requirements for free!

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

No, it's not free market if there is FDA and government money in health care/insurance, which makes it impossible to compete with established monopolies.

Get the government money out of business, out of medical insurance, out of medical care, out of pharma, get rid of FDA and do one thing - enforce criminal and contract laws.

That's all there is to it. Enforce the laws that already make it ILLEGAL TO KILL people, regardless of how and why the people are killed.

Is that beyond the ability of government in your mind to do this? What it really is, it's unwillingness to admit that the system is corrupt and it's on the wrong track completely. That the entire idea of government dictating to free people how to live their lives, how to invest their money, how to spend their money, the idea of taxing work, the idea of setting cost of borrowing (interest rates), enforcing a fiat currency and printing the currency away while making it impossible to compete in money for private businesses, this idea is bankrupt. The entire idea is a failure. It's 100 years of complete and total failure, which needs to be erased and reworked.

Re:FDA

[sjames]

Sure, it is illegal to kill people. Unfortunately, it was not specifically illegal to put a sweet tasting goo with no proven safety into a medicine, so that's just what was done (because it was cheap sweet tasting goo). What market distorting act of the government drove that clearly saintly businessman to take such a huge risk with other people's lives?

I get the feeling I might as well be trying to argue the reasonability of the theory of evolution with a fundie.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

Don't need any laws that are specific. Once you have a law making it illegal to kill somebody, it's good enough.

It's like those stupid laws that they add about driving and not switching your radio or talking on the phone. There are ALREADY laws that make it illegal to drive carelessly and obviously if you cause an accident that's all that matters. Same principle, and I am not sure who I am arguing with here, but it's not very useful.

Re:FDA

[sjames]

Don't need any laws that are specific. Once you have a law making it illegal to kill somebody, it's good enough.

Tell that to the people who used the Elixir Sulfanilamide, or I should say, tell their next of kin.

Normally I would agree that less laws is better. Certainly where something is clearly and obviously illegal there is little point in making it "double dog illegal". However, where there is ambiguity such as crimes of negligence, it's necessary to be more specific about what we mean by negligence (as in negligent manslaughter). It's painfully clear that there is a need to specify that not knowing specifically of a problem with some new formulation isn't good enough, the ingredients need to be demonstrated to be at worst less harmful than the condition they treat AND no more harmful than similarly effective ingredients. Even knowing enough to make those determinations requires a level of collaboration across the industry that is unlikely to happen under a completely free market. If any such cooperation did happen, it would tend to be amongst a few larger players and used as a barrier to entry.

Would you consider a market where a cartel has erected an insurmountable barrier to entry to be "free" or is it more free if the government interferes with a must collaborate rule?

The cellphone argument would be a lot stronger if there weren't millions of people all over the world yakking away on their cellphones while driving. Negligent driving is illegal pretty much everywhere. If your argument held water, driving while on the phone would be an unusual event and it would be quite common to see people pulled over to talk on the phone. It seems that people must not only be told that talking on the phone while driving is negligent, the message has to be underlined with substantial fines even in the absense of an accident.

You are essentially arguing the impossibility of something that already happened using the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Re:FDA

[roman_mir]

If it was legitimate negligence that caused death (and not testing drugs for safety is), then there is no ambiguity. It's not premeditated murder, but it's murder.

Cartels don't work, the oil cartel proves it. Nobody wants to be the only guy who meets and does not exceed his quotas, so prices go down.

Forcing people to pay fines for talking on their phones while driving is going too far. If they are being negligent/careless on the road, that's already a cause enough, and if they are involved in an accident while being careless, that's again a good enough cause.

Re:FDA

[sjames]

So keep the laws fast and loose and just fine people nearly at random for things that don't seem right?

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[lolococo]

Sounds more like wealth care than health care to me.

Quality vs. Availability

[EmagGeek]

It's an important distinction to make. People come to the US for the quality, and people from the US go elsewhere for availability, usually in desperation.

Re:Quality vs. Availability

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you nailed that one right in the head. Because, obviously, that football quarterback fellow and that other computer geek guy are dirt poor and could not afford the superior quality medical care offered to them in the US. Poor them, had to fly all the way to stinky poor ol'Europe in their terrible, awful private jets to go get treated in inferior Europe, where doctors and hospitals are a dime a dozen on the street corner.

Oh, the humanity!

Re:Quality vs. Availability

[Chrisq]

It's an important distinction to make. People come to the US for the quality, and people from the US go elsewhere for availability, usually in desperation.

Applies to many things but not hookers or Mexican food.

Re:Quality vs. Availability

[Attila Dimedici]

You completely misread what he said. To rephrase so that even someone like you can understand. People come to the U.S. for medical care because of the overall quality of the care. However, there are some conditions that do not yet have a good treatment approved in the U.S. (due to the length of time and complexity of getting a new treatment approved by the FDA). In those cases, the wealthy from the U.S. will go somewhere where those treatments are available (or, at least some treatment is available, even if its efficacy is questionable).

Re:Quality vs. Availability

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an important distinction to make. People come to the US for the quality, and people from the US go elsewhere for availability, usually in desperation.

What quality ? Americans are brainwashed from the nursery 'til the day they die to think that the worship of money is all there is. Everything else is irrelevant, and it must come as a cultural shock to see that the rest of the world gets just fine without them and their crazy political ideology. Wow it can't be possibile that european or even comunist countries have a better health system than the US. It can't be possibile that the rest of the world invests in the future and infrastructure while you bloody americans invest in a culture of war.
The US used to stand for something 30 years ago. Its all gone downhill since them. Only the really desperate people in the third world countries aspire to be americans citizens, and then its their second option since most would really like to come to europe.
Open your eyes, see the world for what it really is and then fix your damn country.

Re:Quality vs. Availability

[Anonymous Coward]

Not completely correct!
This would be true when traveling to countries were both stem cells aren't prohibited AND the local health care system (if present) doesn't require therapies and drugs to be tested and approved, like for China or India.

In Switzerland (and in some other few European countries) some stem cells therapies are available and they are highly regulated. This is also true for "edgy" radiological therapies and other stuff.
And about quality... Yes quite a few have very good quality and not only when you have the mighty buck at your side.

Accept the fact that you don't have and healthcare system but an healthcare industry/politic system.

Re:Quality vs. Availability

[Asic Eng]

Can you support this claim somehow? I hear sometimes of people from Europe going to the US or to other European countries in order to get a speciality treatment only available there. Same as the other way round. I've never heard of anyone spending money on a treatment in the US which he could also receive in his home country, basically for free. Are you aware of a case?

BTW, for Americans going abroad in order to afford treatment: you might consider Taiwan as well. Their English language skills are typically not great, but they have a high quality medical system.

Christ versus Christians

[KingAlanI]

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mohandas Gandhi

Jesus Himself does in many ways seem like a positive example; people following the obnoxious behavior of the Old Testament God seems to be the issue IMHO. Christians not partaking of such behavior is good, but in some ways they seem to be glossing over that issue in the Book.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Anonymous Coward]

What's worse is that the bible doesn't mention science in any way. Nowhere it is written that progress is to be abandoned.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[ByOhTek]

Most Christians do not realize Jesus was pretty cool to the people of different faith than him, allowing them their own beliefs so long as they didn't bother the people of his faith.

Jesus, however was extremely intolerant. At least, he was intolerant to those of his own faith who abused it for their own benefits. I can only imagine what he'd do to the Christian right, right now.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[rwa2]

Amen! Let's get the boys and girls together and have a laying of hands!

(which I think had been scientifically proven to have some kind of beneficial relaxation effect [citation needed])

Re:Christ versus Christians

[spamking]

Most Christians do not realize Jesus was pretty cool to the people of different faith than him, allowing them their own beliefs so long as they didn't bother the people of his faith.

Care to provide an example of how Jesus was "pretty cool" in this way?

Re:Christ versus Christians

[spamking]

Exactly . . . why would anyone infer that we're not supposed to use our God-given abilities to improve our lives?

Re:Christ versus Christians

[MightyYar]

Citation: Buddy Christ.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[ArcherB]

Most Christians do not realize Jesus was pretty cool to the people of different faith than him, allowing them their own beliefs so long as they didn't bother the people of his faith.

Care to provide an example of how Jesus was "pretty cool" in this way?

Parable of the Good Samaritan: Luke 10:25-37
Jesus heals 10 Lepers: Luke 17:11-19

Here are two examples that I found in about 1 minute.

Although, in my one minute of research, I didn't find a whole lot more backing up the GP's claims. I do read where he tells rich man to give away his belonging and follow him if he wanted to get into Heaven. Notice that he didn't say, "be a good person in whatever religion you belong to" to get in to Heaven. He said to follow HIM.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen! Let's get the boys and girls together and have a laying of hands!

I dunno, the Catholic church has had some bad PR with that kind of thing, recently.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Tsingi]

Once, the Earth used to be the center of the universe, and the sun revolved around us. To suggest otherwise was heresy.

Once man was created as the image of the Christian God and woman from man. To suggest otherwise was heresy.

Now, using stem cells to save lives is heresy. Eventually this will change, but in the meantime be prepared to lose loved ones who could have lived longer healthier lives.

If there were a God, I would think that he would be angered by the atrocities committed in his name.

--
"God loves you, and he needs money."
George Carlin

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Lumpy]

Yes

The Bible , New Testament. in the original writings, not the catholic church modified versions to add in more hatred.

I'm picking on the Catholics only because they have done more historical damage to Christianity than any other church. Mostly because of the Roman Catholic church and it's desire for power and control was far above that of purity and worship.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[jitterman]

I have to say as a Christian that I am in strong disagreement with those who noisily espouse to represent (intolerant, angry, and selfish) Christian viewpoints for the whole while truly only representing the vocal minority. I enjoy science; I abhor hate in the name of "saving" people; I believe in evolutionary processes; tolerance is to be embraced (atheists, polytheists, etc - each choose your own way and as long you don't try to get ugly with me, it's all good on my end even if I disagree with you); the Church (I am Catholic) sometimes (often?) has a problem distinguishing between the laws of men and the laws of God and I wish it didn't. Hopefully, religious bigotry won't keep us from using medicine to benefit humanity for too long.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[FredFredrickson]

Requiring belief in something that has no objective evidence is pretty much anti-science.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[CapuchinSeven]

What I find interesting about Christians and Christ, is that whenever the bible makes out Christ was a dick (i.e. cursing a fruit tree to never have fruit again because he wanted fruit but the tree was out of season so there was none to have) Christens call it a metaphor, but whenever he did something awesome then that's totally real and actually happened.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Tsingi]

Hopefully, religious bigotry won't keep us from using medicine to benefit humanity for too long.

Too long? What is too long? When you lose a loved one? Is that too long? You my friend, by subscribing to a religion, lend your support (willingly or not) to the views of the leadership that you follow.
I fail to understand how people can say that they belong to a Christian sect and claim to agree with the good things and not the bad. Your religion forbids this.
You can easily vote your disagreement by not belonging. Are there not religions that give you your God, behave in a socially responsible way, AND support your beliefs?

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Reverand Dave]

In the grand scheme of things I think today's modern day far right christians are doing a much better job of turning people off of their religion than the Catholics did.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[IICV]

If there were a God, I would think that he would be angered by the atrocities committed in his name.

Clearly you haven't read the Old Testament. God is an asshole. See, oh I don't know, the story where God commands Abraham to kill his son and then says "lol jk", the story where God lets Job's family get killed but then gives him an even better one, the story where God spends a couple of months trolling Jonah by doing various weirdly passive-aggressive things to him, or hell just any one of the stories about the Israelites raping and pillaging their way across the countryside, with God's blessing.

The only difference between the Old and New Testaments is that in the NT, God's an asshole who just got laid. It's been two thousand years since the last Messiah with that particular origin story, so I'd assume that the rosy afterglow has worn off.

If there is a God, he's sitting up there going "trolololo".

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh. A lot of science was done by religious people (many of them Christians).

A lot of science was done by the Jews too (many of them might be atheist Jews, but is it still not interesting that the Chosen People have so much influence and such a significant position in the World? On a per person basis they sure have way higher than average representation compared to other groups).

Re:Christ versus Christians

[xaxa]

From here (Catholic Church of England and Wales, though it cites the Vatican directly):

Embryos (Human)
2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

  Prenatal diagnosis is morally licit, "if it respects the life and integrity of the embryo and the human foetus and is directed toward its safe guarding or healing as an individual....
It is gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent of a death sentence."

If science is important to you, why do you support this organisation?

I think there are plenty of reasons (not just science) for Catholics to reject their Church, and I wish more of it's Western supporters would leave it.

(For an analogy, I agree with a few of the policies of the British National Party, who are essentially Nazis. But there's no way I'd join.)

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Tsingi]

Clearly you haven't read the Old Testament. God is an asshole.

But he loves you!

Yeah, I knew all that, but I restrict my reading to good sci-fi stuff like Genesis, and my absolute favourite, Revelations.

I stood at a busy crossing downtown once and quoted revelations at the top of my voice for 5 minutes. Mostly to prove to my son that I would do it. No one even looks at you, it's pretty cool, you may as well be standing alone in a forest. (If you're standing alone in a forest spouting Rrevelations, and a tree falls and hits you on the head, is it the Apocalypse?)

Anyway, I said if "I" were a god, but admittedly I didn't word it very well.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Anonymous Coward]

What I find interesting about Christians and Christ, is that whenever the bible makes out Christ was a dick (i.e. cursing a fruit tree to never have fruit again because he wanted fruit but the tree was out of season so there was none to have) Christens call it a metaphor, but whenever he did something awesome then that's totally real and actually happened.

The bit I find interesting (read: scary) is that Christians spend a lot of time reading and discussing the interpretation of bible passages which are apparently open to debate and the Solid Absolute Truth at the same time.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[GodInHell]

Its a world-view issue. It works like this -- Adam and Eve were created as perfect beings with the ability to make moral choices. They made the wrong choice triggering the fall. Since then, their perfect knowledge of the world and its mechanisms degraded more and more over time. St. Thomas Aquinas, writing in the 1200s, who's works were embraced by the catholic church both during and after his life, lived in a world where Alexander and Rome had come and gone, all the great thinkers worth reading (Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Epicurus,etc and of course the Biblical authors) were long dead and gone.

Aquinas lived in a world looking back at a high water mark of knowledge and culture. Put the religious spin of the origin tale on it, the fall of man, and you have a world where the great texts are great not because the authors were great in and of themselves, but because they were closer to the source of truth -- the time when all men knew what was true and what wasn't because that knowledge was handed down from Adam and Eve, who received it from God.

That is the origin of the distrust for science. The Evangelical right, which still views the text of the bible is revered as the exclusive source of truth, still lives there. More importantly, when they read the bible, the pull out the verses that suggest that world is a place of lies and trickery trying to pull man off the path set forth in the book -- and you have a recipe for outright hostility to science -- which becomes satanic trickster, trying to pull good men off the path of blind faith into all these murky "questions" and "hypothesis."

Or, in short -- The book says you're wrong. You can't trick me. I'll kill you first.

-GiH

Re:Christ versus Christians

[bberens]

Jesus was/is anything but tolerant to people of other faiths. When they die he condemns their eternal soul to never ending damnation. Just sayin...

Re:Christ versus Christians

[spamking]

Wow.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[davester666]

You sir, will never make a good TV or radio commentator.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Bengie]

Christ was all about forgiveness and was slow to anger.. except when it came to perversion of the Bible. His largest out-lashes against people were always against people to twisted the words of God(Bible) or claimed to be Christians but did not act it(typically greedy or unforgiving).

Remember, He looked down more on the people who were judgmental of the prostitute, than the prostitute herself. Just based on that alone, "I'm holier than thou" type Christians are lower than whores.

Maybe you should read the Bible a bit, it's quite clear.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[ChrisMaple]

The protestors are griping about the use of embrionic stem cells, not stem cells in general. They're wrong, but the difference is important and ignoring it is dishonest.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[GameboyRMH]

I've actually discovered how Christians rationalize this. They consider God's sense of justice to be different from man's, and that God's is absolute and perfect while man's is flawed. Yes, he would create man with a sense of justice that makes his own look dickish.

So there you have it folks, God's justice is to act like a dickhead /b/tard who broke into an MMO's admin account.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[VisceralLogic]

What I find interesting about Christians and Christ, is that whenever the bible makes out Christ was a dick (i.e. cursing a fruit tree to never have fruit again because he wanted fruit but the tree was out of season so there was none to have) Christens call it a metaphor, but whenever he did something awesome then that's totally real and actually happened.

Saying that the fruit tree incident was a metaphor doesn't imply that it didn't really happen, just that it had additional symbolic value.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Rob Kaper]

In Matthew and Luke, Jesus frequently advocates violence or condemns those who do not submit to him. Like father, like son.

I like most modern day Christians a whole lot better.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[ChocNut]

I'm a highly educated Christian involved in cutting edge tech development. I love science. I love exploring God's work. I follow the words of Christ as best I can.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Rob Kaper]

I fail to understand how people can say that they belong to a Christian sect and claim to agree with the good things and not the bad. Your religion forbids this.

I agree that it is confusing how ambiguous the term Christian (or Muslim, for that matter) has become and that an elaborately filtered or revised denomination would be very beneficial to non-believers and possible even more so the believers themselves. But the majority of modern day believers indeed applying filters is ultimately a lot more important.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[ZFox]

If science is important to you, why do you support this organisation [sic]?

Because to a Catholic ascribing those beliefs that would be tantamount to performing medical tests on prisoners or raising children as an organ farm.

Is it that so unimaginable to you that the definition of what is and is not human and when that occurs is not 100% clear-cut? I am personally of the belief that this happens at some point between conception and birth (different for each) and that by saying, treat all fetuses as humans immediately after conception is the only 100% way not treat one mistakenly. I don't think this makes me anti-science, but as is their right, I'm sure others will oppose.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[pommiekiwifruit]

IIRC some Muslims think that the fruit tree incident is a key indicator that Jesus was not divine, since otherwise He would have known it was bare. I can't remember learning about that at Sunday School (or anything else for that matter), so I don't know what the standard reply would be...

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fucketh thou"?

Re:Christ versus Christians

[tehcyder]

Jesus was/is anything but tolerant to people of other faiths. When they die he condemns their eternal soul to never ending damnation. Just sayin...

Yeah, but apart from that...I mean, no-one's perfect.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[CapuchinSeven]

So... That tree died for our sins? ALL HAIL THE FRUIT TREE!

Re:Christ versus Christians

[xaxa]

If science is important to you, why do you support this organisation [sic]?

"Organisation" is the correct spelling in British English, TYVM ;-)

Because to a Catholic ascribing those beliefs that would be tantamount to performing medical tests on prisoners or raising children as an organ farm.

Is it that so unimaginable to you that the definition of what is and is not human and when that occurs is not 100% clear-cut?

I was replying to a comment from a Catholic who "[hopes] religious bigotry won't keep us from using medicine to benefit humanity for too long." He was replying to a comment about stem cell research, so my assumption is that he supports such research. In my opinion he shouldn't describe himself as Catholic -- especially if, as you say, avoiding stem cell research is of such high moral importance.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[Grishnakh]

You can easily vote your disagreement by not belonging. Are there not religions that give you your God, behave in a socially responsible way, AND support your beliefs?

You don't even have to abandon your religion (Christianity), you just have to move to a different sect. There's countless different sects of Christianity, and most of them aren't Catholic and don't follow the Vatican. A lot of those are fundamentalist, so they're even worse, but several of the mainline Protestant denominations are quite open-minded these days. Episcopals now have female ministers, and the US Presbyterian church is allowing openly-gay ministers in addition to female ones. I believe the Lutherans are fairly liberal too.

Unfortunately, what we're seeing in America now is that these "mainline" denominations are losing membership fast, and much of their remaining membership is elderly, while the Bachmann-following fundamentalist churches are gaining numbers quickly, and have been for the last couple of decades. In fact, the fundamentalists now outnumber the mainline Protestants (if you ignore the Catholics). The Catholics aren't much better, with their anti-contraception views that fit in quite neatly with fundamentalist dogma.

So yes, I agree: Christians (or other religionists) need to vote with their feet. If you don't agree with the BS from the Vatican, stop going to Catholic churches and giving them your money, because you're just feeding the beast. Go find a church that agrees with your worldview. They're out there, they just don't get as much publicity.

Re:Christ versus Christians

[badkarmadayaccount]

IANAPsychiatrist, but touch ought to lead to an oxytocin rush.

Oh no...

[fullback]

This isn't going to be pretty when the "We're Number One!" and "USA! USA! USA!" crowd gets here.

Overly Simplistic

[psnyder]

Medical treatment varies greatly from disease to disease, from country to country.
If you're looking for a general overview of the quality of care in a country, look at the survival rates of the widespread ones within a group.

For example, if judging cancer survival, you might look at prostate, breast, colon, and rectal.
"The highest survival rates were found in the U.S. for breast and prostate cancer, in Japan for colon and rectal cancers in men, and in France for colon and rectal cancers in women, Coleman's team reports."

Re:Overly Simplistic

[YojimboJango]

Yeah, this is pretty standard over hyped fare here. It could as well be, "Worlds best stem cell doctor decides to live in Switzerland." I bet he's rich over there too.

Basically the US has the best medical industry because we pay through the nose for it, and (in general) the best surgeons from around the world can make a killing by living in the states. Doesn't mean that you won't find outstanding doctors that decide, hey living in Europe is more cool than a third BMW.

Re:Overly Simplistic

[ConfusedVorlon]

you have to watch those stats as well. E.g. prostrate cancer survival ~ #alive after n years/#diagnosed

the 'real' measure would be
#alive after n years/#with cancer

different countries will have different values for
#diagnosed/#with cancer

and the diagnosed group is unlikely to be an unbiased sample.

Re:Overly Simplistic

[Larryish]

So if y'all gots de cancer in yo' titties oh in yo' ass, France got you covered, baby.

Re:Overly Simplistic

[sjames]

You have to analyze those figures very carefully though. For example, in the U.S. there has been a lot of emphasis on detecting prostate cancer early. Often the correct treatment is "watchful waiting", that is, it develops very slowly and often the patient dies of natural causes before the cancer becomes a problem. All well and good, but it skews the figures to look like U.S. treatment is more effective when in other countries the only prostate cancers that are actually detected at all are the few more severe cases that must be treated and respond poorly.

Re:Overly Simplistic

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, if judging cancer survival, you might look at prostate, breast, colon, and rectal.
"The highest survival rates were found in the U.S. for breast and prostate cancer, in Japan for colon and rectal cancers in men, and in France for colon and rectal cancers in women, Coleman's team reports."

... which may have more to do with local diet and other factors than the health care system itself.

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[samjam]

I like your .sig --- literally true when t is time

Re:Happy "Talk Like a Faggot" day

[Chrisq]

Be sure to tell anyone who talks like a pirate today that they are a faggot.

You fool - I just tried it and now I've been keelhauled.

Wealthy Xians travel to Y...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact is, the wealthy can afford to travel for medical care. Wealthy Europeans also come to America, wealthy Asians go to Europe...if you have money, you can and do go wherever you think you'll get better care.

This really doesn't have anything to do with the overall superiority or inferiority of the medical care in a given country or region; it's just the wealthy doing what wealthy people do.

Global Competition

[Doc Ruby]

These therapies are available, but there aren't that many patients. Not enough to support dispensing the therapies many places in the world.

The US doesn't have to offer every single medical treatment. Not when so many are targeted at so few patients. Not when our medical system isn't properly organized or financed to deliver even basic medical services to nearly everyone in the country first. Basic care for practically everyone is a higher priority than the most exotic care for a few.

The US does deliver that exotic treatment of rare diseases, often uniquely in the world, in vast overproportion to our population or even our weighted socioeconomic status in the world. There's plenty of unusual therapies for other countries to be the only ones to offer.

If we're worried that strategic medical innovation is happening elsewhere, we should simply do what those other countries do in a world they share with the US: piggyback on the basic research and early practice when therapies are new, to commodify them to serve lots more people more cheaply, safely and effectively.

That's how medicine works when it's primarily a service, not primarily a profitable business. The profit is retained, but not at the expense of the majority of the people's needs.

Americans go where?

[bogaboga]

Doesn't every politician especially from the GOP say that the American Healthcare system and its actual care are the "best" in the world?

By the way, this is despite the fact that various metrics indicate the USA is no where near the top!

Re:Americans go where?

[Attila Dimedici]

Of course, as someone else pointed out, the best way to judge a country's medical care is not by the types of metrics used in that study, but by comparing survival rates for those diagnosed with particular illnesses (where the U.S. ranks much higher). One of the interesting things to look at in the metrics used in the study you linked is "infant mortality rate". In the U.S., if a baby is born alive and dies while still an infant, it counts towards infant moratlity rates. In some countries, if the baby does not survive 24 hours, it is considered still born. There are several other similar variations in how some of the other statistics are counted that make those metrics a suspect way to compare health care systems. Another example, the life expectancy for Japan is higher than for the U.S., yet Japanese-Americans have a higher life expectancy than Japanese living in Japan.

Re:Americans go where?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't every politician especially from the GOP say that the American Healthcare system and its actual care are the "best" in the world?

As a New Zealander I remember my one and only interaction with the american health system. I was working in Austin TX and was rear ended in a best built american car. The paramedics arrived and I kid you not the first question was "Do you have health insurance?" at that stage I was living in the UK and had lived in NZ and you never got asked anything like that. Anyway the company I worked for sorted it all out and I ended up in hospital. Again extremely strange A&E treatment, like nothing I'd ever experienced. I asked the nurse what was going on, it turns out she was another New Zealander. Her comment completely blew me away, she told me that they were not treating me for the accident, they were treating me so they could not be sued.

I got the hell out of the US and moved back to a country with socialised medicine!

Re:Americans go where?

[Slashdot Parent]

Doesn't every politician especially from the GOP say that the American Healthcare system and its actual care are the "best" in the world?

By the way, this is despite the fact that various metrics indicate the USA is no where near the top!

There are lots of reasons for Medical Tourism. Canadians come to the US to jump the waiting lists. Americans go to India due to cost reasons. British people go to France due to insufficient capacity. This is to be expected due to the law of comparative advantage. No one locality has an absolute advantage over every other locality, and we would never expect it to.

The US does, due to our sheer size, have a pretty big advantage over many other parts of the world. For instance, my wife is currently suffering from an extremely rare cancer. There are very few hospitals in the world who have any serious expertise in treating it, and most of them are in the US: Chicago, Boston, Chapel Hill, NC, and London. None of those are local to us, so I guess you could say that she is a medical tourist. She is being treated at the hospitals at UNC and Northwestern (Chicago).

People in the comments are saying that Cuba has the best health care system in the world. Maybe in terms of infant mortality, but my kids are plenty alive, while my wife is at serious risk of death, so Cuba doesn't offer us much. A quick search through the literature does not turn up a single instance of the Cubans curing a female patient with her cancer having reached stage IV.

So if we were Cuban, she would likely be quite dead right now. She may yet not celebrate her next birthday, but at least her odds are up to 50/50 now. She arrived at the hospital with about 48 hours to live, so I'd say this is a pretty big improvement. There is no other country in the world that we'd rather have her treated in. If there was, she'd be there right now, believe me.

Medical tourism definition

[KingAlanI]

Yeah, normally the term "medical tourism" seems to be associated with simply getting commonly available procedures on the cheap

Medicine in America...

[Kagetsuki]

Is one of the major reasons I'm never going back. The last time I went (which will be the last time, period) my son caught a cold and was turned away from three hospitals because we didn't have the right type of insurance. I guess I shouldn't say turned away, I should say they all told me that because I didn't have the right type of insurance and I didn't have the an appointment I would have to go to the ER, which would easily cost thousands of dollars. Here in Japan my son would have been seen immediately, for free, wherever we went. Our medical system isn't socialized either, so don't even try that argument.

Shortly after that my wife had some allergy related breathing issues and we went to a hospital that did accept the insurance we had to get medicine. They diagnosed her with a degenerative lung disorder and ordered up all sorts of tests. Even with the insurance everything cost over $2,000 and guess what - it wasn't a degenerative lung disorder but rather a simple allergy attack like we thought in the beginning. On top of that we found every hospital we went to seemed dirty, was staffed with doctors and nurses who didn't seem to give a shit, and were constantly asked the same questions over and over as if the staff didn't bother to even look at the papers the previous person had filled out. I'm not just talking about one hospital either, all of them we went to were like this.

So yeah, rich Americans go overseas for medical care? Wow, big surprise there.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

should say they all told me that because I didn't have the right type of insurance and I didn't have the an appointment I would have to go to the ER, which would easily cost thousands of dollars.

I'm calling BS on this one. There are tons or urgent care centers that you can go to without an appointment and pay with cash. I doctor's visit for a cold would probably be between 100-200 dollars. Your complaining about no appointment makes me think that you tried to get in at a doctor's office (not urgent care) which you typically need an appointment.

On top of that we found every hospital we went to seemed dirty, was staffed with doctors and nurses who didn't seem to give a shit, and were constantly asked the same questions over and over as if the staff didn't bother to even look at the papers the previous person had filled out.

Every hospital? How many hospitals did you go to? Major signs of trolling here.

Re:Medicine in America...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. If your wife DID have a serious lung disease, you WOULD have sued the hospital for not doing enough tests, and the hospital WOULD have been legally culpable. Freaking weaboos.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some places do it to ensure that the chart is right or that your story isn't changing. But then again you have to be carefully to contribute intelligence to something that is simply ineptitude.

Re:Medicine in America...

[maxume]

Was he having trouble breathing or something more serious like that? A simple check to see if he had something that would justify antibiotics would cost a few hundred dollars in an ER, not thousands.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your son caught a *cold* and you went to the hospital?

I presume there must have been some underlying concern or your son was a newborn or something!

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the world did you take your son to the hospital with a cold?

Re:Medicine in America...

[vlm]

staffed with doctors and nurses who didn't seem to give a shit, and were constantly asked the same questions over and over as if the staff didn't bother to even look at the papers the previous person had filled out

I had to LOL at that. The first part is because they're frazzled after being on a 36 hour working shift dealing with people taking their kids to the hospital merely because they have the sniffles. Ask a doc what "GOMER" means... get outta my ER...

The second part is if you're having trouble breathing or in pain they do that 100% intentionally and repeatedly to document your response, on the theory that if you start hallucinating or giving bonkers results, or even worse, can no longer physically respond, that would indicate blood oxygenation problems or truly intense pain. Also its SOP to talk like that to the relatives to show "they care" and also it gets any anti-social responses out of the way during a medically irrelevant and personally staffed moment rather than during a procedure or when they're freaking out alone. Its scripted by the management and legal teams based on extensive clinical research, certainly nothing personal. They ask those specific questions because obviously they already know the "correct" answers and can therefore evaluate the mental function of the patient and patient's relatives. Finally they have to do it repeatedly to make sure the patient is at least stable or preferably improving in function... if the patient and/or relatives gives worse and worse answers as time goes on, then the docs really start freaking out (although you're not suppose to be able to notice). If the patient is getting to be a bit of a smart ass about it, that is a pretty good indication the patient is feeling much better; they're actually hoping for that kind of response; if the patient has given up all hope and is ignoring them, then the nurses and docs start freaking out. It turns out that asking someone to perform is way the heck more accurate than asking someone to evaluate their own performance; I suppose that could be culturally different. My nurse niece in law had a long sorta humorous conversation about being trained to do this, and its apparently industry wide not just her, or her hospital, or her corporation, apparently the old timers who've heard it all tend to turn the practical experience section into a laugh riot.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate the American system for almost a similar reason. When we moved here, I got a great health insurance (large private university faculty) for my family, which had very small deductibles for in-network treatment and RX ($100 in-network, $5 copay, for pharma) and would pay for treatment up to millions in cost. When choosing local providers we ended up picking this clinic which had an imaging services center on the second floor. We went there for the initial physical and as part of the physical the doctor saw something strange in my wife's ECG. Well, the doctor thought she needed a heart ultrasound, so she walked my wife to the imaging center upstairs for the ultrasound.

Guess what? Turns out the imaging center was out-of-network for our insurance policy while the clinic downstairs was in-network, so she got a nice $3000 bill from them (the out-of-network deductible). Never in the world would I have thought that the doctor (who knew precisely what insurance we had), would just walk a patient to a procedure that would cost that much. I guess we learned our lesson pretty quickly. As a patient you need to be following up what's going on around you like you were a spy and whenever you see anything that might cost a cent, you demand they call your insurance company to check for it.

The worst thing is that when you're sick, you usually do not have the energy to do all of this. For this reason the US is the only country where I'm always stressed about going to the doctor. Not because I'm stressed they might find something bad, but because you never know if something gets fucked up with insurance issues and you'll have to pay tons of money. Best system in the world my ass, it's more like the worst.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Pascal Sartoretti]

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. If your wife DID have a serious lung disease, you WOULD have sued the hospital for not doing enough tests, and the hospital WOULD have been legally culpable. Freaking weaboos.

A typical American reaction : a medical problem turned into a legal one.

You wanna have a better health system ? Train more doctors and less lawyers.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Kagetsuki]

My son had a fever and a cough. In Japan you go to the doctor and get it checked out and they give you medicine. And they told me it would have been over a thousand dollars to be seen in the ER. It was in California by the way - I get the impression things are different in different states.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell does a rambling anecdote score "5, Interesting"?

Well, this one time, at band camp, I read a boring story by an ethno-bigot which pretended to "prove" something about an entirely unrelated topic when the whole thing was simply a cover for some political, possibly racist, sniping.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is one of the major reasons I'm never going back. The last time I went (which will be the last time, period) my son caught a cold and was turned away from three hospitals because we didn't have the right type of insurance.

Here's some information that will make you a better parent:

1. A cold is not an emergency condition.
2. Colds do not normally require hospital care.

I guess I shouldn't say turned away, I should say they all told me that because I didn't have the right type of insurance and I didn't have the an appointment I would have to go to the ER, which would easily cost thousands of dollars.

You are confusing hospital care with emergency care. You might also want to try a so-called "urgent care center", walk-in clinic or make an appointment. Or go to a doctor's office.

In the USA, emergency is not legally allowed to turn you away. Under EMTALA, they will treat you first and send you the bill later.

Emergency is a very expensive, inefficient method of providing medical care for issues that should be dealt with by a family doctor, pediatrician, or walk-in clinic.

The fact that you chose not run the risk of paying for ER care strongly suggests that at some level you know that a cold isn't an emergency condition.

Here in Japan my son would have been seen immediately, for free, wherever we went.

Wait a minute, you're telling me that in Japan that they have so many doctors, on standby, doing nothing (ie not treating actual sick people), that they would immediately see your child with a cold?

That is an extremely inefficient, expensive way to run a health care system. Or you're lying.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about doing your homework and finding out where you need to go *before* you get sick.

Re:Medicine in America...

[NickDB]

Yeah, and a foreigner in a stressful situation, is immediately going to think, hold on a sec; this is a America a first world country, I need to check which hospital I can go to. Instead of Oh shit, I need to go to a hospital, then get turned down by the first, get even more stressed, start panicing, then after the 2nd one you're even worse, and thinking holy shit, I need help and soon. Then you finally get helped, you're so relieved that you're getting attended too that take what ever you can get, only to be ripped off and misdiagnosed.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

My son had a fever and a cough. In Japan you go to the doctor and get it checked out and they give you medicine.

Most fevers & a cough do not require medical care or prescription medication. That are lots of over-the-counter cold & flu remedies (even for children) that will relieve the symptoms and make you feel better until the cold runs its course.

But there is no cure for the common cold - not in Japan, not in the USA.

There's a joke in medicine: if you do nothing, a cold will last seven days. It you treat it, a cold will last a week.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, do they really charge you when you go to ER??? As Pinkie Pie would say, "Currreizy!"

My first reaction to Sicko was, "Dude, this can't be right, maybe he's exaggerating an awful lot".

Then, I saw a video of a skateboarder that broke his leg, and the crew took it to the hospital with their own van. Someone told me an ambulance would cost a few hundreds, and I wouldn't fucking believe it.

I'll stay in my third-world health care, thank you very much.

Re:Medicine in America...

[mapkinase]

"I'm never going back"

But... The destiny!... You are SUPPOSED to be here!... EVERYBODY WILL DIE!

Re:Medicine in America...

[drinkypoo]

I had to LOL at that. The first part is because they're frazzled after being on a 36 hour working shift dealing with people taking their kids to the hospital merely because they have the sniffles. Ask a doc what "GOMER" means... get outta my ER...

Or maybe, just maybe, the Japanese genuinely have a superior medical system to ours, one that can handle the load of having people go in to find out if they have a serious problem or not, in a society in which practically everyone practically lives on top of everyone else, and if anyone gets an easily communicable disease, it spreads through the community like an internet meme. And perhaps, and now I'm really just guessing, they have a system which prioritizes profit slightly lower and public health slightly higher, because the consequences of failure are so very high in a tiny nation with high population density. Perhaps one that makes it possible, for example, for doctors to get test results in a timely fashion. Maybe they actually have an adequate number of medical staff in their country, unlike the situation here. And perhaps, just perhaps, their government isn't telling them to eat food that is known to cause health problems, as our government has done and is still doing.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but if it was "just a cold," going to a hospital sounds like overkill. If you wanted palliatives, just go to the corner chemist.

 

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you are going to get screwed no matter where you go in California. Sorry. If you want good care in the US, go to the midwest.

Chicago is known for some superb hospitals. The University of Chicago hospital system is excellent. They have several hospitals in the metro area, and my family has never been let down by them.

I went to school in Lawrence, Kansas, and the small hospital there also had excellent care. I came down with pneumonia, and managed to stumble into the ER, and they very quickly and professionally got me admitted to the ER and began treatments and got me medication. Another time I had food poisoning they took very good care of me.

Of course, one of the most famous hospitals in the country (or world for that matter) is the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

St. Louis has the Wash U hospitals which are excellent. I believe they have the best heart health centers in the country. A friend of mine who I thought was always a smart guy ended up a neurosurgeon at Wash U.

A $1000 ER bill is not uncommon no matter where you go. I have the best medical insurance money can't buy through my employer, and my deductible for an ER visit where I'm not admitted for inpatient care is still $200. Just something to keep in mind.

Come visit again, but come to the midwest. People are friendlier, stuff is cheaper, air is cleaner, healthcare is better. You'll have a far more relaxing time.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Japan my son would have been seen immediately, for free, wherever we went.

If by "free" you mean "30%", then yeah, I guess you're right. Personally I don't consider "30% of whatever your visit ends up costing" to mean "free" though.

Our medical system isn't socialized either, so don't even try that argument.

Er, yes it is. Who do you think provides the national health insurance that you are required by law to carry? It isn't a private company.

And don't use the retarded American term "socialized medicine", it makes you sound like Sarah Palin. OH MAH GAWD DEATH PANALS!!!1!!oneoneeleventy.

Full disclosure: I was born and grew up in the UK (where going to the doctor or hospital is actually free) and currently reside in Japan (where it isn't).

Re:Medicine in America...

[Obispus]

I had to LOL at that. The first part is because they're frazzled after being on a 36 hour working shift dealing with people taking their kids to the hospital merely because they have the sniffles. Ask a doc what "GOMER" means... get outta my ER...

That idiotic line of reasoning reminds me of a gardening service I used to hire: they came, mowed the lawn at a breakneck pace, and left 20 min later--without doing a lot of required pruning and maintenance. When confronted with that fact, they replied "But then we'd have to spend more time at your place--and we're supposed to service so many other customers the same morning!" I don't give a rat's ass about how your boss overschedules you; I'm paying your boss (i.e., you) to do a job, and it's up to you to work out your cost structure and/or charge what the market will bear given other competitors on the same arena.

As for "GOMER", that's another gem. I'll try it next time a client asks me for something I don't feel like providing. I'm sure that, given that physicians are cut no more slack than other professionals in the U.S., a remark of that kind will go over well and maybe even elicit a smile.

Re:Medicine in America...

[DNS-and-BIND]

I'm curious: if the wife had come in with a serious disease and instead been given a cursory examination and sent home with allergy medication, what would have happened in Italy? Just say, oh well, the hospital was negligent, nothing to be done?

Re:Medicine in America...

[Kagetsuki]

Medical for children is free if they are citizens, 30% (or 20% depending on insurance type) after middle school. And you are not required by law to carry health insurance. For someone who lives in Japan you sure are uninformed.

Re:Medicine in America...

[WindBourne]

Well, alot of that is caused because of the illegals here. Hospitals are required to treat EMERGENCY situations regardless of income. So, illegals come up here and then see ER for EVERYTHING. It is bankrupting America. Yet, the idiot DEMS AND PUBS do nothing. Basically, a simple change would take care of the hospitals, but both politicians fight it:
1) all true emergencies will be treated. However, if you do not have insurance, then ICE will be called. If you are not here legally, you will be sent home or imprisoned.
2) Ideally, we would require all businesses to e-verify(check legality to work here), and then deny all benefits except the above medical issue.
The problem is that our pols are just greedy bastards that are worried about their own jobs and do not care about our nation anymore.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Kagetsuki]

Go look at one of those boxes: children under 2 - see a doctor. Right there on the box.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy also does not understand how hospitals work. You are not just seen by one doctor and then released. You start with the triage nurse and then see any number of medical students, nurses, residents, the chief resident and also an attending. I have a feeling that you would complain as well if they had not asked you anything but read the chart... Look, you went to a hospital to get the most accurate diagnosis. They did a great job and ruled out even unlikely reasons yet there you are and complain they asked too many questions. I understand why you complain about paying a lot, but you did get an accurate and complete diagnosis with a lot of personal attention.

Re:Medicine in America...

[gmhowell]

Go look at one of those boxes: children under 2 - see a doctor. Right there on the box.

Written by lawyers, not doctors.

Re:Medicine in America...

[gmhowell]

Your son caught a *cold* and you went to the hospital?

I presume there must have been some underlying concern or your son was a newborn or something!

I believe the phrase you are looking for is "Münchausen syndrome by proxy"

Re:Medicine in America...

[Kagetsuki]

I actually didn't want to mention it but after we received the bill for my wifes "lung" issue I called the hospital billing service. They said they needed to speak to my wife because she was the patient, I said she doesn't speak English and the woman on the phone lit up and said "oh, she's not a citizen then? we have financial aid you can use". I was extremely releived for a second, then she told me the forms were in Spanish so my wife could fill them out herself. I told her my wife was Japanese... to which she informed me "oh, in that case she's actually not eligible for financial aid them."

Perhaps it goes without saying, but the whole medical issue isn't the only reason I don't ever want to go back to America. As a concept and an ideal America is wonderful, but rampant government corruption, illegal immigrants, religion, and what appears to be a general apathy toward any sort of work or responsibility by the most-common American makes the very concepts that build America almost entirely irrelevant. Tag me flaimbait or troll or whatever, but I honestly think any educated American who dedicates themselves to their work should consider looking for a better life in another country.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Slashdot Parent]

Let me see if I can explain something to you: YOU DON'T GO TO THE HOSPITAL FOR A COMMON COLD. You go to the emergency room for emergencies. The common cold is not an emergency.

You could have been seen by a nurse practitioner at the corner drug store for $25. You could have been seen by a real doctor at urgent care for $100. Many internal medicine docs will see patients on a walk-in basis for varying costs. The fact that you chose to misuse our system is not indicative of a broken system. It is indicative of a broken patient.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Kagetsuki]

Even without insurance it would cost you less than $100 to be seen at a hospital and given medicine specifically mixed/made for you here in Japan. The staff would be professional and friendly and you wouldn't wait too long. Compared to Japan, the American system is very, very broken. Maybe you should go somewhere with a working medical system and experience it first hand, then look back at the American system and re-evaluate it.

By the way my son had a high fever and he was maybe a year old at the time. If you wouldn't want to have your child seen by a medical professional immediately under those conditions then in my opinion you are irresponsible. I'm glad I live in a country where under those conditions I can bring my child to the hospital and be seen immediately.

Re:Medicine in America...

[PrimaryConsult]

Dude, I once had to go to the ER for constipation. Why? Because I had no PCP, and don't drive. Is it so hard to expect that there be easily accessible places for simple medical care? Why are there 2 hosptials on one bus line, but their affiliated urgent care centers (really just needed a simple clinic) are located in the middle of buttfuck nowhere with not so much as a sidewalk?

For some reason medical care here is structured for disaster recovery, and completely fails at basic maintenance, to the point where it seems ludicrous to go to a hospital for a cold. And then people's kids die of pneumonia and scarlet fever.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Slashdot Parent]

Even without insurance it would cost you less than $100 to be seen at a hospital and given medicine specifically mixed/made for you here in Japan.

Even foreigners? In Mexico, you could show up at a hospital with life-threatening injuries, but if you don't have a credit card, they'll kick you to the curb. That would never happen in the US.

Maybe you should go somewhere with a working medical system and experience it first hand, then look back at the American system and re-evaluate it.

Everybody seems to like the Canadian system. Say we should model the US system after Canada's. But I went to an ER there with a fractured toe, and they said that they wouldn't be able to see me for 7 hours! 7 hours! My wife drove me across the border to Detroit and I was seen immediately.

By the way my son had a high fever and he was maybe a year old at the time. If you wouldn't want to have your child seen by a medical professional immediately under those conditions then in my opinion you are irresponsible.

How high was his fever? If one of my kids had a high fever, you're right, I'd have 'em seen. But I wouldn't go to the ER because a high fever in a child of 1 year is not an emergency.

Here's an example of one time when my son had a high fever. He was 3 years old to the day (happened on his birthday). I went to give him a hug, and he felt like a frickin' radiator. This was on a weekend and his pediatrician's office was closed, so I brought him to a walk-in clinic where he was seen immediately by a nurse practitioner. She examined him and performed a rapid strep test, which came back positive. They immediately dispensed antibiotics and sent us on our way. Time from entering the clinic to exiting with medicine in hand, approximately 30 minutes. Total cost without using our insurance: $25.

So you can sit here and tell me our system is broken, but I'm sitting here and telling you that you just did it wrong. At the ER they should have advised you that your situation was not an emergency and that you should go somewhere else. I don't know why they didn't, but ultimately you went to the wrong place. You should have gone to a walk-in clinic, a pediatrician that accepts walk-ins (about half do), or urgent care.

Also, I have no idea why cost should have been an issue for you. Everyone who has ever traveled internationally knows that you need to have medical insurance that covers you in the foreign country that you're visiting, unless your national health care provides this for you. It sounds like you just were completely unprepared for a health-related event to occur while you were away from home. I can see why, since you were naive enough to think that you could just go to a hospital and get free care in any country in the world, you wouldn't bother preparing for such an event. Hopefully now you are older and wiser.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Understaffed hospitals tend to exhibit givashit attitudes to people that show up at HOSPITALS and ER's for fucking colds and allergies. (otoh, if you had the right insurance, I'm sure they would have gladly overcharged you after making you wait for hours). Just be glad you made it back home without picking up a staph infection.

Re:Medicine in America...

[Kagetsuki]

Even without insurance it would cost you less than $100 to be seen at a hospital and given medicine specifically mixed/made for you here in Japan.

Even foreigners? In Mexico, you could show up at a hospital with life-threatening injuries, but if you don't have a credit card, they'll kick you to the curb. That would never happen in the US.

Yes even foreigners. You will always be seen, even if you can't pay.

Maybe you should go somewhere with a working medical system and experience it first hand, then look back at the American system and re-evaluate it.

Everybody seems to like the Canadian system. Say we should model the US system after Canada's. But I went to an ER there with a fractured toe, and they said that they wouldn't be able to see me for 7 hours! 7 hours! My wife drove me across the border to Detroit and I was seen immediately.

Never been to Canada (or Mexico) but I would consider both of those systems broken. Just because you haven't been in a country with a medical system that is actually good doesn't mean they don't exist.

By the way my son had a high fever and he was maybe a year old at the time. If you wouldn't want to have your child seen by a medical professional immediately under those conditions then in my opinion you are irresponsible.

How high was his fever? If one of my kids had a high fever, you're right, I'd have 'em seen. But I wouldn't go to the ER because a high fever in a child of 1 year is not an emergency.

Here's an example of one time when my son had a high fever. He was 3 years old to the day (happened on his birthday). I went to give him a hug, and he felt like a frickin' radiator. This was on a weekend and his pediatrician's office was closed, so I brought him to a walk-in clinic where he was seen immediately by a nurse practitioner. She examined him and performed a rapid strep test, which came back positive. They immediately dispensed antibiotics and sent us on our way. Time from entering the clinic to exiting with medicine in hand, approximately 30 minutes. Total cost without using our insurance: $25.

So you can sit here and tell me our system is broken, but I'm sitting here and telling you that you just did it wrong. At the ER they should have advised you that your situation was not an emergency and that you should go somewhere else. I don't know why they didn't, but ultimately you went to the wrong place. You should have gone to a walk-in clinic, a pediatrician that accepts walk-ins (about half do), or urgent care.

Also, I have no idea why cost should have been an issue for you. Everyone who has ever traveled internationally knows that you need to have medical insurance that covers you in the foreign country that you're visiting, unless your national health care provides this for you. It sounds like you just were completely unprepared for a health-related event to occur while you were away from home. I can see why, since you were naive enough to think that you could just go to a hospital and get free care in any country in the world, you wouldn't bother preparing for such an event. Hopefully now you are older and wiser.

If your system is good enough for you then fine, use it as it is and ignore me, but I'm used to something better and when it comes to my kids I won't take anything less. It just so happens my wife is a nurse - my sons fever was very high it worried her. I also looked up the area I was in at the time and there is nothing called "urgent care" there.

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[Darkness404]

It has nothing to do with socialized vs free market medicine. What it does have to do is that the FDA won't legalize a lot of practices that are commonplace in most European countries. In fact, you could say in this regard European countries have a more free market in health care procedures than the US.

Yeah, us less wealthy go to S.E. Asia

[wisebabo]

You know, having lived here for awhile, I can strongly recommend some excellent hospitals in Thailand. They are accredited by some American hospital organizations and I've personally used them for the some semi-serious conditions (knee-surgery) as well as very frequent monitoring of some chronic ailments (I'm a hypochondriac!).

It's actually somewhat amazing as to the quality you get for the price. I stayed in a state-of-the-art brand new private hospital suite (with comfortable sitting area for guests, kitchenette, private bath, big screen television, remote controlled curtains, etc.) for less than the cost of one of the five star hotels. The surgery (from what I can tell state-of-the-art laproscopy) was not that cheap (still less than $5K for everything) included everything including recovery and physical therapy. Also, the cute Thai nurses were very pleasant to be around!

Can't say all S.E. Asian countries are like this (there are some I'd stay far away from) but it's a great value for the money (they've got a great executive checkup that includes just about everything; blood tests, stress tests, chest X-rays, ECG, ultrasound, eye and ear tests, meeting with dietitian, etc.) for $250!. I wish that Medicare would pay for some of this stuff, it would save American taxpayers a ton of money (saving much more than transportation costs) while bringing down prices at home.

By the way, the geeks amongst us might enjoy the fact that EVERYTHING is digital at these hospitals and for a small fee (about $8) every report, image, x-ray, ultrasound, endoscopy, MRI, ECG, EKG, video from every visit you've ever had is put onto a CD-ROM for you. I've got quite a collection on my iPad!

Re:Yeah, us less wealthy go to S.E. Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't mind a $250 dollar physical of this magnitude. I have to wonder how useful the digital results are however- at least in America. If you were to give these to a doctor, I imagine they'd either want to redo the test anyway, or try to transfer the results straight from the hospital that did the procedure as opposed to just taking your thumb drive.

Re:Yeah, us less wealthy go to S.E. Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wish that Medicare would pay for some of this stuff, it would save American taxpayers a ton of money..."

Yes, just like how outsourcing manufacturing saved money, outsourcing programming saved money, outsourcing call centers saved money. Now people that held those jobs are probably included in the list of those that can't afford local health insurance or health care at all.

Not feeding the beast, so to speak, will only make more hungry. The prices of what is left that is not outsourced, I imagine, would go up. That medicare money is at least re-entering the economy at home. When you send it away, that person's medical bills, any touristy things they do there, family lodgings--all of that is money gone to a different economy.

I would much prefer the system at home is fixed then to send the money away to a different system that does work--if it is Medicaid at least. If it were my own dollars and my own health, perhaps my thoughts would be different, but it does not seem right to claim the health care system is so bad that we should send our tax dollars to a different country's health care system.

Re:Yeah, us less wealthy go to S.E. Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the cute Thai nurses were very pleasant to be around!

Okay, I'm sold. Time for some random surgery.

I'm no sinophile, but I was amazed at how cute Thai girls are. Whether they were working at McDonalds, the front desks of hotels, or at the grocery store. There's something special in that Thai water.

Re:Yeah, us less wealthy go to S.E. Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

IAMAD (but not in the U.S., mind you), and I tell you there is one big problem, particularly concerning India, but which also applies to most other countries in South-east Asia: antibiotic resistance. Availability of over-the-counter antibiotics (and in the case of India, in the drinking water) in many of these south-east asian countries (as well as some western world nations!) has caused the vast majority of bacterial strains occurring in clinical settings to become multi-drug resistant. Using second- third- or fourth-line antibiotics, this might still be possible to handle for most surgical procedures (excepting parts of India), but heed my words: avoid all implants of foreign materials; eg. joint replacements, pacemakers etc. Once you have one of those strains getting cozy in a biofilm on the surface of steel, plastic, platinum or whatever, you are in for a world of trouble.

Re:Yeah, us less wealthy go to S.E. Asia

[Anonymous Coward]

This. A million times, THIS. So dangerous. Even in places like Japan...

Re:Yeah, us less wealthy go to S.E. Asia

[Mana Mana]

> I can strongly recommend some excellent hospitals in
> Thailand.

What you say is absolutely true. For further information, clarifying the issue, quite reassuring, search the NY Times on this issue in the past 2-4 years. It's not just Thailand, but Malaysia, and or Indonesia, perhaps Singapore that provide A1 quality medical surgery, and cosmetic surgery economically and as part of tour, sightseeing packages.

What I am curious is whether they offer analogous dental services? I do not recollect reading above on such procedures as veneers, caps, implants; these can cost tens of thousands of USD in the USA, braces for example! A relative could have made use of some of that last week! And I love East Asia, periodic travel from the USA would be part of regular vacationing.

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[Talderas]

Of course it is, but that little fact isn't going to stop the people who want socialized medicine in the US from using this article as a strawman to attack US health care.

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[tompaulco]

The problem is partly regulation and partly that doctors are afraid to perform risky procedures because we have far too many lawyers and far too many greedy people who see an accident as just another way to get rich quick. Doctors hand you something to sign outlining the risk, explaining that the procedure might not work, might not work as expected, might cause side effects, might cause you to die, etc, and by signing you agree to the risks and agree not to sue. Then you sign the paper, and if something goes wrong, you sue anyway. The lawyers get richer, your still dead, the doctor is disenchanted with his career choice, and our healthcare system drops another notch in quality while jumping another notch in expense.
The legal system and sue-happy idiots are killing our country.

Re:Are you serious?

[EzInKy]

You actually took your son to a hospital because he caught a cold? You have to be joking, right? Look, I'm a die hard social libertarian who sincerely believes that the founders understood that you can not have liberty without life, and you can not pursue happiness without liberty. But to waste the time of professionals on something as so ludicrous as suffering a runny nose is really absurd.

You made that up

[Anonymous Coward]

"Most Christians do not realize Jesus was pretty cool to the people of different faith than him, allowing them their own beliefs so long as they didn't bother the people of his faith."

You have nothing to back up this claim.

You might be right, but this is your projection of what you imagine he was like.

The historical record is unclear on this point *at best*.

Re:You made that up

[Tsingi]

The historical record is unclear on this point *at best*.

Actually, the historical record of the time is pretty thin on Christ existing at all.

Re:You made that up

[Mr. Esterhouse]

I am pretty sure that there are no historical records of him existing at all. All the known Historic writers during Jesus's time didn't even mention him.

The US Healthcare Syste is the best...

[Anonymous Coward]

Provided you can afford it.

{coming to you from the home of the so called 'socialist' NHS}

Nothing new

[Charliemopps]

Rich patients fly to other countries to have exotic, untested, unproven procedures that have little to no chance of saving their lives. There's nothing new here. To somehow say that this behavior has something to do with the hobbling of medical science by the government (Which is a very real concern on its own) is just silly. The 2 subjects are unrelated.

Re:Nothing new

[DaMattster]

George W. Bush signed legislation that significantly hobbled science. Anyhow, the U.S. is on a significant and rapid decline much in the way of the Roman Empire. This is just one more symptom of a sick America.

Re:Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead on. There is not a single stem cell treatment which has been scientifically proven to have medical benefit. The fact that such treatments are not available in the US is a wildly positive feature of our healthcare system. People are engaging in medical tourism for nothing more than fancy placebo treatments which are more than occasionally harmful.

Confusing the FDA with Congress

[liamjosh]

Alot of the comments above are confusing the FDA with Congress. The only interaction they have is that the FDA gets to spend the money that Congress doesn't take from them and then they (the FDA) is on the hook for anything (approval) that goes wrong. I can understand the FDA being hesitant, they don't get to use all the money they work for and then they are responsible for the mistakes (sometimes unpredictable) that they are too understaffed to handle. Also, the state of the art in stem-cells is than ideal. As a matter of fact, the adult stem-cell progression is far above embryonic and has more hope to it. Politicians have only been demagoging embryonic sc's just to get donations. Right now at least, adult stem cells are further along and are more likely to succeed. There is however embryonic SC research ongoing, it just not as hopeful and that's why you don't hear about it as much.

Re:Confusing the FDA with Congress

[virg_mattes]

A rational argument as to why embryonic stem cell research has fallen behind adult stem cell research is that ESC research is such a political football that there's not nearly as much funding. Add in active governmental suppression (read up on what the Bush administration did to it) and there's little doubt that it's running slower than it would in the absence of that. If ASC and ESC research were treated the same there's no telling how far along ESC research would be.

Virg

No.

[mosb1000]

This is because the government in the US doesn't allow new medical procedures onto the market until they've been thoroughly tested.

Land of the free, am I right?

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone got the idea that Free doesn't mean free to choose death/danger. Others agreed with them... for that: Freedom is screwed. "We need to protect you from yourself."

some stuff happens in the rest of the world...

[ConfusedVorlon]

there are medical researchers outside the USA

is it really surprising that some of them are ahead of their US counterparts in some areas?

ideas take some time to be properly tested, accepted and spread - there is no surprise that some pioneering treatments will only be available is specific countries.

get off my rights...

[Anonymous Coward]

Coupla pointers for reference..."get off my rights"

- Some on the right want to push their religious/moral views by diminishing the constitutional separation of church and state...'cuz we're right, by God.
- Some of the established want to eliminate accountability for medical errors by removing all that messy malpractice litigation...'cuz you guys owe us...we're in position.
- Some of the fear mongers want to create barriers to entry to protect the status quo in support of their system...yet continue to rationalize their personal larcenies as immaterial to the system.

If we cannot practice science without your permission then let's make science a religion and gain complete freedom (as long as we don't blow anyone up).
If we cannot get healthcare without your permission (and you can charge me what you want) then you bet your ass I have the right to sue you when you screw up.
If we cannot get therapies/medicine to market then the FDA is a failure as a gatekeeper entity and too great a temptation.

Eliminate governance by the lowest common denominator...If I want your opinion or protection, I'll ask for it...Give me back my right to choose...even if it is wrong. If you insist on protecting me...then give me free access to the courts or legalize duelling...power without accountability is corruption.
If you think I have choosen to fail, you may simply not understand the plan...does that give you the right to intervene?

Naw

[rsilvergun]

it's not so much anti-science as pro-short term profit. You can't get American companies to fund cutting edge treatments because research costs money. It's so much more profitable to let that work get done in Europe (usually on the public dime). But it also means our medical industry is starting to lag behind. It's the same thing you saw with HP firing their R&D guys.

Re:Naw

[afidel]

You're kidding, right? US citizens pay for more drug R&D than the rest of the world combined. It's a large part of why medical care is growing at ~2x inflation.

Re:Naw

[TheTyrannyOfForcedRe]

You're kidding, right? US citizens pay for more drug R&D than the rest of the world combined. It's a large part of why medical care is growing at ~2x inflation.

You failed to notice that the parent said cutting edge treatments. Treatments != drugs. Develop a drug and everyone who uses it pays you big $$$ for 20 years. When you develop a treatment everyone else can use that same treatment method without paying you a dime.

Two Words:

[Anonymous Coward]

Peter Sellers*

*“Anonymous Coward” is also two words, and I don't want to mess with logins so soon after being ill.**

**No stem cell treatments were involved.

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[orthancstone]

Of course it is, but that little fact isn't going to stop the people who want socialized medicine in the US from using this article as a strawman to attack US health care.

Isn't it the MO of folks defending the U.S. Health care system to reference the number of folks who leave their country's confines for U.S. medicine/care? If so, I see no reason why this strawman shouldn't be used to counter the previous pathetic strawman.

What about the death committees

[Hognoxious]

But ... but ... this can't possibly be true.

Europe is all socialist and has death committees, whereas the USA is land of the free and totally NUMBER ONE!!!

You mean per dollar.

[mosb1000]

You mean per dollar spent. Keep in mind that per capita means essentially "per person". If you're talking per capita, cuba is far from the top (though I doubt they are significantly below the US, if at all) because they don't have enough dollars per capita.

Re:Rich people do things poor people can't News at

[Volante3192]

The news is the rich are skipping out on the Best Health Care System on the Planet (TM)!!

Now, why would they do that?

sick, sad world

[Thud457]

if you are rich and looking to do something that's a bit outside the laws of your native country, you can always count on Switzerland

Or Thailand. Or Cambodia. Or India. Or Brazil. Or Mexico.

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[Anonymous Coward]

strawman

I only see assumptions (and hasty ones, at that). But I see no actual straw man arguments. Whose arguments are they modifying and then attacking?

Isn't this the invisible hand?

[erroneus]

All we hear about from the rich is that they don't want government controlling industry. Great. But then without controls and limits, the prices of services become what they are today. It should say a lot that it is cheaper and better to travel to other countries (countries which are "socialist" and have "death committees") than to use the services which are supposedly better than here in the US.

We have a lot of problems with the conservative pandering we see in government today. Anti-science? Yup. Anti-technology? Yup. Anti-future? You betcha. But when we continue to lose our lead in the world, we have two options: 1) get more competitive again or 2) start up the war and influence machines and make some new enemies.

So far, we have been doing a lot of #2 and not so much of #1. The results are very predictable I think.

Re:Isn't this the invisible hand?

[mjwx]

All we hear about from the rich is that they don't want government controlling industry. Great. But then without controls and limits, the prices of services become what they are today.

Thats the point.

An industry without government controls will inevitably implement their own controls which will almost always be anti-consumer and pro-profit. There are few industries where complete de-regulation or even self regulation works.

In a truly uncontrolled economy, a powerful force will assert itself as controller. So one has the choice between a government regulator which does not have a profit motive or a corporate regulator which has a vested interest in limiting competition.

us vs them or just the only hope?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why it has to be a "us vs them" matter?
if you are in front of a death sentence and there's some new treatment which can save you - or at least remit the sentence for a few more years and you have the money and clout to get into the program, you'll try it, wherever it is.
and new treatments generally dont get diffused outside of the center where they are developing them.

Re:Are you serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

You never had children of your own, right? Kids are really fragile when they are too young. My little half-sis started with cold-like symptoms and we took her to the hospital... a day or so later she developed breathing problems, but we were in the best possible environment. In the end, it was a big deal, but not a huge deal.

Once they grow up, it's OK though.

Re:Happy "Talk Like a Faggot" day

[iggymanz]

Reminds me of Johnny Depp interview where he relates how uncomfortable Disney executives were during filming with his portrayal of Captain Jack the pirate. They called him and asked "is he (the character) supposed to be gay??....are YOU gay??.......is he supposed to be drunk??..... Are YOU drunk??"

It happens in both directions

[RogerWilco]

I've seen it happen in the other direction as well, with someone I know getting treated with an experimental procedure in the US.*

*) He is still alive and basically cured eight years later, although there are some lingering effects.

This person only had slightly above average wealth. He was very well connected in academic circles though.

I do think that for the common man European healthcare is much better than in the US, both in results and in costs. All the statistics seem to point in that direction.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Rich people do things poor people can't News at

[bws111]

Because they are desperate and can afford to try different treatments. It is completely asinine to say that because rich people seek alternative treatments elsewhere, that is somehow proof that our system doesn't work. Now, if the stories had been 'Payton Manning goes to Europe, gets stem cell treatments, and is now able to play' or 'Steve Jobs went and got stem cell treatments and now is cured of cancer', then maybe there would be a valid point. Instead we get 'rich people spend money on treatments that don't work and aren't available in the US, therefore this is proof that the US is screwed'.

And the unwealthy go to Mexico

[drinkypoo]

My lady went to Tijuana to get her silver/mercury fillings replaced with porcelain, and get some other tooth work done. The whole trip (from Northern California, admittedly, not too far) including the dental work came out to about a fifth of having the work done here. I have two impacted wisdom teeth and eleven fillings to replace. Guess where I'm going? I'm not too worried about decapitation, since I'm not going to go get involved in the drug trade. :p

Re:And the unwealthy go to Mexico

[Anonymous Coward]

I have two impacted wisdom teeth and eleven fillings to replace.

Jeez! ELEVEN FILLINGS? Maybe you should learn to brush your teeth.

Re:And the unwealthy go to Mexico

[LanMan04]

Jeez! ELEVEN FILLINGS? Maybe you should learn to brush your teeth.

He may be from the time before most US municipalities put fluoride in their water.

My parents were born around 1950 and have quite a few fillings, despite good dental habits.

Charlatans at Home and Abroad

[littlewink]

Just as the U.S. has "cancer treatment" centers and hospitals that promise a cure but deliver only painful months at outrageous cost, so there are similar bogus medical treatments available in Europe. My favorite is live cell therapy - injecting animal cells (usually sheep) into you - cures all your ills.

As long as the super-rich have money to spare there will be both American and European medical industries happy to take it from them in return for empty promises.

Re:Rich people do things poor people can't News at

[TheLink]

Doh, the Best Health Care System(for the rich) isn't the best at everything?

Thank you Mr. Bush

[mrquagmire]

In all seriousness, has any other president done as much damage to our country as George W Bush did?

One word

[D H NG]

Thalidomide

So, lemme get this straight...

[FridayBob]

Despite all of the free market competition, America has not succeeded in producing the best health care system in the world after all -- only the most expensive... by far! Yet, to change it is considered unamerican. How about unstupid?

Amen.

[GodInHell]

Seemed appropriate.

Re:Are you serious?

[Agripa]

You actually took your son to a hospital because he caught a cold? You have to be joking, right? Look, I'm a die hard social libertarian who sincerely believes that the founders understood that you can not have liberty without life, and you can not pursue happiness without liberty. But to waste the time of professionals on something as so ludicrous as suffering a runny nose is really absurd.

Exactly right! Strep throat is nothing to worry about.

Re:Are you serious?

[DNS-and-BIND]

The common cold is not strep throat. They are two entirely different diseases. A cold is caused by viruses and there is no medical treatment on this planet, in any hospital anywhere, that can do anything to help. Strep throat is a bacterial infection. Idiot anti-science morons...it's people like you who go to the hospital and scream until you get prescribed something, anything, regardless of how it affects antibiotic resistance in the rest of the population.

Manning

[ThatsNotPudding]

Ironically, the main subject of this thread may not return to play this season. But, it may be more of a cynical ploy by the ever-calculating qb to get better draft picks next year to shore-up their perennially terrible defense. The Colts are oh fer two and look to be already on the clock with only the truly god-awful Chiefs ahead of them.

So...

[WindBourne]

the same set of bastards that killed off stem cell R&D in America, are going to EU to make use of it. Yeah, that makes sense.

Re:Are you serious?

[Kagetsuki]

He was a baby and had a high fever. If you don't get the correct medicine children in that situation can suffer serious brain damage. In Japan I would have been in and out of the hospital within a half an hour with a pack of medicine specifically made and measured for my child and it would have been free. As a parent when your child gets sick the first thing you should be thinking of is getting them proper care, and I'm really glad to be back in a country where I can actually get that without having to pay outrageous amounts of money.

And doctors make money by seeing patients, each time they see a sick kid they make money - I seriously doubt they are complaining.

No, it is dodging the FDA

[rlglende]

The FDA makes moving from research to treatments enormously expensive and delays the use of those drugs for as much as 10 years.

In the old days, before medical ethicists convinced the FDA that people who were dying couldn't make informed opinions, drugs were tested on people who had the most to gain and who were therefore willing to bear more of the risk.

Now, there are elaborate double-blind studies on volunteers for a safety trial, followed by efficacy trials.

Many, many patients die while waiting for this process to complete. A recent SC case established that patients do not have the right to use drugs that the FDA has not approved. Might endanger their health you see.

But, this elaborate regulatory process protects US pharmsters from competition, so the FDA is serving its purpose.

Re:Rich people do things poor people can't News at

[TapeCutter]

What would be news is reports of successful treatments that are available overseas but not in the US.

Actually it wouldn't, new surgical procedures in particular are routinely developed by small teams all over the world and then spread to other nations via the global network of teaching hospitals.

It all starts with the schools

[Anonymous Coward]

High medical costs and high insurance costs all begin with high med-school tuition costs. By the time a doctor leaves medical school and is licensed to practice, they're up to their eyebrows in education-loan debt. What follows is fees designed to get them out of debt as soon as possible.

This results in high medical costs, and laterally, high insurance costs. Many of the nations who enjoy cheaper healthcare also enjoy cheaper or (gasp!) FREE education systems.

Until this problem is tackled, then the healthcare problems aren't going away.

Just my 2 cents.

Chiropractors vs. List of Quacks

[billstewart]

There are chiropractors who are total quacks, believing everything the early chiropractors promised and also newer newage woowoo stuff. There are also chiropractors who do really good physical therapy work and have a deep understanding of anatomy. I've been to both (:-) and my first chiropractor was also an MD.

Newer chiropractors tend to have gotten a lot better anatomy training than the old ones. My current one does believe a bit too much stuff about the efficacy of shining blue laser lights on skin (sigh), but she's also really good at rotator cuff problems and telling you what's going on with which muscles, what you're doing that messes them up, and exercises to strengthen the things that need it. She's also pretty good at lower back issues, ok with wrist problems, and doesn't really know much about other hand problems but knows she doesn't know that.

Re:Chiropractors vs. List of Quacks

[quenda]

There are also chiropractors who do really good physical therapy work and have a deep understanding of anatomy.

Around here, we have a name for Chiropractors who are not quacks. We call them "physiotherapists".

Re:Chiropractors vs. List of Quacks

[tehcyder]

In other words, the only worthwhile chiropractors are those who base their work on actual scientific anatomical facts, AKA doctors.

Uh, no, more likely

[unassimilatible]

the over-regulation of the left that causes approval of things like stem-cell treatments, etc, to take forever.

No kidding...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, who'da thunk that countries with healthcare systems (designed to treat people) instead of healthcare industries (designed to generate profits) would be able to provide better treatments?

As a Canadian, I've always been baffled by American "healthcare" and the way it is designed to consider profits before people.* I've dealt with multiple chronic conditions for twenty years (and now cancer) and not once had a single doubt about the Canadian healthcare system. I can go to any hospital in the country and be treated according to the severity of my condition, not by thickness of my wallet.

...and if I actually had to pay for all of the treatments and appointments I've had over the years? Well into seven figures ... read that again, it is not a typo. If were in the US, what insurer would cover even think of covering me? I wouldn't be here to type this.

* with one notable exception: if you are the subject of a research study and a patient of interest at a research hospital, they do cover your travel and treatment as reciprocity for agreeing to be part of the research

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[sjames]

Are you actually claiming that all's well in U.S. health care?

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[sjames]

Of course, part of it is desperation brought on by the lack of a decent safety net. If you become disabled as a result of an accident or medical procedure gone wrong, you either sue and hope a big payout will support your family and followup care or you sell the house and move in next to the crack house and still die sooner than necessary due to getting only the bare minimum care.

So, big surprise, some lawyer says you can sue and avoid a plunge into poverty, what choice do you really have?

Re:Are you serious?

[sjames]

That's why he was surprised to be referred to the ER rather than to an associated walk-in clinic. That's sadly common in the U.S. when you have no insurance or the "wrong" insurance. You go to the busy and crowded ER where they HAVE to see you rather than to a much more appropriate clinic where they are not under that obligation.

So anybody know what the actual treatment was?

[NotSoHeavyD3]

I mean Glazer just says "Stem cell therapy" as thought it was a specific thing when it could be anything from ESC therapy to a bone marrow transplant.

Time off work

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're poor, you can't get time off from your job to go to Europe to get surgery.

Properly informing the human cavies

[tepples]

Do they have to be mutually exclusive?

Only one party can control the United States Congress at once without creating deadlock between the House and Senate, so yes.

Why not allow individuals who are properly informed to try beta trials of new procedures or drugs?

Because you haven't proposed a protocol to make airtight sure that such human cavies are in fact properly informed, especially for experimental pediatric treatments or treatments for geriatric dementia.

Already been doing it

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been doing this for years. You don't have to be wealthy to take advantage of it. It's not just for treatments that aren't available in the USA either. I use it to get medical treatments that cost a fraction what they do here. And I get a free European vacation out of it!

Meta-debunking

[Anonymous Coward]

Since there was no federal funding for stem cell research at all, you may not halt something that never existed. President Bush's order forbade federal funding for embryonic stem cell research on new stem cell lines only. Research on embryonic stem cells from lines that existed at that time was to be funded, where it wasn't before, and there was no restrictions on non-embryonic stem cell research.

Mostly true, with one common misconception.

The NIH published final guidelines for hESC research in 2000 under Clinton and was set to issue grants in FY 2001. They held off because of candidate (and later President) Bush's stated opposition to any hESC research possible at the time. Very few of the cell lines eventually available under the Bush policy were suitable for research, and NIH rules about sharing resources made it infeasible for most institutions to conduct privately-funded research on other hESC lines in the same department as any other federally-funded research.

Bush didn't entirely halt hESC research but he damn sure held it back.

The same medicare at 10 percent of the cost

[lsatenstein]

Medical knowledge in the Americas and in Europe are more or less at the same level of advancement. The difference is that in the USA, a day in an emergency outpatient department (for a splinter removal), can cost you close to $1000.00 (Florida) and the same treatment in Russia ($0.00) and in Europe, $50-$75.00 In Montreal it is around the $100.00 mark, including the prescription for some topical antibiotics.

Re:Buthe US market produces a superiour health sys

[JabberWokky]

What it does have to do is that the FDA won't legalize a lot of practices that are commonplace in most European countries. In fact, you could say in this regard European countries have a more free market in health care procedures than the US.

True, and the US has always been slow to allow new practices, treatments and drugs, both the FDA and ethics panels composed of US doctors. It's a cultural difference in the practice of medicine. Of course, it's also prevented things like the Thalidomide tragedy that struck Europe, while its use was refused by the FDA pending more testing (although that testing meant that there were still people in the US who suffered).

On the other hand, it is likely that there are people in Europe whose lives were saved by treatments that a panel of US doctors nixed because it was deemed too experimental, and they went with older treatments. In the case of stem cell injections (at least as far as the state of the art is now), it's probably a mix of both: some people do well, others have all kinds of bizarre growths or cancers.

obMySource: My father worked for Scientific Products for many years, a (no longer existing?) company that made equipment for hospitals. There are two semi-retired doctors who serve/served as outside doctors for some ethics panels at local hospitals and are friends of the family. One practiced in Europe as well. They've all chatted about this topic during several holidays, and I find it interesting. Incidentally, they all think the current US system stinks and is getting worse, and the doctors practiced medicine all their lives.

Re:Are you serious?

[Agripa]

The common cold is not strep throat. They are two entirely different diseases. A cold is caused by viruses and there is no medical treatment on this planet, in any hospital anywhere, that can do anything to help. Strep throat is a bacterial infection. Idiot anti-science morons...it's people like you who go to the hospital and scream until you get prescribed something, anything, regardless of how it affects antibiotic resistance in the rest of the population.

I used to catch tonsillitis on a regular basis so am very familiar with the differences between it, strep, and the common cold. I never suggested inappropriate use of antibiotics.

The point of seeking medical attention in this case is to verify that it is NOT strep throat least it be left untreated which can lead to serious complications like rheumatic fever. Would you really expect a parent to be able to diagnose it or at least rule it out when doctors regularly culture test for it or use the rapid strep test?

You don't need to really be that rich

[Anonymous Coward]

Being rich isn't a prerequisite to doing this. I make less than what is typically "wealthy" ($100K) and I go to Asia for medical treatments (Thailand) rather than waste my time with the US medical/healthcare system. It turns out being an engineer I have lots of business trips to Asia already so the cost is usually covered by my employer anyway.

I've also been able to negotiate with my company health insurance company to cover the costs because there are 1) far cheaper, 2) not bloated with bogus overhead charges, and 3) don't have "overruns" on procedure cost - the quoted price is what they charge.

The only reason I even bother with my company health plan (apparently there's the option excepting the BS of Obamacare - that's a law I have zero problem evading any way I can) is for catastrophic emergencies (getting hit by a bus). Anything else with a longer time constant is cheaper overseas. Yes, healthcare can be outsourced almost as readily as IT.

Overseas health care

[Anonymous Coward]

The drug companies own the FDA. The drug companies literally make trillions of dollars a year treating the 40 million chronically ill US citizens. "Treating" means symptom alleviation, not cure. Tens of thousands of Americans have traveled overseas for Adult Stem Cell Treatments, which have cured dozens of "incurable" diseases. The loss of each chronically ill patient to a cure, is a disaster to the drug companies. These people come home cured (even of blindness), and don't have to take useless drugs for the rest of their lives. On stem cells, drug companies focus on fetal stem cells, and say, "See, they don't work. And they are dangerous." They are right. That's why they keep attention on the fetal cells, and ignore the tremendous, proven successes of adult stem cell treatments, overseas.