Okay, where to begin...last night's Dateline presentation of the history behind the research finding a causal connection between the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) vaccine and autism in children was all in all disappointing. I was hoping for a clear representation of both sides, of the facts, and instead we got a media induced presentation that made Dr. Wakefield (whose research founded a "possible" link between autism and the MMR vaccine) look like he did bad research and the majority of the medical profession believing Wakefield's research to be the cause of bad medicine.
I could go on and on about the two sides...for I personally am not convinced one way or the other, but I will save yours and my precious time and give you the side of the scientist. (Not that I am one but I studied for years how to think like one)
Dr. Andrew Wakefield performed a causal comparative research between the independent variable (MMR vaccine) and a dependent variable (autism). This research that Wakefield worked on was peerly suggestive. He noted "suggestive" in his analysis, he noted that to the media, and noted it again last night on Dateline. Wakefield and his team of researchers were attempting to find a correlation between the two. He followed the scientific method used in any reputable test studies and his outcome showed a "causal" relationship. To many who don't understand this meaning, it became misconstrued as a definite relationship. Further studies will help prove or disprove this hypothesis.
One point Matt Lauer with Dateline made about the possibility of unsafe vaccines was that Thimerosal, an ingredient used in vaccines since the 1930's and was found to contain mercury, was "removed from all vaccines in 2002". This is not the case. In fact, Thimerosal has been removed from or reduced to trace amounts in all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine (see Table 1). A preservative-free version of the inactivated influenza vaccine (contains trace amounts of thimerosal) is available in limited supply at this time for use in infants, children and pregnant women. Some vaccines such as Td, which is indicated for older children (≥ 7 years of age) and adults, are also now available in formulations that are free of thimerosal or contain only trace amounts. Vaccines with trace amounts of thimerosal contain 1 microgram or less of mercury per dose. (http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/UCM096228).
Last fall I called my son's pediatrician to ask if they had a thimerosal free MMR vaccine. They replied that the thimerosal free MMR vaccine is only available at the county health clinic. So it is incorrect to say that the ingredient Thimerosal was "removed from all vaccines in 2002". It clearly was not.
So this episode of Dateline was a complete disappointment. There were inaccuracies and misinterpretations of Wakefield's research. I do not deny how important vaccines are to protect the public from deadly diseases. But I also do not deny a POSSIBLE connection between vaccines and other negative side affects...one which could include changes in brain activity. We don't know all the side affects. We don't know 100% how our bodies work and how or why things affect them. History of vaccines and other medical methods show inconsistencies. It shows that medicine changes and evolves from mistakes. Vaccine safety is always evolving. Make a vaccine that we know doesn't affect our children negatively, then "recommend" it to our children.
Okay, I would like any of you interested to respond. This is a very important topic to discuss as it affects all of us! Make your voice heard...join in the conversation and respond by comment to this posting.
Can't wait to hear!
Mommy Bridget
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Autism debate
Dateline will broadcast the debate that links the MMR vaccine with autism. Tune in to see the story that started the controversy. This Sunday Aug. 30th at 7pm ET.
Mommy Bridget
Mommy Bridget
Healthcare Reform Idea
Below is an article my father sent me regarding health care reform. This is a letter issued from the CEO and cofounder of Whole Foods. I thought I would post this as I think there are some quality ideas and information contained in it.
The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.
By JOHN MACKEY
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money."
—Margaret Thatcher
With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:
View Full Image
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.
Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.
The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit.
By JOHN MACKEY
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money."
—Margaret Thatcher
With a projected $1.8 trillion deficit for 2009, several trillions more in deficits projected over the next decade, and with both Medicare and Social Security entitlement spending about to ratchet up several notches over the next 15 years as Baby Boomers become eligible for both, we are rapidly running out of other people's money. These deficits are simply not sustainable. They are either going to result in unprecedented new taxes and inflation, or they will bankrupt us.
While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment. Here are eight reforms that would greatly lower the cost of health care for everyone:
View Full Image
• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness.
Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.
• Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. Now employer health insurance benefits are fully tax deductible, but individual health insurance is not. This is unfair.
• Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We should all have the legal right to purchase health insurance from any insurance company in any state and we should be able use that insurance wherever we live. Health insurance should be portable.
• Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. These mandates have increased the cost of health insurance by billions of dollars. What is insured and what is not insured should be determined by individual customer preferences and not through special-interest lobbying.
• Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. These costs are passed back to us through much higher prices for health care.
• Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. How many people know the total cost of their last doctor's visit and how that total breaks down? What other goods or services do we buy without knowing how much they will cost us?
• Enact Medicare reform. We need to face up to the actuarial fact that Medicare is heading towards bankruptcy and enact reforms that create greater patient empowerment, choice and responsibility.
• Finally, revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care—to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That's because there isn't any. This "right" has never existed in America
Even in countries like Canada and the U.K., there is no intrinsic right to health care. Rather, citizens in these countries are told by government bureaucrats what health-care treatments they are eligible to receive and when they can receive them. All countries with socialized medicine ration health care by forcing their citizens to wait in lines to receive scarce treatments.
Although Canada has a population smaller than California, 830,000 Canadians are currently waiting to be admitted to a hospital or to get treatment, according to a report last month in Investor's Business Daily. In England, the waiting list is 1.8 million.
At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Health-care reform is very important. Whatever reforms are enacted it is essential that they be financially responsible, and that we have the freedom to choose doctors and the health-care services that best suit our own unique set of lifestyle choices. We are all responsible for our own lives and our own health. We should take that responsibility very seriously and use our freedom to make wise lifestyle choices that will protect our health. Doing so will enrich our lives and will help create a vibrant and sustainable American society.
Mr. Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.
Glorious women, hear us roar!
As I continued my Friday morning paying bills online and writing out checks to our debtors all while breastfeeding my son, I realized that my current state of multitasking was something to notice...something to be proud of. Who else can so so many things at once? Only a woman can:)
For I am a woman and a mother.
Mommy Bridget
p.s. My husband let me sleep in until 8 this morning which probably aided in said abilities
For I am a woman and a mother.
Mommy Bridget
p.s. My husband let me sleep in until 8 this morning which probably aided in said abilities
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
An environmental advocate, thank you Mr. Senator Kennedy
I know you may be wondering, what does Senator Kennedy have to do with mothering? It has EVERYTHING to do with mothering! Senator Kennedy was an environmental advocate who worked diligently to improve standards for our air quality, water quality, and to protect wildlife in ANWR (Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge). He also opposed nuclear storage in NV and criticized Bush's administration involvement in the Clean Air Act...to name only a few.
We need more people like Ted Kennedy fighting for us, our children, and our children's children so that future generations will be able to live in a rich, healthy, and sustainable environment.
Mommy Bridget
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Is my day over yet?
I've been lacking on the energy to post any new blogs not to mention the creativity to write anything of importance. For some reason...maybe because I've been bragging too much that my son sleeps through the night now...my son has been waking up around 5:30 am again while also waking up screaming once per night.
I am so tired. I have coffee when I wake up in the morning and to make it through the day I have another cup of old/cold coffee in the afternoon. Today's afternoon cup didn't do the job.
How did I do it the first 10 months of his life when he nursed all night and I slept so little? Must have been some super post pregnancy hormones that give us super human powers of energy!
Oh, and my son hasn't had his afternoon nap yet and is currently in his crib pounding on the crib wall and throwing all of his blankets out. Nope, and now he is screaming.
Mommy Bridget
I am so tired. I have coffee when I wake up in the morning and to make it through the day I have another cup of old/cold coffee in the afternoon. Today's afternoon cup didn't do the job.
How did I do it the first 10 months of his life when he nursed all night and I slept so little? Must have been some super post pregnancy hormones that give us super human powers of energy!
Oh, and my son hasn't had his afternoon nap yet and is currently in his crib pounding on the crib wall and throwing all of his blankets out. Nope, and now he is screaming.
Mommy Bridget
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Farmer's Markets
We have a wonderful market every Saturday in our downtown area of Salt Lake City. We have local vendors selling anything from produce to grass fed beef to homemade soaps and sweet treats. By purchasing products from these vendors you are contributing to small business, not paying extra shipment costs for products cross country, spreading the wealth a little more evenly, contributing less to carbon emissions, and paying much less for products that are as an average much healthier for consumption.
Yesterday I picked up:
zucchini
salmon
halibut
string beans
green pepper
fresh basil
peaches
sweet onion
So ease up a little on your carbon footprint and head out to your local farmer's markets people!
Mommy Bridget
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