Health Care Reform Battle Tops Health News for 2011

December 29th, 2011

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

THURSDAY, Dec. 29 (HealthDay News) — While no one story dominated
health news in 2011, the ongoing debate over the legality of the new
health care reform law was perhaps the most polarizing, with the case now
set to go to the U.S. Supreme Court early in 2012.

Supporters of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,
which President Obama signed into law in 2010, claim the legislation will
extend coverage to 30 million Americans. But opponents labeled it an
unconstitutional intrusion of government upon personal rights, especially
the “individual mandate” clause that requires Americans to purchase health
insurance or face fines.

Some of the law’s provisions, such as allowing children to remain on
their parents’ plans until age 26, or prohibiting insurers from denying
coverage to those with preexisting conditions, were already helping
Americans in 2011. Still, a Harris Interactive/HealthDay poll
conducted in March found just 22 percent of respondents supported the
individual mandate clause. The U.S. Supreme Court will begin hearing
arguments on the law in late March.

Feel like chatting about the issue on your cellphone? That brought up
another top health concern for 2011: Do the electromagnetic fields emitted
by the phones cause cancer, or don’t they. In February, an analysis of 10
years of British data found no uptick in brain cancer rates even as more
people were using cellphones; and in July, Swiss researchers reported in
the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that they could find
no link between cellphones and brain tumors in kids.

However, in late May, a panel of experts at the World Health
Organization announced that they were classifying cellphones as “possibly
carcinogenic to humans,” putting the devices in the same category as the
pesticide DDT and gas engine exhaust. In the meantime, experts are
supporting using cellphones — but perhaps with an earpiece or speaker,
away from the head.

There was more confusion on the cancer-screening front, as well, with
the United States Preventive Services Task Force‘s recommendation in
October against the use of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood
screen for men at average risk for prostate cancer.

Debate had raged for years over whether the PSA test was a useful tool
to spot cancers, or whether too many men were now getting unnecessarily
treated for slow-growing tumors that might never harm them.

Based on results from two major studies, the panel agreed with the
latter argument. “This test cannot tell the difference between cancers
that will and will not affect a man during his natural lifetime,” panel
chairwoman Dr. Virginia Moyer, told The New York Times.

Tobacco companies also took a hit in 2011, with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration proposing graphic new cigarette-pack labeling, including
photos of ill patients breathing through tracheotomy tubes, or ulcerated
lips and mouths.

While such labeling has cut into smoking rates in other countries, it’s
unclear whether they’ll ever appear in the United States: in November, a
federal judge blocked the labels, saying their message crossed too far
into advocacy. The Obama Administration has since appealed that decision.

Other health news highlights from the past year, as determined by the
editors at HealthDay:

An outbreak of deadly listeria linked to tainted cantaloupes killed
30 people and sickened 146 more across the country earlier this fall;
health officials blamed the outbreak on unsanitary conditions at the
Colorado company that produced the fruit.
In February, a study reported in the Journal of the American
Medical Association suggested that women with early breast cancer may
not require the extensive removal of lymph nodes that often follows
lumpectomy and radiation. Lymph node removal can cause a debilitating
swelling of the arms known as lymphedema.
The trend among a minority of U.S. parents to forgo vaccinating their
children against common infectious diseases continued. This summer, a
survey from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
found that about 5 percent of parents had declined some vaccines for their
kids, even though an exhaustive Institute of Medicine report released in
August found pediatric shots to be safe.
There was very good news in the fight against HIV/AIDS:
research published in 2011 helped confirm that treating infected
individuals with powerful drugs could dramatically cut transmission rates
to partners. At the same time, advances in gene therapy and other means of
beating back HIV to undetectable levels had some experts cautiously
expressing hopes for a cure.
News from the battle against the leading cause of deaths due to
cancer, lung cancer, was also encouraging. In June, updated data from a
U.S. National Cancer Institute trial suggested that routine CT chest scans
might cut the death rate by 20 percent for former or current smokers. And
in September, the CDC announced another milestone: the first-ever decline
in deaths among women from the disease, as fewer women decide to
smoke.