Shaw's Eco-Logic

This HND piece suggests that many docs will be better off by simply absorbing the (now) one percent Medicare reimbursement penalties. But, that's only the beginning.

Never mind the billions that have been spent by the Feds ramming inferior electronic health record systems down the throats of the health care industry. The simple fact is that the majority of users hate them! And, they can harm patients.

As per health informatics guru Scot Silverstein, MD... "Why are we implementing patient care tools that are not tested for harms, not evaluated for harms, not reported systematically for harms, while the government does not refute the statement that harms are caused by EHRs and admits the true magnitude of harms is unknown?"

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This HND piece exposes the idiocy of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee's leaked pronouncement on cholesterol in the diet. Namely, that is has very little effect on serum cholesterol. It's bad enough that this has been known for decades, but it is even worse that anyone listens to these ghouls...and believe me, many people do.

My take is that this is simply a clever tactic whereby they can tell people to not worry about their diet, since no matter what, cholesterol just needs to be controlled with statins. And, don't even get me started on the fact that the entire cholesterol/lipid theory of coronary heart disease has been debunked dozens of times over.

More than that, I'm convinced that the vast majority of statin users have serious side effects, but are either told to ignore them because of the "greater good" of CHD prevention, or simply that the muscle pain or memory loss they are experiencing is just a sign of old age.

As to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, their risible, decades late embrace of the obvious in no way makes up for the bad medicine that will inevitably appear in the 2015 Guidelines: Advocacy of the high carb/low fat/low salt diet, despite massive amounts of data demonstrating its ill effects.

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This HND piece takes a dim view of Federal Trade Commission's favorite new target: hospital mergers. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, antitrust action almost never benefits the consumer. Rather, it is a foolish and overblown regulatory overreach, if not textbook fascism.

It is no secret that hospitals are under extreme financial pressures, from both the insurance industry and the government. Simply put, revenues are down, and strategic mergers are one of the best ways for these institutions to stay viable—and serve their communities.

Yet, the FTC doggedly pursues its simplistic numbers game, with a playbook unchanged from the days of John D. Rockefeller, or even A&P, which was sued for having food prices that were too LOW. It is way past time for the FTC to understand the markets it regulates, and to finally do the right thing.

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This HND piece is a follow-up to the previous week's entry. Here, we start out with more e-cig nonsense, courtesy of the inaptly named California Department of Public Health.

Alas, the attack on e-cigs is by no means the extent of the bad medicine being promulgated by officialdom every single day. What about the Establishment's ghoulish adherence to the ruinous low fat/high carb diet, which beyond any doubt is the cause of the current epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes? Add to that the truly deranged insistence on a low sodium diet, despite hundreds of studies proving its ill effects.

And, of course, there's the long-discredited (but still aggressively promoted) cholesterol theory of coronary heart disease, and the questionable value of statin drugs.

Perhaps, the bald-faced official lies about e-cigs—so easily disproved—will be the tipping point in the public's war against evil public health policies.

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