min0 lee

With emotional hug of cancer patient, President Barack Obama pitches his health plan

WASHINGTON - President Obama played the comforter-in-chief Wednesday when a woman with kidney cancer, no insurance and little hope went looking for help at his health care summit.
Obama gave an emotional Debby Smith a hug and a promise, but she also may have given him a hand by making herself a living argument for his health reform.
"I'll try not to cry," Smith, 53, told Obama at a town hall-style forum in Northern Virginia, explaining how 11 years ago she skipped a more certain treatment for a kidney tumor so she could help her dying father.
She was left disabled, she said, and now has no job, no insurance and no Social Security.

With emotional hug of cancer patient, President Barack Obama pitches his health plan

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dg806

There is very little that the drug lobbiest do not get. There are too big and pay too much money to politicians. I'm sure some things get approved that shouldn't. Maybe not as much as Europe but............
Look at the role drug companies had in banning vitamin B (Biostratum claimed pyridoxamine a drug and the FDA granted it, basically giving them a monopoly on it)
Then they went after P5P. Nothing toxic with either form, they just wanted the right to it to make millions.
I'm sure people in the FDA get kickbacks from these things. Everyone in politics are crooked.

1-Andro Rx Pro-hormone

bandaidwoman

So we should just have no regulatory agency at all and companies can inject melamine into their food supply, produce cheap tainted prescription drugs etc. as in China? A non -government privately run regulatory agency that ensures basic quality in foods and drugs would probably have more conflict of interests than the FDA. It's about as much sense as privatly funded fire stations.

Official Race Member of the Crank Crushing Rednecks

Eat more mud, mountain bike until you die!

XX Feminine power

dg806

No, you get rid of lobbyist who pay big money to the FDA. There was nothing wrong with Vitamin B. No harm to the public existed.
The FDA also needs to be stripped of some of their "absolute" power also. How that happens, I have no idea.
How long has the FDA existed?? How did things run before that?

1-Andro Rx Pro-hormone

bandaidwoman

Look I dont agree with the FDA on everything either, especailly when religious motivated politicians for the longest time prevented the FDA from letting the day after pill come out to prevent pregnancies after accidents. the FDA is like our government, many negatives but comapred to every other regulatory agency in the world, ( or any other government system in the world) it keeps its citizens safe and is the best in the world. Now I won't go into the FDA but until federal licenscing of physicians were mandated a doctor who had never performed surgery could declare himself a surgeon, ( probably in part why there was tremendous mortality in the days of old)

Now if you want me to bring up another government agency that suprasses any private owned operation its the NIH, also government funded, but all and I mean all physicians trust medical research funded by the NIH more than drug or medical device company funded medical research. The NIH, unlike private companies is the only agency that funds medical research for rare medical conditions that have such a low prevalence, drug companies know there is no profit providing a cure for those diseases. They are also much freer of bias towards the product studied.

No one has come up with a good system to replace the NIH or the FDA.

What we do need is a regulatory agency that understands herbs and vitamins and to ensure quality control for the over the counter herbs like they do in germany. My past life as a chemist I used to extract compounds from many over the counter vitamins or herbs and found that a 1/3 did not have the drug in question or had dangerous contaminants like lead , aresenic, and one compund for weight loss had digitalis, which can cause heart block. I don't favor the FDA taking over this duty since they just need to focus on prescription drugs. The mindset for over the counter herbs has to be different, there won't be massive double blinded placebo control trials which cost exorbtant money and will make over the counters cost prohibitive. But at least, good quality control chemistry to make sure the compound is pure and has what it states it has.

Official Race Member of the Crank Crushing Rednecks

Eat more mud, mountain bike until you die!

XX Feminine power