Tag: presidential

New Dietary Guidelines Ignore Science

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The federal government has issued dietary guidelines every 5 years since 1980. They are the ones that came out with the food pyramid, and most recently gave limits for sugar, saturated fat, and sodium (salt). These guidelines affect many things, including what children get served for lunch at school.

For the first time ever, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture, under the direction of the Trump administration, is limiting the scope of the committee. They gave them a list of 80 questions, and said they are not to consider anything outside that list. Those questions do not include health risks such as too much salt, red meat, and processed foods.

The nature of science is that with ongoing research things change. Most of you can probably recall getting conflicting diet recommendations over the years. We were told to avoid fats, as we subsequently got collectively heavier, then ketogenic diets said the opposite. Alcohol can decrease heart disease, then studies showed it can increase breast cancer. That’s why it’s important to periodically review the literature and adjust recommendations if warranted.

Why would the Trump administration want to limit the committee? For one thing, they have generally been anti-science in many areas, such as global warming. For another, as they say, follow the money. Thirteen out of 20 of the committee members have food industry ties. This compares with two of 12 members in 2015. You can read more details in a Washington Post article.

Health care costs have been going up at a rate higher than inflation for many years. Although there are many reasons for this, part of it is because people are getting more obese. This leads to such health issues as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and arthritis. The new rules effectively says that corporate interests trump human health. So that corporations can profit more, we will pay the price in our health, and in our future medical bills.

The statute (Public Law 101-445, 7 U.S.C. 5341 et seq.) that required the guidelines specifically says that the Dietary Guidelines be based on the preponderance of current scientific and medical knowledge. As that wouldn’t be the case, unless the restrictions are removed, I expect that from 2020 to 2025 I’ll be advising my patients to follow the 2015 guidelines.

Trying to Destroy Healthcare the Ostrich Way

Copyright: <a href='https://www.123rf.com/profile_andreykuzmin'>andreykuzmin / 123RF Stock Photo</a>Ostriches reportedly stick their heads in a hole if they see something they fear. If they can’t see it, then it must have gone away. President Trump, with most republicans lawmakers going along, is trying that same tactic on the public. Despite 7 years of promises, and multiple attempts, Republicans have been unsuccessful overturning the Affordable Care Act, otherwise know as ObamaCare. So Trump has been doing everything he can to destroy it, with the hopes that it will wither and die, then he can blame Democrats on it’s demise, claiming it was bad legislation. This despite not having a good alternative.

One of the efforts have been to keep people from signing up for coverage for next year. The Trump administration has cut the advertising budget by 90%, shortened the enrollment window, and will close the site on some Sundays for, “maintenance.” They figure that if people can’t see it, they will think it must not be there.

Well sign up just started. If you don’t otherwise have coverage, such as through work, sign up right away, while you still can.  You must sign up by 12/15/17. Don’t wait until the last minute as you might not be able to get on the site. Don’t be scared off by reports of premiums going up. Although true, subsidies also go up per the law, and it costs nothing to find out what it would cost for coverage. Go to healthcare.gov.

Presidential Politics and Influenza Vaccinations

Recently a patient of mine expressed frustration with the presidential campaign, saying the other side wouldn’t listen to facts and just believed what they wanted to believe.

Knowing that she had repeatedly refused to get a flu shot, I asked her in that case if she’d like to get one, given that scientific studies have shown that the benefit outweighs the risk for most people. Although she hesitated, I unfortunately could not convince her.

Making the Affordable Care Act Individual Mandate Work

The Supreme Court has ruled that most of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, is constitutional.

In order to provide affordable care to all, insurance companies need the healthy to pay premiums, and not just the people who will use a lot of health care resources. In order to try and ensure this, Congress gave a penalty for those who don’t purchase an insurance plan. The problem is that the penalty is far less than the cost of insurance, and the only way they can even force you to pay is if you are getting a tax refund, in which case they can deduct the fine. So someone could elect to go without insurance, and, whether or not they pay the fine, just sign up if they need it. If enough people did that, the plan would not be sustainable. The penalty is $695, and up to $2085/year or 2.5% of income for a family, though it’s lower the first two years. A healthy individual might decide $695/year for no insurance is a better deal than $2000/year for insurance they don’t think they need.

So I propose a solution. Congress could pass a law saying that if someone does not get and maintain insurance within 1 year of when it becomes mandatory, and if they elect to get it later, they will be responsible for the first $10,000 or so expenses they sustain within the next 3 months of applying for insurance. If they get in a major accident or discover a lump that turns out to be cancer, they will still be able to get care and not be burdened with medical expenses that could easily far exceed $10,000. But for those considering going without insurance, even that would be a tough bill to pay.

Of course even now people go without insurance because they feel they can’t afford it. Although that could still apply after the Affordable Care Act goes into effect, the calculations change. Just as a poker player will adjust their bet depending on the size of the pot, I believe consumers would do the same. Instead of a cost of $2000/year versus $0, it would be $2000 versus $695, for example. Thus the cost of going without insurance in this example would drop from $2000 down to $1305 after paying the penalty (or tax, depending on your point of view). Balancing the benefits of having insurance and the risks of not having it, I think more people would elect to get insured with this plan.

Right for the Wrong Reason?

In 2007, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order mandating that teenage girls be vaccinated with Gardasil, a vaccine that helps prevent cervical cancer by providing protection against Human Pappillomavirus, or HPV. This was subsequently overturned by the Texas legislature. Now it’s a matter of discussion among Republican presidential candidates. Representative Michelle Bachmann has criticized not only that, ““To have innocent little 12-year-old girls be forced to have a government injection …is just flat out wrong,” but has also suggested that he was motivated by political donations from pharmaceutical company Merck.

We’ll have to see how things play out in regards to whether Governor Perry made his initial decision because of political donations, but it least has the appearance of impropriety.

From a medical point of view, I think he was right to mandate vaccination against HPV, even if he did so for the wrong reason. According to the CDC and the American Cancer Society, at least half of sexually active people will get infected with HPV in their life. Half of those people are infected between 15 and 24 year of age.

In the United States, about 12,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 4,000 die from it, each year. HPV causes most of these, as well as many cases of anal and oropharyngeal (mouth and throat) cancer, and genital warts.

As a father of daughters, I get that when they’re 10 to 12-years-old, you don’t want to think of them being sexually active. But most people eventually are, and you can’t be certain that it will only be with one uninfected person the rest of their life. Once they’re infected, it’s too late.

The policy for vaccination against HPV should not be different than for other infectious disease, such as tetanus, polio, measles and chicken pox. If you love your children, you should seriously consider vaccinating them. Even if he had ulterior motives, I think Governor Perry had the right idea.

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