From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Iron deficiency
Date: 01 Jun 1997
Newsgroups: sci.med.nutrition

In <EB23Cy.21w@scn.org> bd159@scn.org (Don Bradley) writes:

>Actually, one reason women live longer than men is that they
>spend so much time "deficient" in iron.  Viruses need iron.



  It's bacteria that need iron.  And the reason women outlive men is
not a lower infection death rate.  It's cardiovascular disease, and
these deaths happen long after menopause, when the iron status of men
and women is similar.  Iron may have some role in atherosclerosis, or
it may not.  The  answers are not in, yet.  It is certain that women
have many other reasons to be protected from cardiovascular disease,
from hormones that raise HDL, to a lower smoking rate, to better
medical compliance with things like antihypertensives.

                                Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Hormone article/Scientific American Mag.
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997
Newsgroups: alt.support.menopause

>In article <34235471.4FD604D3@erols.com>, kakkrikor@erols.com wrote:

>> The risk of dying is 100%. It goes along with living. If you mean
>> so-called premature death then, please, so specify. Thank you.
>>
>> Terri K


  The risk of dying in any given year of age is not 100%.   It rises
steadily, but never gets too much above 50%.  So even if you make it to
110, you still have at least a 50:50 chance of making it another year.
interestingly, after age 90 the increase in risk tapers off, so it
stays nearly constant.  In a way, aging stops then.  You're very old
and frail, but in terms of mortality risk you don't get much older with
each year.  This is a great mystery in gerontology.

  Before 90, mortality risk doubles for every 7 to 8 years of age in
humans.  For this reason, it's entirely possible for a population like
the Japanese to have half our age-adjusted risk of mortality for every
age, but not live twice as long.  In fact, if your risk is 50% as much
at every age you will only live 7-8 years longer, because that's
naturally how long it takes for the aging process to make up for a 50%
lower mortality risk.  In other words, if at fifty you only have half
as much risk as 50 year old in another country, don't feel too good: in
only seven years you'll be where the other guy is now.

                                                  Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Infant Mortality: USA #21 of 29 Industrialized Countries!!
Date: Mon, 01 Dec 1997
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative

In <19971201042501.XAA22930@ladder01.news.aol.com> ashereddie@aol.com
(ASHEREDDIE) writes:

>I'd love to know how much our push to immunize our children with
>unneccesary, toxic, mercury filled vaccinations has to do with this high
>infant mortality rate.


   Not a thing.  There's not a country ahead of us in infant mortality
that doesn't immunize even more stringently, using a better public
health problem.

   The US falls way down on the stats because has a real problem with
ghetto kids whose cracked-out parents don't get them enough calories,
let alone nutrients or medical care.  And when these kids grow up, if
they've survived the lead they've eaten in paint, they eat more lead in
higher velocity form.  All of which is hard to treat successfully.
It's not really a medical problem, but a social problem.  Not long ago
there has a huge study in which a lot of bucks was spend getting these
poor screwed up and deprived kids access to full medical care, and
you know what?  It made not a bit of difference in how likely they were
to get sick and die.  Surprise.  It surprised the liberals, anyway.  I
don't suppose it surprised any of us who've actually worked in inner
city ERs.  But then, they never asked us when they did the study.

   That the alternative medical geeks use these kinds of stats to
suggest that there's something wrong with American medicine shouldn't
suprise any of us, either.  Since when have these people had any honor,
or any respect for truth?  Since when have any of them been out there
and actually looked at the problems?

                                      Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.cardiology,alt.activism,talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: Backlash against HMOs: a declaration of war (was Doctor-bashing)
Date: 13 Apr 1999 04:00:36 GMT

In <37131612.1491259@news.cqi.com> bbacon@cqi.com (William Bacon)
writes:

>If you had any research to post on the relationship between "universal
>health care" schemes and infant mortality rates, I would like to think
>you'd post it George.  Care to give me a peer reviewed citation?  I
>thought not.
>
>For instance, would you care to explain why, in Sweden, infant
>mortality rates in Stockholm are almost twice as high as in rural
>Swedish areas?  Hmmm, they both have national health insurance
>programs don't they?



   And indeed, the Lancet has recently shown that the gap in mortality
rate attributable to income in Sweden is just as large as in the rest
of Europe, dispite the heavily socialized health care system in Sweden.
Golly, it looks like there is some factor there which old statical
George has not been considering.   What could it be?  Such a mystery.
It might be that people from lower socioeconomic classes tend to do
dangerous and unhealthy things which all the free medicine in the world
doesn't entirely save them from the effects of.  Do you suppose?   A
shocking idea.   I wonder if there's any evidence for it?

    Hey George, maybe you could do a lit search and come up with a
paper.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.cardiology,alt.activism,talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: Backlash against HMOs: a declaration of war (was Doctor-bashing)
Date: 14 Apr 1999 07:15:47 GMT

In <7evbq7$n$1@nina.pagesz.net> henryj@nina.pagesz.net (George Conklin)
writes:

>In article <7eufh4$abn@dfw-ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>,
>Steven B. Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>In <37131612.1491259@news.cqi.com> bbacon@cqi.com (William Bacon)
>>writes:
>>
>>>If you had any research to post on the relationship between "universal
>>>health care" schemes and infant mortality rates, I would like to think
>>>you'd post it George. Care to give me a peer reviewed citation? I
>>>thought not.
>>>
>>>For instance, would you care to explain why, in Sweden, infant
>>>mortality rates in Stockholm are almost twice as high as in rural
>>>Swedish areas? Hmmm, they both have national health insurance programs
>>>don't they?
>>
>>
>>
>>And indeed, the Lancet has recently shown that the gap in mortality rate
>>attributable to income in Sweden is just as large as in the rest of
>>Europe, dispite the heavily socialized health care system in Sweden.
>>Golly, it looks like there is some factor there which old statical
>>George has not been considering. What could it be? Such a mystery.
>>
>>It might be that people from lower socioeconomic classes tend to do
>>dangerous and unhealthy things which all the free medicine in the world
>>doesn't entirely save them from the effects of. Do you suppose? A
>>shocking idea. I wonder if there's any evidence for it?
>>
>>    Hey George, maybe you could do a lit search and come up with a
>>paper.
>
>   It is always amazing how poorly educated people with the
>MD degree happen to be.  All societies have a SES gap in
>mortality rates, including Europe.  This has been known for
>only several hundred years.


    Yes, but it hasn't been known that Sweden's is the same as the rest
of Europe.  If it had been, it wouldn't have been worth publishing in
Europe's most prestigous medical journal.

    Socialized medicine to the max didn't do Sweden's rich-poor health
gap much good, did it, George?   I see nothing in your ideas which
explains why.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.cardiology,alt.activism,talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: Backlash against HMOs: a declaration of war (was Doctor-bashing)
Date: 15 Apr 1999 03:31:16 GMT

In <371467A4.BE094E32@cs.uoregon.edu> Bret Wood
<bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu> writes:

>> Golly, it looks like there is some factor there which old statical
>> George has not been considering. What could it be? Such a mystery. It
>> might be that people from lower socioeconomic classes tend to do
>> dangerous and unhealthy things which all the free medicine in the world
>> doesn't entirely save them from the effects of. Do you suppose? A
>> shocking idea. I wonder if there's any evidence for it?
>
>Perhaps it has to do with the enormous stress of being poor.  Do
>you think that poor people are just rich people with less money?

    That depends on how poor they are.  Are the poor in Sweden more
poor in absolute terms than my grandparents during the Great
Depression, when they didn't know they were poor (due to the fact that
they were eating)?  Or are you refering to that well known health
stress caused by grinding envy?  Jealousy, closer of coronaries,
bringer of cancer.  Ah, now I seem to remember.



>You get so pissed off at people who stereotype doctors, yet you
>stereotype politicians, lawyers, and now poor people.
>
>What a hypocrite.


    Without stereotyping there would be no sociology.  Those who say
they don't stereotype other people are either liars or incapable of
learning from experience in human interaction.  I'm not disagreeing
with the PRACTICE of stereotyping doctors in general.  I'm simply
saying your stereotype is wrong.  Unless, of course, you're possibly
talking about radiologists.

   I'm only half joking, there.  A good friend of mine is an X-ray
tech who became a sonographer, and worked in both capacities for
radiologists in many cities in a number of states, over almost a
decade.  Finally, not long ago, she found herself working for a
pediatric sonography department in which the people doing the
sonography of congenital heart defects were not radiologists at all,
but pediatricians.  She was completely astounded, to the point of
nearly being beside herself with shock.  "These are actually nice
people!"  she said to me.  "I've been working for assholes all my life
and never realized it."   But even she liked a few of the radiologists
over the years.  These are group averages we're talking about, and
there are exceptions to every rule.

                                      Steve Harris, M.D.
                                      Not a pediatrician

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.cardiology,alt.activism,talk.politics.medicine
Subject: Re: Backlash against HMOs: a declaration of war (was Doctor-bashing)
Date: 15 Apr 1999 14:19:39 GMT

In <37158A64.F1161D75@cs.uoregon.edu> Bret Wood
<bretwood@cs.uoregon.edu> writes:

>You are just a completely insensitive jerk.  You can actually sit
>and type this crap without any compassion at all for the circumstances
>of people less fortunate than you?

   Some people in this country are definitely poor because of bad luck
and misfortune.  But that's not the whole story, or even most of it.
Poverty in the United States is caused, on average, by people making
bad choices, out of laziness and lack of self discipline.  This is
encouraged by a system which increasingly supports people who are lazy
and lack discipline.  Poverty is closely tied up with having children
out of wedlock, for example.  As I noted, the illigitimacy rate in
Washingon DC approaches 80%.  It's not far from that in Sweden.
Different societies, same cause.  Sweden's economy is in the process of
taking a nose-dive.  They cannot figure out why people stay home when
they're paid to.  Very strange.

   To imagine that poverty in the US is due to bad luck and the wrong
planet wandering into your astrological sign, or something, is to
denigrate the people who make it out.  The people who show up on time
when they'd rather stay in bed.  The women who say no when they'd
rather say yes.  The men who don't mess around, or who pay for the
welfare of the children they father if they do.  The people who work
two jobs.  The students who do something cold and nasty like watering a
golf course by hand, at night, using pull out sprinklers, to get the
money to study chemistry in the daytime.

   I believe in redemption.  You too, might one day give up your evil
irresponsible Leftist ways.  Every time you suggest that the poor are
poor due to bad luck you suggest that those who claw their way out of
poverty (like all of our ancestors, basically) are just lucky.  You
spit on them.

   I helped hire a guy at a small company I work for, not very long
ago.  He came as a temp, from an agency, to do a rather nasty and dirty
job, at minimum wage.  He was from the LA ghetto.  He'd been to
Vietnam.  He'd had some bad times, including some prison time for
selling cocaine.  He'd been shot just because he was too close to a
stupid robbery.  His prison record hadn't been kind to him.

  However, he showed up every day, on time.  He did his job very well,
and more than asked.  He was utterly reliable and dependable.  Unlike
other temps, if he didn't show up, we knew why as soon as he did, and
we were finding a way to get the job done.   After a long time, we
finally hired the man ourselves, and twice his previous salary.  And
that will increase.  He'll do okay.  The other doofuses we got from the
agency won't.  They'll curse their luck, and you'll help them.



> Do you think you are so wonderful
>that all of the poor people just look up and say "Wow, I can't stand
>my situation because I want to be as wealthy as Steve."

    I'm not wealthy.  Far from it.


> Most poor
>people are more concerned about finding a way to pay for their next
>dentist's appointment (if they even bother seeing a dentist, because
>bad teeth won't kill you.)  Most poor people are too busy trying to
>figure out how to balance the need to pay rent, and get new tires for
>the car because they had a blowout the night before since they couldn't
>affort to replace their old tires even though the tread was completely
>worn off.  Most poor people are too busy trying to figure out where
>they can get some extra money to buy Christmas presents for their
>kids, even though they really can't even afford to pay the bills
>each month.

    Yes.  So?  That was the general state everyone was in 60 years ago.
So?  Worrying about the tread on your tires now, instead of worrying
that your kid is dying of whooping cough.  The world improves.


>Instead of being a smug prick, why don't you try asking one of the
>Cardiologists reading this thread about the relationship between
>stress and mortality.  It turns out that _good_ Cardiologists tend
>to have a pretty good understanding of the sources of stress in
>people's lives, because it has such a direct link to their risk
>of heart disease.  On the other hand, you seem to think that
>poverty has to do with not having a nice enough car, and being
>jealous of the rich people.

    No, YOU seem to think that.  Since you seem to think our poor are
under so much more stress now than our greatgrandparents were, when by
all measures, with their threadbare tires and their small color TVs,
they live better lives.  If they are under worse stress I cannot think
of a reason.  People in other countries with less are happier.


>I was in this situation myself for a while.  Fortunately, I had the
>foresight to realize that getting a GOOD doctor was absolutely
>critical.  I dumped the GPs and the second rate psychiatrists which
>my low-cost insurance would cover, and I borrowed money from my
>family so that I could see one of the best psychiatrists in town.
>I paid $350/month to buy my medications out of my own pockect,
>even when they weren't having enough of an effect yet for me
>to hold a job.  (And believe me, there aren't many things which
>will convince you of the absolute unfairness of the current
>medical system than paying $350/month for medications which your
>insurance would only have to pay $150/month for, if you had
>insurance.)
>
>I managed to break out of this cycle of poverty.  But I also had
>a degree from MIT, and a graduate degree from the UofO, along
>with experience in the most in-demand field in the current
>economy.  (computer programming)  Plus, I had the support of
>my family.  For people who don't have those benefits, poverty
>can be a trap which is virtually impossible to escape from.
>For you to make your smug comments about jealousy and people
>who just don't give a fuck, is absolutely disgraceful.


     No more disgraceful than the comment which I will now make to you
and that you heartily deserve.  You didn't "break out" of finanial and
mental hole, you see.  No, by your argument, your luck just changed.
You deserve no credit.  It probably wasn't that hard for you.  Why
we're supposed to think you struggled, I don't know.   People don't buy
computers because they struggle.  They get them by luck.


>OK, so now your statements reflect that:
>
>Lawyers and Politicians are lying scum <true>
>Catholics are hypocrits <Catholic priests who refused Christian burial
  for miscarried fetuses)
>Poor people don't give a fuck about their health <quite often true.
 And I know more about this than you.>
>Radiologists are jerks <have a tendency to be, yes>


>And yet you label me as a crackpot for saying that doctors are
>insensitive.  [Never labeled you a crackpot]


> (And I didn't even say that ALL doctors are insensitive,
>just that many of them are.)At least I won't have problems supporting
>the claim that ONE doctor is insensitive.

   It's hard, after your wonderful example.  I can't imagine how you
got fired while being the reasonable person we see here.  Could it be
that your boss wanted finally to kick your rear end up around your
ears, after you told him his job just once too often?

   May I suggest that you stick to computers?  They're you.  Under no
account actually visit an inner city ER and observe.  It would be
horrible if you learned something that gave you cognitive dysonance and
stress.  You might need to go back on the $350 a month pills again.
Bad luck.