The Flu is Coming

The flu is coming! I mean the vaccine is coming. The vaccine is coming! With 170 deaths and counting according to the current CDC report (issued every Friday at 11AM) but with some states showing widespread infections the president's Health and Human Services said the programs for our shots should be ready by the time the landlord switchs off the air and turns on the heat, in October. Or for the homeowners among you that means as soon as you get to changing the air filters in your furnaces.

SWINE FLU	Cases	Deaths
District of Columbia	43	0
Maryland	686	2
Virginia	300	2

Can you trust the figures? No! Even in the case of the District of Columbia in their last report to the city their figures issued June 19, 2009 their count has higher than the posted CDC report figures. Maryland doesn't release their current figures on the website but they did issue a press release about their second death WBOC TV16 reports the figure at 686. Virginia's site publishes their numbers by county and their numbers issued yesterday are higher than published with an additional death as well.

Cancer 1 Us 2

Why it's taken me two days to post the understanding of the government's cancer report is beyond me. Aunt Pearlie died as a result of her surrendering to her breast cancer. "The 2008 report shows that, from 1996 through 2005, death rates for all cancers combined decreased for all racial and ethnic populations and for both men and women, except for American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, for whom rates were stable. The drop in death rates has been steeper for men, who have higher rates, than for women. Death rates declined for 10 of the top 15 causes of cancer death among both men and women. However, death rates for certain individual cancers are increasing, including esophageal cancer for men, pancreatic cancer for women, and liver cancer for both men and women. Overall cancer death rates were highest for African-Americans and lowest for Asian American/Pacific Islanders."

The Washington Post says: "African Americans are less likely than whites to survive breast, prostate and ovarian cancer even when they receive equal treatment..." The 2009 report's conclusions were: "The black-to-white disparity in age-standardized breast cancer mortality was largely driven by the higher hazard rates of breast cancer death among black women, diagnosed with the disease, irrespective of ER expression, and especially in the first few years following diagnosis. Greater emphasis should be placed on identifying the etiology of these excess hazards and developing therapeutic strategies to address them."

The first report uses data from 2005 and the new report reviews data from 2004. While both are the most current data my Aunt wouldn't be included in either. Since her death won't be reflected as lung cancer or cancer it is no doubt in my mind that it was the breast cancer that caused it. She refused to either disclose the mass to her physician or family nor were ever discovered through her numerous physicals. Her response was that she expected it to be discovered fearing once cancer was discovered it would mean the end of her life. In this case it was certainly true. Although her cancer was responsive to treatment and would not have been life threatening.

Flight Risks

Speaking of bad information. USA Today wrote about the new report concerning leg blood clots that tells of a 3 fold increase in risk. The USA Today article quotes a doctor not a part of the report and even gives suggestions which the researchers don't for treating the problem. The problem is another citation of numbers to reassure us that it doesn't affect us.


I don't long distance travel much, though now more than before I met my wife-to-be. It's good to know that the pains I felt in my legs could have been serious but weren't. What the article ignores that the report doesn't is that size and weight matter. What "panel chair of the American College of Chest Physicians" gets incorrect to add coffee to the alcohol dehydration list to avoid on long trips. Better to drink coffee than cola - though water might be a better choice. Drinking excessly on long trips to me that means more trips to the cramped airline bathrooms something the large and over weight certainly seek to avoid.

Feel Better Don't Die

When my Aunt Pearlie first started having back pains she began to self medicate like all of us, certainly I'm guilty of playing physician with myself. Every day there's a report of something that we thought was safe that has resulted in deaths. Most startlingly to me is how numbers are cited as though their deaths are unimportant or somehow not something that should concern us. So is the case with Tylenol whose makers want you to know that: "There's nothing generic about TYLENOL." Which begs the question what's the difference between TYLENOL and Acetaminophen?

What's more confusing is that inspite of the reports and the confusing information it's what TYLENOL says on their website that conflicts with our concerns to not die: "It’s important for people to know that it’s not the recommended dosage of acetaminophen that poses the risk. Rather, it’s when people take more than the recommended dose either intentionally, often because they think it will work better — which is not the case — or unintentionally, often because they don’t realize that several products they are taking at the same time (both prescription and OTC) each contain acetaminophen." Edwin K. Kuffner, MD.

If we didn't self medicate imagine how much longer the waiting times would be in our doctor's offices, emergency rooms and hospitals. To see the progress of the TYLENOL tv ads from 1988 with Susan Sullivan tellings us how hospitals used TYLENOL more than any other pain relievers, to how to use it often, to the current Feel better.

To "Don't Die" if you take ANY over the counter medication to the daily maximum and you have to do it for another day - DON'T! The time for playing is over you might not die but why take the risk. Spend the time go stand in line where ever it may be. Feel better and live!

Kissable Breath & I'm Sorry What?!?

I love kissing my wife (actually "wife-to-be" until Sept 5) and she loves her morning coffee. I am not a coffee drinker, so once she's had her cup I tend to miss her lips and catch her cheek when we kiss and say goodbye. That will change with the two latest news reports about some very old news. Coffee kills the bad breath germs, prevents/reverses Alzheimer (PDF) and many other illnesses associated with aging. What we thought that we knew about coffee is largely wrong. Coffee isn't caffine and in most cases is more beneficial than water and ISN'T hazardous to your health.

Unless you're "with child" or in my case "exceptionally sensitive" coffee can be better than water to your health. There is even some evidence that if I lose the weight even my sensitivity will be reduced. Coffee, the caffinated variety, could even be beneficial to me.

Our tax dollars at work lead to this discovery. The Joint National Committee on Hypertension has specifically stated that there is no evidence linking coffee/tea and high blood pressure. Although all of the news reports say that you shouldn't increase your coffee intake based on these "early" results, that's not what the researcher suggests(LISTEN). Early studies from the same university indicate that Alzheimer can be dormant decades earlier so it doesn't pay to wait and see.

Fat Stupid

What are you stupid? No, but "explain it to me like I'm a four-year-old." What is obese? I know it means we're overweight. (Actually its when an overweight person is overweight.) Think of it as your eating habits. If you order a Starbucks anything and its Venti, or a you morn the loss of McDonald's supersize choices, if you 7-11 and "Super or Double Big Gulp" you're probably obese. If you think snack foods should be eaten between meals and you snack every day, you're probably obese.   I don't mean to sound like an overweight Jeff Foxworthy but you just might be obese. If you desert every day and the size of the desert is larger than all the fresh vegetables you've eaten all day, you just might be a fat person.

We all feel fine and not fat at all until we're having problems breathing while walking somewhere we couldn't park close enough to enter, or can't make love as long as we use to while trying to satisfy our partners desires, or we just plain run out of steam. When we're leaning against everything to hold ourselves up while standing still or asking the young ones to slow down because we're a little tired. But we're not fat. Fat is someone else we know bigger than us but its not us. Or if it is we're happy with the way we are and you just have to accept us for who we are you skinny heifer!

Blaming you isn't the solution anymore than reminding me that I'm an obese person in waiting. What might help is more than perpetual naked mirror watching or news stories telling us that we're not as large as people from Mississippi. BMI (Body Mass Index) - It takes some higher math abilities to figure out how to compute how overweight you are scientifically. Let's just KISS (keep it simple sweetie) "if you can pinch and inch" then walk one around your neighborhood everyday.

How Fat Are We

We're not as fat as our kids who are pretty fat. Not that fat is a nice word it's really just a three letter four letter word. Washington DC (34th out of 40) is also not as fat as Maryland (tied for 19th) and Virginia (three way tie for 21st) either, well, us adults anyway. Our children, rather, your children are fatter in DC (9th out of 44) than in the surrounding jursidictions. Since your offspring don't usually commute for hours a day that's probably why the obese Maryland (32nd) and Virginia (23rd three way tie) adults probably have slimmer children. While their children are awaiting mommy and daddy's arrival home from work they're out and about playing until their parental units arrive.

WED MD says that Mississippians eat to much fried foods according to the comments of a newly transplanted Washingtonian. Lack of a public transportation system throughout the state could also be another reason but that's just speculation.

Who says we're fat - we'll they don't use the word fat the use the "O" word. How obese we are comes from the Trust for America's Heath in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who get the actual numbers from the government's U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They do the math so we don't have to!