Archive for January 18th, 2008

      No, for a change, I am not referring to Hillary Clinton. I am talking about “medical” recommendations by America’s leading physicians and pharmacies. Let’s look at the cholesterol  flip flop for example. At first cholesterol was clogging arteries and killing people. A campaign was initiated against the “wrong” kind. Hundreds of diets were spawned to help us from becoming victims to the cholesterol assault on our arteries and veins. Millions of people were encouraged, myself included, to begin taking cholesterol reducing pill supplements like lipitor. The next news we hear is that cholesterol is a life giving nutrient ( see Dr. Douglass on nagging health advice) which the body makes for itself when our diet doesn’t provide enough of it. Estimates of acceptable levels are now two to three times the earlier levels.    

     How about the incredible edible egg? For awhile eggs held the spotlight among finger pointing physicians looking for causes of heart disease. It wasn’t until a massive 800,000 strong study showed egg eaters to have a much lower rate of heart attacks and strokes than egg avoiders before the onus on eggs was removed. And to think I almost gave up eggs! 

      What is happening is the intellectual integrity of our doctors has been corrupted by the drug and pharmacy companies. The truth is we can no longer trust the advice we get from our own health care professionals. It now seems they will push whatever these suppliers tell them to; of course these drug companies are strictly profit driven. Furthermore, studies show that over half of the authors writing clinical guidelines receive financial support from the companies whose drugs they are reviewing. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house.    

     Here is another example of drug company muscle flexing. We all must hear at least ten ads for sexual performance enhancing drugs daily. As a male I am offended by the constant innuendo by drug companies about my inability to perform adequately in the sack. It is my lifelong experience that no woman has ever had a sexual desire anywhere close to mine. I have never met a male who has uttered the words “I can’t keep up with her in bed”. If I continue to hear these ads I will eventually assume I have a problem and will probably buy some pills just to see if I can do better. Before that happens, I hope they find a pill for women so the drug companies can dog them for awhile.     

     The point is, to sell a product to a few needy, they are guilting the many. Drug companies will promote whatever makes them money, whether we need it or not. So beware. If you can’t trust your doctor or druggist, who can you trust? Yourself, of course. No one knows you better than yourself.

 Winner in perpetuity:

    For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are named after81-year-old Stella Liebeck who spilled hot coffee on herself andsuccessfully sued the McDonald’s in New Mexico where she purchased thecoffee. You remember, she took the lid off the coffee and put it betweenher knees while she was driving. Who would ever think one could get burned doing that, right? That’s right; these are awards for the most outlandish lawsuits and verdicts in the U.S. You know, the kinds of cases that make you scratch your head. So keep your head scratcher handy.

7TH PLACE:

     Kathleen Robertson of Austin, Texas was awarded $80,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running inside a furniture store. The store owners were understandably surprised by the verdict, considering the running toddler was her own son.

6TH PLACE:

     Carl Truman, 19, of Los Angeles, California won $74,000 plus medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Truman apparently didn’t notice there was someone at the wheel of the car when he was trying to steal his neighbor’s hubcaps. Go ahead, grab your head scratcher.

5TH PLACE:

     Terrence Dickson, of Bristol, Pennsylvania, who was leaving a house he had just burglarized by way of the garage. Unfortunately for Dickson, the automatic garage door opener malfunctioned and he could not get the garage door to open. Worse, he couldn’t re-enter the house because the door connecting the garage to the house locked when Dickson pulled it shut Forced to sit for eight, count ‘em, EIGHT, days on a case of Pepsi and a large bag of dry dog food, he sued the homeowner’s insurance company claiming undue mental Anguish. Amazingly, the jury said the insurance company must pay Dickson $500,000 for his anguish. We should all have this kind of  anguish. Keep scratching. There are more…

4TH PLACE:

     Jerry Williams, of Little Rock, Arkansas, garnered 4th Place in the Stella’s when he was awarded $14,500 plus medical expenses after being bitten on the butt by his next door neighbor’s beagle – even though the beagle was on a chain in its owner’s fenced yard. Williams did not get as much as he asked for because the jury believed the beagle might have been provoked at the time of the butt bite because  williams had climbed over the fence into the yard and repeatedly shot the dog with a pellet gun. Grrrrr … Scratch, scratch.

3RD PLACE:

     Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania because a jury ordered a Philadelphia restaurant to pay her $113,500 after she slipped on a spilled soft drink and broke her tailbone. The reason the soft drink was on the floor: Ms. Carson had thrown it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument. What ever happened to people being responsible for their own actions? Scratch, scratch, scratch. Hang in there;  There are only two more Stella’s to go…

2ND PLACE:

     Kara Walton, of Claymont, Delaware sued the owner of a night club in a nearby city because she fell from the bathroom window to the floor, knocking out her two front teeth. Even though Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the ladies room window to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge, the jury said the night club had to pay her $12,000… oh, yeah, plus dental expenses. Go figure.

1ST PLACE: (May I have a fanfare played on 50 kazoos please)

     This year’s runaway First Place Stella Award winner was Mrs. Merv Grazinski, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who purchased a new 32- foot Winnebago motor home. On her first trip home, from an OU football game, having driven on to the freeway, she set the cruise control  at 70 mph and calmly left the driver’s seat to go to the back of the Winnebago to make herself a sandwich. Not surprisingly, the motor  home left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Also not surprisingly, Mrs. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not putting in the owner’s manual that she couldn’t actually leave the driver’s seat while the cruise control was set. The Oklahoma jury awarded her, are you sitting down, $1,750,000 PLUS a new motor home. Winnebago actually changed their manuals as a result of this suit, just incase Mrs. Grazinski has any relatives who might also buy a motor home.