Category: Health Care

There are so many reasons why we should be cautious about GM crops and the huge potential effects on humans whether it be through cross contamination/pollination or yet unknown impacts on the physical body. We still know next to nothing about long term effects of eating GM products and I imagine that this particular area of science is not being thoroughly investigated by the numerous biotech companies whom, supposedly in the name of prevention of starvation for the Third World countries, allow a small band of multinationals to control the sale and distribution of the seed-stocks across the world.

I am writing this diary because an acquaintance of mine, who is the head chef in a fashionable Indian restaurant in London, related this story to me a few months ago. Last week he found more evidence of GM rice (Bt63) in wholesale suppliers. Even though this rice is banned in Europe it seems that it keeps finding its way into Asian eateries. It might have entered the food chain in the US. Always check the labels.

Cross-posted on the Big orange and our blog, La Vida Locavore.

Ben Ray Lujan is running for Congress in New Mexico’s diverse third district.

He is young and progressive. He supports universal health care, single payer or otherwise. He hopes to transform northern New Mexico’s national laboratories into alternative energy research facilities. And, as the grandson of a farmer and sheepherder, he overflows with ideas about sustainable agriculture.

He is expected to win.

More about El Norte, New Mexico’s third Congressional District, and her favored son after the jump.

(Art by native Norteño artist and health care advocate, Roger Montoya. Photos by me.)

This is my fourth diary on the melamine scandal (but first here on Docudharma), and like the financial scandals it shows no sign of going away any time soon. To this day 10,666 infants are still in Chinese hospitals fighting for their lives.

Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), chairwoman of the Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, issued the following statement about the FDA’s announcement that, despite potential harm to the kidneys, some melamine would not raise health concerns:

“While other countries throughout the world, including the European Union, are acting to ban melamine-contaminated products from China, the FDA has chosen to establish an acceptable level for melamine in food in an attempt to convince consumers that it is not harmful. Not only is this is an insult to consumers, but it would appear that the FDA is condoning the intentional contamination of foods.”

The following video ad was produced by veteran  inlookout and linked, in the replys, in an initial writeup posted at Vet Voice after the Debate.

John McCain Loves Cutting Veterans Health Benefits

First, let’s all take a page from the Maverick…sometimes you just have to laugh (in this case, to help from crying):

Once again, Raw Story shows why it is quickly becoming my blog of choice for news.

In Charleston, WV, it is reported by the Charleston Gazette that AIG is refusing to pay off a $50,000 life insurance policy taken out by a veteran.

This just makes me sick and it should provoke a huge boycott of AIG.

If you are anything like me, you vacillate between: Yes, we can, I hope we can, and who the hell are we kidding.  

While I’ve always “sort of” been interested in politics, I fell in love with the good rebel, Dr. Dean in 04.  It was the first time in my life that I felt “we the people” had any power, let alone “the power”.   After all, who can ever forget the What I Want to Know speech by our internet interloper.

Like Obama today for so many, Dean lead me to dailykos, activism, and the belief that we could make a difference; and then, he/we lost with the help of the corporate media and our very own Democratic Party.  With that loss, Kerry’s 04 capitulation, and the on-going dismal performance of the minority and majority Dems in the House and Senate, I really began to doubt that we had any power at all.

So, you ask, what the hell does any of this have to do with health care?  The simple answer is sometimes we can make a difference.  (more)

Michael Philip Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent on 26th July 1943. When he was 4 he met Keith Richards until they went into secondary schools and lost touch. But one day in 1960 they accidentally met on the Dartford train line and both realised that they had an interest in rock n roll combined with blues. Between 1960-1962 The Rolling Stones formed. It comprised of Mick on lead vocal and harmonica, Keith Richards on guitar, Bill Wyman on bass, Charlie Watts on drums and Brian Jones on guitar.  Link

Join me below as the UK commemorates this grand event……

Cross-posted from The Wild, Wild Left

Were I not a recovering Catholic, I would surely believe I burned off many a purgatory hour yesterday, far exceeding the actual 7 hours spent in the merry go round of hell called “taking mother in law to her doctor’s appointment.”

Yes, yes, someone with life-long dementia and ever increasing short-term memory loss cannot help thinking perhaps three things all day and repeating them, not unlike the child I used to sit who has autism. She fixates. Repeats. And repeats. I can live with that.

I could live with the inevitable 2 hour wait that her appointments, no matter when they are, involve.

What really fucked up the day was the white-trash big mouth in the waiting room parroting winger-speak and racist code talk; looking for agreement from me.