Hallway Maternity

In Canada we not only have long delays in our public health care delivery system for operative procedures like joint replacements and life threatening coronary artery bypasses, but even for diagnostic procedures like MRI's and CT scans. As a result a new branch of Emergency Medicine has evolved called hallway Medicine.medicine
Governments have tried to resolve these expanding problems by introducing between the doctor and their patients bureaucracies like the Regional Health Authorities. It would seem that rather than solving these problems , these agencies -or should I say- these health authorities, may in fact be responsible for expanding these problems and even have the potential for creating new ones. For example by closing maternity wards at several peripheral hospitals Winnipeg may soon be adding another branch to their emergency wards called hallway maternity- if there are " no beds at the inn " i.e on the maternity wards.
Rather than expanding their "authoritarian " -role- in patient care, these regional authorities should actually be reducing their involvement so that the patient/doctor relationship in the management of a medical problem is restored.

Political Justice

Fact: With over 40 carcinogenic compounds and 400 poisons in tobacco smoke it is not surprising that annually over 45,000 deaths in Canada are tobacco related deaths
Question: Why did Allan Rock and later Ann McLellan when they both held the portfolios of justice and later Health Minister that they did not pass bills in Parliament to make it illegial not only to grow tobacco but to manufacture, distribute and sell tobacco related products- more specifically cigarettes? It is especially ironic in the case of Allan Rock who saw his sister a smoker suffer and die from lung cancer- a tobacco related cancer. Indeed in the USA were tobacco related diseases claim over 500,000 annually a secretary in the Health Department put it very succinctly "Tobacco is the only product which taken as directed- namely smoking as cigarettes- can kill you"

Fact: Health benefits and cost effectiveness of disease preventative programs have been clearly demonstrated. According to a publication by Pelletier (Amr.Health Promotion 8:50-61.1993 ) and reviewed by 2 naturopathic doctors in their textbook "Encyclopedia of Naturopathic Medicine" participants in wellness orientated programs reduce their number of days of disability by 43 %, number of days spent in a hospital by 54%, and the amount of money spent on health care by a remarkable 76%. Analysis of the Romanow report would indicate that we have a "disease care system " and not a "health care system "with emphasis on the elimination of disease rather than achieving good health. Where the physician is the "all-knowing authority" rather than "a partner" in the healing process, in many cases treating the symptoms rather than the underlying cause. The provincial Regional Health authorities and the newly established central health agency by none other than our deputy prime minister have not only added 2 additional barriers to this health delivery model but by these agencies ever expanding staff and role they have dramatically increased the cost of Canada's health care delivery system.- money as I have already indicated could more profitably be used in preventative health programs especially on life extension.
Question: When are the 2 major players in the healthcare delivery system- the government (both federal and provincial) who pay for it and the physicians and paramedical staff who render the services going to make this paradigm shift from the allopathic to the naturopathic model?
Sadly the agenda of the party leaders for the upcoming federal elections are not addressing these issues.

Is Alzheimers Type 3 diabetes ?

According to a recent Life Extension Bulletin (12-05-2005 ) de la Monte research group at Browns University not only discovered that the brain produces insulin but that in the early stages of Alzheimer's less insulin as well as the insulin-like growth factor is produced and further that this insulin production and number of insulin receptors drops progressively as the disease became more severe. They also showed that the levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine were directly linked to this loss of insulin production.
These findings of insulin impairment, lower levels of acetylcholine' together with, "poor energy metabolism, and its link to abnormalities that contribute to the tangles characteristic of Alzheimers" have lead this neuroscientist to postulate that Alzheimers's disease "... is possibly a Type 3 diabetes".
I can recall many of my Alzheimer's patients frequently have lucid periods. If it could be demonstrated that during such lucid periods their brain levels of insulin, were in the normal range then maybe there might indeed be some hope for such demented patients.

African AIDS Pandemic

In May 1999 Dr. Leonard Horowitz gave a talk at the Winnipeg Convention Center on "Emerging Viruses And Vaccination" He alluded to the possibility that in an effort to produce a vaccine for the recent homosexual outbreak of AIDS in New York (? 1972), Americans needed to manufacture(synthesize) the virus and then to produce the vaccine in abundance. They had their NIH research facilities and the Drug Company Merck was willing to collaborate for the synthesis of the virus. What they needed was a human population for clinical trials. It is obvious that only using gays had limitations so they would have to test it in a population (heterosexual ).

Epidemiologists should not find it difficult to explain the number of cases of AIDS in Africa now exceeding 40 million- or its wide distribution. if they read Dr. Leonard Horowitz's book " Emerging Viruses Aids & Ebola. Nature, Accident or Intentional". More specifically Chapter 7 of this book records an interview with Dr. Robert Strecker. It's a real eye opener and suggests that the AIDs virus may have been accidentally and/or deliberately introduced in Africa. For example on page 99 just one quote from this interview where Robert(Strecker) says:

" The same year(referring to 1972) they(meaning NIH and WHO ) said lets test it,and then lets inject it. And then they ( meaning WHO) published their test sites which is a map of Africa where they have all their test sites, and that corresponds exactly to the outbreak of AIDS."
It is rather ironic that this past week Stephen Lewis and 2 University of Manitoba professors were honoured by the St. Boniface General Hospital Research Foundation for their contribution to AIDS research. I cannot confirm if either of these 3 recipients or anyone else at this testimonial dinner mentioned the above experimentation as I did not attend this dinner. Also because I have
only read Dr. Horowitz's book I cannot confirm the accuracy of Dr. Strecker's references regarding "field experimentations with human populations". The reader should read the book and draw his or her own conclusions.