The health bills coming out of Congress would put the decisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare. Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power. Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. He has already been appointed to two key positions: health-policy adviser at the Office of Management and Budget and a member of Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research. Emanuel bluntly admits that the cuts will not be pain-free. "Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change," he wrote last year (Health Affairs Feb. 27, 2008). Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008). Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else. Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time. Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96). Translation: Don't give much care to a grandmother with Parkinson's or a child with cerebral palsy. He explicitly defends discrimination against older patients: "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years" (Lancet, Jan. 31). The bills being rushed through Congress will be paid for largely by a $500 billion-plus cut in Medicare over 10 years. Knowing how unpopular the cuts will be, the president's budget director, Peter Orszag, urged Congress this week to delegate its own authority over Medicare to a new, presidentially-appointed bureaucracy that wouldn't be accountable to the public. Since Medicare was founded in 1965, seniors' lives have been transformed by new medical treatments such as angioplasty, bypass surgery and hip and knee replacements. These innovations allow the elderly to lead active lives. But Emanuel criticizes Americans for being too "enamored with technology" and is determined to reduce access to it. Dr. David Blumenthal, another key Obama adviser, agrees. He recommends slowing medical innovation to control health spending. Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they're "associated with longer waits" and "reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices" (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it "debatable" whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you'll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.) Obama appointed Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically deivered guidelines about what care the government deems appropriate and cost effective. In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal predicted that many doctors would resist "embedded clinical decision support" -- a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do. Americans need to know what the president's health advisers have in mind for them. Emanuel sees even basic amenities as luxuries and says Americans expect too much: "Hospital rooms in the United States offer more privacy . . . physicians' offices are typically more conveniently located and have parking nearby and more attractive waiting rooms" (JAMA, June 18, 2008). No one has leveled with the public about these dangerous views. Nor have most people heard about the arm-twisting, Chicago-style tactics being used to force support. In a Nov. 16, 2008, Health Care Watch column, Emanuel explained how business should be done: "Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda. If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration's health-reform effort." Do we want a "reform" that empowers people like this to decide for us?

Betsy McCaughey is founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and a former New York lieutenant governor.

  If you agree with the President's Heath Reform Act, then just hit delete.  But if you disagree, please email or call your Senators or Congressman.  Here are their email addresees and the Senator's phone numbers.  It only takes a few minutes to voice your opinion.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.senate.gov/general/resources/pdf/senators_phone_list.pdf

http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW_by_State.shtml

Reader 2--

"Many FMS patients might initially be supporters of this bill now if they are having trouble getting coverage.  The dark side would come later once the government has everyone on their program and forces people to get vaccinations, take only approved medications, eat only approved foods, etc. just to reduce costs.  Eventually, the possible harm will outweigh the initial good."

  14.  LYRICA UPDATE

From a reader--

"You asked me to keep you in touch with how i get n with Lyrica. Ive now been taking it just over 4 weeks. I was supposed to step up the dose from 75mg once a day for the first week, 75mg twice a day for next week then double up to 150mg twice a day. Well the first time i took it, its very hard to describe, but my brain went aah and just seemed to calm down. I slept really well for the first time in absolutely ages.

AT LAST! Oprah Magazine covers fibromyalgia — Mehmet Oz praises Dr. T’s approach

We appreciate that Dr. Oz and Oprah are now starting to address the hidden epidemics of CFS and fibromyalgia, bringing hope to the approximately 12 million suffering and often disabled Americans (mostly women), who till now have been rendered invisible by our healthcare industry.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is wonderful, begins his column by addressing this issue head on in his brand new O, the Oprah Magazine column. It says volumes that this is the first topic he chose to cover, and that he began by interviewing 4 key researchers in the field who have very different perspectives, to give readers an overview. We are also very honored that of the 4, he noted: "I'm more impressed by Teitelbaum's supplement regimen, and not only because he has tested his theories: I've put patients on this program with very good results."

Read Dr. Oz's article "4 Treatments for Fibromyalgia" at O, the Oprah Magazine online.

Let's encourage Dr. Oz and Oprah to continue covering CFS/FMS. You can help by reading the article at the link above, then leaving a note thanking them covering this topic. Ask friends who have or care about CFS/FMS to do the same. Oprah's website measures responses to articles, and an outpouring of positive response will encourage Oprah's team to increase coverage of CFS/FMS. Let's see if we can move this to their "Top Read" articles section!

1.	A lower blood volume (basically are dehydrated),
2.	Fewer red blood cells to carry oxygen and nutrients (basically anemia, despite normal blood tests).

The study also discusses that although the heart may be smaller in CFS and beats less efficiently, this is likely caused by the dehydration and low blood volume, as opposed to primarily being a heart problem.