10. You saw the nurse filling the syringe with Diet Snapple

9. It makes you so delirious, you seriously start considering voting for Michele Bachmann

8. It has a 100 percent guarantee from Dr. Kevorkian

7. It’s FDA approval is from the Florida Dental Association

6. After injecting you, the doctor offers to sell you the antidote for another hundred bucks

5. The “clinic” is in the backseat of a ’54 Chevy

4. You notice the diploma on the doctor’s office wall is from Hamburger U.

3. Right after getting it, you start shaking like Rick Perry at an NAACP rally

2. You got the shot from a door-to-door grifter

1. The label claims it’s also effective against Cooties
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, health & medical by Bob Sullivan
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A friend of mine has recently gone from being a very healthy guy to deciding he wants to be the healthiest man ever. Suddenly his calendar is filled with triathlons and, when not actually participating in triathlons, he is staying in shape for triathlons, because it’s not like you wake up one morning, grab a few Krispy Kremes for breakfast, and decide, “I feel like traveling a ridiculously long distance as fast as possible today without using my car.” I recently took a trip with him to Chicago to visit a mutual friend and, our first morning there, he popped in his daily workout DVD and then spent the next hour and 15 minutes exercising (the highlight: when the workout commanded him to do pullups he began scrambling around the apartment searching for structures to support his weight, while I noted that our hosts probably wouldn’t appreciate him ripping their shelves from the wall in his desperate attempt to ensure he maxed his workout benefits by ripping off 15 before his body started to cool down). [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical by Sean Cunningham
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Dateline DC: This city of swamprats in custom suits is a limbo, a purgatory occassionally slipping into hell. It is the capitol and first city of the Wild East, edging out New York with baroque corruption more obscene than hundred dollar parking if only because the scales of loot and depravity are orders of magnitude larger. Why? For the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks, rather than lemonade stands. It’s where the money is.

Cornell Jones is no villain, or at least not here. Lifetime criminal though he be, he is at least an honest one, hijacking his hoard with an iron fist and an open gun instead of a soothing word and a hidden dagger. Still, even he was not above getting his hands dirty in Washington politics, [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Ken Watson
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Men’s Health and Yahoo! Health conspired to produce an hilariously misleading set of “9 Scariest Food Facts” that aren’t scary, and aren’t actually facts, either. The piece was written by a couple of assholes called “David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding,” apparently as a promotional tool for their pushy book with the yammering title Eat This, Not That! (has there ever been a book with an exclamation point in the title that wasn’t crap? I really don’t know; I’m not trying to be snide).  The piece is almost worth reading as an example of the effective use of unsourced half truths and lies to promote an agenda.

The first “fact”?

1. Nutritious food costs 10 times more than junk food.
University of Washington researchers calculated the cost discrepancy between healthy food and junk foods and found that 2,000 calories of junk food rings up at a measly $3.52 a day. Yet for 2,000 calories of nutritious grub, the researchers plunked down $36.

The asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, do not include a link to the study to which they are alluding. (They do, however, include a link to a promotional webpage for their fingerwaving screed Buy This, Not That! excuse me I mean Eat This, Not That!) So I had to google it for myself, because I don’t trust a couple of bluenosing jerks just because they say something alarming. And it turns out that the “study” in question does not say what the asshole authors, David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding, claim it does. In fact, it says nothing of the sort. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, trusted media & news by Ricky Sprague
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Let’s say that Barack Obama dons some gay apparel, something like a viking hat and chainmail, hoists Osama’s crab-nibbled melon over his own and runs out on the West Lawn crying out like Braveheart, “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” This has a predictable effect, rallying the entire country to the cause of Scottish nationalism, but also whatever other plans the President has cribbed on his ipad. The hottentots in the House and elsewhere fall in to line. The institutions of international finance are also well impressed by this display of leading from the side yard; they promise (and prove to have the ability) to buy up all the T-bills we can print at around 3%. For the most part there is no effect on the media, except that Fox is given over to the closest thing white people have to Obama, Mitt Romney, making it as tractable as a gelded pony. The Bush Era Tax Rates die of natural causes next year, engorging federal revenues while not harming economic activity in the least. Likewise FICA taxes rise to no complaints or ill effect. The regulations of the insurance industry have exactly the intended effect and no other leaving it exactly as prosperous and powerful as Obama wants. In short, let us make this titanic and diverse stipulation that is far, far better than any reasonable Best Case Scenario and still we can confidently predict that Obamacare (or whatever you would like to name it…. Husseincare? How’s that sound?) will fail utterly, catastrophically and grotesquely. And we can blame it on Charlie Sheen. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Ken Watson
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In an unkinder and less gentle age we might entertain ourselves with a good old fashioned octopus fight or a wrasslin’ match between siamese twins. Not between two pairs of twins mind you, but two conjoined bodies grabbing and spiraling around one another trying to get on top when, really, there is no top. If this wholesome spectacle isn’t a violation of federal civil rights codes it probably runs afoul of your local blue laws so instead let us examine closely the grunting, morbid struggle between Romney and Obama.

Mitt and Barack are, of course, joined at the healthcare. Once this was a happier state of affairs for the son of Michigan Mormons than it was for the grandson of Hawaiian commies. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Ken Watson
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I ask a simple question for the first guy that I met. And I said, ‘What about the eleventh year? You guys constructed this health care bill with six years of costs and ten years of revenue. What about the eleventh year?’ And the guy looks at me and says, ‘I’m eighty!’ Sam Zell

Yes, this is the fact of the matter by the admission of reformists themselves; six years of spending supported by ten years of revenue. Mr Zell is actually quite generous here as the fly in the ointment surfaces in the seventh year, not the eleventh. By the eleventh year, even on its own terms, the whole operation will be five years in arrears. And the anonymous Senator presumes he will then be dead and happily so. Well, we assume this is a fellow who knows his own worth. If he is happy we should be happy. But what if his date with eternity stands him up? What if death disappoints? [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, money by Ken Watson
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Healthcare is in peril. Whether it is from spiraling costs, the effort to curb same; a vicious program of exclusion or a dunderheaded attempt to baby-proof the globe we can all agree, the benefits of our current system and whatever medical promises held in the future all hang by a thread. Here agreement ends, however. The concept of polarization doesn’t begin to describe it. The Arctic and Antarctic have more in common than the warring factions that promote and oppose the thing we are not supposed to call Obamacare. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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 Congress passed a law. A biggun. I won’t indict the methods employed, the simple fact is they got it passed. But this was an unusual critter. First off titanic in size and scope. Also as opaque as a public document could be. As Nancy Pelosi informed us so elegantly, we would have to pass it to see what was in it. Weeks after the vote the first reports from Reality returned. They were bad. Oh, so bad. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, on the law, politics & government by Ken Watson
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Here in the Philadelphia region, we are up to our asses in snow, ice, and misery due to the poor weather. It’s had me cursing more than the lovable foul-mouthed 1980’s arcade legend Q-Bert. And as mentioned last week, I am also up to my ass in work, graduate school work, dirty diapers, and stress. And the ass of which I speak has been struggling to get into my wrinkle free pleated cotton Dockers lately. I can’t afford new pants, so it’s high time for me to get in shape! [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, Marty digs by Marty O'Connor
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I can’t imagine that there is a parent out there that hasn’t had the discussion about whether or not they believed in the link between autism and certain vaccines administered to children. I know I certainly have. I chose to vaccinate my daughter, as I never really found there to be hard evidence that linked the two. Well, apparently — there isn’t. Some douche of a doctor — Dr. Andrew Wakefield to be exact — decided to go ahead and falsify his findings. Of course he’s denying it, but the evidence against him seems overwhelmingly strong. What could possibly possess a human being to do such a thing? And how will the country now react to those who so strongly supported this doctor’s theory?

Hey, Jenny McCarthy — all eyes are on you.

Tags: going parental, health & medical by Jaclyn Roth
7 Comments »

“WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Virginia threw out the controversial plank of President Obama’s health-care law that requires Americans to buy coverage… In a ruling issued yesterday Judge Henry Hudson struck down the so-called “individual mandate” provision as unconstitutional. He said the federal government does not have the authority to order people to purchase coverage.”

This sounds right. Can we really force citizens to purchase financial services? That is essentially what the new health-care law does by fining adults who do not purchase health insurance by 2014.

[Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Robert O'Hara
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10. You’re mistaken for a runaway Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon

9. You had to let out your shower curtain

8. At the beach, compassionate surfers keep trying to push you back in the ocean

7. This morning, the display on your bathroom scale read “Holy crap!”

6. You’re constantly asked what circus you work for

5. Your bellybutton suddenly popped out like one of those turkey thermometers

4. You’re sweating yams

3. NASA is planning to launch a rocket in the hopes of photographing the other side of you

2. So far, twelve people have referred to you as “Mr. Limbaugh”

1. Whenever anyone says, “Please pass the Butterball,” somebody grabs you
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Tags: Bob Sullivan's top ten everything, health & medical, recipes & food by Bob Sullivan
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The way in which a product is marketed is vitally important to its success. We know that manufacturers spend a lot of time and money to ensure that their product, however hurtful it might be, seems appealing to consumers. The reason for this is obvious: most people are helpless in the face of great marketing, and great marketing starts with the packaging in which a product is sold.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration offered up some ideas for new cigarette warning labels, complete with gruesome illustrations that plainly display the effects of smoking. Merely telling people “smoking causes cancer” is not enough – clearly, people need to see the revolting results of their disgusting habit that I hate. That we all hate. That is costing us so much money.

[Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
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 As terms like grass-fed, organic, locally grown, and sustainable become household words, eco-conscious cooks and manufacturers focus on the next frontier. After you get your pasture-raised chicken home, what are you cooking it in? After dinner, how are you packaging your leftovers?

Nonstick cookware, long considered one of the great culinary advancements of the 20^th century, has some major drawbacks. Last month, a study was published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine linking chemicals in nonstick pans to high cholesterol in children. This is in addition to multiple studies which have shown that at high temperatures, Teflon, the chemical used in the original nonstick pans, can be lethal to animals and cause flu-like symptoms in humans. How hot the pan needs to be to cause illness is still up for debate.

Aluminum pots and pans have been all but phased out of most home kitchens, since studies show they may be linked with Alzheimer’s disease. Yet every single chef and restaurant owner I spoke to in researching this article still used them in their restaurant.

[Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, recipes & food by Jessica Alfreds
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1) Bread

2) Milk

3) Eggs [Read more →]

Tags: creative writing, health & medical, mostly kidding by Matt Scottoline by Matt Scottoline
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Reuters has a hilarious story about the hapless German communist party’s attempts to curry favor with schoolchildren by offering them pens that project pornographic images.

To sweeten their first day at primary school German children are normally given a cardboard cone filled with sweets, but schoolchildren in Essen this year opened their cones to find pens which project erotic images.

Wait a minute.

German children are usually given candy at the beginning of the school year? German children? German children are given candy?

Typical German child enjoying sweets. [Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, travel & foreign lands by Ricky Sprague
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Naturally I am concerned about overweight people. I am concerned because I have a big heart. Not an enlarged, unhealthy heart, like thickset people, but rather I am full of concerned feeling for them. I want them to be healthy. Even if they don’t want to be healthy themselves. I want this for them because I am healthy myself. I run almost every day. I eat healthy foods. And I feel great! Except for all this concern that I have for people who don’t run, and don’t eat healthy foods.

When I think of those butterballs, I feel sad.

But then I feel happy again when I think of the people who are actually doing something about our country’s obesity epidemic. People like me, who make enlightened food choices, and who exercise regularly. I am a lean and healthy 154 pounds, and at 6’1″, I am an appealing ideal to which others can aspire.

[Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
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President Obama, a role model to our children (I like to think of him as our “Role Model-in-Chief”) set a terrible example to our obesity-plagued children by having a cheeseburger with some guy from Russia.

The buzz around the White House centered much more on the presidents’ unexpected jaunt for cheeseburgers to Ray’s Hell Burger in Virginia — Medvedev took jalapenos — and less about the many substantive matters they discussed.

Did the president check this out with his wife first? Remember, she is the one who created the “Let’s Move” campaign, to encourage fat kids to, well, move.

And also, to not eat so many cheeseburgers.

[Read more →]

Tags: health & medical, politics & government by Ricky Sprague
3 Comments »

The marvelous Mr. Cohen has written a chilling piece here tonight, The end of privately held medicine.

In the piece, he tells the tale of a Senator’s quest to ban medicine in your home, for the purpose of, drum roll please… Saving the Children!  The surprise is overwhelming!

But I’m not sure how up-to-date Mr. Cohen is on the technological front…

[Read more →]

Tags: health & medical by Mike McGowan
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