John Spencer Yantiss - Health

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I am a Type B personality. Actually, there is a recognised categorisation known as AB, which describes people who possess both sets of characteristics, and that more accurately defines me.

I do not floss my teeth regularly.

I use homeopathic remedies. In actuality, the definition of homeopathy--a system of medical practice that treats a disease by the administration of minute doses of a remedy that would in healthy persons produce symptoms of the disease treated--describes the action of vaccines; so anyone who has gotten, or will get, vaccinated, uses homeopathic remedies.

The federal government should not tax employer-sponsored health benefits. Taxing benefits is just one of the plethora of misbegotten means of picking the pockets of America's citizens. Benefits are offered as an inducement for job seekers to join a given firm, to wit, part of the total compensation package. Law makers get lifetime benefits after a single term in office, and yet gleefully nibble away at the means of living of those who elected them.

Health care reform legislation will be passed in 2009. I truly believe so, though whether the resulting legislation will actually provide the relief most needed--

The town hall protests against health care reform are appropriate.

People do have a right to affordable healthcare. Though it is not explicit in the Constitution, it is implicit. Understanding of "health," in and outside of the medical profession, in the early 19th century when the Constitution was written, was extraordinarily limited compared to that of today. If the remedies and cures, both known and envisioned today, not to mention life expectancy, had been even conceivable at the time, the framers would almost certainly have included the word "health" in that keenly perceptive triumvirate, "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Healthcare reform should include a government-sponsored health insurance option. Ditto to @brianr on this one. So long as the cards are not stacked against the private carriers, it should add another, hopefully, healthy competition component. The danger is, as always in things run by the government, that our elected public servants--Egad! In reality, what an oxymoronic term!--will not be able to restrain themselves, and end up passing laws that make it virtually impossible for private providers to in fact compete.

Pneumonia vaccinations are effective.

Second-hand smoke does increase your risk of getting pneumonia. ANYTHING!!!! that causes or contributes to mucus build-up in the lungs can, and usually does contribute to illnesses like pneumonia.

Pneumonia is contagious.

The government should subsidize pneumonia vaccinations for seniors. Seniors are, as is historically common, once again being forgotten, left in the wake, as it were. Amongst all of the "initiatives" to help people get through and beyond the financial crisis, there is very little focus on the plight of seniors. For seniors who have been laid off, it is much more difficult to find another job; for those who are already retired, and never had substantial retirement funds, healthcare costs often force a decision between getting medical attention, preventative or otherwise, and eating, or even paying the rent.

Public schools should administer pneumonia vaccinations.

Children diagnosed with pneumonia should be required to receive medical clearance before they can return to school. YES, medical clearance should be required. Numerous schools were closed because people either caught, or were suspected of catching Swine flu. Yet it is not the flu itself that causes severe or prolonged illness, but either pre-existing conditions, or complications, one of the primary ones being PNEUMONIA!

There should be limits on the amount of damages awarded in medical malpractice suits. Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! Frivolous and grossly exorbitant law suits not only forces physicians and other licensed healthcare givers to charge inflated fees, but pressure them to prescribe unwarranted tests just to protect themselves from fallacious and malicious litigation. Injuring millions of non-litigants, those very suits cause malpractice insuarance rates to spike, year after year, piling the financial burden ever higher on doctors and hospitals, who must recoup the cost somewhere--and guess where. Many people love to hate physicians because, as a group, they have a very good income. It is ironic that very few people of any economic level resent mega-millionaire athletes, celebrity performers of all sorts, or astronomically wealthy tycoons such as Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, but resent doctors. When all is said and done, no amount of money can compensate for loss of life, disfigurement, loss of sight, or any of the other possible results of medical procedures gone bad. And lastly, we must remember that doctors, nurses, and other medical care givers are HUMAN BEINGS, and fallible creatures, just life the rest of us. Anyone who wants a guaranty of perfect treatment is going to have to book a flight on the Starship Enterprise to where that is available, as in La-la Land.

Drinking in moderation is not a viable treatment for alcoholism. Alcohol is a drug. Moderation is no more effective with it than with cocaine or heroin

Health insurance should cover laser eye surgery. It is high time that the health insurance industry stopped pretending that eye health is a cosmetic issue. I would very much like to see some figures on the number of health insurance executives who have had laser/lasic and other eye surgery. There are also extremely critical reasons for laser eye surgery, as in diabetics who are losing their eyesight due to burst and leaking blood vessels. I could go on, but it should not be necessary.

A universal healthcare system would require a tax increase. Unfortunately human nature is such that no universal system of any kind is possible without government mandate, and governments have no source of funding outside of taxation, or some other method of appropriating of monies.

The size of a man's penis does not affect his level of confidence. Only to the extent that others are informed!

Habitual consumption of alcohol is worse on one's personal health than habitual consumption of marijuana. Once again, this question is too black-and-white for the issue--there are too many variables: * How much alcohol is habitually consumed? * How old is the one habitually consuming marijuana? In general, habitual consumption of inordinate quantities of alcohol grossly and critically affects organs that, the breakdown of which, will willy-nilly cause death, and an excruciating deat at that. On the other hand, for people not born with a predisposition to physical addiction to it, MODERATE habitual consumption of alcohol can actually be beneficial. Conversely, the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, collects in the fatty tissues of the body, to wit, the brain, the pancreas, the liver, and the reproductive organs. As THC is oil-based, it does not quickly leech out of the body, building up over time. A good benchmark for grasping the extent, and therefore the effects, of this buildup is that, if one were to smoke a "joint" today (particularly of the far more potent strains that are grown now, as opposed to what was available in, say, the 70s), there would be measurable amounts of THC in that person's system a year from now. Extrapolate that in the life of a child or teenager, whose brain is not fully developed! So, once again, the answer is "Yes" or "No," depending on the variables.

Media coverage of the swine flu outbreak has been overblown. Possible cases have been reported as actual cases; the ill health of some casualties, prior to contracting SF, if reported at all, has been presented as essentially an afterthought.

People should not use the Internet for self-diagnosis. Absolutely NOT! People love to hate doctors--until they have a life-threatening illness, or in fact are dying. Doctors are human beings, and therefore can and will make mistakes, but does one take a car to a gardner to be fixed? Does one, who knows nothing about internal combustion engines, attempt to diagnose major mechanical problems?

The U.S. is not prepared for a flu pandemic. Apparently many people do not know the definition of "pandemic." Drawing from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, and the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language: 1 a : [an epidemic] occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population

b : affecting the majority of people in a country or a number of countries . No government is ready for such an outbreak, of ANY disease. If the U. S. were to experience an epidemic similar to that of influenza which struck The Continental United States in 1918-1919, the result would not be nearly as bad, for flu kills primarily through secondary infections, bacterial infections, such as pneumonia, and a host of others to which the weakened are prey. Flu, in any of its iterations, is a VIRUS, not a bacteria. Antibiotics do not fight viruses. America has far less stocks of antivirals than antibiotics, and, for the moment, no vaccination for this particular strain. The U. S. could at least treat those coming down with "Swine Flu," but how many, how quickly. Just as with threats to our national security from other nations, terrorists, pirates, or any other quarter, people forget, and so do not learn from the history of epidemics. Having said all of that, it is highly unlikely that America is going to indeed have a "Swine Flu" epidemic. Most of the cases being reported are not confirmed "Swine Flu," and the unfortunate deaths already making the news, for the most part, are of people that were otherwise not healthy, like the little boy visiting from Mexico. As noted above, flu kills primarily through secondary infections, which are almost always bacterial. Therefore, antibiotics would play a large role in combatting any outbreak. Sadly, the flip side to forgetting and not learning from history, is a tendency to panic when something new or unforeseen happens, and panic, along with anxiety, inhibits the body's immune system.

The outbreak of the influenza virus (Swine flu) in Mexico will not become an international pandemic. Not likely, though I hope that I am not wrong. People in the more sophisticated societies have a tendency to panic about these things, as in "Mad Cow" disease, and Avian Influenza, just to name a couple. To a certain extent it is a good thing, in that it is always better to err on the side of caution.

Meditation does improve your health.

Medicaid coverage should be provided for low-income individuals infected with HIV.

Insurance premiums should be tax-deductible.

There is a link between sexual behavior and depression.

Lawmakers should limit the number of embryos that can be implanted during in-vitro fertilization.

Pope Benedict's comments about condoms increasing the problem of AIDS in Africa were accurate.

The identity of sperm donors should not remain anonymous.

Employers should offer health savings accounts.

"Third-hand smoke" is not a viable concern.

The Massachusetts universal healthcare model should not be implemented nationwide.

Obesity is socially contagious.

A mother should stop breastfeeding her child sometime between 6 months to 1 year.

Fibromyalgia is a legitimate medical condition.

Drinking milk has a positive effect on an adult's health.

Detoxification diets are beneficial.

Life is fundamentally precious because of its origins.