poor reporting

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-pain-of-wrong-site-surgery/2011/06/07/AGK3uLdH_story.html

"Mistakes such as amputating the wrong leg, performing the wrong operation or removing a kidney from the wrong patient can often be prevented by what O’Leary called “very simple stuff”: ensuring that an X-ray isn’t flipped and that the right patient is on the table, for example. Such errors are considered so egregious and avoidable that they are classified as “never events” because they should never happen.

But seven years later, some researchers and patient safety experts say the problem of wrong-site surgery has not improved and may be getting worse, although spotty reporting makes conclusions difficult. Based on state data, Joint Commission officials estimate that wrong-site surgery occurs 40 times a week in U.S. hospitals and clinics. Last year 93 cases were reported to the accrediting organization, compared with 49 in 2004. Reporting to the commission is voluntary and confidential — to encourage doctors and hospitals to come forward and to make improvements, officials say. About half the states, including Virginia, do not require reporting. In two states that track and intensively study these errors, 48 cases were reported in Minnesota last year, up from 44 in 2009; Pennsylvania has averaged about 64 cases for the past few years. "

No doubt should federal and state governments force reporting of such information.

One anniversary too many?

The Affordable Care Act celebrates its one year anniversary today. Nevertheless, not all of its beneficiaries are rooting in its support. There are definite early signs of success for this bill, including increased insurance access for thousands of children with pre-existing health conditions, drug prescription support for seniors on Medicare, tax credits for small businesses, and extended coverage for young individuals on their parents' plans (THANK GOD:)!!). However, many conservatives and libertarians are still looking for ways to repeal the hell out of this bill. And a few U.S. states, such as Virginia, are still fighting hard to retain their state rights--arguing that the Obamacare is unconstitutional. (Obama did acknowledge this problem a couple of weeks ago, when he endorsed a proposal that allowed states to opt out of federal health care reform requirements in 2014 so long as the state provides a viable and comparable plan). Other problems are also quickly arising, such as increased rates of employee reductions in many small businesses across the nation. In light of the economy, business owners are doing as much as possible to pinch each penny, even if this means downsizing their company to avoid entering into the employee mandate. At the most recent U.S. Chamer of Commerce press call, two small business owners were featured to discuss how the health care reform coverage mandates will inevitably raise costs for employers and make them less likely to hire more workers. While it is still too early to tell, especially considering the outrageous amount of pro-reform demonstrations Washington D.C. will experience later on today, Obamacare did survive to see its first birthday. Yet, the following year will be crucial in determining its longterm success and if the ACA will ever see another birthday again.

raw stuffed peppers

Just dropping a raw food/vegetarian recipe to those interested! One of my favorites and tastes amazing:)

1 lb. small bell peppers, halved and seeded
1 c. raw cashews
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp. salt
3 carrots
2 stalks celery
3 Tbs. olive oil
1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice
1/2 c. raisins

Cover the cashews with water in a small bowl and soak for several hours. Coarsely chop the garlic, carrots and celery and add these to a food processor with everything else except the peppers. Buzz in the food processor until everything is finely copped then spoon into the pepper halves and serve. Simple!

Back and Fourth Activism

“PAICINES, Calif. — When Mike Peterson jumped into a colleague's single turboprop Pilatus and flew over the remote central California valley that he now hopes to turn into a solar plant, he saw sunshine, flat land that would require little grading and two big transmission lines to tap into. "Wow," he remembers thinking at the time. "God made this to be a solar farm."

But when Kim Williams looks out at that same land from her low-slung ranch house, she sees an area rich with wildlife that is helping support her grass-fed chicken farm, her neighbor's cattle operations and her peaceful way of life. She supports solar energy on a small scale -- the electric fence around her chicken coop is powered by solar -- but says when she learned about the solar plant she felt shock and disbelief. Now, she's suing to block it.” MSNbc

Shocker. The long-time supporters of green energy only support solar energy until it becomes a reality. This made me think of Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace, who left the organization after 18-years with critiques of his group feeding our nation with “pop-environmentalism.” He cited numerous fellow directors who angrily labeled nuclear energy as evil, while throwing in misinformation about chemicals, biology, and genetics without any formal science background. He claimed there was massive uses of wrong information, fear, and sensationalism to deal with people on the emotional level rather than intellectual level. It was clear to him that Greenpeace had turned political. These people played politics as dirty as it gets—completely giving up on science and facts. Of course, that is what happens when you have activists that relay information received purely by word-of-mouth. Collectively these people grow as a unit, making friends with each other, gaining a voice, and similarly sharing a factually unfounded passion. In fact, it has long been agreed that Greenpeace has actually lent to more environmental harm than environmental good. An interesting quote by Moore himself, during an interview following his resignation from Greenpeace.
”I wouldn’t say vindicated as much as unfortunate that all of us — including me in the ’70s — who were leading the environmental movement made this mistake of being against nuclear energy. We were caught up in the anti-nuclear war movement and we made the mistake of thinking everything nuclear was bad. We didn’t make the distinction. Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, said if it was not for the environmental movement, there would be a lot fewer coal-fired plants in the world today and a lot more nuclear plants. We actually did something very negative back then. 
It is one of the reasons I work so hard to change the perception because I think it was a serious error.”

So it bugs me to see this happening again: liberals fighting for something to happen, but not wanting to pay the price to make it happen. The legal brawl comes as the U.S. is racing to adopt renewables. In the United States, renewable energy, including solar, makes up just 8 percent or so of electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That figure was expected to jump to 13 percent by 2035 -- but that was before the Green vs. Green feud.” So now, when funds for this project should be spent on creating renewable energy resources, it will instead be spent on fighting to make this happen. Thousands of environmentalists are in support of Kim Williams, now fighting for another unified by word-of-mouth cause. The whole point, I thought, was to be less selfish about ourselves and our immediate future, and think more broadly about the environment and those who will spend time on our earth later? I should make it clear that I don't fully support solar energy anyway. At least not with the science we have now. Until solar energy can become more efficient, other forms of energy are still preferable in my evaluation. My main point is how poorly developed such opinions, on behalf of environmentalists, can be. From ideals to reality, there needs to be a greater basis of evaluation and factual understanding when advocating for anything from A-Z.