But the FDA and EPA are evil.... EVIL I tells ya!

I don't think he's correct in how much things cost. Different hospitals in different locations in the U.S. charge considerably different amounts for say a hip replacement. You can't accurately generalize costs like this.

It's interesting to note that he says Americans go to the doctor less frequently than Europeans. It'd be interesting to find out the reasons why, if this is in fact the case. This goes along with what he says that Americans are not "sicker" than Europeans or "other people."

Also, to say Americans pay more for healthcare does not take into account how much Europeans pay in taxes in order to get whatever healthcare they get. So it's not clear where he gets that Americans pay more for healthcare or how he measures that.

Also, in places like Italy, you get "discounts" on healthcare if you don't ask for a receipt, pay in cash, etc., bringing costs down as the providers can then avoid having to report that income. For similar reasons, the statistics on how much people actually spend on healthcare doesn't reflect this underground economy.

He's correct that doctors are paid more in the U.S. There's also the IP/patent problem and the FDA and other trade restrictions that limit the availability of drugs which jacks up prices in the U.S.

He's also advocating cronyism here as a good way to lower prices, which, I assure you, is not a good way to go. I can tell you that doesn't lower any prices in the long run. But in the short run, it's like giving all government business to Walmart so that they can keep prices low. That works until ... they put competitors out of business. Then they jack up prices again, once their monopoly is ensured.
He, of course, advocates centralized planning to keep costs low. That's why Cuba has "cheaper" healthcare. That's also why Cubans are mostly poor.

The reason you can't negotiate effectively, as he says, is not because healthcare is different from any other service or good, but because of all the burdensome regulations and protectionism that surrounds it.
Basically he either doesn't know what he's talking about or he has some other agenda -- like, for example, being "hip."

I think he's also not talking about average individual healthcare costs, but how much the "country" as a whole, spends on healthcare, which is quite different.

From Wikipedia:
Adalimumab (HUMIRA, AbbVie) is the third TNF inhibitor, after infliximab and etanercept, to be approved in the United States. Like infliximab and etanercept, adalimumab binds to Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), preventing it from activating TNF receptors. Adalimumab was constructed from a fully human monoclonal antibody, while infliximab is a mouse-human chimeric antibody and etanercept is a TNF receptor-IgG fusion protein. TNFα inactivation has proven to be important in downregulating the inflammatory reactions associated with autoimmune diseases. As of 2008 adalimumab has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn's disease, moderate to severe chronic psoriasis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Although only approved for ulcerative colitis from late 2012 by the FDA in the disease's management, it has been used for several years in cases that have not responded to conventional treatment at standard dosing for Crohn's Disease.

But yes, seeing a powerfull and potetially extremly harmful drug advertised for what seems to be (I am no medical expert) a "cosmetic disorder"is frightening.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by Barseps.

Ok, lets look at it this way. In many cases a federal court can be a court of opinion. Numerous people say "oh this seed caused me a problem" and the federal court says "ok banned". Generally we would see this as a good thing, because people see a response to their claims. Enter the "chinese food syndrome". People are being told by health food nuts that GMO can cause symptoms, and psychosomatic symptoms develop. Now without any actual research, we have people that are claiming symptoms and a federal court stepping in to stop sale. This is exactly why we have a federal agency to review research and conduct their own research to ensure food safety, its called the FDA, they are fairly competent. They ban stuff all the time, many things with only minor health concerns (less than alcohol and cigarettes in any case). The same is said for the EPA protecting the environment (they would seem to do a worse job than the FDA). These agencies can review concerns with GMO's without the "court of public opinion" deciding on GMO's.

“Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food," said Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications. "Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job.”

Bite me, Phil.

Sigh, its not a federal courts job to stop health issues in food, its the FDA. The EPA is responsible for any environmental problems they cause. This really does nothing.

Edit: also federal courts can't halt sale, they can be sued for damages if they make a seed that hurts you.

Unless Darken is signing my paycheck, I answer however I damned well please. And my side business selling straw men, well, I didn't build that, Obama did.

Many on that list are Obama 'accomplishments' only for leftists.


Ears didn't end anything in Iraq, it was already happening when he took office.

He had nothing to do with Moammar and would support whoever came out on top.

The stimulus, particularly the bank bailouts, did nothing except put us in greater debt.

The Chevy Volt is a failure.

Government takeover of healthcare?...I only wish ALL the new taxes Obamacare will hit us with would happen at once, so the oblivious can experience the rotten deal and betrayal of Constitution.

FDA regulating tobacco? Another step backwards from ending Drug Prohibition.

The two UNqualified affirmative action judges added to Supreme Court.

Billions lost to green jobs scams/putting the kibosh on the Keystone pipeline.

...and so forth.

Obama running on his record? Go right ahead. It's why he's where he's at today.


>> ^VoodooV:

>> ^quantumushroom:
An "enraged" Maddow doesn't bother me in the slightest, nor is her blather worth commenting on.
It's just nice to see the left dick-punched with their own tactics, the righty version of lib lies like "trickle-down" and "tax cuts for the rich" (and calling everyone a racist).
You all think Obama has a record worth running on? Let him know. Cause even he don't believe it.
"Economist Edward Lazear has cut through all of Barack Obama's claims about "creating jobs" with one plain and inescapable fact — "there hasn't been one day during the entire Obama presidency when as many Americans were working as on the day President Bush left office." Whatever number of jobs were created during the Obama administration, more have been lost."
>> ^DarkenRahl:
Do you EVER respond to the actual video and/or discussion? You must have a side business selling straw men.
>> ^quantumushroom:
The FORMER big three networks were all liberally-biased for decades (and are still in denial about it).
It's a miracle there are as many righties as there are, with leftists controlling government schools and hollywood.
The internet has saved this nation from the former "fourth estate" who betrayed and murdered real journalism to stump for taxocrats.
There's something wrong when FOX holds one point of view but ALL THE OTHER networks parrot the same line of socialist claptrap.
Oh, I almost forgot. Man-made global warming--or even plain global warming, continues to be a sham.
And fk castro.
THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE RIGHT HAS SPOKEN!



So the answer to @DarkenRahl 's question is...no.
It cracks me up that the right thinks Obama isn't or can't run on his record. He's been running on his record since day one. The right continues to pretend to live in an alternate universe. I know you listen to fox news and they're demonstrably mis-informing people on a regular basis, but you've either missed or willfully ignored his many accomplishments
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ma
gazine/march_april_2012/features/obamas_top_50_accomplishments035755.php

Dunno, @Stormsinger is suggesting it isn't a real thing, just some indignation over a perhaps mole hill event. TYT does do that kind of thing like all of us do, so it wouldn't be to shocking.

Personally, though, I would think homosexuality is a large enough "anomaly" to at least be worthy of mention to the person that is getting the sample. I don't know a thing at all about the sperm donation process, I assume some kind of profile is already given to people who accept the sperm, and homosexuality seems like a genuine attribute a person should know about before you accept it. To that end (anecdotal), I heard of a blind, lesbian couple that wanted to find a blind male sperm donor to inseminate one of them to increase to likelihood of a blind child. That is all just to say choice is always a good thing to have, and edifying choices require information and freedom to act. If the FDA was mandating sperm banks to provide a profile that includes homosexuality as a listed trait of the donor (which is what I thought this video was going to be about), that is one thing, but wholesale misunderstanding of the risks of spreading HIV as it was mistakenly understood as Gay-related immune deficiency seems so folly that I almost can't believe it is true. However, being that I produce sperm well enough on my own; my own desire to google if this was a story worthy of actual merit escapes my attention span.

>> ^swedishfriend:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Hmmm when I read the title, I thought it was going to make at least some sense, like...since homosexuality might be genetic (though it could be epigenetic or in utero) to not allow that "anomaly" into the sperm bank. That makes at least some sense to me; this though is retarded. It makes me laugh when recollecting people wanting to put the FCC in charge of the internet...because this is the type of shit that would start happening. Perhaps not a fair comparison, but I think their respective track records are pretty similar.

It is genetic. Going with the notion that it is an anomaly, it isn't an anomaly that is medically unsafe in any way so why would it matter? If you get sperm from a clinic you must realize that there is a chance of at least some genes from the donor being expressed in the child. Are people staying away from sperm banks or are they lining up in droves?
So why FDA? who is asking for this? Business competition would lead to sperm banks with genetic controls if this is something people were clamoring for.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

Hmmm when I read the title, I thought it was going to make at least some sense, like...since homosexuality might be genetic (though it could be epigenetic or in utero) to not allow that "anomaly" into the sperm bank. That makes at least some sense to me; this though is retarded. It makes me laugh when recollecting people wanting to put the FCC in charge of the internet...because this is the type of shit that would start happening. Perhaps not a fair comparison, but I think their respective track records are pretty similar.


It is genetic. Going with the notion that it is an anomaly, it isn't an anomaly that is medically unsafe in any way so why would it matter? If you get sperm from a clinic you must realize that there is a chance of at least some genes from the donor being expressed in the child. Are people staying away from sperm banks or are they lining up in droves?

So why FDA? who is asking for this? Business competition would lead to sperm banks with genetic controls if this is something people were clamoring for.

>> ^Sagemind:

How is it the FDA can be this medically ignorant - The fact is, they aren't, they know exactly what they are doing.


Of course they do, and it's obviously not about diseases

How is it the FDA can be this medically ignorant - The fact is, they aren't, they know exactly what they are doing.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by bareboards2.

>> ^vaire2ube:

The War on Drugs is a War on People... or quite literally, a War on Freedom.
Who else hates our freedom as much as the DEA?? Ask Daniel Chong... Bin Laden has nothing on what the DEA did to him.


I agree, but let me devils advocate for a second. Everyone has heard of sin taxes, extra taxes placed on things like cigarettes to discourage their use. These things fly in the face of freedom as well, they just don't send you to jail, just the poor house. The scary part about sin taxes isn't the tax itself, even though it is bad, but it is the justification it then grants the government in the matters of regulating what you consume. There is the FDA on the other side of that argument as well. Lets say Mary Jane gets legalized, you can bet your ass the stuff you grown in your back yard STILL isn't going to be legal. You are going to need some kind of licence, some sort of standardized testing procedure to make sure you aren't poisoning yourself...ect ect.

My point is, harping on the drug war is fine, and it is right to do so. But there are SO many different agencies and areas the government tells us what do and what not to do. IN that, the drug war is just an extension of those things. If you still want the FDA by the logic, that the drug war is a war on people, I don't think it will stand the test. Instead, you have to take a MUCH less ideological position of "more people want to do it than don't, so it is the exception in regulator matters". That is the problem you get into when you start trying to make everyone safe...there isn't such an actual idea as safe. Safe is a completely subjective idea...some people feel safe skydiving...fuck that noise.

As a crazy libertarian, I am fine with most government agencies shutting down. To that end, I do think life wouldn't change to much. The entities in the government evolved from our desire for them to exist. They would all most likely come to be in the private sector as well, a consumer reports of food, ect. And with places like the sift and redit, I do think the second age of the information age is going to place a LOT of pressure on governments and challenge their ability to deal with challenges. The internet might unlock a democratic meritocracy in certain instances, and for that I am very hopeful. </rant>

As I said, the quote is my own, from another video on the subject.

As for the toxicity of ammonia, here is a link to the Health Effects portion of the CDC's Toxicological Profile for Ammonia.

Lots to read, but basically it shows that, except in huge doses of concentrated ammonia, ammonia is readily converted by the liver into urea (hence the ammonia smell of urine). Ingesting ammonia in quantities that are harmful (though still not fatal) causes burns, and ulceration of the mouth. Obviously if there was that much in the food, there would be a problem.

The report points out, "In a study of volunteers, ingestion of a single ammonium chloride tablet (approximately 15 mg NH4+/kg/day) led to a small transient increase (33% above fasting levels) in arterial blood concentrations of ammonium ion in 11 out of 20 subjects (Conn 1972); no change was noted in the remaining nine subjects in this group.[...]These data indicate that ingested ammonia is readily absorbed from the digestive tract and that the liver plays a large role in removing it from the blood (Conn 1972).



Basically, the FDA allows the use of ammonia to sterilize food products because, 1. the quantities needed to harm a human would cause said humans not to eat the products and 2. being naturally occurring, and necessary for life (for the provision of nitrogen for amino acid synthesis), the ingestion of ammonia in these quantities has no long-term health effects.

I'm not trying to argue that eating that pink goo is good for you - but the obsession with the ammonia is the wrong approach to attacking it. Phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc. are also poisonous in the right quantities, and they are also all necessary for human life.

If there is any common thread to my rants here on the sift, it's that people attacking the wrong subject, regardless of their intentions, makes them look stupid and reduces their credibility to those of us who care to know the truth. I completely agree with Maher's point that the republicans just attack anything the liberals support, but when he makes that point using misleading/wrong information, he's just as bad as them.>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Skeeve:
While I don't disagree with Maher's point, I'm getting really sick of people screaming about the ammonia used to treat the pink goo that is turned into chicken nuggets. As I said regarding another video:
"ammonia is a natural chemical that is necessary for human life. The amount of ammonia one would have to ingest to be harmful to a human is huge, and actually ingesting that much would be unthinkable because of the horrendous taste it would impart to the food."

This is like seeing someone sprinkle some sodium-free salt on their food and saying, "OMG that's potassium chloride! That's the lethal chemical in a lethal injection! That's going to kill you!!"
People just don't seem to care that a lot of chemicals that are popularly considered "toxic" are necessary for life or require unfathomably large doses to be harmful.

Where the hell is that quote from and is there any truth to it is what needs to be asked. To me that sounds like something a PR person would say, like in that video about Global Warming where they made the point that "CO2 is natural".
You've got more to answer for Skeeve and if you don't I'm bidding you a hearty GOOD DAY To You Sir!