AN ANNOUNCEMENT THAT BENFOTIAMINE CURES AND PREVENTS ALZHEIMER'S IS EXPECTED SOON

A few quotes from Bill Sardi.  

One,

There is a doctor in Italy who is astonishingly curing Parkinson's disease with B1 shots (mostly among alcoholics).   

Two, 

Because of poor absorption, it is unlikely the best diet or fortified foods can overcome a state of B1 deficiency. 

Three,

Vitamin B1 is well provided but just not absorbed or is rapidly excreted (diuretics). 

Four, 

An announcement of the highly absorbable fat-soluble form of vitamin B1 (Benfotiamine) cures and prevents Alzheimer's disease is expected soon. 

And Five,

One of the ways widespread nutritional deficiencies remain hidden is that blood tests only reveal what is called the reference range (commonly occurring range), not the healthy range.

I remember sitting in an Anatomy class at UC Irvine back in 1990 and how the professor made the comment that vitamin supplements only produce expensive urine.  My thought that followed was "Why would he make such a claim?  Was it to direct all health authority to the practitioners of health, to doctors?  Was he a spokesman for doctors?"  I didn't know.  I didn't know his credentials.  I should have checked.  But it was an Anatomy class.  He made other cracks, too, that I didn't like.  Years passed before I began to understand how universities are staffed with folks loyal to the medical industrial complex and not necessarily to human health.  This is one reason I appreciate the work of nutritional journalists, especially Bill Sardi.  

Sardi in his article, "Just Remember Dietary Supplements Are Not Supported By Science And Are A Waste of Money," reminds us, perhaps constantly so, that nutritional supplements play an important, nay, vital role in providing health, in recovering from illness and injury, as well as stave off the ravages of age-related diseases.  Troubling is the fact that we don't read as much as we should learn about the benefits, or that we begin to read regrettably when it is a bit late.  In his latest reminder, Sardi lists the benefits of certain vitamins. 

Folic Acid prevents spinal defects during birth.

In the 1990s grain products were fortified with folic acid to prevent birth defects (spina bifida, anencephaly) . . . 

Folic Acid prevents strokes; prevents deaths from stroke, and facilitates better and faster recovery.  You probably need to be on Folic Acid daily to get these results.  I wouldn't wait until after the fact if you know what I mean. 

and a decline in stroke-related mortality was reported. Researchers then subsequently reported that 31,000 stroke-associated deaths may have been prevented by folic acid food fortification. Folic acid blood levels doubled during this period (from 6.6 to 15 nanograms/milliliter per blood sample) with an accompanying 14% decline in homocysteine blood levels, which was believed to be the mechanism responsible for the decline.

If you're not familiar with Bill Sardi, a nutritional journalist who has been studying, reviewing, reporting on the supplement industry since the 1970s, and you're unsure whether to take his word, then check his sources.

Here is the Lancet:

Then in 2007 The Lancet journal reported that folic acid (vitamin B9) supplementation reduces stroke risk by 18%.

Here is the Journal of the American Medical Association:

Then again in 2015 the Journal of the American Medical Association reported the combined use of a blood pressure pill (enalapril) and folic acid, but not the drug alone, significantly reduced the risk for first stroke.

Maybe my old UC Irvine Anatomy professor could read an article or two by Bill Sardi and learn . . . learn something beyond the 3 x 5 index card of allowable opinion on vitamin supplements.  But it appears that my old Anatomy professor was not alone, that, in fact, there was an industry consensus that multivitamins were a waste of money.  Read for yourself.

Thereafter organized medicine reached a consensus that:

Dietary supplements are still popular despite little evidence they're useful. – Science-Based Medicine

Study after study has demonstrated that favorites like multivitamins don’t actually improve outcomes on a number of health measures. - VOX.com

Multivitamins are a waste of money, doctors say. – Scientific American

There is no evidence that taking a multivitamin regularly has the ability to ward off chronic diseases. – LiveScience.com

Thankfully, opinions change.  The results of Folic Acid on stroke and its effects are a stunning 73% decline.  

Fast forward to today. . . . News reports claim a massive 73% decline in strokes and stroke-related death among the highest risk patients and a 21% decline in stroke overall with folic acid supplementation.

If we're 65 and older, we should be taking Folic Acid daily.  

About 795,000 people suffer a stroke each year in the U.S. and more than 140,000 people die from stroke. Most strokes occur among adults over age 65. If a recent study holds true for every senior American, the consumption of a multivitamin with folic acid could reduce the number of strokes from 795,000 to 628,050 (166,950 fewer strokes). Stroke death rates would dramatically plunge too. And they say vitamin supplements are worthless. Go figure.

Folic Acid reduces strokes in folks with high blood pressure from 5.6% to 1.8%.  Can you doctor's prescription claim that?  Ha.

Strokes occur among individuals who have high blood pressure. Their risk for stroke is 5.6% and folic acid drastically reduces this risk to 1.8% in high-risk groups.

Imagine the savings in healthcare costs if folks supplemented daily with Folic Acid.  I didn't realize that stroke-related costs run $34 billion a year.

With strokes costing $34 billion a year, a public health agenda to encourage all senior Americans to supplement with folic acid could theoretically reduce strokes costs to $26.9 billion, a savings of $7.9 billion.

According to the Census Bureau, there were 49.2 million Americans over age 65 in 2016. At $.20 [cents] per folic acid pill, it would cost $3.59 billion for American seniors to protect themselves from a stroke. Net savings would be ~$4.3 billion. It appears modern medicine is throwing away health dollars and lives for its bias against dietary supplements. Obviously, folic acid pills far exceeded what food fortification began over two decades ago.

Folic Acid is required for DNA repair.  Blood vessels are damaged without adequate folic acid.  

The researchers noted that a low folic acid level was associated with a low blood platelet count. Folic acid is required to repair DNA. It then follows that wall of blood vessels and blood platelets are damaged and platelet count declines without adequate folic acid. Blood platelets are responsible for blood clotting, a necessary part of wound healing.

If this is true, and I have no reason so far to doubt it, why then do university professors, representatives for modern medicine, continue in their claim that vitamin supplements and multi-vitamin supplements, in particular, are of no benefit?  

Sardi addresses this too. 

HOW MODERN MEDICINE CONCLUDES DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS ARE UNNECESSARY

Here is how modern medicine comes to its erroneous conclusion [that] dietary supplements are not needed: 

. . . a good diet will provide all the nutrients necessary for health. 

Of course, that position is self-serving as modern medicine games human populations for more disease to treat.

A good diet is not enough to stave off disease or to maintain health.  And I particularly like Sardi calling out "high-calorie malnutrition."  Wow.  I wonder if one of the reasons that vitamin supplementation is frowned upon by the medical industry and its representatives at the universities is that for vitamins to be effective, one must remove sugars, high-glycemic carbohydrates, and alcohols from one's diet.  These foods are representative of huge industries.  You tell people that B1 improves this, restores that, and prevents this on condition that they stop consuming one of these foods, then you might see the conflict of interest that the university reps protect.  

Beriberi, the name for the disease that emanates from a deficiency of thiamin (vitamin B1), is broadly prevalent [in] well-fed societies as it is induced by "high-calorie malnutrition" given that added sugars, carbohydrates, alcohol, and even tea block its absorption. 

Okay, here is another bullet point for those 50 and up managing stomach acid.

The progressive decline in stomach acid secretion with advancing age is yet another reason why B1 deficiency is highly prevalent but unrecognized. 

What is interesting that B1 deficiency is not easily recognizable or detectable.  Sardi says that "it defies detection as a collective disease." And my guess is that the physician who doesn't know much about nutrition, will diagnose B1 deficiency as some psychiatric condition and compel him to write a referral to a psychiatrist rather than informally recommend a patient to take 2 B1 tablets every day for the next week, then call him by week's end.  

Derrick Lonsdale, the reigning expert on vitamin B1, says thiamin deficiency has a low mortality and a long morbidity.

That low-mortality and long-morbidity mean that a B1 deficiency won't kill you, but it will present the symptoms of illness, the kind that is chronic or "long morbidity." 

Because B1 deficiency is associated with so many maladies (autism, diabetic complications, disruptive autonomic [nervous] system disorders, heart failure, neuropathy, sudden infant death, alcoholism, it defies detection as a collective disease. An announcement of the highly absorbable fat-soluble form of vitamin B1 (Benfotiamine) cures and prevents Alzheimer's disease is expected soon. There is a doctor in Italy who is astonishingly curing Parkinson's disease with B1 shots (mostly among alcoholics).

B1 can be found aplenty in our food supply and even through supplementation.  Supply is not the issue: absorption is.  

Because of poor absorption, it is unlikely the best diet or fortified foods can overcome a state of B1 deficiency. Once classified as a prison camp for malnutrition disease, beriberi is now prevalent as a disease of overconsumption. A sub-disease population is beriberi induced by water pills (diuretics). Modern medicine can't imagine how a B vitamin deficiency prevails in a well-fed population. Vitamin B1 is well provided but just not absorbed or is rapidly excreted (diuretics).

What's terrible is that the symptoms of a B1 deficiency show up as mild cognitive, even psychiatric in nature, and so not knowing that they are deficient in B1, some folks seek relief via marijuana, which only exacerbates the symptoms.  Ugh.  

According to the US Department of Agriculture "only" 18.4% of Americans consume an inadequate amount of thiamin (that's ~57 million Americans), not enough to cause a run on health food stores, but millions more simply don't absorb or retain B1. The B1-deficient run for marijuana instead.

[BESIDES B1 & FOLIC ACID, THERE IS] ANOTHER OVERLOOKED B VITAMIN DEFICIENCY

Healthy ranges used to measure values in your blood are mistaken and often result in poor detection of B12 deficiency.  

Pernicious (vitamin B12) anemia is prevalent depending upon the blood level used to define deficiency. Up to 40% of US adults may be B12 deficient. One of the ways widespread nutritional deficiencies remain hidden is that blood tests only reveal what is called the reference range (commonly occurring range), not the healthy range. If massive numbers of people are B12 deficient then that becomes the reference range, which mistakenly can lead to the false belief an individual has a normal (common) blood level but is deficient.

Doctors misdiagnose all the time, often for self-serving interests. 

It is common for doctors to look at a blood test and mistakenly conclude whatever symptoms a patient is suffering from are not caused by a shortage of vitamin B12.

False normal B12 blood tests are common. This is likely why many older adults with so-called normal blood levels experience clearance of symptoms upon B12 supplementation.

For me at least, B12 gave me back my circadian rhythms, and I am able to return to a regular sleep pattern, one where my sleep is uninterrupted and deep; not long, just deep and I wake rested.  B12 does this.  

B12 deficiency may be rampant, especially among certain groups (vegetarians, gastric bypass patients, users of B12 depleting drugs (metformin, antacids), yet public health authorities will claim prevalence of deficiency is low. A US Department of Agriculture report issued over a decade ago noted that 4 or 10 Americans "may be flirting with vitamin B12 deficiency." 

Even milder symptoms that we dismiss with a wave of the hand could be a B12 deficiency.

Many chronic unsuspected symptoms of B12 deficiency such as a chronic cough and back pain, may never be counted in estimates of the prevalence of B12 pathology.

The comparative costs of supplementation are in your favor. 

JUST REMEMBER, the prevailing position by modern medicine, despite the science, is that vitamin supplements are needless. You must be a crazy, eccentric, ignorant, easily misled fool to be caught taking dietary supplements. Best to take them in your closet where nobody will see you. Because of this attitude, many patients simply hide the fact from their doctors [that] they are loading up with vitamins every day. Still, Americans only spend ~$8 a month on dietary supplements and ~$250 a month on drugs. It should be the other way around.

WOMEN WHO EAT A LOT OF FAST FOOD MAY TAKE LONGER TO BECOME PREGNANT

EATING FAST FOOD LINKED TO INFERTILITY

Lisa Rapaport reported on a study conducted by the Robinson Research Institute and the University of Adelaide in Australia

that showed the eating fast-food 4 times a week double the rate of infertility in women from 8% to 16%.  Nothing to sneeze at, particularly given the difficulty that some women have at getting pregnant in the first place due to age and factors besides diet.  So fast-food doesn't make women infertile the report will claim; it simply means that eating junk food may cause a delay with some woman in getting pregnant.

Compared to women who generally avoided fast food, women who indulged four or more times a week before they conceived took almost a month longer to become pregnant, the study of 5,598 first-time mothers in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK found.

39% of women conceived in one month of having sex with their partner without contraception, obviously.  

But here's the kicker: 8% experienced infertility and failed to conceive after 12 months of trying.  

Overall, 2,204 women, or 39 percent, conceived within one month of when they began having sex with their partner without contraception and 468, or 8 percent, experienced infertility and failed to conceive after 12 months of trying.

That 8% infertility is just an average, not including an average or subgroup of women eating fast-food.  Fast-food is the advertising euphemism to make junk food palatable.

While women who rarely or never ate fast food had an 8 percent risk of infertility, the risk was 16 percent among women who ate fast food at least four times weekly.

A healthier diet for most folks is to eat lots of polyphenols in their daily diet.  That means lots of plant products, but not just any plant products.  You can't eat grapes all day long and expect to be healthy.  No, I am talking about low-glycemic fruits and vegetables, which turns out to be greens and dark or red colored fruit.  Low-glycemic is the key.  

“Fast foods contain high amounts of saturated fat, sodium, and sometimes sugar,” said lead study author Jessica Grieger of the Robinson Research Institute and the University of Adelaide in Australia.

But just as the study asserts its conclusions, the authors retract it . . . sort of . . . by disclaiming any direct relationship between diet and health.  Oh, brother.  I cannot think of any greater or obvious connection in the world.  People can absorb a lot of unhealthy habits and put on years but might find themselves aging poorly without noticing it.  Or maybe they do notice it, but cannot find a way to stop or a way out of their unhealthy habits.  I would go further to say that male fertility is also connected to eating well.  

Although these dietary components and their relationship to fertility has not been specifically studied in human pregnancies, higher amounts of saturated fatty acids were identified in oocytes (an egg cell in the ovary) of women undergoing assisted reproduction and studies in mice have demonstrated that a high-fat diet had a toxic effect on the ovaries,” Grieger said by email. “We believe that fast food may be one factor mediating infertility through altered ovarian function.”

The Eurekalert concluded that 

. . . while intake of fruit and fast foods affected time to pregnancy, pre-pregnancy intake of green leafy vegetables or fish did not.

Meaning that the vegetables and fish did not disrupt or cause any delay in time to getting pregnant.  

There are other culprits to infertility besides junk food.  Lisa Rapaport's report lists a few from the study. 

The risk increases with age, and can also be exacerbated by smoking, excessive drinking, stress, an unhealthy diet, too much exercise, being overweight or obese or having sexually transmitted infections.

Women in the current study were typically overweight and most of them ate fast food at least twice a week, the study team notes in Human Reproduction. 

There are ways to boost fertility naturally.   

82-YEAR OLD WOMAN WITH DEMENTIA GETS HER MEMORY BACK AFTER CHANGING DIET

Sylvia also began incorporating other health foods, including broccoli, kale, spinach, sunflower seeds, green tea, oats, sweet potatoes and even dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa. All of these foods are known to be beneficial for brain health.

Broccoli, kale, spinach, sunflower seeds, and green tea are heavy mineral chelators, meaning that they prevent overload of iron, calcium, and mercury.  Not only do these foods provide that benefit, but you can get the same benefit from IP6.  See the bottom of this post.  Here is the article from Collective Evolution.  h/t Lew Rockwell.

Recently, an 82-year-old woman who suffered from dementia, who couldn’t recognize her own son has miraculously got her memory back after changing her diet.

When his mother’s condition became so severe that for her own safety she had to be kept in the hospital, Mark Hatzer almost came to terms with losing another parent.

Sylvia had lost her memory and parts of her mind, she had even phoned the police once accusing the nurse who was caring for her of kidnap.

A change in diet, which was comprised of high amounts of blueberries and walnuts, has proven to have had a strong impact on Sylvia’s condition that her recipes are now being shared by the Alzheimer’s Society.

Sylvia also began incorporating other health foods, including broccoli, kale, spinach, sunflower seeds, green tea, oats, sweet potatoes and even dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa. All of these foods are known to be beneficial for brain health.

Mark and Sylvia devised to diet together after deciding that the medication on its own was not enough, they looked into the research showing that rates of dementia are much lower in Mediterranean countries and copied a lot of their eating habits.

According to Mirror.co.uk“

Mark, whose brother Brent also died in 1977, said: “When my mum was in the hospital she thought it was a hotel–but the worst one she had ever been in.

“She didn’t recognize me and phoned the police as she thought she’d been kidnapped.

“Since my dad and brother died we have always been a very close little family unit, just me and my mum, so for her to not know who I was was devastating.

“We were a double act that went everywhere together. I despaired and never felt so alone as I had no other family to turn to.

“Overnight we went from a happy family to one in crisis.

“When she left the hospital, instead of prescribed medication we thought we’d perhaps try an alternative treatment.

“In certain countries, Alzheimer’s is virtually unheard of because of their diet.

“Everyone knows about fish but there is also blueberries, strawberries, Brazil nuts, and walnuts – these are apparently shaped like a brain to give us a sign that they are good for the brain.”

There were also some cognitive exercises that Mark and his mother would do together like jigsaw puzzles crosswords and meeting people in social situations, Sylvia would also exercise by using a pedaling device outfitted for her chair.

Mark said, “It wasn’t an overnight miracle, but after a couple of months she began remembering things like birthdays and was becoming her old self again, more alert, more engaged..

“People think that once you get a diagnosis your life is at an end. You will have good and bad days, but it doesn’t have to be the end. For an 82-year-old she does very well, she looks 10 years younger and if you met her you would not know she had gone through all of this.

“She had to have help with all sorts of things, now she is turning it around. We are living to the older age in this country, but we are not necessarily living healthier."

THE BODY'S ABILITY TO HEAL IS GREATER THAN ANYONE HAS PERMITTED YOU TO BELIEVE

This story just goes to show how resilient our bodies really are if given the right environment. Most of these types of diseases are often related to diet in the first place so that means that they can indeed be reversed with a proper diet. Sure, some of them are genetic and you might be a carrier of the gene, but that is not a guarantee that it will become active, there are things you can do to minimize the risk. Our health is our greatest wealth. We have to realize that we do have a say in our lives and what our fate is.

We have covered the topic before of how aluminum build up in the brain is directly related to dementia and more specifically Alzheimer’s disease, being able to identify this as a cause is important because recognizing this means we can do our part to limit the exposure and to also detoxify our brains and bodies from this damaging heavy metal.

In an article titled, Strong evidence linking Aluminum to Alzheimer’s, recently published in The Hippocratic Post website, Exley explained that:

“We already know that the aluminum content of brain tissue in late-onset or sporadic Alzheimer’s disease is significantly higher than is found in age-matched controls. So, individuals who develop Alzheimer’s disease in their late sixties and older also accumulate more aluminum in their brain tissue than individuals of the same age without the disease.

Even higher levels of aluminum have been found in the brains of individuals, diagnosed with an early-onset form of sporadic (usually late onset) Alzheimer’s disease, who have experienced an unusually high exposure to aluminum through the environment (e.g. Camelford) or through their workplace. This means that Alzheimer’s disease has a much earlier age of onset, for example, the fifties or early sixties, in individuals who have been exposed to unusually high levels of aluminum in their everyday lives.”

His most recent study, published by the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology in December 2016, titled: Aluminium in brain tissue in familial Alzheimer’s disease, is one of the many studies that he and his team have conducted on the subject of aluminum over the years. However, this study, in particular, is believed to be of significant value, because it is the first time that scientists have measured the level of aluminum in the brain tissue of individuals diagnosed with familial Alzheimer’s disease. (Alzheimer’s disease or AD is considered to be familial if two or more people in a family suffer from the disease.)

According to their paper, the concentrations of aluminum found in brain tissue donated by individuals who died with a diagnosis of familial AD, was the highest level ever measured in human brain tissue.

Professor Exley wrote:

“We now show that some of the highest levels of aluminum ever measured in human brain tissue are found in individuals who have died with a diagnosis of familial Alzheimer’s disease.

The levels of aluminum in brain tissue from individuals with familial Alzheimer’s disease are similar to those recorded in individuals who died of an aluminum-induced encephalopathy while undergoing renal dialysis.”

He explained that:

“Familial Alzheimer’s disease is an early-onset form of the disease with first symptoms occurring as early as 30 or 40 years of age. It is extremely rare, perhaps 2-3% of all cases of Alzheimer’s disease. Its bases are genetic mutations associated with a protein called amyloid-beta, a protein which has been heavily linked with the cause of all forms of Alzheimer’s disease.

Individuals with familial Alzheimer’s disease produce more amyloid beta and the onset of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are much earlier in life.”

THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS CHANGE IS BY RAISING AWARENESS

As more and more awareness grows involving the true causes of these neurodegenerative brain disorders, the more we can do our part to prevent and even treat them and hopefully, eventually eliminate things such as aluminum and other chemicals in our foods to prevent this disease from happening altogether.

Please share this article with anyone you know who knows someone who is suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s.

Reprinted with permission from Collective Evolution.

44,273 CANADIAN WOMEN MAY HAVE DIED AS A RESULT OF INCREASED WAIT TIMES BETWEEN 1993 AND 2009

Let's start with a quote on Canada's National Health Care System form Mike Kirby.

So that in a sense the way the system is currently structured, the only person who suffers when they're on a waiting list is the patient.  The provincial government doesn't suffer in fact they actually save money with it, the regional health authorities, the hospital CEO's, the doctors don't suffer and so there's not really a union incentive to improve the system.  The only person who suffers is the patient - who's the only person in fact who can't do anything about the situation.  So the incentive that currently exists in the system for dealing with waiting times are all perverse in the sense that they put all the pressure on the one group of people called patients who can't do anything about it.  --Senator Mike Kirby   

Here is the Mises article. 

By Lee Friday

Tom Kent was the senior government policy person in Canada when the Medical Care Act was passed in 1966. He described the government's objective:

The aim of public policy was quite clearly and simply ... to make sure that people could get care when it was needed without regard to other considerations.

Well, that sounds awfully nice, doesn't it?  Not so fast.

After half a century, the government has still not honoured its commitment, and its performance declines with each passing year, despite increased spending. Furthermore, the government made it illegal for citizens to pay private parties for the health care which the government fails to provide.

Nooo.  Not nice at all.  The government fixed it so that a Canadian's only option is their failed system.  They can't even dig into their own pockets to fix their own health.  That's worse than slavery.  That's prison.  

Okay, so a Canadian citizen can't help themselves even if they wanted to, even if they went into debt to do so.  After all, how long can a hospital wait to see a specialist in Canada be?  First, you've got to see a consultant, who then refers you to a specialist.  But from GP to Consultant to Specialist?  

In 2017, it was 21.2 weeks.

WAITING, WAITING, WAITING FOR A DOCTOR

According to a Fraser Institute survey, for medically necessary treatment, the median waiting time for patients in Canada from referral by a general practitioner to consultation with a specialist, and then to the date of actual treatment, was 21.2 weeks in 2017.

These are not benign inconveniences.  These wait times sicken the patient, slow and complicate recovery once treatment from a specialist is even realized; worse, people die in the meantime too.

This year’s [2017] wait time — the longest ever recorded in this survey’s history — is 128% longer than in 1993, when it was just 9.3 weeks.

Research has repeatedly indicated that wait times for medically necessary treatment are not benign inconveniences. Wait times can, and do, have serious consequences such as increased pain, suffering, and mental anguish. In certain instances, they can also result in poorer medical outcomes — transforming potentially reversible illnesses or injuries into chronic, irreversible conditions, or even permanent disabilities.

Or even death!  From a 2014 study by the Fraser Institute:

This is absolutely horrific.  And yet their prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is treated like some messianic youth.  Continue reading . . . .  And if you're loaded with bear by the end, a term the great William L. Anderson has used, then write something.  To whom is the question.  Keep reading. 

Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada have noted that patients in Canada die as a result of waiting lists for universally accessible health care.

Our analysis estimates that between 25,456 and 63,090 (with a middle value of 44,273) Canadian women may have died as a result of increased wait times between 1993 and 2009.

If we conservatively focus on the lower value, we still have an average of about 1,500 women who likely died each year between 1993 and 2009 as a result of increased wait times across Canada.

The Toronto Star published a letter, dated May 12, 2015, addressed to Cancer Care Ontario (CCO), a provincial government agency responsible for funding. The letter was signed by five stem cell transplant directors from across Ontario, clearly frustrated with the lack of government funding (emphasis added):

... the net effect of growing waitlists, patients relapsing and dying while waiting for a transplant, patients getting extra cycles of therapy to try and buy time to get them to a transplant, stress and burnout of transplant team members is a pan-provincial problem.

... Previous estimates by CCO of needed transplant capacity have not taken into account all factors operating, the result being under-capacity, apparently surprising and sudden but which has in fact been anticipated or experienced by transplant centres for several years.

... The transplant programmes require resources that would allow capacity 

... to increase immediately by at least a third to perhaps as much as a half in order to eliminate backlogs and have medically appropriate times to transplant.

POLITICAL AND BUREAUCRATIC INDIFFERENCE 

Politicians and bureaucrats show little concern for the tens of thousands of victims of their failed universal health care scheme. The case of 18-year old Laura Hillier, a mere statistic to the government, is a classic example. Laura was suffering from acute myeloid leukemia, and in desperate need of a stem cell transplant. Multiple matching donors were available, but a hospital transplant bed was NOT available. The Toronto Starreports:

In July [2015], Frances [Laura’s mother] sent letters to Premier Kathleen Wynne and Health Minister Eric Hoskins on behalf of Laura and every other patient subjected to the “cruel, inhumane and potentially deadly” waiting times for stem cell transplants. Neither Wynne nor Hoskins replied, Frances says.

In July, 2015, federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose also refused to comment on the matter when contacted by CTV News.

The silence from Ambrose, Wynne and Hoskins speaks volumes, but sometimes a reply is worse than no reply. In July, 2015, in a statement to CTV News, Shae Greenfield, spokesperson for Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins, said:

It is our expectation that hospitals will prioritize patients based on medical urgency, however those decisions are made by each individual hospital.

This callous remark seems intended to ‘pass the buck’ to hospitals, but the issue is a lack of resources, not prioritization. There are numerous patients who are a priority because their needs are medically urgent, yet they are all stuck on a waiting list. The fault lies not with hospitals, but with the government, which has failed to provide hospitals with the necessary funding to make good on its promise of making “sure that people could get care when it was needed without regard to other considerations.”

Forced by the government to wait, Laura’s condition deteriorated and she died six months later, on January 20, 2016, still waiting for a bed.

From stem cell transplant surgery, to other cancer surgeries, to cataract surgery, to joint replacement surgery, to bariatric surgery, to heart surgery, etc., the health and well-being of many Canadians suffers — and many die — as the government forces them to wait an inordinate amount of time for the care it promised to deliver on a timely basis.

GOVERNMENT FAILURE WAS PREDICTED

Health care expenditures are constantly rising, but this cannot be sustained:

After years of increasing health care spending at an unsustainable pace, it seems as though provincial governments have started to reach their limits over the past 5 years — understanding that a continuation of such increases would result in either reductions in other spending, or higher taxation, higher deficits and debt, or some combination of these three.

Regarding universal health care in Canada, William Gairdner noted that (p. 288):

Ontario’s 1970 Commission on the Healing Arts prophetically warned that “society would not regard as sufficient, the amount of health goods and services that could be produced, even if all society’s resources were devoted to the provision of health care.”

All of society’s resources are not devoted to the provision of health care. Nevertheless, the 1970 prediction appears accurate. It is an undeniable fact that as increasingly more resources (taxes) have been devoted to health care spending, the actual provision of health care has declined, as revealed by longer wait times. The more the government (supposedly) tries to help us, the more it hurts us.

ECONOMIC EFFECTS

Estimated government expenditures for universal health care in Canada in 2016 were about $4,000 per capita. (This does not include private costs for dentists, alternative practitioners (e.g., naturopaths), prescription drugs, private health insurance for non-hospital/physician services, etc.) Additionally, there are unseen costs which fall disproportionately on the backs of the poor.

If we consider the hours of a normal working week, it has been estimated that the cost of ‘waiting’ per patient in Canada was approximately $1,759 in 2016. Even half that amount, say $900, would be felt most severely by the poor when they are unable to work because they are stuck on the government’s waiting list for health care. And remember (Part 1) that the government’s justification for imposing medicare in the first place was that (according to them) “many poorer people just did not get care when it was needed.” Thus, the government has not only reneged on its health care commitment to poor people, but in so doing, it is making poor sick people even poorer.

Many Canadian consumers of so-called universal health care are left wanting, as they have universal access to waiting lists, but not to actual health care. This is a result of the perverse economic incentives embedded within the coercive institution of government versus the positive economic incentives embedded in the free enterprise system, a system from which the provision of health care is outlawed by the monopolistic government. This will be further explored in Part 3.

Following a 23-year career in the Canadian financial industry, Lee Friday has spent many years studying economics, politics, and social issues. He operates a news site at www.LondonNews1.com. 

The above originally appeared at Mises.org.

ARE OUR CHILDREN NOW OWNED BY THE STATE?

H/T Lew Rockwell

Ingram explains that the Pope intervened. 

How so?  He asked that Alfie's parents and hospital officials should work together.  Wow, that's some powerful intervention.    

Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Pontifical Academy of Life, a Vatican bioethics think tank, said earlier today that Alfie's parents and hospital officials should work together so his life isn't 'reduced to a legal dispute.' 

Actually, he did more than that.  According to Joe Herring, the Pope made some moves to grant Alfie Italian citizenship and then put a military transport helicopter on standby.  This is more of an anti-state action than it is an action on behalf of Alfie and his parents.  One has to ask, how does the Pope have access to military helicopters?  

Italy has conferred citizenship to Alfir, and there is a medical air ambulance standing by at the request of the Pope to fly Alfie to the Vatican's Children's Hospital, Bambino Gesu, where Alfie can be treated. 

The UK Sunday Express explained that 

The Pope personally intervened earlier this month and has today approved of the use of an air ambulance.  Earlier in the week, Italy granted Alfie citizenship. 

But despite the Pope’s intervention, British Court of Appeals ruled that Alfie shall not be taken abroad for treatment.  

A judge has ruled that Alfie will not be allowed to be taken abroad for treatment, but Alfie's parents are challenging the decision in the Court of Appeal.

That ruling asserts the hospital’s authority over the parents'.  What a horrible precedent.  This means that once people are admitted, they have to get permission from the hospital before they leave, and if they don’t get it, a family member has to appeal to the courts to get the hospital to release you; otherwise, you’re, what, a fugitive?  

Ingram continues.

The Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, even granted the boy Italian citizenship and still the medical profession and the courts say, no, we're sorry, we're pulling the plug.  The life-support machine is being turned off.  So this gets to the absolute heart of how much freedom does the individual have.  How much decision-making process do the parents have or are our children now owned by the state?

Ingram answers

It's almost like they broke Alphfie's father today.  Because at the beginning of the day he was saying "Come here and see how my son is a hostage of this hospital."

Oh, my God.

I shouldn't be surprised.  This is standard treatment from hospitals.    

He's a hostage of the National Health Service.  What we are doing is not right but by the end of the day he had changed his tune and said "Everybody go back to your lives and . . . I think the hospital kind of . . . he was threatened . . . that 'you're not going to get anything from us unless you tone it down."

 There was a picture yesterday of Alder Hay Hospital in Northwestern England with 20 uniformed police officers standing outside the door of the hospital to stop Little Alfie from being taken out and to stop protestors from getting in.  Using the police!!! to keep the child in the hospital.  How these parents have been through ever single legal process available to them and I'm guessing that now that the life-support machine has been turned off, now that there is no prospect at all of the young boy going to Italy in the end the father has accepted the inevitable.  Whether he was threatened or not, I don't know.  But what I do know is that when I was involved in this Charlie Gard case last year, I turned up at the hospital, in this case Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, and I was told in no uncertain terms by the PR services for the hospital that what I was doing was damaging the reputation of hospital by doing press reports outside where this little boy was dying.  It's classic of the establishment closing ranks, the state being all powerful.  And frankly, what is happening today, what is happening right now, is a form of state-sponsored euthenasia, and I hate it.

Glad at least that this issue is raised at the cost of blood, sweat, tears, and life of their baby son.  That is some cost.  It is a horrible lesson for the parents to learn as to how much power the state exercises over the citizens who fund it through taxes and yet how little they have to show for their contribution to the state.  Parents are okay with sending their children to state-funded public schools or charter schools that use tax-payer funds.  And most people are still fine with allow the ethics of the state medical system to make decisions on the biology of their child.  The parents should have take their baby out months ago.  Did they not see the writing on the wall?