Archive for 07/08/15

Home » Archive for 07/08/15

A Little High Fructose Corn Syrup For Thought - Take 2

I found an article on mercola.com warning the public about the Corn Refiners Association media blitz regarding High Fructose Corn Syrup. Since we all know how much the whole HFCS thing drives me dangerously close to the brink of insanity..OK, IT MAKES ME NUTS!

Can You Say "KING CORN?"

I decided to copy & paste the article, (along with a few links to some really cool websites) for your review.

I wanted to make sure my peeps in dBlogville knew the deal.

Anywho, Here's the article:

"The Corn Refiners Association is launching a major advertising and public relations campaign designed to rehabilitate the reputation of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS has been linked by many scientists to the nation's obesity epidemic.

The group is running full-page ads in more than a dozen major newspapers, claiming that the product is no worse for you than sugar. The ad, which features a stalk of corn, carries the headline: 'And Now a Little Food for Thought.'

The Corn Refiners Association "has been trying to counter the bad publicity around HFCS since 2004," but concluded it "could no longer afford to rely on simple grass-roots marketing tactics such as talking with nutritionists and doctors."

So next time your reading a magazine or newspaper, be on the look out for a Stalk of Corn with the Tag line: " And now a little food for thought."

Here's a thought for the TCRA: How can HFCS be "no worse for us than sugar on Honey? " Sugar and honey are actually edible in their raw form, neither are genetically engineered, and both are all natural.

HFCS is none of those things. So....How can it actually be the same?

Also, why are major food manufacturers spending big bucks to advertise their products as HFCS free? Hmmmm, kinda makes you think.

PRWatch and Organic Consumers Association
both go into more detail and have some great info on the subject - take a look!

Medical Mistakes? Or Dangerous Medicine?

It has been estimated that between 5-10% of patients admitted to hospital are infected with hospital-acquired diseases, such as MRSA (360 deaths in 2005 in England alone) and Clostridium Difficile (1,300 death in 2004). The problem, according to the NHS is that health professionals needed to do more to address hygiene to improve patient safety - thereby ignoring the troublesome fact that whilst these infections can be spread by bad hygiene their actual cause is the overuse of antibiotics – ConMed’s most miraculous miracle drug!

It is the same throughout the world. On 25^th October 2006 the BBC reported that in Italy it has been estimated that as many as 90 people die in hospital every day “due to medical malpractice and organisational errors”. Note again that the deaths are not caused by ‘medicine’ – but by malpractice, and error. The calculation of 33,000 annual deaths is more than the number of people killed on the roads in Italy, which means that there are an awful lot of ‘errors’ and ‘malpractice’ going on!

Celia Hall, Medical Editor, Daily Telegraph. "One NHS patient in 10 'is harmed in hospital'". 6 July 2006. This article said that nearly a million patient safety incidents or 'near misses' in a single year were recorded in NHS trusts, drawing attention to the effectiveness of the Patient Safety Agency. It estimated that in 2004-05 there were 974,000 patient safety incidents in England and Wales and MPs believe that 22% of mistakes go unreported.

In the same Daily Telegraph article the charity, Peter Walsh, the chief executive of 'Action against Medical Accidents' (AvMA) called for stronger sanctions. "We hope the report will give an injection of urgency into work to improve patient safety. Whilst there has been welcome progress we want to see more teeth given to existing guidelines and safety alerts. It should be compulsory for NHS providers to implement them".

Sarah Bosely, in the Guardian, 11th August 2006 stated that there were 40,000 NHS drug errors logged in a year, the figures having been collated by the National Patient Safety Agency. The article said that the statistics inevitably underestimated the problem 'since not all errors are reported'.

Jerome Burne. Daily Mail 12 September 2006. "In the UK, 10,000 people are killed every year by adverse drug reactions which happens when the prescription drug supposed to be curing you kills or harms you instead. That is more than the number who die from cervical cancer, taking illegal drugs, cancer of the mouth and passive smoking combined. It's actually more dangerous to visit your doctor than it is to drive your car - in 2004, traffic accidents were responsible for some 3,221 deaths. Yet a further 40,000 people each year are made sick enough by drugs they are taking to be admitted to hospital".

WDDTY e-news. Doctor Error: It’s rife, especially among the newborns. 07 February 2008. "It's an urban myth - and one that happens to be true - that the death rate plummets when doctors go on strike. Patients in hospital are especially vulnerable to the doctor's ministrations, and it's even worse for the newborn baby who hasn't yet made it home. A new study into newborns that needed 'hospital' care - usually because of low birth rate or premature birth - has revealed the extent of doctor error or doctor-induced (iatrogenic) problems. Researchers monitored the progress of 388 babies who had been admitted to a neo-natal unit in Southern France from January to September 2005; in that time, researchers witness 267 doctore errors, and nearly 30% of these were serious. Two babies died as a direct result of the errors". (Source: The Lancet, 2008; 371: 404-10).

WDDTY reported on research (published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, 2006; 166: 1410-6) that studied the progress of 7,054 patients admitted to a veterans' hospital between 2003 and 2004. Of these, 792 patients suffered a heart attack while in the hospital ( about 11%) and that they were twice as likely to die from the attack. As the article says, this means that up to 2,690,000 people could be harmed by medical ‘mishaps’ every year. This represents around 4.5% of the entire population. It goes on to say that in the USA, where twice as much is spent on ConMed drugs, the problem could be affecting up to 13,450,000 people every year. Government officials were said to be 'shocked' to hear that nobody knows how many of the reported 'blunders' ended in death. Apparently, only 1 in 4 hospitals 'own up' to the patient when something goes wrong; the rest presumably blame the patient illness on admission. Just 1 in 25 drug reactions is ever reported. Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons Public Accounts committee said that 1 in 10 people admitted to a hospital in Britain every year will suffer a mishap or accident that will harm him, and that this is based on known, reported accidents. Apparently, the committee members discovered that the situation is not getting better, that doctors and hospital staff are not learning from mistakes, but repeating them every year, that guidelines are being consistently ignored, and safety recommendations are not being implemented.

How close are our GPs to the Pharmaceutical drug companies?

The question about doctors being too close to drug companies is recognised as a serious problem. In a Daily Telegraph article on 9^th July 2006, the GMC (General Medical Council) was said to be warning doctors about taking ‘freebies’ from pharmaceutical companies, and to ‘blow the whistle’ on colleagues who were ‘taking bribes’ from drug companies. They were revising their rules to enable such doctors to be removed from the register, and ‘struck off’.

“The decision to toughen up the rules comes as evidence increases that, in return for promoting their products, some doctors are taking inappropriate gifts and hospitality from the pharmaceutical industry.

The article pointed to a report by the campaign group Consumers International that said doctors were continuing to accept kickbacks, gifts, free samples and consulting agreements in exchange for prescribing or promoting drugs. It said that such inducements accounted for a substantial part of the £33 billion spent on product promotion by the industry worldwide each year.

Despite this, concerns continue. WDDTY reported on 6^th November 2007 that the drug giant Bristol-Myers Squibb (annual sales: $17.9bn) had been handed a $515m fine for mis-selling drugs, inducing doctors to prescribe drugs inappropriately, and setting fraudulent prices on some of its products. It said that the company had been caught making illegal payments to doctors as an inducement to get them to buy their drugs. Doctors had also received ‘consulting fees’ to sit on ‘advisory’ boards and programmes, some of which involved necessary trips to luxury locations. Meanwhile, the company was paying retail and wholesale pharmacies to buy its drugs. It was also encouraging doctors to prescribe its anti-psychotic drug Abilify (aripiprazole) to children when it had been licensed for use only with adults. (The source of this information was the British Medical Journal, 2007; 335: 742-3).

In another WDDTY article, “Bribery: Doctors gifted $100,000 a year to use hip replacement products”, dated 29^th November 2007, Orthopedic surgeons in the US were reported to have received bribes of $100,000 and more every year to use special hip and knee replacement products on their patients. Apparently five manufacturers were fined $311m (£150m) by the US Department of Justice. The companies admitted paying 'many' orthopaedic surgeons 'consulting fees' that ranged from $10,000 to hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Investigators discovered that the payments had been common practice between 2002 and 2006, and that as well as receiving “consulting fees”, the surgeons were also treated to lavish trips and expensive gifts. (The source of this information was the British Medical Journal, 2007; 335: 1065).

The objectives of the ‘No free meals’ group of doctors is as follows:

“We are health care providers who believe that pharmaceutical promotion should not guide clinical practice. Our mission is to encourage health care providers to practice medicine on the basis of scientific evidence rather than on the basis of pharmaceutical promotion. We discourage the acceptance of all gifts from industry by health care providers, trainees, and students. Our goal is improved patient care.

We aim to achieve our goal by informing health care providers as well as the general public about pharmaceutical industry efforts to promote their products and influence prescribing; provide evidence that promotion does in fact influence health care provider behaviour, often in ways that run counter to good patient care; and provide products that can replace pharmaceutical company paraphernalia and spread our message.

We believe that there is ample evidence in the literature-contrary to the beliefs of most heath care providers - that drug companies, by means of samples, gifts, and food, exert significant influence on provider behaviour.

There is also ample evidence in the literature that promotional materials and presentations are often biased and non-informative. We believe that health care professionals, precisely because they are professionals, should not allow themselves to be bought by the pharmaceutical industry: It is time to Just say no to drug reps and their pens, pads, calendars, coffee mugs, and of course, lunch.

These are laudable objectives. However, there appears little evidence that their motives have been generally accepted by the conventional medical establishment.

This article was first published in my e-book, "The Failure of Conventional Medicine".

My Spin on the Roche / Diabetes Social Media Summit- Year 2

It’s my second year attending the Roche Diabetes New Media Summit and yes, I had a great time. But to be honest, I’m still wrapping my head around it. I’m not exactly sure what they want from us, but I do know for a fact that both sides have learned about and from one another.

I, like the rest of the people attending the summit, take our job as Diabetes/DOC Community Leaders pretty seriously. We are there to speak for those who are not and I hope we did you proud.

I marinated on this post for a few days because I didn’t know where to start. This world file has been sitting in my To-Do folder since the weekend. I kept putting it off because so much went on that finding both a start and finishing point of the post was daunting.

Finally, here’s my overview. I’ll be writing about various elements of the conference in more detail in the weeks to come.

I arrived in Orlando on Monday Afternoon after sharing a plane ride and a care ride with Kitty Castilini from Diabetes Living Today and our ride to the hotel was fun.

The first official Diabetes blogger I ran into was Rachel Baumgarter who was waving at me from the check-in line.

Later that evening I had dinner with Rachel, Scott and his partner Joe, and our table for four quickly turned into a table that was more than double that amount because LeeAnn, Chris, Scottie J, Cherise, Kelly Rawlings, Sara, Karmel, and Kitty joined us.

After dinner I went to the front desk looking for hospital directions for LeeAnn (who looked like she might have broken her wrist) and I ran into the family Sparling /Sparkling checking in. OK, I just have to say that BSparl is GORGEOUS!

Later that evening I ran into my very first diabetes CDE/Psychologist Joe. We hadn’t seen one another in 30 years, which just proves how small the diabetes world is. Turns out my 8 year old self was the 2nd patient he ever had. I’ll write about about our meeting in another post. I will say this: He hasn't changed a bit- and he's one of the main reasons I see the Diabetes glass half full.

The next morning the bloggers several of us acted as Ninjabetic's welcoming committee and then headed to an early lunch provided by Roche. We used our time at lunch to catch up with one another in IRL - In Real Life. It’s always amazing to meet your D friends face to face. It’s also fantastic and emotional and I can’t wait to meet the rest of you in real life.

At 1pm we were lead to a ballroom and the Summit started in earnest.

Turns out Roche not only took notes on what we said last year, but also decided to implement our words into their advertising campaign.

Last year there was a HUGE discussion on “the ideal diabetic" and that being an ideal diabetic had nothing to do with the numbers on the meter box.

Roche ran with that discussion and it became a major point in their 2010 advertising campaign. Roche showed actual pwds in their commercial with real numbers (like 274) on the TV screen. THAT"S HUGE.

Roche also talked about a project called the Diabetes Care Project. They've partnered with The National Minority Quality Forum, Allience for for Aging research, and the The AADE.

The DCP's focus is to help people with diabetes better manage their disease, prevent complications and live a great life.

I think it’s a great step and I know it will help many pwds.

Personally, I'd like the The Diabetes Care Project work with both CDES and Diabetes Patient Advocates in the future. As a Diabetes Patient Advocate, sitting in a room of Diabetes Patient Advocates, who were there representing legions of Diabetes Patient Advocates, I feel that the Diabetes Patient Advocate Perspective would be a welcome element to the program.

I brought that up at the summit and was told that Roche was seriously considering bringing our element to the table and I hope they do.

Roche then had us participate in an several exercises on meter accuracy ratios and blood sugar facts. Basically they wanted to know what percentage pwds were willing to be off either on the high or low end.

All of us agreed that we didn’t want to be off on either end.

In a perfect diabetes world, there would be no meter inaccuracies, hell; there would be no diabetes. But that’s not the world we live in.

And lets not forget that both highs and lows throw us for a loop. Both can leave us unconscious, and both make us feel like crap. Long-term highs lead to long-term diabetes damage. Long term lows can leave us not only shaken (both literally and figuratively) but can cause seizures or worse.

I strongly believe that if a GPS application on my ipnone can get me from point A to point B, a blood sugar meter can have a lower than 20% margin of error.

Like many, I remember the diabetes dark ages, back when we used fuzzy blue pills to test our urine and meters weighted more than my external hard drive. Times and technology are moving at lightening speed today and diabetes is a technology based disease. Our technology must be as accurate as possible - I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, meters are our GPS systems, they must be more accurate.

Roche invited several guests in attendance at our Summit, that included, corporate and PR Reps from the American Diabetes Association and the American Association of Diabetes Educators/AADE.

First up was the ADA, and to their credit, they listen to what we had to say and our discussion was passionate and heated at times.

Many of us who have lived the diabetes life since we were children have “issues” with the ADA. We feel abandoned by the organization that is supposed to represent all diabetics, not just those with type 2. Many feel it’s become a Dr’s organization and have felt that the patient factor is being ignored. Scott Strumello eloquently (and factually) expressed this concerns when he moderated our discussion with the ADA.

I do believe that the ADA realized that mistakes were made in and by their organization in the past. They sat there and listened. They also took lots of notes and answered our questions. David M. Kendell, Chief Scientific& Medical Officer actually introduced himself my stating his name, his title, immediately followed by an emphatic “I’M SORRY.” Every single rep from the ADA listened to what we had to say, knew that a lot of damage in the form of hurt feelings and abandonment issues had occurred, and they were more than receptive to everything we had to say.

In the past, I’ve had my own issues with the ADA, but our conversation with them gave me hope. Now, let's see if my hope in them does indeed float.

Next we spoke to reps from AADE. Our concern as a group representing a larger group that wasn’t in attendance were many focused on the following:

We need more CDEs and Endo's
We feel that the requirement to become a CDE needs to change because many of us (Cherise, myself and others) have considered actually becoming CDEs, only to find out that not only would we need 1000 hours of field work, but a previous medical degree like being a nurse, nurse practioner, or a nutrionest
Going back to school is tough enough, but going back for multiple degrees in order to get CDE certification is long, expensive, and many give up before they even start.

Bottom line, diabetes is now an epidemic- and that didn't happen over night. And unfortunately, the epidemic isn't slowing down- just the oppisite. We need more soldiers in the fight for diabetes; including more endo's and CDES.

We’d like to CDE requirements lesson so more people have the gift of working with a CDE. We’d also like to work with them in their quest to educate every PWD on the planet.

The AADE reps were corporate and they weren't the folks who could change those requirements- but at least we were able to tell them how we felt!

At 6 p.m, we took a group photo and had dinner. The rest of the evening was spent talking, listening and catching up.

The conference was great, and the fact that it coincided with the first day of Children With Diabetes Friends For Life Conference, and that was wonderful timing! It allowed us to have the opportunity to spend some time in "Diabetes Land" and meet more families who live with type 1 diabetes. FYI: There will be a Diabetesalicious post about CWD/FFL in the very near future~

I give Roche credit for flying us all out and listening to all of our diabetes voices. And not just the voices that were in the room, but to all of you who told us your concerns so we could tell them.

More on The Roche/Dblogger Summit to follow in the upcoming weeks.

Now, I'll leave you with a teaser for my next post? Why is Orlando International the loneliest place on the planet earth?

Surgery? How Homeopathy can help

Having surgery, whether dental or otherwise, can be a stressful, painful and restless time for all those involved. Surgical treatment is often accompanied by anxiety and anticipation as well as shock and injury, which can feel as painful as the operation itself.

This list below illustrates several homeopathic remedies which can help to alleviate the discomfort experienced, whether physical or emotional.

They can be used alongside, and in accordance with any conventional medicine which you have been prescribed.

Arnica - this is the first choice of remedy for shock and bruising. Take Arnica 30C immediately after surgery, and then whenever you feel necessary. If you are particularly scared of the treatment, then take the remedy before the surgery as well.

Calendula - this is specific for open cuts and wounds and is used externally by applying as a cream or diluted tincture to the area around the incision. Please note, Calendula heals rapidly and can seal dirt into the wound so ensure the wound is clean before applying

Hypericum - this remedy is predominantly used if you have injuries to the nerves, when the pain shoots along the nerve tracks. Hypericum is often used instead of Arnica, or if Arnica does not work, after operations to areas such as the nose, fingers, toes, eyes, ears or gums

Phosphorous - this remedy will stop excessive bleeding after an operation, such as a tooth extraction. In addition, it can help alleviate the post-anaesthetic“spaced-out” feeling

Staphysagria - consider using this when you feel that the operation has invaded your private space, such as rough dentistry or childbirth involving an episiotomy or forceps delivery. In addition, Staphysagria is also useful when the pain or scars are slow to heal

(Homeopathy for Common Ailments by Robin Hayfield)

This article first appeared in the ARH Newsletter, "Homeopathy Healthy Medicine"

Homeopathy and Horses: more effective, less expensive, and safer too!

More people own horses now than for many decades - and the numbers are increasing. Every horse owner faces the prospect of illness and disease - and large vet fees as a direct result. Yet homeopathy has been used in the treatment of injuries and the general well-being of horses, including racehorses - and it is more effective, less expensive, and safer than conventional treatment.

In fact the idea of using homeopathy, as a treatment for animals, termed veterinary homeopathy, dates back to the inception of homeopathy when Hahnemann, the founder of Homeopathy in the late 18th century wrote and spoke of the use of homeopathy in animals other than humans.

The owners and trainers of horses have found this natural system of medicine hugely benefits the racehorse as it treats the totality of the animal, stimulating the body’s healing process whilst having no side effects or withdrawal symptoms.

Homeopathic remedies can help horses with physical, mental, and emotional conditions and because the Horses, and their relationship with homeopathy remedies come in tiny pills or drops, they are extremely easy to administer.

There are a number of homeopathic remedies for horses but some of the most common ones available include:

Arnica helps with wound, tendon, and sprain injuries.

Aconite can help with laminitis and gastric ulcers

Arsenicum can help with colic and indigestion

Thuja helps with skin conditions such as warts, rain rot, and swelling from vaccinations

For more information on treating animals through homeopathy, please visit the Faculty of Homeopaths or the British Association of Homeopathic Veterinary Surgeons website.

This article was first published in an ARH Newsletter, "Homeopathy Healthy Medicine".

Nobel Scientist discovers scientific basis of homeopathy

Let's be clear. This breaking news won't make homeopathy any more effective than it has been for the last 200 years. After all, it has a history of proven effectiveness with patients throughout the world - even though scientists have not known the mechanism through which it works.

However, Professor Luc Montagnier, the French vitologist who won the Nobel prize for discovering a link between HIV and AIDs, has discovered something about the nature of water that might explain how homeopathy actually works. He has found that water has a 'memory' that continues even after many dilutions. He has apparently found that solutions containing the DNA of viruses and bacteria can emit low frequency radio waves that can influence molecules around them, and turn them into organised structures. These molecules can themselves emit waves.

Moreover, the activity apparently continues even with successive dilutions. Montagnier was not investigating homeopathy, but dilution is, of course, the second principle on which homeopathy is based, the one that makes homeopathy such a very safe medical therapy.

The news has had very poor coverage in the mainstream media - a short mention in the Times at the weekend, and a rather long one in the Australian (at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/nobel-laureate-gives-homeopathy-a-boost/story-e6frg8y6-1225887772305).

Certainly it has not received the attention it deserves. WDDTY have recently featured it in their newsletter (at http://www.wddty.com/nobel-scientist-discovers-scientific-basis-of-homeopathy.html).

Homeopaths are aware that there are other scientists who are working along similar lines, all producing equally interesting findings, pertinent to homeopathy. But we are aware that they have to be careful. ConMed is a powerful Establishment body, and can be vicious to those who challenge their medical monopoly, and who study things they don't want studied - including how homeopathy works.

This may explain why homeophobes, homeopathy denialists and medical fundamentalists have been so rampant in their criticism of homeopathy in recent months. If, through the work of genuine scientists like Montagnier, a scientific explanation of how homeopathy works emerges, it will be the crucial blow to conventional medicine, already in turmoil because of the ongoing, and alarming failure of a succession of pharmaceutical drugs.

Russian Roulette Medicine

Russian Roulette is a potentially lethal game of chance. One bullet is placed in one chamber of a revolver, the cylinder is spun, the gun placed to the head, and then fired. There is a one-in-six chance of dying.

Every time a patient begins to take a conventional drug, notionally 'for their health', they are embarking on an equally risky game of Russian Roulette. ConMed calls the 'bullets' being fired 'side-effects'.

I call them DIEs (disease, or death inducing effects) because this is a more accurate description.

As not everyone suffer all the DIEs of pharmaceutical drug, the odds are perhaps better than 1:6, but not much better. A study by the Nordic School of Public Health in Sweden, published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology in 2013 (doi:10.1111/bcp 12314), found that around 12% of people have diseases and health problems that are directly due to prescription drugs they are taking for other conditions. Actually, 19% reported that they believed a new disease or health problem was caused by a Big Pharma drug but were discarded. Most people would not believe that drugs, given to us to make us better, would actually cause disease - so there is obvious under-reporting. But let's suppose that 12% of people taking conventional medical drugs contract another disease.

Well, there the good news finishes. ConMed willingly admit that their drugs are potentially dangerous to health. But in justification they say that you have to weigh the 'benefits' against the 'dangers'. So this 'cost-benefit' analysis has two seperate aspects.

1. What are the benefits? These are usually greatly over-emphasised, particularly with new drugs by the pharmaceutical companies, the NHS and the mainstream media. As time goes by, claims about the benefit of most drugs diminish. Most pharmacentical drugs only ameliorate the conditions they treat, and that just on a temporary basis. The illness itself continues, often getting worse And over the years, many drugs are withdrawn because in practice they have proven to be entirely ineffective. As far as benefits are concerned, there appears to be a rule of diminishing returns.

2. What are the dangers? The dangers of drugs have little to do with side-effects, a headache, dizziness, dry mouth, and the like. The DIEs they produce are real diseases, usually diseases far worse than the original one for which the drug was prescribed. The history of pharmaceutical drugs clearly show that patients won't be told what the DIEs are, initially because they are not known. Only when patients take them, and suffer as a result, do we begin to realise just how much harm the drug does. Unlike the 'benefits', the dangers seem to spiral out of control, although every attempt seems to be made to deny this until the facts become undeniably.

So do patients have to attempt this cost-benefit analysis, do they have to play russian roulette with their health? Homeopaths, and the patients of homeopaths, usually have a quiet, if rather sad laugh every time a ConMed spokesmen earnestly make such claims. They know that within homeopathy no such calculation is required. If the patient and the homeopath can successfully match the symptoms of illness with a remedy that has a similar symptom picture, the patient will get well, not temporarily but permanently, and nor having to take remedies for the rest of their life.

Even when the wrong remedy is prescribed it will do no harm. There is no Russian Roulette in Homeopathy, just safe, effective and inexpensive treatment of illness.

No wonder the drug companies don't want you to know!

Twitter Bombed By 25 Wieghtloss Pitches In 2.5 Days - I Kid You Not

ATTENTION DIABETES/WEIGHTLOSS MARKETERS: if you're going to tweet me out of the blue re: your brand, don't be surprised if I tweet you back, And don't surprised when I ask point blank if you're sending me a weightloss tweet because I have diabetes. In the past 2.5 days I've been twitterbombed by no less then 25 unsolicited weight loss tweets - I KID YOU NOT. And yes, I'm both annoyed and offended.
Normally, I just block and report you as spam, but as of late I've actually tried to engage with you, because isn't that what social media is all about?
So heads-up, if after your send me said unsolicited weightloss tweet based solely on the fact that I have type 1 diabetes, don't be shocked when I wish to continue the conversation.
See below.

@diabetesalic @DrBarrySears @thezonediet I find it odd that Im continually bombarded w/weight loss tweets because I have type1diabetes. 20 in 2 days time
@DrBarrySears @diabetesalic of course I do not assume you need to lose weight but @thezonediet is proven to help manage chronic diseases such as diabetes.

@diabetesalic @DrBarrySears @thezonediet I think it's both arrogant&dangerous to think that if a person has diabetes, they should lose weight.

@diabetesalic @DrBarrySears @thezonediet u profiled me because Im a person w/ #diabetes&you tweeted me about your weight loss brand YOU ASSUMED

Don't act all pious & tweet me back and say that you have no idea why I'm tweeting you since you didn't contact me (so not true) and don't be surprised when I say, YEAH, you did and then repeat to you back your original tweet, which btw was conveniently deleted on your end.
Don't respond by saying : @DrBarrySears @diabetesalic My apologies if you feel bothered. Diabetics (types 1 or 2) don't necessarily need to lose weight, rather control insulin.

And don't be surprised when I respond back to you: @diabetesalic @DrBarrySears @thezonediet re: "type 1"controlling insulin," it's not about that at all. It's about managing blood sugars. BIG DIFFERENCE

I could go on, but here's the thing: If you're going to use Social Media to promote your brand, don't feign surprise or shock when your target market wants to actually engage with you. As a marketer and or physician I expect you to refrain from making blanket statements regarding my disease that perpetuate diabetes myths and stereotypes.

I'm not against a low carb diet, quite the contrary, I meticulously count my carbs - I MUST & I DO.

I measure, count and see carbs on my plate as opposed to the actual food. Most people living with diabetes do the very same thing. Is it an exact science? NO, there are times when no matter what, our numbers still go North or just as dangerous, South. But we try, and then we pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and try again.

And while we watch, we indulge in the occasional cupcake or softserve ice cream, or Ice Cream Social (and wtg Mike!). Moderation is key and in these days of diabetes technological enlightenment (verses the Diabetes Dark Ages) and nothing is off limits.

So if you're using Social Media to target in your said target market, then start the conversation off right! And while your at it, get the diabetes facts straight instead of perpetuating diabetes myths & stereotypes.

Homeopathy better than placebo

Homeopathy denialists are keen to say 'there is no evidence' that homeopathy is any better than 'placebo'. They have too! They work for, and they are paid by Big Pharma; and they have to protect ConMed drugs from the growing competition from homeopathy, and other natural, drug-free therapies.

There is already plenty of 'clinical evidence', as denialists call it, to say they are wrong. But here is another one to consider.

This study, for instance, concluded that benefits of homeopathy to cancer patient were 'clinically relevant and statistically significant'. The researchers found that homeopathy has a dramatic effect on the quality of life of 259 cancer sufferers, who were being treated with chemotherapy.

The benefits of homeopathy to this group was compared with 380 other cancer patients who were not given homeopathy. As WDDTY said:

Most given a remedy found their fatigue improved, although their anxiety and depression levels – the ones usually associated with the placebo effect – did not alter over a three-month period. Improvements to fatigue levels continued to improve over a 12-month period. The researchers from Albert Ludwig’s University Freiburg in Germany said they tried to match the patients as closely as possible, so that there were similar health profiles in the homeopathic and non-homeopathic groups.

http://www.wddty.com/homeopathy-has-a-clinically-relevant-effect-way-beyond-placebo.html

BMC Cancer, 2011; 11;19; doi: 10:1186/1471-2407-11-19).

Homeopathy denialists will shortly be writing saying that this research was flawed. Or they will just ignore it, and continue to say "There is not evidence" - in the hope that most people won't read about it.

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they!

Obat Diabetes

Mengenai Saya

IKLAN

IKLAN

A Little High Fructose Corn Syrup For Thought - Take 2

Medical Mistakes? Or Dangerous Medicine?

How close are our GPs to the Pharmaceutical drug companies?

My Spin on the Roche / Diabetes Social Media Summit- Year 2

Surgery? How Homeopathy can help

Homeopathy and Horses: more effective, less expensive, and safer too!

Nobel Scientist discovers scientific basis of homeopathy

Russian Roulette Medicine

Twitter Bombed By 25 Wieghtloss Pitches In 2.5 Days - I Kid You Not

Homeopathy better than placebo

DISEWAKAN SPACE IKLAN

IKLAN

Entri Populer

Label

Arsip Blog

Cari Blog Ini