Another one bites the dust as Trump ousts VA Secretary, and replaces him with some doctor walking around the White House.

....In the interim, Hon. Robert Wilkie of DOD will serve as Acting Secretary. I am thankful for Dr. David Shulkin’s service to our country and to our GREAT VETERANS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018

And THAT was how the world learned that Donald Trump had kicked another contestant off Survivor Island.

Courtesy of CNN: 

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he will replace his Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin with Ronny Jackson, who currently serves as physician to the President. 

Trump thanked Shulkin via Twitter for his "service to our country and to our GREAT VETERANS" and said Robert Wilkie, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, will serve as acting secretary until Jackson is confirmed. 

A White House official said the embattled Shulkin was no longer effective in his role, saying his "distractions were getting in the way of carrying out the President's agenda."

In other words Shulkin must have disagreed with Trump once or twice and that simply cannot be allowed.

The White House is claiming that the former VA Secretary was told about his firing in a note or email, before the tweet, but of course they just say shit and expect us to believe it.

For his part Shulkin wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which is hurt feelings were more than apparent.

This is how that op-ed ended: 

I have fought to stand up for this great department and all that it embodies. In recent months, though, the environment in Washington has turned so toxic, chaotic, disrespectful and subversive that it became impossible for me to accomplish the important work that our veterans need and deserve. I can assure you that I will continue to speak out against those who seek to harm the V.A. by putting their personal agendas in front of the well-being of our veterans. 

As many of you know, I am a physician, not a politician. I came to government with an understanding that Washington can be ugly, but I assumed that I could avoid all of the ugliness by staying true to my values. I have been falsely accused of things by people who wanted me out of the way. But despite these politically-based attacks on me and my family’s character, I am proud of my record and know that I acted with the utmost integrity. Unfortunately, none of that mattered. 

As I prepare to leave government, I am struck by a recurring thought: It should not be this hard to serve your country.

Shulkin was also opposed to privatization of the VA which Trump and his supporters seem to feel is the best possible step in fucking up the agency even further.

As for Shulkin's replacement, well that is the same Dr. Dreamy that raved about Trump's health and mental acuity. The lesson for today boys and girls is that if you are truly gifted at sucking up to this president you might earn yourself a cabinet position.

The problem of course is that being Secretary of Veteran's Affairs is a very complicated job, which no amount of cupping a commander-in-chief's testicles and saying "cough" could ever prepare you to undertake.

It is black hole from which careers rarely reemerge intact.

So I imagine that the next time we hear from Dr. Dreamy here is when Trump tweets that he is stepping aside to allow THIS guy to take over the VA instead.

Because don't we know THAT is where all of this is eventually headed?

Julian Assange's health is suffering as a result of hiding from authorities in an Ecuadorian embassy. Don't everybody shed a tear at once.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Julian Assange’s long stay in the Ecuadorian embassy in London is having a “dangerous” impact on his physical and mental health, according to clinicians who carried out the most recent assessments of him. 

The pair renewed calls for the WikiLeaks publisher to be granted safe passage to a London hospital. 

Sondra Crosby, a doctor and associate professor at the Boston University’s school of medicine and public health, and Brock Chisholm, a London-based consultant clinical psychologist, examined Assange for 20 hours over three days in October. 

In an article for the Guardian, they wrote: “While the results of the evaluation are protected by doctor-patient confidentiality, it is our professional opinion that his continued confinement is dangerous physically and mentally to him and a clear infringement of his human right to healthcare.” 

Although the two did not go into details, Assange’s health appears to be deteriorating significantly after more than five years holed up in the embassy.

Well that's a real shame isn't it? 

Poor little Julian has to hide out after working with the Russians to interfere in our last presidential election and to avoid those allegations of sexual assault.

That must be a terrible burden.

But do you know where you can get top notch medical treatment?

In a Federal prison.

Yep they would certainly fix him right up, and I am positive that there are open invitations to prisons from all over the world. 

Or he could just stay where he is and take his chances.

Simply could not care less.

20 year old woman wants parents prosecuted for treating the hole in her heart at birth with faith instead of getting her the medical help that she needed.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:  

Mariah Walton, a 20-year-old woman awaiting a heart and lung transplant, said she thinks her parents and other faith healers should face criminal charges for “treating” her with prayer instead of medicine.

It’s a tale as old as time: girl is born with a small hole in her heart, her parents refuse to get it fixed and instead ask God to oversee her well-being, girl is now permanently disabled due to years of being refused care. The twist, however, is that Walton — unlike many faith healing victims — lived on to call for her parents’ prosecution and to condemn the practice in general. 

“It would have been solved. If I had a surgery when I was one year old, I would have been just fine,” Walton said in an interview with KTVB News. She said she can’t run, misses a lot of school, and gets sick easily because of her weakened immune system.

Instead of getting her the simple medical procedure that she needed Mariah's parents subjected her to "alternative medicines" and faith healing which allowed her condition to worsen until it was life threatening. 

Oddly enough her parents did not "trust" modern medicine, but had no problem trusting that God existed and would heal their child if only they had enough faith.

Fortunate this young woman survived, and now those same parents can pray that they do not end up in jail for condemning their daughter to a lifetime of unnecessary suffering.

It's the Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump health off. (Or the "I'll show you mine if you promise to and then fake showing me yours on television.")

So in the wake of that video showing Hillary Clinton on the verge of collapse on 9-11, the health of both candidates has been on the forefront of everybody's mind.

In response Hillary has released this letter from her doctor:

The letter appears to be fairly standard with an overall healthy assessment, but also mention of an ongoing hypothyroidism concerns, a sinus and ear infection, and of course the pneumonia.

On the other hand Trump has been a little evasive with his his health records, and instead went on the Dr. Oz show to share a letter from the same doctor who declared that he would be the healthiest individual ever elected president.

Here is Politico's reporting on that letter: 

Bernstein’s note released on Thursday was more restrained. It reveals that Trump takes a cholesterol-lowering drug (rosuvastatin) and a low-dose aspirin in addition to reiterating that his only hospitalization was for an appendectomy at the age of 11. Trump is 6-foot-3, weighing 236 pounds, placing him in the upper bound of what is considered "overweight" by the National Institutes of Health Body Mass Index calculator. 

Bornstein wrote that Trump’s test showed a cholesterol level of 169, HDL cholesterol 63, LDL cholesterol 94, triglycerides 61, PSA 0.15, blood pressure 116/70, blood sugar 99 and C Reactive Protein UQ 0.7. 

Bornstein reported Trump’s liver and thyroid function tests as “all within the normal range,” with an annual physical exam taking place every spring. Trump’s last colonoscopy was on July 10, 2013, according to the note, and it was normal and “revealed no polyps.” His calcium score was 98 in 2013. An EKG and chest X-ray conducted on April 14 of this year showed “normal” results, Bernstein added, going on to note that Trump received a transthroacic echocardiogram on Dec. 16, 2014 that “was reported within the range of normal.” 

Trump’s testosterone level is 441.6, according to the report, which also states that his family has no history of premature cardiac or neoplastic disease, nor does the candidate use tobacco or alcohol. 

“In summary, Mr. Trump is in excellent physical health,” Bornstein wrote in the note dated Wednesday, released in conjunction with the airing of Trump's appearance on "The Dr. Oz Show," also taped Wednesday in New York. 

First off I have to admit that I am somewhat skeptical of anything that this doctor writes in a letter for Trump, based mostly on the  ridiculous letter from before.

Now it was previously reported by some members of the audience that Trump's weight was 267 lbs. However I heard the exchange between Trump and Dr. Oz and he clearly said 236 lbs. which I find almost impossible to believe.

In my opinion, as somebody who used to do personal training, Trump is packing at the very least 250 to 260 pounds on his frame, and what is more he clearly does not engage in any physical fitness regime, which also makes me doubt the validity of the other numbers on this letter. (Trump literally suggested that he gets exercise giving speeches and using hand gestures. I am not making that up.)


I think for me the main reason I have trouble accepting the validity of this letter concerning Trump's health is due to the almost overwhelming number of times Trump has been caught lying.

So do I think that Trump is lying about his health? Yes.

Do I think that Hillary might be fudging some of her health issues in order to win this election? It's possible.

However the next question I have to ask myself is if something terrible were to befall either person should they win the White House, whose running mate am I more comfortable with taking over.

Tim Kaine?

Or Mike Pence?

Oh yeah, I don't care if Hillary has terminal cancer in every pore of her body and only minutes to live after her swearing in ceremony, I would still rather have the country in the hands of the affable Tim Kaine and the Democratic party than in the hands of the Russian Winter Soldier, or his pal Mike "Cotton Mather" Pence.

So in my opinion this whole health debate is no longer even an issue.

So have you met Donald Trump's doctor? Well you should.

EXCLUSIVE: @realDonaldTrump doc says he picked up Trump's language in health letter & 'interpreted it into my own.' pic.twitter.com/wb3pMPmO2C

— NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) August 26, 2016

Courtesy of NBC News: 

In his letter, Bornstein said there were no "significant medical problems" in Trump's history and that a recent examination "showed only positive results." 

"If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency," Bornstein wrote. 

Asked how he could justify the hyperbole, Bornstein said, "I like that sentence to be quite honest with you and all the rest of them are either sick or dead." 

He went on to say that the Oval Office has been occupied by presidents with dementia or tumors or even men who were "paranoid" or "psychotic." 

Bornstein said that after he was asked to write the letter, he thought about what he would say all day but did not type it out until the last minute as a black car sent by Trump waited to collect it. He said he didn't even proofread it. 

The doctor said he would not normally use such over-the-top language in a letter for a patient but he made an exception for Trump — who just two weeks before had tweeted that the doctor's assessment would show "perfection."

As I have said before I have made the decision NOT to be surprised by anything we see or hear during this campaign season, but come on!

THIS is Trump's doctor?

The guy is supposedly a billionaire and yet he drops his pants for the living embodiment of Johnny Carson's fake physician Mandrake Curvy?

He literally looks like the guy who gives free prostate exams from the back of his van. 

I am pretty sure we can already assume this will be Trump's science adviser.

So far down the rabbit hole we are my friends.

Newsweek calls into question the veracity of Donald Trump's "doctor's note."

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

It purports to be a medical letter, but it is one of the most ridiculous documents ever to emerge in any political campaign. First, the letterhead is in the same font as the letter, which appears to have been created using Microsoft Word. The signature from the doctor is several inches past the signature line—the result you might get if the document had been signed as a blank and filled in later. The letterhead includes a Gmail address—something doctors tell me is extremely unusual, since doctors do not want patients contacting them directly by email as a substitute for scheduling an appointment. 

There is also a website listed, but if you follow the URL (haroldbornsteinmd.com), sometimes it takes you to cdn.freefarcy.com, a blank page that asks if you want to upload an update to a Flash program onto your computer (the domain name, freefarcy.com, is still for sale. No, I can’t explain that.) If you decline, it does so anyway and, based on the response of the security system on my computer, the “program” on the doctor’s supposed website is a virus. (Other times it takes you to a generic medical website. No, I can't explain that either.) 

Unlike the Clinton letter, it does not contain a full medical history for Trump. The letter also has problems with sentence structure and major typographical errors, such as the opening line, “To Whom My Concern.” Most amusing, it says that his medical examination of Trump has “only positive results.” In medical terms, if the test is positive, it confirms the existence of disease. Is this doctor saying Trump has every medical ailment that could be found in examination? Does he not know the meaning of the word? Or, as I suspect, was the letter written by someone in the Trump campaign?

Oh come on.

Who's going to fake a letter from their doctor?

Okay well you have a point, but there is no precedent for this. Is there?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.

So do we think that Donald Trump's doctor's note is a fake?

Or do we think that Trump tested positive for every medical ailment known to man?

Actually judging from the color of his skin, either one could be true.

The most powerful medical association in America prepares to do battle in Congress over stricter gun control laws.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

The largest medical organization in the United States, the American Medical Association, passed a historic resolution last night in response to the weekend’s mass shooting. After years of tiptoeing around the topic of gun control, AMA leaders voted to officially call gun violence a public health issue — and respond accordingly. That means flexing the organization’s powerful political muscle on Capitol Hill to refocus federal funds toward studying gun violence. 

To see this through, however, Congress would need to lift a 20-year-old ban that blocks the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from funding any research related to gun violence. But the AMA, with one of the largest political lobbying budgets of any organization in the U.S., appears ready to fight. 

“Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths and injuries,” said AMA President Dr. Steven Stack, in a written statement. 

“An epidemiological analysis of gun violence is vital so physicians and other health providers, law enforcement and society at large may be able to prevent injury, death and other harms to society resulting from firearms,” he added.

Remember how I said that we were reaching a breaking point over gun deaths? 

Yeah well I might have underestimated that a little.

Physicians demand end to 20 year ban on research into gun violence.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

This ban, supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA), has effectively silenced researchers at both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) for conducting any comprehensive studies on what causes violence — and what can be done to prevent it — since 1996. As expected, it’s left public health experts and policymakers with little to lean on as they attempt to craft new legislation to help quell the fatal trend. 
 doctor

At Wednesday’s press conference, led by Doctors for America, doctors presented a petition signed by more than 2,000 physicians in all 50 states requesting an end to the restriction. 

“It’s disappointing to me that we’ve made little progress in the past 20 years in finding solutions to gun violence,” said Dr. Nina Agrawal, who’s been a pediatrician in the South Bronx for years. “In my career, I’ve seen children lives saved from measles, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, motor vehicle accidents…because of federal scientific data and research. It’s frustrating that the CDC is not permitted to do the same type of research for gun violence.” 

Instead, GOP leaders have tried to make gun violence an issue that requires mental health research, despite the fact that less than 3 percent of U.S. crimes involve someone with a mental illness. And the most recent argument against CDC-funded research is that “a gun is not a disease” — even though the CDC has been researching motor vehicles, natural disasters, poor ventilation systems, and many other topics that wouldn’t be labeled a disease for years. The politicians behind these arguments have yet to suggest simply allocating money to another government agency. 

“Politicians have put a gag order on public health research for gun violence only to score political points,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who also spoke at the event. “On public health matters, it’s critical we listen to doctors — not politicians.”

Please let this last spate of gun violence be enough to finally get Americans off their asses and willing to vocally, and politically, support changes in how we deal with guns in this country.

I don't know about everybody else but I am goddamn tired of writing headlines about people being shot to death.

American Medical Association calls for ban on the advertisement of prescription drugs.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

The American Medical Association on Tuesday called for a ban on advertising prescription drugs and medical devices directly to consumers, saying the ads drive patients to demand expensive treatments over less costly ones that are also effective. 

The influential doctors' group said the new policy reflects physicians' concerns that marketing spending on a proliferation of advertising is helping to drive up drug prices. The group voted at its annual meeting in Atlanta to support a ban. 

"Direct-to-consumer advertising also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when those drugs may not be appropriate," AMA Board Chair-elect Patrice Harris said in a statement. 

The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs.

Welcome to one of Gryphen's biggest pet peeves.

I have long argued against these commercials, because they actually convince perfectly healthy people that they are ill and that they need drugs which they simply do not need.

I work with a population highly susceptible to suggestion, and many of them have complained of symptoms that they do not have, and have requested access to prescription medications that not only don't they need but are also potentially hazardous for them to take.

I know we rely on doctors to be the voice of reason for their patients, but the sad truth is that these companies send incredibly attractive drug reps to doctor's offices all over the country with offers of free seminars in exotic locations, golf trips, and a number of other perks to persuade them to push their product, and let's face it not all doctors can resist the temptation.

So yes we most certainly should ban these advertisements. 

However the other sad truth is that these companies own certain politicians outright and there is no way they will allow anybody to interfere in the billions of dollars in profit that their benefactors bring in each year.

Texas woman drops gun in doctor's office hitting patient in other room. Well, at least they were in the right place.

Courtesy of KCEN TV:  

A witness told KCEN's sister station 12News that a woman was in the waiting room of a medical office. When she reached into her purse to pull out some paperwork, a gun fell out of her purse causing it to discharge. The round went through a wall and hit another patient in the hip. 

Bobby Pressley was in the waiting room when it happened. 

"Everyone was sitting in the waiting room and there was a gun shot. A woman dropped her purse down on the counter and it shot through the wall and shot another lady," said Pressley. 

A spokesperson for the Beaumont Police Department told 12News that the injuries of the person whom was shot are not considered life threatening. The victim was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Yep that 2nd Amendment is keeping us so safe that it even reached through walls to stop a bad patient in an open back gown.

Sure this seems bad, but if the NRA has taught us anything it's that guns are not inherently dangerous, therefore the doctor's patient was probably up to no good, and the gun sensed that and leaped (Or in this case fell) into action.

The guy behind those bogus Planned Parenthood videos admits he used a stillborn fetus to portray an aborted one, and Dr. Jen Gunter has more on that video which supposedly defends Carly Fiorina.

Courtesy of AATTP:

Daleiden admits that the image is that of a stillborn baby, but insists it was only used to show what a fetus at that gestational period looks like. 

It is quite clear about halfway through the video that Cuomo’s attempts are futile because Daleiden is simply not going to agree that he sees how using the photograph out of context is misleading. Perhaps using one of the hundreds of thousands of images available of live fetuses in that same gestational period would have made your claim a little more credible. 

Daleiden responds by saying: 

“It’s the same baby, whether it’s born dead or alive, whether the organs are harvested or not.” 

To which Cuomo says, in a “don’t play dumb” tone: 

“It’s also completely irrelevant to the point you’re trying to make, which is, ‘Look at what they do to these babies.’” It was born stillborn. It was not aborted. Doesn’t that matter to you if you’re talking about abortion?” 

Daleiden repeats again that it’s the “same kind” of fetus. 

Cuomo, still trying to drill through the thickness of Daleiden’s skull, says: 

“My point is context. You’re saying, ‘what they do in abortions,’ that wasn’t an abortion. That’s my point.” 

So the guy finally admits to using false imagery as a means to manipulate the emotions of the viewer.

That's not something we didn't already know but it is nice the POS finally admitted it.

As for that video we talked about yesterday which supposedly PROVES that Carly Fiorina is not a big fat liar, well my new favorite OB/GYN Dr. Jen Gunter examined it again and discovered this: 

Today I viewed it again on a very large screen and noticed the width of the bed. It is clearly a labor and delivery bed, procedure/operating tables (used for clinic abortions and in the operating room) are much narrower. Also the part of the stirrup that is visible in the upper left is typical of a labor and delivery bed. As I was going through it frame by frame I noticed movement on the right side close to the minute mark. There is an African-American man who is sitting and moving back and forth as if he is wiping the brow of the woman on the table and comforting her. His face is clearly visible in the right upper corner at the 54 second mark. And of course that is what happens at premature deliveries, support persons come in. Partners don’t get to come back for abortions, that’s not how it works. I took a screen shot to be sure, but I feel wrong about posting it. Anyone who doesn’t believe me can look for themselves. 

As for the “poking and prodding” of the premature fetus that enraged many people on Twitter it looks as if the operator is inspecting for any grossly visible defects, but it is also possible he is describing a fetus at the 17-18 week developmental stage to the person who was illegally taping the premature delivery. Maybe the operator was asked to describe things? As there are no obvious defects this is unlikely an induction of labor for genetic reasons, also those happen at a later gestational age (around 20-22 weeks). 

Why wasn’t a blanket given to the baby? If the mother declined to hold her baby after delivery then typically nothing additional would be done and the body would go to the morgue or pathology for autopsy depending on the plans/circumstance. It is also possible no one offered the patient the option to hold and that would be sad. However, not everyone is brave to hold their baby in that situation. It took me over an hour to work up the courage when my son was born prematurely at 22 weeks and died. 

But all I can say is this is a premature delivery and it is despicable that it was held out as an abortion.

So we have the creator of the initial anti-abortion attack videos admitting that he used deceptive images to manipulate the viewer, and an actual doctor calling bullshit on the video that supposedly vindicated Carly Fiorina's  histrionic claims of seeing an aborted baby kept alive so that its brain could be harvested.

At this point I would usually simply say "We're done here." But knowing the cognitive dissonance which infects the Right Wing that is in fact very unlikely.

Group releases video called "Carly Fiorina was right." Video proves no such thing.

Courtesy of Slate: 

The video, titled "Carly Fiorina was right" (warning: extremely graphic), was provided by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. They are the group that provided an image of a fetus, moving slightly, that is used by the Center for Medical Progress in one of their videos. This new video shows the context: The fetus is pulled from a woman and placed in a bowl. At no point does anyone say, "We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain." There is no sound. There is no indication that we are inside a Planned Parenthood–affiliated clinic. 

The only new information this video adds is the revelation that the fetus came out of a woman's body. If that surprises you, then you have no right to weigh in on debates over women's health care.

Okay so I am going to provide a link to this video right here for those who want to see it for themselves.

For those who do not let me just say that what it shows is a view between the legs of what appears to be an African American woman having a small, almost fully formed fetus removed. Yes it is graphic. And yes it will probably disturb some people.

However it really does nothing to support Fiorina's claims about seeing a video which shows "a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain."

This video does not show that.

So what does it show?

For the answer to that we turn to Dr. Jen Gunter:

It is easy to see how someone who has no obstetrical training might think this could be something other than a previable premature delivery. Cunningham’s statements clearly show he is no medical expert and isn’t in the position to explain it. However, I am. 

Here are all the issues with the video from start to finish: 

1. It is illegally and clandestinely shot. I feel very badly for the poor woman in question and wonder why Fiorina and our elected officials are not as outraged as I am about her violation and exploitation. I had second thoughts about watching it myself given the lack of consent from the woman, however, I felt if I could end the conversation about it faster by weighing in. Time magazine or Slate have links. 
2. The prep of the patient. The physician (I’m assuming) pours surgical prep/cleaner on the woman’s perineum. We don’t do that anymore for spontaneous deliveries or for abortions that involve induction of labor. This tells me this video is at least 15 years old or from another country. 
3. The delivery. It is a spontaneous delivery as the operator waits for the fetus to be expelled. This is what we do with a previable premature delivery. If this were shot mid way through a 2nd trimester abortion (meaning the Laminaria in the cervix, which are osmotic sticks that help the cervix dilate, had just been removed) it is highly unlikely the operator would have waited for a spontaneous expulsion. 
4. The cord is clamped on the fetal side. If this were an abortion it would just be cut. Really. No one ever does this with an abortion as it serves no purpose. 
5. Waiting for the placenta. The clamp is left on the placental end and at the end of the video the placenta still hasn’t delivered. If this were an abortion the placenta would be removed with suction immediately, no one would wait 11 minutes. Ever. Every abortion clinic has a suction machine. 
6. There is no proof this video is in a Planned Parenthood clinic never mind in the United States. This could easily be an operating room. 

Instead of wasting tax payer dollars over highly edited videos our government should be investigating who illegally taped this woman’s delivery. If Cunningham says he didn’t take the video then of course he also can’t be sure what was going on. He can’t have it both ways.

So according to Dr. Jen this video likely does not even show an abortion, much less one that ends with a fetus having its brain harvested.

Simply put Carly Fiorina is a liar. And no evidence, and certainly no video, has shown that statement to be false. 

OB/GYN's expose Carly Fiorina's claims of an aborted fetus kicking its legs in those doctored Planned Parenthood videos as false.

Courtesy of Dr. Jen Gunter's blog:

This weekend I posted about my hypothesis that the 3rd Planned Parenthood video deceptively shot and edited by the Center for Medical Progress did not contain video of a “fully formed fetus” (Carly Fiorina’s words), I believe it is a premature delivery. I reached that conclusion from 25 years of clinical practice in OB/GYN. I decided to ask nine other OB/GYNs what they thought about the clip, meaning I put a lot more effort into getting the facts than the politicians who voted to defund Planned Parenthood. All nine OB/GYNs agree with me. Several are OB/GYns who have done advanced training in family planning and so are experts in the field. 

We all agree the video clip is highly unlikely to be from an abortion. We all agree it is likely a premature delivery. We all agree it can’t be from a Planned Parenthood clinic. 

Here’s why: 

• The cord is clamped. No one ever clamps the cord in a 2nd trimester abortion. Ever. No one has seen it and no one has even heard of it happening. If you want to see the image where I point out the clamp, click here. I know it disturbs some so I’m not reposting. 
• The condition of the skin. Fetal skin is very fragile at 18 weeks, but here it is perfect. There is also no bruising. With 2nd trimester abortions, even when the purpose is to deliver intact (which is rarely the case), there is some instrumentation and this always leaves marks. If this were an induction of labor there is almost always bruising and skin maceration. Inductions are only done for malformations and none are present. 
• The gestational age. Likely 18 weeks, maybe 20 weeks. At a Planned Parenthood an abortion at this gestation would be a D & E. Inductions don’t happen at Planned Parenthood. 

The evidence suggests this is a premature delivery. The perfect condition is typical of a rapid but atraumatic delivery, such as cervical incompetence or a second twin.
It is always nice when a person with actual knowledge and facts to back them up is able to bitchslap conservative bullshit right back at those that are propagating it.

Dr. Gunter has more revealing information on her blog as well, such as the fact that the  organization which originally provided the  clip stands behind it, but is unwilling to reveal how they came by it or where it is from.

How convenient.

Doctor points out that though he is attacking Planned Parenthood today Ben Carson also used fetal parts in his own research. Not the same thing says Carson.

Oh you weren't supposed to find that.

Courtesy of Dr. Jen Gunter's blog:  

Dr. Ben Carson, GOP nominee hopeful, told Fox’s Megyn Kelly that “There’s nothing that can’t be done without fetal tissue” and that the benefits of fetal tissue have been “over promised” and the results have “very much under-delivered.” 

Carson also said, “At 17 weeks, you’ve got a nice little nose and little fingers and hands and the heart’s beating. It can respond to environmental stimulus. How can you believe that that’s just a[n] irrelevant mass of cells? That’s what they want you to believe, when in fact it is a human being.” 

While opining on the uselessness of fetal tissue research to Megyn Kelly Dr. Carson neglected to mention his own paper Colloid Cysts of the Third Ventricle: Immunohistochemical evidence for nonneuropithelial differentiation published in Hum Pathol 23:811-816 in 1992. The materials and methods describe using “human choroid plexus ependyma and nasal mucosa from two fetuses aborted in the ninth and 17th week of gestation.” 

Yes, Dr. Ben Carson has done research on fetal tissue and published his findings. His name is on the paper so that means he had a substantive role in the research and supports the methods and findings.

Dr. Gunter also posted scans of Carson's paper to make her point.

 Can you say "awkward?"

So here you have a neurosurgeon, who knows from personal experience the benefits of fetal tissue research, joining the mouth breathers in the Republican part in their attack on Planned Parenthood.

However when confronted with this revelation, Carson claimed that his research did not mean he was wrong about Planned Parenthood: 

On the campaign trail in Manchester, New Hampshire, Carson told CNN his research simply used the tissue from aborted fetuses that was made available to him. 

"We have banked material in the pathology lab from people from every age -- from day 1 of concept to 120 years told. Those specimens are available for people who want to do comparisons," Carson said. "To not use the tissue that is in a tissue bank, regardless of where it comes from, would be foolish. Why would anybody not do that?" 

Of his own research -- which was to determine the patients who would be likely to develop certain health issues later in life -- Carson said, "That's a very different thing from killing babies, manipulating them, taking their tissue, selling them...To try to equate those things is absolutely ridiculous." 

So I guess we will assume that the fetal tissue that Carson used came from fetuses that voluntarily gave their life to science.  Right?

Or does he simply not care how the "banked material" was gathered because it was not something he could have used back then to fire up the conservative base and help him win the GOP nomination?

You know just when I think I have seen the worst case of hypocrisy that I can possibly imagine, I am proved wrong once again.

Did you think that Jeb Bush was all out of gaffes? Well you were dead wrong.

Photo courtesy of Business Insider.

Courtesy of Mediaite: 

“I think we should repeal Obamacare if given the opportunity,” Bush said, “and replace it with a consumer-directed model where people are engaged in making healthier decisions for themselves and where they are given the tools to do so.” 

He then pointed to his Apple Watch, the cheapest of which retails for $349, saying, “On this device, in five years, will be applications that will allow me to manage my healthcare in ways that, five years ago, were not even possible.” For example, the watch could alert him when he’s eaten more sugar than is safe for his diabetes. 

“Ultimately, we have to get to a health system, away from a disease system,” he added. But while that is well and good for those who are generally healthy, what about those who aren’t?

Yes we will no longer need health insurance, because our watches will take the place of doctors. 

I wonder if he saw a doctor for the head injury that he must have suffered to make him such a moron?

As it turns out DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz had the perfect reply:

.@jebbush I had cancer. There’s no app for that.

— D Wasserman Schultz (@DWStweets) May 15, 2015

And there you go.

John Oliver once again goes after TV snake oil salesman Dr. Oz, and it's glorious.

Click image to play video

I loved this bit:

“No. You are scientifically wrong about that as you are about so many things. Let’s be clear: The First Amendment protects Americans from government censorship, and that’s it. It does not guarantee you to simultaneously hold a faculty position at a prestigious private university and make misleading claims on a TV show. It absolutely protects your right to say whatever you like on it, just as it protects my right to say what I think about you on mine, which is this: You are the worst person in scrubs who has ever been on television—and I’m including Katherine Heigl in that. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be worse than Katherine Heigl? You are also the admittedly handsome ringmaster of a middling mid-afternoon televised snake-oil dispensary and it says something that even when you do a show with seven fake models of human feces, the biggest piece of shit on the stage has his name in the title.”

By the way there are now over a thousand doctors calling for Dr. Oz to step down from his faculty position at Columbia University.


Courtesy of Fox News: 

Earlier this week, 10 doctors sent a letter calling for Oz, host of the popular TV show "The Dr. Oz Show," to be removed from his academic position as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Columbia. The doctors said that Oz has promoted products and made claims that aren't supported by medical evidence. 

And now, of the 1,300 doctors who responded by 4 p.m. ET today (April 24) to a poll conducted by SERMO, a social network for doctors, 735 doctors (57 percent) said Oz should resign from his faculty position at Columbia. Fifty doctors (4 percent) said Oz should have his medical license revoked. And another 280 doctors (22 percent) said Oz should both resign from his position and have his license taken away.

Personally I have long disliked Dr. Oz and his fact free TV program.

It started for me when I left the television on all night, and woke up in the morning to Oz telling his audience about a "miracle" fat reducing supplement that he guaranteed would help people drop at least fifteen pounds without doing anything else different.

Literally the first word that left my mouth that morning was "bullshit!"

Anybody, doctor or otherwise, who puts the word "miracle" in front of any fat reducing product should immediately cause you to stop listening to them immediately.

And from what I have learned since, virtually ALL of his presentations which push miraculous foods, supplements, and even exercise regimes are flawed, and they provide potentially dangerous information to his largely undereducated sycophants.

He may be just as wingnutty as the rest of them, but Ben Carson knows a sick person when he sees her.

This incident is pulled from a rather in depth GQ article posted the other day about Ben Carson and his political aspirations: 

A month later, Carson was invited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he met Sarah Palin, who greeted him with the bowing "We're not worthy" routine from Wayne's World. (Carson, for his part, thought Palin "looked anorexic.") 

Now like I said in the title Carson is  fairly out there on most things, such as calling Obamacare "the worst thing since slavery."

However he IS a neurosurgeon and therefore an MD, and if his first impression of Sarah Palin is that she has an eating disorder, I would give that some credence.

Not that we couldn't have determined that diagnosis on our own of course.

To give Carson a little more credit (Not something I imagine I will do very often.), he is also the first potential GOP candidate to call that police shooting in South Carolina an execution.

Gee, that's at least two things he is right about.

Jimmy Kimmel's Message to the Anti-Vaxxers.

Not only very funny, but very, very true.

Cathy Baldwin-Johnson to end her career as a family physician in the Mat-Su Valley and instead work in Anchorage. Now who do I know that lives in Anchorage?

Courtesy of the Frontiersman:  

Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson says being a family physician has been “a great calling.” 

Fifteen years after she opened the Mat-Su Valley’s first clinic to provide obstetric care in 1985, Dr. Baldwin-Johnson and her two other physicians accepted Providence Medical Group Alaska’s offer to buy their practice. 

“I think the reason we agreed to it is that we felt our missions were really aligned,” Baldwin-Johnson said. 

With a high proportion of uninsured and Medicaid patients, Baldwin-Johnson saw more opportunity to continue seeing those patients with Providence’s help. 

“We were able to see patients like that that other physicians might not have been willing to see when we were a part of Providence,” she said. 

But the end of an era came on New Year’s Eve. As detailed in a November 2014 Frontiersman news story, Providence decided there was no longer a need for the company to have a primary care clinic in the Valley, and as of Dec. 31, 2014, the facility at 2250 S. Woodworth Loop in Palmer will only remain open to behavioral health patients. All the primary care doctors, to the best of Baldwin-Johnson’s knowledge, have accepted positions at other clinics, most of them local. 

Baldwin-Johnson, however, decided to end her more than 30-year tenure as a family physician to work full-time for Alaska CARES, the Providence-owned child advocacy center in Anchorage, where she has worked part-time since 2005. 

And according to paperwork I have seen she was also working there on April 18th through nineteenth when she was supposed to be somewhere else entirely. 

Looks like it might be time to follow up on this.

How are you all enjoying Monday so far?

President Obama goes to the doctor, ends up becoming an unwitting participant in a future Prilosec commercial.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

President Barack Obama, who had medical tests on Saturday after complaining of a sore throat, is suffering from acid reflux, the president's physician said. 

"The president's symptoms are consistent with soft tissue inflammation related to acid reflux and will be treated accordingly," Obama's doctor, Captain Ronny Jackson, said in a statement.

Now of course that is the official explanation, however  some conservatives are convinced that Obama's sore throat is simply proof that he is gay.

Which of course is a ridiculous contention, because my ex-wife had sore throats all of the time and I can assure you it was not due to any activity that she might have had in common with gay men.

However I would also like to voice my skepticism about this diagnosis based solely on the fact that I think acid reflux is one of those fake TV diseases, like restless leg syndrome, and erectile dysfunction that advertisers use to sell us medications that we do not really need. (I mean seriously who CAN'T get an erection?)

Not only that but the medications to "cure" these diseases always seem to have side effects significantly worse than the problem they are curing. Such as fracturing bones, increased risk of liver failure, and rectal bleeding.

That's right RECTAL BLEEDING!

Guess what, if my choices are legs that move around at night or bleeding out of my ass I will simply tie my damn legs together with rope or something.

Anyhow whatever the President really has, and I would assume it is probably a sore throat from swallowing all of the conservative BS these last couple of years, I hope he gets better,

Because we still need him.

Perhaps now more than ever.