Change the way you look at things

I have figured out how to listen to the local and national news broadcasts, most of the local and national politicians, and have it make sense.

You see, I have been wondering for weeks, months, years, why so much of what I saw and heard was happening in the world just didn’t make sense to me. Why does the government get to just take so much of the money that I’ve made over the entire course of my working years? If I just took money from others it would be called ‘stealing’. When the money was taken from me via my paycheck it was called ‘taxes’. Keep reading

Why I’m unsubscribing from Good Housekeeping

Last night I was working on a Vision Board in preparation for a class I am teaching next month. For this particuIar project, I was trying to avoid looking at the words and focus just on the images, so it took me a while to notice how many of the ads in the magazine were drug company ads.

I decided to go back to the beginning and tear out all of the pharmaceutical ads.

I could not believe it!

So many ads telling us that we are broken, faulty, but don’t worry–we can sell you a medication for that! A toxic, potentially deadly, medication.

The most egregious of these is the Gardasil ad. I recently heard this vaccine referred to as “Garda-kill” by Brandy Vaughn (a former drug company rep for Merck). Think about that. Keep reading

Why it’s important to consider your position on abortion before getting some vaccines

This is probably not something you thought you’d need to factor into your decision-making.

Maybe you’re like me. I used to think that vaccine bottles contained some form of antigen and saline, and not much else.

And then I learned about mercury. And aluminum.

I thought these things were probably bad to have injected into our bodies. Alas, I did not know vaccines contained these and other materials when I was making most of my vaccine decisions.

I started to question the process after I became a nurse. In nursing school, I was taught that nurses need a physician’s order to administer a drug. After I graduated and was out in the ‘real world’, I learned about flu shots being given out in the community at senior centers and such. I asked how nurses could be giving these shots to people without a doctor’s order. I asked about the process of informed consent, which I was taught was required before any medical intervention. Keep reading

Who is deciding what’s right for us?

You go to your annual appointment with your doctor. Routine labs will probably be offered. Depending on your age, this may include a cholesterol check. Depending on the result of that test, you may be told you have high cholesterol and ‘need’ to take a statin medicine.

This is based on some established guidelines. Have you ever wondered exactly who it is that decides these guidelines? What would you think if you knew that half of the doctors who wrote the 2013 guidelines had ties to the drug companies that make statins? Keep reading

Removing the gag

I watched a video recently on Senator Susan Collins’ Facebook page. She talked about how she was standing in line at a pharmacy when she heard a conversation between two people who had to decide not to pick up a prescription medication because of the exorbitant cost. She was so upset by this!

I had a similar occurrence that left me scratching my head. I was picking up a tube of Erythromycin at the pharmacy which I expected to cost just a few dollars. When I was told that it was $20+ dollars, I was floored. Keep reading