Mar 10

Oh yeah, that’s insane, all right.

Category: news

New York magazine’s Grub Street blog reports that state assemblyman Felix Ortiz has proposed a salt ban in restaurants. Not just a restriction, a BAN. On any use of salt in any form in the preparation of food in restaurants! Grub Street quite correctly calls the bill “insane.”

Grub Street is reacting so strongly, though, for the wrong reasons. It’s true, so much of a meal’s flavor derives from its being properly seasoned that a salt ban Read more

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Mar 9

2010 goals: Progress

Category: news

Now that we’re almost a third of the way through the year (!) I’m checking my progress on my health-related goals:

Maintain weight at 135 pounds. Check. I have not been above 137.5 since the start of the year. Continuing to use Lose It! as a check on myself (it automatically cuts your calorie count once you enter a weight above your goal weight, even if it’s only by half a pound) has kept me from slipping.

Beat my personal record Read more

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Feb 5

Remember that Nails song…

Category: news

…”Head Like a Hole”?

Specifically, as I read this excellent Wall Street Journal op-ed, I thought of the lines, “Bow down before the one you serve. You’re going to get what you deserve.”

Big Pharma bowed down to the government, hoping that by playing nice with the bullies, they would get huge profits out of a sweeping healthcare bill that would force more Americans to carry insurance, thus turning more Americans into consumers Read more

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Feb 2

We know better. We’re the government.

Category: news

Florida dermatologist Dr. Leslie Baumann, who was the lead investigator on clinical trials of Dysport, an antiwrinkle treatment that was approved by the FDA last April, has received a warning from that agency for remarks she made to the media about the drug before it was approved. Pharmaceutical companies are not permitted to promote the use of a drug before the FDA approves it (and they are not allowed to promote it for uses other than those approved Read more

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Jan 27

Review: Extraordinary Measures

Category: news

I’m swamped at work, but just wanted to point out the new Brendan Fraser/Harrison Ford movie, Extraordinary Measures. (Warning: somewhat spoilerish.)

I had a mixed reaction to the film, which is about a father of three children, two of whom have a life-threatening and degenerative disease, who teams with a maverick scientist to look for a treatment that could save his kids’ lives. But the mixed reaction was not because the film was half Read more

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Jan 19

Reasons to be wary, and reasons to be excited

Category: news

Scott Brown, soon to be senator of the bluest of blue states. Bless you, Massachusetts voters!

It’s not a total victory. Here’s why:
I didn’t know until today that Brown voted for RomneyCare in Massachusetts. This guy doesn’t want to be the forty-first vote for the sake of defending individual rights in medicine. He wants to be the forty-first vote so that he can block the Democrats from being able to take credit for any action, and Read more

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Jan 19

Screw you, Nancy Pelosi.

Category: news

“Let’s remove all doubt,” she says. “We will have health care one way or another.”

You mean, you’ll have it regardless of whether or not the American people want socialized medicine, and regardless of whether it’s right?

Mrs. Pelosi and her power-lusting ilk need to be stopped. As much as I’d love to see Scott Brown win today’s election, it won’t be enough. Even if he wins and the Democrats don’t get away with their slimy plan Read more

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Jan 18

Asthma asininity

Category: news

My husband has asthma. It’s a chronic condition. He’s had it since he was a child, and he takes two different inhaled daily medications for it. Barring some extraordinary development that has yet to occur, neither his asthma nor the medications he takes for it are going to change.

Nobody in government seems to have figured out that conditions like this exist, though. Both of my husband’s medications can only be obtained by prescription. Read more

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Jan 14

Experimentation

Category: news

Although I managed to get through the holidays without gaining weight, I’ve slipped a little bit off the wagon in early January. As a result, I started this week closer to 140 pounds than 135. Not a huge increase, but the way five pounds turns into ten and then into twenty is by not paying attention. So I’ve been following a 1500-calorie-per-day diet (plus more on days that I work out) this week.

I went into this week thinking, “I hate Read more

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Jan 12

Nanny city: A salt on our rights

Category: news

Not satisfied with having violated rights and gotten a trans fat ban and calorie count posting mandates in NYC, Mayor Bloomberg is now talking about getting New Yorkers to cut their sodium intake by “encouraging” food manufacturers to reduce the amount of salt in their products. He claims he won’t legislate salt reductions, but a) that’s only because they’d be nearly impossible to enforce (what food manufacturer is going to come up with salt-free Read more

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