Category: Health & Medicine

Mere low Earth orbit in a space station? It’s too bad we haven’t taken up asteroid mining yet

What’s it like to be 70 years old in space? “All those little aches and pains heal up.”

Not many people celebrate their birthday by burning a fiery arc through the atmosphere, pulling 4.4gs in freefall back to planet Earth, thudding into the ground, and emptying their stomach on the steppes of Kazakhstan.

No one has ever done it on their 70th birthday.

Perhaps this is appropriate because NASA astronaut Don Pettit is a singular individual. His birthday is April 20, and when the Soyuz spacecraft carrying him landed at dawn in Kazakhstan, the calendar had turned over to that date. John Glenn, then 77, was older when he went to space. But no one as old as Pettit had spent as long as he had in orbit, 220 days, on a mission.

On Monday, a little more than a week after returning from orbit, Pettit met with reporters at Johnson Space Center. “It’s good to be back on planet Earth,” he said. “As much as I love exploring space, going into the frontier, and making observations, you do reach a time when it’s time to come home.”

Flying in space at 70 years old

Pettit first went into space at the age of 47 for his first of three long-duration missions to the International Space Station. Since then, he has flown a shorter shuttle mission and two more space station increments. All told, he has lived in space for 590 days, the third-most all-time among NASA astronauts.

“I’ve got a few creaks and groans in my body, but basically I feel the same as I did 20 years ago, and coming back to gravity is provocative,” he said.

After every one of his missions, Pettit said the readjustment to gravity for him has been a challenge. He added that the surprising thing about spaceflight is that it’s not so much your large muscles that ache, but the smaller ones.

“A week ago, I was on station, and I was doing really heavy squats, I was doing dead lifts, I could float around with the greatest of ease, even though I had no trapeze,” he said. “I was at the peak of my game. And then you come back to Earth, and it’s like, God, I can’t even get up from the floor anymore. It’s humbling. But it isn’t about the large muscle groups. It’s about the little, tiny muscles that everybody forgets about because they’re just there and they work. When you’re in weightlessness, these muscles don’t work anymore. And they take a six-month vacation until you come back to Earth. And now, all of a sudden, they start groaning and talking to you, and it takes a while to get all these little muscles tuned back up to being an Earthling.”

In terms of aging, Pettit said, like a lot of older people, he wakes up after a night sleeping on Earth with a sore shoulder or a stiff neck. That’s just part of the process. But microgravity took some of those aches and pains away.

“I love being in space,” he said. “When you’re sleeping, you’re just floating, and your body, all those little aches and pains heal up. You feel like you’re 30 years old again and free of pain, free of everything. So I love being on orbit. It’s a great place to be for me and my physiology.”

The space station isn’t old, either

Pettit has visited the space station on all four of his spaceflights. He lived there, near the beginning of the station’s lifetime, as part of Expedition 6 in 2002. More than two decades later he said the station is operating at full capacity, delivering on its promise of robust scientific research, studies of long-duration spaceflight, and much more. Asked if he felt nostalgic about the station coming to an end in 2030—NASA plans to de-orbit the facility at that time—Pettit said the laboratory should live on.

“I’m a firm believer we don’t need to dump the space station in the ocean at 2030 if we don’t want to,” he said. “If we as a society decided to keep [the] space station, we could keep it like a B-52. I mean, how many years is it they’ve been flying? It’ll be flying close to 100 years by the time the Air Force finally retires the B-52, and it’s basically the same airframe with the same aerodynamics, but everything else is new. There’s no limit to what we can do to [the] space station, except for our will to keep refurbishing it and having the funding necessary.”

And maybe that’s because he wants to go back. Pettit did not rule out flying into space again. For now, he wants to take a few weeks to allow his body time to re-adjust to gravity. He wants to enjoy some time with his family. But soon, he knows, space will start to call to him again.

“I call it the explorer’s paradox,” he said. “When you’re back in civilization, you want to be out there wherever your wilderness happens to be; and then when you’re in your wilderness, it’s like, wow, I need to be back with my family. I think it’s probably gone on for as long as humanity has had people who go off into the wilderness. When the flight docs say I’m ready to go back, I’m ready to do it. And I know John Glenn flew at age 76, something like that, and I’m only 70, so I’ve got a few more good years left. I could see getting another flight or two in before I’m ready to hang up my rocket nozzles.”

Bill to bar giving guns to certain mental health patients stalls until 2026

A bill that would criminalize knowingly giving firearms to someone who recently received inpatient mental health treatment was pushed to 2026 on Wednesday  amid questions about its language.

Rep. Shaundelle Brooks, a Hermitage Democrat, named the bill “Akilah’s Law” in honor of her son Akilah Dasilva, who was killed in a mass shooting at a Nashville Waffle House in 2018.

The shooter, Travis Reinking of Morton, Illinois, had a history of schizophrenia and delusions. Prior to the shooting, Illinois State Police had revoked his firearm owner identification card, forcing him to surrender his guns to his father. His father then returned the guns to Reinking, breaking Illinois state law.

Tennessee bars giving firearms to juveniles or intoxicated people, but not those who have been committed for mental health evaluation.

Brooks said her bill intends to bring Tennessee in line with the Illinois law that prohibits someone from giving or selling a firearm to a person who has been a patient in a mental health institution within five years.

Brooks’ bill passed the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee in late March, but questions over the bill’s scope and language arose in the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 8. 

Sen. Paul Rose, a Southwest Tennessee Republican, asked for clarity on what the bill defines as a “mental health institution” and what it means to be “admitted.” Rose questioned whether a person who makes routine visits to a mental health provider for medication would be considered a patient of a mental health institution under the bill’s definition.

The bill’s Senate sponsor, Memphis Democrat Raumesh Akbari, said she did not believe the bill would apply in that case.

Elliot Pinsly, president and CEO of the Behavioral Health Foundation, said the way the legislation is written could have a “chilling effect on people’s willingness to seek mental health treatment in Tennessee.” Pinsly, a licensed clinical social worker, founded the policy-focused nonprofit in 2020.

“The actual bill makes it a crime punishable by up to one year imprisonment to sell, give or otherwise transfer a firearm to a person who has received just about any kind of mental health care or addiction treatment in the past five years, voluntary or involuntary, outpatient or inpatient,” Pinsly said.

Facing uncertainty on the outcome of a committee vote, Akbari chose to move the bill to the general subcommittee, essentially putting it on ice until it can be resurrected in 2026.

“I look forward to Representative Brooks continuing to move this through the House … I will be working with all members on this committee so that we can reach a solution so we can really protect folks in Tennessee,” Akbari said.

Shawn Ryan (Former Navy Seal) “There are 480,000 VA employees and there are 450,000 active duty army veterans all over the country have been dying waiting to get treatment, commit suicide”

Second Measles Death Reported in American Southwest Measles Outbreak.

This time, the patient was an adult who did not seek medical care before death.

In late February, I reported that a child had died of measles in an outbreak reported in West Texas.

Now, there is a second measles death being reported. The second death in the ongoing measles outbreak, this time in New Mexico, involved an unvaccinated adult from Lea County.

The individual did not seek medical care before death, New Mexico health department officials said. The official cause of death is under investigation by New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator. However, the state health department scientific laboratory has confirmed the presence of the measles virus in the person, the state health department said.

The person was a resident of Lea County, where at least 30 cases of measles have been reported. Lea County is just over the border from Gaines County, Texas, where the outbreak is centered. At least seven of the individuals were unvaccinated.

…State officials declined to release the person’s age, sex and underlying medical conditions or disclose whether contact tracing is underway to identify others who may have been exposed to one of the world’s most contagious viruses. The virus is airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs.

Continue reading “”

Forgotten Home Apothecary : 250 Powerful Remedies at Your Fingertips.

Forgotten Home Apothecary is the only complete herbal medicine book that covers the most important remedies that used to be made by our grandparents back when apothecaries hadn’t been replaced by pharmacies.

It lays the strongest foundation for someone who wants to recover all that forgotten knowledge. Unlike others, this book is very easy to use!

The first thing you’ll see when you open the book is your new Apothecary. Here you’ll find all the 250 remedies, organized on shelves by specific ailments.

Each page of the appendix displays the remedies found inside the book, and the page you’re going to find it. There, you will find step-by-step instructions, color pictures, measurements and dosages.

NYT Obliterates the Myth That Planned Parenthood Is About Anything Other than Abortion

Once in a while, the mainstream media does something useful — even if it’s just saying the quiet part out loud.

I came across a New York Times piece from earlier this month that makes some startling revelations about one of the left’s biggest sacred cows: Planned Parenthood. Reporter Katie Benner begins her piece by telling the story of a woman who went to Planned Parenthood for an abortion.

The single mother still experienced bleeding and cramps after the procedure, so she returned to Planned Parenthood, where clinicians told her that she was fine and that nothing was wrong. She later delivered a stillborn baby at 12 weeks. It’s a heartbreaking account, but it’s also a worthwhile springboard to Planned Parenthood’s failures.

Benner reports:

Planned Parenthood is synonymous with the fight to preserve abortion rights. But it is also the health care provider of last resort to millions of the poorest Americans. Its clinics offer cancer screenings, birth control, annual gynecological exams, and prenatal care, regardless of whether patients can afford to pay. The organization is unique in its reach, one of the few health care providers with a presence in all 50 states.

But a New York Times review of clinic documents and legal filings, as well as interviews with more than 50 current and former Planned Parenthood executives, consultants, and medical staff members, found that some clinics are so short of cash that care has suffered. Many operate with aging equipment and poorly trained staff, as turnover has increased because of rock-bottom salaries. Patient counts have shrunk from a high of five million and 900 clinics in the 1990s to 2.1 million patients and 600 clinics today.

Planned Parenthood has massively fundraised off the Dobbs decision in 2022, to the tune of nearly $500 million that year alone. However, the organization’s bylaws require that the vast majority of that money go toward lobbying for baby-killing. Thus, the functions of Planned Parenthood that genuinely help people go underfunded or totally unfunded.

Benner points out that much of the funding for healthcare at Planned Parenthood clinics comes from Medicaid, and that varies from state to state. To be fair, the disjointed nature of state funding hurts the healthcare side of the organization.

However, another one of the left’s sacred cows is at odds with this part of Planned Parenthood’s mission. Obamacare is giving poor women more options for healthcare, which means that fewer of them go to these clinics for procedures other than abortion.

Clinics are running out of money for healthcare options, so they’re running out of supplies, failing to properly keep up facilities, and laying off staff. But can you guess which aspect of Planned Parenthood thrives? You guessed it: abortion.

“There are bright spots, especially in areas of the country that support abortion rights,” Benner reports. It’s tremendously sad to see the phrases “bright spots” and “abortion rights” in the same sentence.

She continues:

Planned Parenthood in Illinois recently opened an 11,200 square foot, state-of-the-art facility in Carbondale, a few hours drive from the borders of Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri, which have banned or severely restricted abortion. The affiliate boosted salaries for staff and improved benefit packages as it prepared to welcome women from nearby states who were seeking abortions.

An affiliate in Ohio made substantial upgrades to an abortion clinic, and clinics in Southern New England have kept wait times low.

In conservative media, we often use the clickbait phrase “saying the quiet part out loud” in headlines. In this case, the New York Times did just that.

In lamenting Planned Parenthood’s trouble with healthcare funding, Benner reveals that the organization is keeping the main thing the main thing and focusing on abortion. That has always been Planned Parenthood’s primary mission and always will be — regardless of how hard the left tries to push the myth that Planned Parenthood is all about healthcare.

Aging Members of Congress Refuse to Disclose Details of Their Top Secret Hospital
The Office of the Attending Physician gives politicians nearly unlimited medical care for about $54 a month.

After a presidential election that saw an 82-year-old commander in chief unable to complete sentences in a debate or instill confidence in the public that he could carry out his duties, elected leaders in Congress are faring no better.

In the past two months alone,
82-year-old Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) was discovered to be living in an assisted-living facility with a dementia ward in her final months in office;
74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) won a high-profile leadership position on the House Oversight Committee after revealing he is battling highly terminal esophageal cancer;
82-year-old Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) fell twice on Capitol Hill just months after blacking out during a press conference;
84-year-old former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) fell and broke her hip in Luxembourg;
and 76-year-old Rep. John Larson (D-CT) appeared to suffer a stroke on the House floor. (Larson’s staff has said it was a bad reaction to a new medication.)

What has eluded attention is the highly secretive hospital, housed on Capitol Hill and funded by taxpayers, that provides both emergency and primary care to an aging political class, which some have come to describe as a gerontocracy. It also runs classified programs known only to some members of Congress.

In 2023, Congress designated $4.2 million to the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP), a Navy-staffed hospital with multiple branches spread across Capitol Hill. The current attending physician, Dr. Brian Monahan, who serves as a rear admiral in the Navy, oversees a staff of dozens of Navy doctors, nurses, and technicians whose primary responsibility is providing care to members of Congress and the Supreme Court.

Continue reading “”

Bill Prohibits Tennessee Doctors From Asking Patients About Gun Ownership.

A new bill introduced in the Tennessee Legislature will prohibit healthcare providers, if passed, from asking patients whether they own or possess firearms or related items. Not only would HB 0387 defend Tennesseans from being asked an annoying and irrelevant question, but the law would come with some teeth, by way of a $1,000 fine and more if they do choose to pry.

Representative Ed Butler introduced the bill and has previously sponsored measures dealing with education, taxes, and infectious disease. HB 0387 prohibits any inquiry into a patient’s ownership, possession of, or access to firearms, ammunition, or accessories, including the denial of treatment based on knowledge of the aforementioned circumstances. It also forbids entering into the patient’s record any of the information described in the prohibition unless relevant to the patient’s medical care, safety, or the safety of others. Lastly, the bill prohibits the sharing of any such information with an insurer and requires that the healthcare provider disclose all of this to a patient before treatment.

Continue reading “”

Almost like the lab manufactured pathogen ‘getting loose’ wasn’t a bug, but a feature

Social Security Gets Major $205-Billion Boost After COVID Deaths

So many Americans died of COVID-19 during the pandemic that the Social Security program received a boost of $205 billion, according to a new report by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Why It Matters

The new report from NBER sheds light on the way the pandemic affected the Social Security program, which is currently facing a looming insolvency crisis.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which President Donald Trump has put in charge of shrinking the size of the federal government, has promised to pursue a trillion dollars in cuts across many programs and departments of the federal government, with a specific focus on uncovering fraud and wasteful spending.

This operation, Trump said, will include the Social Security program, which sends benefit payments to more than 70 million Americans.

What To Know

Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NBER—a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization—found that excess deaths among individuals aged 25 and older between 2020 and 2023 led to a reduction in Social Security future retirement payments of $294 billion.

Excess deaths refers to those in a given time frame over the number that might have been expected considering historic data in a so-called average year. According to the CDC, the U.S. reported over 1.7 million excess deaths between 2020 and 2023.

The reduction in future Social Security benefits caused by these excess deaths was then recalculated by NBER to $205 billion considering the consequent decrease in future payroll tax flows and higher payments to surviving spouses and children.

“Our analysis suggests a slight improvement in Social Security’s financial health due to excess deaths, driven primarily by the premature death of people who would have received retirement benefits,” reads the NBER report.

Continue reading “”

Study Finds Coffee Linked to Lower Risk of Dementia, But There’s a Catch.

“But there’s a twist to the tale – the association only applies to unsweetened, caffeinated coffee.”

Older people who regularly drink coffee have a lower risk of developing dementia, according to a new study. But there’s a twist to the tale – the association only applies to unsweetened, caffeinated coffee.

The link was found from a study of the health records of 204,847 people in the UK, aged between 40 and 69 at the start of the study period, by researchers from institutions across China. The records included both coffee consumption habits and the diagnosis of dementia cases, over an average of nine years.

“Higher intake of caffeinated coffee, particularly the unsweetened variety, was associated with reduced risks of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, and Parkinson’s disease,” write the researchers in their published paper. “No such associations were observed for sugar-sweetened or artificially sweetened coffee.”

Continue reading “”

Guns Don’t Kill People. Canada Kills People.

Recently, I was reading something interesting from National Review. It looked at some numbers out of Canada that were downright fascinating.

You see, the Great White North has two things many here have long favored – single-payer healthcare and assisted suicide. More people want the former than the latter, thankfully, but enough want both for me to have concerns.

These same people tend to think we should be like Canada on other things, too, such as gun policy. They believe guns kill people.

However, a piece by National Review points out something interesting:

What a debacle. More than 15,000 people died in Canada in one year because they couldn’t access care in the country’s collapsing socialized health-care system. From the Toronto Sun story:

Close to 15,500 people died waiting for health care in Canada between April 1, 2023 until March 31, 2024, according to data compiled by SecondStreet.org via Freedom to Information Act requests across the country.

However, SecondStreet.org says the exact number of 15,474 is incomplete as Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador don’t track the problem and Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia only provided data on patients who died while waiting for surgeries – not diagnostic scans.

SecondStreet.org says if it extrapolates the unknown data, then an estimated 28,077 patients died last year on health care waiting lists covering everything from cancer treatment and heart operations to cataract surgery and MRI scans.

Holy cow!

But it gets worse. About the same number of people were euthanized in Canada in 2023. Some asked to be lethally jabbed because they couldn’t access health care in a timely fashion.

So around 30,000 people die waiting for healthcare that never comes or are euthanized by the Canadian government.

In fairness, some of those who die waiting likely would have died no matter what, just as some of those euthanized were likely going to pass away regardless.

However, I’m willing to bet it wasn’t all that many, though we’ll never know.

Meanwhile, how many Americans were killed with a gun in 2023, which mostly lines up with this time period? 13,529.

The United States has more than eight times the population of Canada, and even massive death and destruction brought about by our gun policy pales in comparison to the number of people the Canadian government managed to kill during that period.

Even if you just counted the euthanizations, the death toll is higher not just on a per capita basis but in raw total numbers as well.

Yet, that number is doubled when you count the deaths that were the result of inaction on the part of the Canadian healthcare system.

“But you didn’t count suicides!” someone will argue, but I’m going to reject that right out of the gate. If you’re supportive of Canada’s MAID system, you don’t get to lash out about people taking their own lives here in the US, regardless of what method they use. That’s why I’m only counting homicides.

This is truly disturbing, to say the least.

What we do know for certain, though, is that guns don’t kill people. Canada kills people.

Hans Mahncke
@HansMahncke
The fact that Fauci’s pardon specifically and explicitly addresses his Covid-related offenses, while being backdated to 2014—the year the gain-of-function ban took effect, which Fauci circumvented by outsourcing experiments to China—speaks volumes as to what this is really about.

Image