The Internet will cure you of anything

Pax Arcana

Suldog over at Universal Hub says this site is his favorite reference for the growing swine flu pandemic, and it’s difficult to disagree. The site offers everything you need to know and more about the illness, and as a bonus feature comes written in seemingly randomized verbs and nouns.

Witness teh awesome:

What preventive measures?
Influenza virus is mainly spread through the air and contacts, so when coughing or sneezing should cover the mouth, the nose; as a result of influenza virus can often be in some daily necessities to survive the surface for some time and should therefore wash their hands, but also regular daily use of alcohol for disinfection . In addition, as little as possible to the local people, but also reduce the probability of infection is an effective way.

But swine flu is a relatively recent cause for concern. There are several pressing medical issues for which the site has already built an impressive body of work.

For example, there’s this handy piece of medical advice from a post entitled “The women like to ailing the Six health problems”:

Fart. Moore said, speaking with your doctor, because usually associated with eating fart can be by adjusting the diet and non-prescription drugs to treat. Mayo Clinical Medical College of Thielen said that in addition to eating beans, the use of straw to drink beverages and eat cruciferous vegetables will make fart.

The site is especially useful for self-diagnosis and self-administered treatment plans. Now if I could just figure out how to for under tree make Special yoghurt spider, I may be able to finally get rid of these make hair back.

Falling Leaves [Home]
My Favorite Swine Flu Site [Universal Hub]

Old Ad Wednesday

Pax Arcana

Because no single blog on the bloggernet is better than us at creating recurring blog features that we never fall through with (RIP “Pax Gastronomica,” “Tuesday Tubby Tearfest,” and “Ask Fidel”), I proudly present a new segment called Old Ad Wednesday.

In the first installment of Old Ad Wednesday, we bring you this cheerful indoctrination into the magical world of childhood diabetes — sponsored by the hilariously-named Soda Pop Board of America. We picture a bunch of old men in red striped suits and bow ties, taking breaks between board meetings to refill their root beer floats.

The text of the ad is as follows:

How soon is too soon?

Not soon enough. Laboratory tests over the last few years have proven that babies who start drinking soda during that early formative period have a much higher chance of gaining acceptance and “fitting in” during those awkward pre-teen and teen years. So, do yourself a favor. Do your child a favor. Start them on a strict regimen of sodas and other sugary carbonated beverages right now, for a lifetime of guaranteed happiness.

What’s crazy isn’t that the Soda Pop Board’s laboratories were so sophisticated. What’s crazy is that their plan worked, and the people of America gained self-esteem beyond the limits of the imagination.

The King has found himself a worthy Queen

Well done, America. Well done, Soda Pop Board.

Your vet is scamming you

At the risk of driving Mama Pax over the edge, here’s a pretty serious indictment of common practices of veterinarians, who have gotten awfully creative in coming up with ways to part you with your money.

From the article:

Two trends are making a visit to your veterinarian an opportunity for endless guilt. One is the increasing acceptance of the notion that pets are family members (thus the movement to change the word owner to guardian). The other is the convergence of veterinary and human medicine—pets can get chemotherapy, dialysis, organ transplants, hip replacement, and braces for their teeth.

Speaking of driving in Boston…

Want to know when you’re going to die? Check out the death clock.

Want to know how? Check out these helpful breakout boxes in the LA Times, gathered from 2004 data. The trend lines are unsurprising: Teenagers drive like a-holes and old people pay the piper for all that bacon they inhale while watching Matlock.

It’s also interesting that “birth defects” doesn’t disappear as a category until the 35 – 40 year old age group.

The Death Clock [Homepage]
How do Americans Die [LA Times]

Bad medicine

An Arizona woman says she was trapped in a CT scanner for hours after technicians forgot she was in there.

From the Globe:

A technician placed her inside the large machine at about 4 p.m. on Sept. 19, dimmed the lights so she could relax and told her not to move during the 25-minute procedure.

“At some point, my mom lost track of time and felt like too much time had passed, but she couldn’t look at a clock or anything because it was dark,” her son Ariel Tellez said.

After calling out, then screaming for help, she said, she spent several hours trying to free herself from the machine. Finally, she wiggled out from under a heavy blanket and out of the machine. By the time deputies found her, it had been five hours since she was placed inside.

Pax Arcana’s own story of medical horror after the jump.

New England: Come for the rudeness, stay for the encephalitis

A Scottish man who spent about six weeks in New Hampshire and Rhode Island is now in a coma, and health officials think he may have contracted Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) during his vacation here.

New Hampshire officials were typically forthcoming:

“So where the person got this infection, we don’t know, and there is no way that we can prove if it’s one state or another or in what part of the states, so it is impossible to take control measures,” said Jose Montero, New Hampshire state epidemiologist.

The man reported to his sister that he’d been bitten all over by mosquitoes, which is what happens when you smell like Haggis and go camping without underpants.

Thank Odin the summer’s over, because if this had happened in June, we’d have had federal troops storming the East Coast with those old-school fumigation pump things and draining every lake in Christendom.

Officials: Scottish man likely contracted EEE in NH or RI [Boston Globe]

:: ::

Get well soon, Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley hospitalized for heart attack [UPI]

When Medicare refusing to pay for things is good

I’m sure a lot of people had the same reaction as Pax Arcana when they read that Medicare would stop paying for “preventable problems” that occurred during hospital stays — such as infections, injuries falls, and doctors leaving their 2 irons in your rib cage.

My first reaction was, “I’m hungry.” Then I got angry. “Just another way the Bush administration is sticking it to the old and poor,” I thought.

But everyone from Consumerist to the New York Times editorial page is praising the move, because they say it will give us better health care. Medicare pays hospitals directly, and would previously fork over whatever expenses occurred during your stay in the hospital — even for preventable things like those mentioned above — without challenging those charges. Now that Medicare is refusing to pay for those things, the theory holds, hospitals will put more effort into making sure they don’t happen.

From the New York Times:

The perversity of a payment system that actually rewards incompetence rather than penalizing it seems self-evident. So Medicare is clearly wise to start changing the incentives.

The word “incentives” comes up a lot in these discussions, as in, “Hospitals today are not given incentives to prevent you from jabbing your own eye out with a rusty door handle.” As a rule, Pax Arcana distrusts free market absolutism, but this might actually work.

Or, as is more likely, hospitals will find a way to make us pay for their errors, by jacking up the cost of everything they do in tiny increments. The lesson, as always, is don’t get sick.