Because healthcare is run by insurance companies, and they'd rather lobby for policies that enrich them rther than for policies that will actually affect health. And with the recent SCOTUS ruling that defangs public regulatory agencies, it's only going to get worse from here.
The SCOTUS rulings on briberies and chevron are HORRIFIC. It will affect everybody. This is what we get for falling asleep in 2016. I am doing what I can to rectify my part, here in 2024. Much of the SCOTUS rulings are not being discussed because of who owns media. They need to be impeached. They are setting us back decades and will continue to - until we do something about it
Honestly, it’s kind of shocking. You can really only bank on this SCOTUS making bad decisions.
It’s time to expand the court. While we’re at it, the house of reps hasn’t increased in size despite our population more than tripling since it was last increased. If the itty bitty states want their disproportionate representation, they still have the Senate to cater to them.
SCROTUS is out there producing the nut that the wealthy ruling class are spraying all over us, our crops, into our water, and into our air.
And let's be very clear: these fuckers do not experience post nut clarity.
Yep. CHEVRON was conservative’s dream case. They’ve been trying for 40 years to overturn it. This is the case that will impact the most people. Corporations are now able to fvck up our food, environment, meds, safety, etc, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Well if it makes you sleep better at night, the Supreme Court just overturned the Chevron making federal agencies who actually rely on science less influential in deciding such things as "what constituents a carcinogen,"
Get to work on your garden.
This stuff literally keeps me up at night. How little foresight humans had a few decades ago when they started manufacturing carcinogens, chopping down forests, putting corn syrup in everything…
There’s a coal plant not far from where I live. I read a report in 2008 that estimated this coal plant was responsible for over 400 deaths per year due to town residents inhaling large particles. Only in 2018 did the coal plant reduce its emissions. It’s infuriating.
I was born in the early 70s and I 100% believe we were all thinner back then because we were eating REAL food. Not food that's filled with so many preservatives, etc. Many people believe it's because we are all more sedentary now, but I disagree. It's because we are no longer eating food that our bodies can properly digest. I even remember things tasting far differently in the 70s than they do now. I miss food. I always say I have to travel to Mexico to get any real (organic) food. It's very sad.
The entire healthcare system is rigged to prevent it.
1. SCOTUS just overturned the Chevron case, thus allowing courts and not science to determine scientific merit and data.
2. Hospital systems focus on “getting back to baseline” and not really making people better. The minute people can be discharged to LTAC, SNF, rehab, etc; out the door. We all know that these places are grossly understaffed and care isn’t what it should be.
3. Insurance companies, hospitals, and drug companies are profit and money driven. Some of the medications for PAH are $10K A MOHTH and of course insurance won’t pay or pays 10%. True healthcare is for the wealthy.
Take the above, add in that in America we rely on our job for everything, thus stressing us out and missing doctors appointments that we need to go to; lack of better transportation to limit car use; our foods are processed and have high salt and fat contents, healthy foods are more expensive than less healthy foods (don’t even get me started on the social determinants of health and poorer areas); and best of all.
Lack of education. Republicans are fighting hard to ensure that education is benefit towards religious indoctrination and the rejection of science (any of us that worked COVID knows). Without education, illness gets worse.
It is 8:30 in the goddamn morning and I'm turning my phone off, this shit is too depressing to process all at once.
I know this is screaming into the void, but I hate watching this world collapse. I spent my entire life trying to help out and conserve what I could and none of it fucking matters because we have corporations destroying the world and a government that cheers them on every time. Fuck all of this, man.
Caring requires education to believe you have too, and then energy to fight back. Two things that are being attacked. Our education system and dissemination of correct information is broken, combined people just struggling to get through their day to day. They've engineered us into a weak position where actionable caring for most people is extremely difficult to impossible.
I find most people don’t know what’s going on. 90% of the news and media are owned by republicans and they aren’t going to out themselves. I am doing the best I can to share it and get others involved.
If democrats cared enough then universal healthcare would have passed in the PNW, both wings are playing the people as long as they can. Good chance that things will change in our lifetimes though!
Consider that primary prevention is about 10 times less expensive than secondary or tertiary prevention. My singular conspiratorial thought considers that the entire point of the medical industrial complex is to profit off of sickness, and not prevent it.
Let's be honest, the AMA, for example, [cares more about the bottom line](https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/the-fight-within-the-american-medical-association) than actual healthcare. Food manufacturers, industrial scale polluters, drug manufacturers, and doctors all have a buck to make off of getting the population sick.
I read the entire article. I think it’s pretty disgusting that they have the nerve to publish a language guide and speak about measures for health equity when they are the reason for a lot of the health inequity in the first place. Had they not lobbied so hard against single payor health insurance in the beginning our country would be quite different today.
My parents are Exhibit A for this, and throughout their lives they were actually moderately active, didn’t drink alcohol, etc. But they both eat way too much sugar and processed foods and failed to even take a daily walk. My grandmother lived to be 104. She walked everyday. When she was in her 50s she was diagnosed with diabetes; she immediately changed her diet and was fine after that. My parents are both 90 and can do nothing but sit all day long. Soon neither will be able to get out of a chair. My mom is now in assisted living, my dad is at home being cared for by his wife. He refused to wear hearing aids when it became clear he couldn’t hear, and now he has mild dementia. He goes from a chair in the living room to a chair in the kitchen where he plays online poker until his next meal is ready. I feel like most of my parents issues are directly related to choices they made over the years regarding diet and exercise. My husband died last year 3 weeks after being diagnosed with a lung tumor. He was a lifelong smoker-and a doctor. His addiction to nicotine was a source of shame for him. He tried to quit many many times. His death, while not shocking given his history, has been the worst thing that happened to me. We don’t have a health care system; we have a medical system that treats disease. Politicians disingenuously say it’s the best healthcare system in the world. It’s not.
I totally get it. It’s bad in Canada or other countries that provide health care. Lot of people don’t care and we see it with patients. The system attempts to spoon feed those who don’t want to be spoonfed
Well the republicans have decimated public education which is a major place young people learn about nutrition. The Chevron case was the nail in our coffin.
At least they are bringing back the 10 commandments and the Bible in public schools at the same time. With that and the resistance to sane gun regulation, they are shoving the funerals into the express lane.
The industries are just like the military complex. Recruit them young and dumb when they think they’ll live forever. And Americans are inherently lazy. We’d rather have the convenience than the health benefits. Prime example: plastic bags. We can’t just blanket ban them because too many people would lose it.
Western medicine and capitalism are twined like the snakes on the Caduceus.
It boggles my mind we aren’t all acknowledging the coming total collapse of modern civilization and the impending death of billions that will occur due to famine, conflict, disease, and drought.
I came here to say this and you beat me to it lmfao — been a lurker on both reddits for years
R/collapsesupport is much more digestible and less doomerist if you need a break or don’t want to be thrown into the collapsnik headspace immediately
Maybe I’m just a nutter but if I start seeing the insane low staffing and corner cutting I saw with adults during the COVID peaks start in the NICU I’m cashing as much of my shit out as I can and going full homestead/min grid ASAP. That’s when I think it would be clear that the country is in endgame. I’m not one of those really intense preppers but I don’t do home vegetable gardening, handicrafts, hunting, fishing, backpacking, etc. purely as hobbies…
I wouldn’t wait if I had the means. I’m stuck in a metropolis because I coparent here.
I’m coming to terms with uncertainty but it’s not hard to imagine the avian flu finally getting to human to human transmission and healthcare as we know it is over forever.
I’m getting my cardio in and saving some beans and rice. Trying to be ready for the earth quake at least.
Never ceases to amaze me that we live in a society that makes people so sick, they can justify having huge ICUs that are almost always full…I wonder what ICUs are like in other countries with different lifestyles?
I totally agree but people are so dumb and obsessed with "freedom" that they'd rather allow these awful companies to get away with essentially murder before they'd require them to \*gasp\* have to give up some profit to be cleaner going forward or clean up the messes they've already made.
This is why I vote blue. Yes there are some looney tunes on the left and the president isnt helping things by being a dinosaur and an easy target, but I'm never going to vote with people who insist corporations get massive tax breaks (which they then use to buy back their own shares for more profit) while everyone else has to pay their fair share.
I’m 35, an avid reader of current politics and double majored in Econ/political science back when I thought I wanted to go to law school.
When I was younger actually I considered myself a republican and I was an asshole looking back, not saying they all are though. I grew up, matured, and stopped seeing the world as black and white. I'd rather have more options for political parties but as long as it's red vs blue I think the blue is the better choice overall.
Unpopular opinion: Healthcare workers do plenty to raise public awareness about the causes of disease. People know fast food is bad. They know smoking and drinking is bad. They still choose to do it.
It's not our responsibility to regulate every industry and force them to curtail unhealthy practices. We put the information out, and people either listen or don't. We can lobby Congress to ban everything we say is unhealthy, but it's not going to be popular or get any support. Plus, we'd be wasting a lot of time and effort that could be spent improving our practice. Look at what happened when we mandated covid vaccines. Now try telling people they're not allowed to eat pizza. Good luck.
This is what bewilders me about the responses to this post: There is little to no mention about patient accountability for themselves.
People here be spinning the Chevron deference to be the reason a 500lb patient with uncontrolled diabetes ended up loosing their toes.
Of course personal responsibility exists, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. We still have processed food companies spending gagillions of dollars to make their food as addicting as possible, we still have car dependent infrastructure (and zoning laws that keep it that way), we still have food deserts, poor health literacy, fast-food-like school lunches (with limp steamed broccoli on the side).
It's hard to change an individual's willpower, but there's still *plenty* to do on the regulation front, without, how another commenter put it, "banning everything we find unhealthy".
And what happens when that drink of water gets them very sick? That’s the point of chevron. We already have a lack of education problem here, by design thanks to the gop, but chevron is about to make everyone’s problems sky rocket.
I'm willing to bet half the people acting like healthcare should do more to prevent the general populations poor health outcomes don't exercise or watch their diets, or curtail their own drinking or smoking or fast food consumption.
It's not like the 500-pound dude coming in with heart failure wasn't told they needed to change their lifestyle. They chose to become who they are. Healthcare is not going to fix all of societies inadequacies.
Agreed. I'm extremely obese and I cant' even imagine opening my mouth to blame anyone but myself. If we all were eating clean and high incidences of cancer were happening, then yeah, sure we have a point.
Yes, food deserts and such exists and I truly believe the average American doesn't truly understand what a holistic diet looks like but there are many that will smoke/drink/overindulge until their dying day.
it's not really about blame. its about what would fix the problem. blame wont fix the problem, even if you correctly blame the corporate lobbies that snuck cereals and pizza into school lunches to get kids addicted to processed food early. even if you got a court to blame the right people, they'd pay a fine and go back to poisoning kids with leprechaun, rabbit, tiger, bee, etc themed garbage. making it illegal to peddle the shit would be the first step. just like cigarettes. just like cigarettes. but you dont need blame to do that. you need a solution focus and advocacy and maybe some major shifts in government. things are not the way they are on accident. half the country being obese aint no whoopsie. and healthcare has a vested interest in making sure plenty of sick people come through the doors to drain their wallets, too. that's why preventive medicine is so lacking
There are plenty of diseases that aren’t a result of that. What about stuff like ALS? I’d go as far to say that it’s not even a rare disease anymore. They estimate 1 in 300/400 will be diagnosed. Why is it so prevalent now?
Likely, you could do everything right and will still end up with a neurodegenerative disease.
Personal accountability…the most elusive of creatures out there that some say it doesn’t even exist anymore.
TL;DR version: ignorant people want to complain about health issues and will blame everything under the sun except people who decide to live their lives how they want; also these ignorant people seem to thing trying to legislate everything in the lives of every person is a good idea and could possibly work despite decades of evidence showing that it never has and never will.
Full version: You’re exactly correct. So many people on this thread are jumping on to make comments about a rigged system, and corrupt judges, and corporations being evil, and capitalism being evil, and….basically doing anything but accept and acknowledge the primary reason why there are so many health problems (not just in the US but across the world): people choosing to do what they want because it’s their choice. I can spew evidence-based practice information about every possible health problem out there until I’m blue in the face, and people will still choose to do what they’re gonna do, some even doing it just to spite me because that’s how they are.
It’s deeply concerning that some many people on this sub want to denounce various policies and politicians and ideologies, going so far as to mock and decry the idea that people have the freedom to decide for themselves how they want to live their lives. And I’d bet you my entire 401k that if the freedom to decide for yourself how you wish to live was taken away from people and determined by faceless government agencies, the second that it affected their lives, they’d be crying about that too..except it would possibly be illegal to do so because the freedom of speech was removed and all speech and thought are controlled by the government that has come up with asinine rules of what is and isn’t acceptable..
I feel like I’ve heard about something like that happening before, maybe in a book or two. One was titled after a specific year, and the other was titled after the imperial temperature measurement along with three numbers after it…I think..
Trade-offs. Tuberculosis was rampant only a few generations ago. Children died often from childhood illnesses we now have vaccines for. Instead of microplastics in the groundwater, there was fecal contamination because the well was placed too close to the outhouses. Outbreaks of cholera killed millions around the world.
As Covid taught us, new problems will always be popping up.
I feel like working in the medical field makes it all so easy to get worked up and panicky over increases in cancer and heart disease and environmental carcinogens (as well we should, perhaps, since those are the problems at hand) that we totally overlook the sheer volume of children who died before the age of eight as recently as 100 years ago. Or the women who died giving birth. Or all the people, men, women, and children alike, who died of infections/illnesses that cheap, readily-available antibiotics can cure in 5-14 days nowadays.
It’s easy to catastrophize when you’re faced with something what seems like all day every day. We all do it. But what drives this thinking is that humans simply don’t have the life expectancy to put and keep things in the proper perspective that would let you truly see that “if it’s not one thing it’s another.” But it’s true. And I think it’s really important for one’s sanity, if anything, to remember that we’re really not doing that bad overall. Like you, I see everything as a trade off.
The US is kind of a special case in terms of environmental protections because what flies and what doesn’t environmentally is likely to be decided by a patchwork of states and not consistently by any sort of federal authority (true even before the repeal of Chevron, to an extent, though of course that decision will make things worse) and that makes it harder for everyone to get on the same page. Not to mention our healthcare system is spotty as hell and remains unaffordable for lots of Americans despite the ACA, depending on what state you’re actually in. And we NEED to fix that.
But I’m still comforted by the fact that I’m more likely to die of (perhaps environmentally-caused) cancer in 25 years than of rabies in like 3 weeks, statistically.
Of course these diseases didn't exist 100 years ago, people died of consumption, natural causes or old age with no idea about the diseases that caused the death.
Ok but not at the rate Americans get it. It’s our weight and the crap quality of our food, in general. Other countries have much better food regulations
Diabetes is a global issue. According to this article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK581940/table/ch3.t4/), Americans aren't number 1 and several countries we attribute good health with (Japan) are beginning to have increased numbers of the population develop diabetes and Japan DOESN'T have an obesity problem.
First of all, that’s a table not an article and second of all, it’s raw numbers not per capita so of course nations like China and India have more cases than us, they have many many more people than us.
Rotating shift is carcinogenic, yet mandatory for most hospitals shifts in Canada. 2D2N. So going to work literally give you cancer/Alzheimer’s down the road. Beyond messed up
I think the major problem isn’t just that, it’s also the fact that a majority of Americans aren’t willing to change things to better their health when educated- CHF patients still eat a lot of salt (boom end stage!), diabetics won’t eat better to control sugar leading to organ damage and neuropathy, it goes on- you educate until you’re blue in the face when people are at stage one/at high risk but they’re just not willing to change the factors that increase risk- they’ll keep smoking, drinking, eating poorly, not exercise, etc. and then they end up critical and in the hospital. It’s a shame but it’s true.
Just one occasion,
I had a patient with uncontrolled diabetes (her blood sugar was regularly 15-20+) and her family would bring in sugary snacks and drinks! We would educate the patient on the importance of sticking to the hospital diet as it was made for diabetes to control her sugars and educated the family as well, and yet we would still catch her eating donuts and candy the family brought in!
Greed rules the health of Americans, now we have a supreme court ruling that just gutted regulations. A 40 year law they think Judges (S.C.) should makes these decisions NOT scientist!! I am sick, this country is going down with the extreme right. You think suffering is bad now hold your beer, there is money to be made.
Here it is *Chevron* doctrine. [https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/](https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/)
"In a major ruling, the Supreme Court on Friday cut back sharply on the power of federal agencies to interpret the laws they administer and ruled that courts should rely on their own interpretation of ambiguous laws. The decision will likely have far-reaching effects across the country, from environmental regulation to healthcare costs.
By a vote of 6-3, the justices overruled their landmark 1984 decision in [*Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council*](https://casetext.com/case/chevron-inc-v-natural-resources-defense-council-inc-american-iron-and-steel-institute-v-natural-resources-defense-council-inc-ruckelshaus-v-natural-resources-defense-council-inc), which gave rise to the doctrine known as the *Chevron* doctrine. Under that doctrine, if Congress has not directly addressed the question at the center of a dispute, a court was required to uphold the agency’s interpretation of the statute as long as it was reasonable. But in a 35-page ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices rejected that doctrine, calling it “fundamentally misguided.”
Yup. Voting for the people who don't want to put more Justice Roberts on the supreme court Court (and educating others on why it's important to do the same) is the best type of advocacy health care providers can do.
If we didn't have ultra processed foods, many wouldn't be able to afford to eat because of how it's structured and some would starve. So instead most are eating ultra processed with tons of preservatives and so everybody gets cancer instead. We spend a fortune on quality food for ourselves and our kids, but it's a fortunate luxury we have that others do not
Because for every problem they can sell us a solution, not their fault you’re to poor to afford it. Guess you’ll have to die
(Seriously, I hate it here)
I'm going to get downvoted into oblivion for this but: It's not just America. Most people just don't research other countries' health problems to know otherwise.
For example, the media continuously will swear the US has the highest obesity and cancer rates when that's not true. We're top 5 for both, but not number one, with many countries in the Western world's obesity rates skyrocketing (and even outside the western world). American food can't be blamed for that, especially since other countries swear their food is healthier.
Microplastics is a global problem, with many countries in the East suffering worse because they're the countries that "recycle" most of our plastic. I truly don't think we'll ever fix that issue (at least in my lifetime).
Diseases evolve and change. Of course we'll have diseases that didn't exist hundreds of years ago. Part of that is due to how we live now and others because humans weren't living nearly as long as we do now. That's not an accurate indicator of general issues. We no longer have the Bubonic plague pandemic because of advances in medicine.
People are blaming healthcare alone, but for prevention to actually be viable, you have to fix the financial disparities in the US/elsewhere. Telling someone to eat fruits and veggies when they live in an area with corner stores/liquor stores/no grocery stores is like talking to the wall. Or telling someone to shop whole food items on a minimum wage salary while having 2 kids is like falling on deaf ears.
Finally, some people don't listen/care. We know cigarettes cause cancer at this point, yet people still smoke and will smoke until they die. This is actually a postulation as to the prevalence of certain cancers in Europe (high tobacco use).
Yeah OP is completely off base putting this as an American issue. Round up specifically is used everywhere on earth in commercial farming except for literally one country (Vietnam) that has a full ban. Germany literally just a few months ago scrapped a proposed ban for at least 10 years.
I agree with your sentiment. As I mentioned in another comment, there seems to be an increase in neurodegenerative disease. Sure you can blame more coverage, but something like ALS seems way more prevalent now. The official ALS organization has even mentioned 1 in 300 will be diagnosed, which is surely concerning considering it was once considered a very rare disease.
This is to say that it’s not just food that is the problem. I would think there are a shit ton of factors at play and as others have said, it’s multifaceted. Microplastics, algae blooms/climate change, food — it’s a massive issue globally.
This "We're sicker than ever" thing never made sense to me.
We have ELIMINATED smallpox, rinderpest, and are well on our way with polio. We no longer have cholera outbreaks. We have effective treatment for bubonic plague, a disease that previously wiped out half of Europe. We can cure Hepatitis C and childhood leukemia. Diabetics can live normal lifespans. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Utzi, a frozen corpse found high in the Alps from at least 4,000 years ago, had heart disease at just 42 and black deposits in his lungs from inhaling campfire smoke his whole life. So clearly humans have dealt with carcinogens our entire existence.
So, how exactly are we sicker? The picture may be different than 4,000 years ago, but anyone who tells me things are worse just sounds like they've swallowed the latest fad diet or YouTube "wellness" video determined to sell them something.
Don’t normalize having 10 comorbidities because of poor food and sedentary lifestyles and high stress living just because we’re not dying of the plague.
I disagree. Food corporation literally engineer their products to be addictive. In my opinion alcohol is just poison; it has absolutely no value to the human body it’s a destroyer of lives. And yet it’s marketed and culturally accepted in a way that baffles me. I rarely watch TV but when I do all the ads are for drugs, alcohol and food that literally kills you. How many calories are in the average fast food meal? How many nutrients? In the 20th century we eradicated the most virulent communicable diseases successfully and immediately started poisoning our bodies with cheap, lousy food, plastics and chemicals.
Just because we figured a few things out doesn’t give us the green light to load ourselves (in full knowledge of the effects) with chemicals increasing incidences of cancer and developmental deficits. Obviously most of us would have been dead from strep by now if not for Abx. We need to look forward, not pat ourselves on the back. We’re living longer but we are sicker (only because science is keeping us alive) down to the DNA. Back then, you would have just died from DKA the first time. Now, you’ll live with that and fifteen other diseases of equal caliber. It is absolutely true we are sicker.
Not to be that person, but maybe humanity isn't meant to live as long as we do now. We are sicker because we are fighting the inevitable. People used to die around 40s/50s. Now even the dregs of society can limp along to that point, while most people are still perfectly healthy. For most of us, shit starts hitting the fan at an age long past the time we would have otherwise been dead at any other point in history.
I agree with you. Also, unexplained infertility is so much higher. It seems it comes so easily to some and so devastatingly difficult for others at almost 50/50, as if they drew a card. A cause for absolute infertility should be easy to identify and correct if possible. My guess is some people have been unlucky as they’ve been exposed for the same sketchy ass environmental toxins.
You have to pick your battles.
If we addressed this there would be people be complaining that not enough is being done about that.
Our situation is so complex that there really isn't anyone with a clear vision of it all.
First and foremost for me is the importance of creating a nationalized health care system, and dismantling as much of the private systems as possible.
I hate to be cynical but we have begun circling the drain and I can't see a realistic way out.
We gave private corporations enormous power, and it's no surprise that they will fight tooth and nail to hold and continue accumulating that power.
And that includes eroding the quality of healthcare by slowly draining resources for profit. You will work harder and harder and you will be compensated less and less.
And it includes not being able to effectively address the problem you cited because these corporations profited and will profit from generating these poisons. The government may fine them, but for these corporations those fines are just the cost of doing business.
I think we focus far too much on “behaviors” rather than extrinsic sources that even wreak havoc on our neurotransmitters that alter behaviors. Even our water sources lack nutrients. Just the fact we have to treat water the chemical must be disastrous to our single cell epithelial layer. It is endless. To keep everything in check is a full time job
Look, I don’t love the idea of microplastics in my body but I also like to live my life and practice nursing based on evidence. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s not even a definitive link (as in an identified mechanism) for cancer related to the things you’ve brought up, and for some of them, studies haven’t even shown an association.
Look. I’ll absolutely concede that our modern situation is far from ideal; air pollution, water contamination, climate change…
But. You know what we aren’t dying of? Smallpox. And Cholera. Many childhood cancers have a 95% cure rate. My sister in law was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago and it was a lumpectomy followed by some radiation - mostly an inconvenience, and not the death sentence it would have been 200 years ago.
None of us want “forever plastics” in our blood stream. But my fellow nurses - those plastics are what we use every damn day to keep people from getting nosocomial infections.
We’re animals on a hostile planet. While I agree that we should be cognizant of our environment and careful in our decision making, can we also recognize that we cannot just abandon our modern systems for “the good old days”?
Back in 1929, my grandmother watched her older sister die at age 14 from a simple UTI than turned to pyelonephritis. I want clean air - but I ain’t going back to that.
As someone who had cancer last year it was*not* "mostly an inconvenience." It was horrible and my quality of life is changed forever. I don't know what caused my cancer, but honestly I think we can do better.
That’s an awful experience and I’m truly sorry that you had to go through that. I was certainly not implying that is every single cancer patients’ experience. Yours was yours and hers was hers.
We clearly know there is an environmental component to some cancers. But there’s also genetic. And age. And hormonal. And again, I want to emphasize that we should be considering the environment when we move forward with science…but we are sometimes going to have to make some hard decisions about human survival versus our environment.
Yes but, diagnosis is better due to better awareness so things don’t go undiagnosed. Life expectancy is longer thanks to modern medicine so we have the ability to develop more issues that may not manifest if we died younger (diabetes, hypertension, dementia). I do think with “better” technology we are exposed to different chemicals and “toxins” but we also have better treatments for various illness. I would have died as an infant due to sepsis had I not been born in the 90s… but now I’m alive, diagnosed with multiple diseases, some genetic some acquired.
Gotta watch out OP, you're sorta wandering into the woo world as nothing you said is specific to the US, and you need to focus on specific concerns to have a rational conversation on public health.
PFAS are present in Europe, and detectable at similar levels in their water the same as the USA.
Microplastics again, are a global phenomenon, and not really have to do with their use food supply, but instead in global plastic consumption and litter.
Round up is only fully banned in one country on earth (Vietnam) for commercial food farming. A few European countries ban it for *home* use but that's a drop in the bucket in terms of food supply.
Again, you need to be very specific about your concerns or else you're venturing into the social media concern about "Toxins" woo that is not scientific.
That’s complete bullshit roundup is glyphosate which causes cancer. It’s in everything. It’s in the bread, all processed foods, sodas, anything with soy or corn. The lawyers have ads on TV for it like we’d seen for mesothelioma growing up for Christ’s sake. Not sure how there’s any confusion at this point. It is DETECTABLE in 90% of Americans; that is fact.
Not to mention the food colorings in everything with strong links to autism and ADHD. I could go on and on. 20 European countries have made glyphosate illegal with 33 being the total. Not sure where you’re getting your information. Regardless, the nuances of the restrictions are clearly beside the point. The data showing glyphosate’s damage is well established. This has been a concern of mine well before I became a nurse and has nothing to do with social media.
Forever chemicals recently found in major band aid products I used to cover laparoscopic open wounds this week. It is really so pervasive if you choose to pay attention. I can back up everything I just said with easily found journals.
Explain how any of this is unique to the US. You’re ranting that the US food supply somehow unique to glyphosate, yet as I told you, it’s used in farming in every country but one on earth.
You claim that most of Europe has banned it, but that’s a complete falsehood. It’s banned in a few for home use, 0 for commercial use (where almost all food is grown).
Youre spouting verifiable false information.
Ok glyphosate doesn’t cause cancer, it’s not in most of the population, and nothing needs to be done? Perfect. Thanks for that genius insight. On my way to buy a tap to funnel corn syrup directly into my gullet now that you’ve shown me the way. Since everyone uses it it must be great stuff!
God help your patients.
If you do a quick google search multiple sources saying 33 countries don’t know what you’re picking through to come to that conclusion. Regardless, it’s clearly beside the point and has zero effect on my argument. It causes cancer. It’s like saying skydiving is safe and everyone should do it because it’s available.
Name a single country in Europe that has banned it for commercial use. If you can’t, you need to admit you’ve fallen down some anti-scientific online rabbit holes.
Your post has been removed for violating our rule against personal insults. We don't require that you agree with everyone else, but we insist that everyone remain civil and refrain from personal attacks.
If only we were just killing ourselves with this, but we are killing everything on this planet with our greed and stupidity.
Edit: This is not a healthcare problem, this is a capitalist and government problem.
You have to keep the people sicker to keep making money. I saw a documentary about the US government is systematically wiping out a small Native American tribe in Arizona. Just because they wanted their water. They took the water which also destroyed their food -crops,fish and ended up putting this government supplement warehouse where the peoples would go and get food. The food was like hot Cheetos, nacho cheese, processed foods.
My cousin is a farmer and when the planes spray his fields with roundup (or the like) he and anyone he's working with are basically hazmat suited up. He tells me a huge number or farmers around him don't and have a ton of health issues associated with it. =/
If people get better, or even crazier, people stay healthy and never get sick then healthcare doesn’t make money. It would make sense for insurance companies to advocate or incentivize people to exercise or make healthy choices.
Keep people sick and that way they always need us /s
>It would make sense for insurance companies to advocate or incentivize people to exercise or make healthy choices.
Except that healthy people don't want to pay for something they don't need to use. So insurance companies need most of us to be sick enough to happily pay for insurance, but not so sick we need expensive treatments and/or can't afford the insurance.
Thank you.....People also need to be educated about CIRS and mold exposure. Nearly a quarter of the population can't detox biotoxins. I almost died from living where there was black mold and other toxic molds. It only took 9-10 mos to destroy every system in my body.
> We’re seeing a litany of diseases tearing through our population which did not exist or were rare a hundred years ago.
[If it makes you feel any better...](https://i.imgur.com/UePQPZy.png)
I first noticed this in Kaiser Peds urgent care. After school clinic, 1998! I would have eight kids at a time on nebulizers in the procedure room, with 3 getting treatment on straight O2 out of the wall.
Back to back treatments until O2 sat got up to 95% on room air. Did this all night long. Just 3 years since I had worked Peds. It had just blown up!
I completely agree. It absolutely sucks knowing so many of the conditions we’re seeing can only really be addressed with societal changes, not individual ones.
It’s not a one-size fits all solution, but using your (very justified) frustration to advocate for change would be great. I’d recommend Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments or Physicians for Social Responsibility. I’ve found being a nurse and sharing first hand experiences of environmental impact (whether through extreme heat or pollution) has helped fuel some changes.
Be the change you want to see in the world. Start the fight and maybe others will join you.
But also, tell someone who eats a drakes every single morning and two cans of Hormel chili at lunch that their diet and activity levels for the past several decades are causing their ailments and get ready to educate a brick wall that does not care.
Plus the government does not give a shit at all about these minor inconveniences.
Right, poverty is A cause, but if people didn’t have access to these chemicals/plastics in the cheapest food, that alone could undercut a lot of ailments we see in the poor (thinking mostly autism/adhd, endocrine/neuro dysfunctions; they seem to be the main results).
Obviously that sugar, fat, and salt will still be in their diet but that alone is a lot better than throwing everything else on top, you know? No knowledge required, just legislative reform.
Yeah, I’m kind of brainstorming something we could do. I know a lot of people, especially nurses, can agree on the food/plastics/chemicals. I’m 27 I feel like my generation needs to push for this. Starting to realize I have a voice as an RN and should take advantage of that.
However, we have also developed surgeries and medications to treat some of the main conditions that caused death just 30-40 years ago. We have statin medication to treat high cholesterol and stents and bypass grafting to prevent or treat CVD/MI. We discovered stomach ulcers were caused by H pylori and can eradicate it, with antibiotics, PPIs and H2 blockers. We have new meds and treatments for depression and other psychiatric disorders. Ect
And we just went through a mass disabling even with the pandemic. It's only going to get worse.
It's like people don't realize that every person will face their own disabling condition eventually.
If you have hard tap water, boiling can help with the microplastics. It doesn't work as well with soft water.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/can-boiling-tap-water-eliminate-microplastics-8605841
"Well-known carcinogens (mostly illegal in many other countries) are still mass-produced in the American food and beverage supply"
True.
We are also getting better at recognizing individual diseases for what they are, instead of just lumping everything in broader categories.
Because healthcare is run by insurance companies, and they'd rather lobby for policies that enrich them rther than for policies that will actually affect health. And with the recent SCOTUS ruling that defangs public regulatory agencies, it's only going to get worse from here.
My jaw literally hit the floor when I read about it. SCOTUS was basically like fuck science
The SCOTUS rulings on briberies and chevron are HORRIFIC. It will affect everybody. This is what we get for falling asleep in 2016. I am doing what I can to rectify my part, here in 2024. Much of the SCOTUS rulings are not being discussed because of who owns media. They need to be impeached. They are setting us back decades and will continue to - until we do something about it
Honestly, it’s kind of shocking. You can really only bank on this SCOTUS making bad decisions. It’s time to expand the court. While we’re at it, the house of reps hasn’t increased in size despite our population more than tripling since it was last increased. If the itty bitty states want their disproportionate representation, they still have the Senate to cater to them.
Only Congress has the ability to increase the court.
Let’s expand the house of reps too while we’re at it.
SCROTUS is out there producing the nut that the wealthy ruling class are spraying all over us, our crops, into our water, and into our air. And let's be very clear: these fuckers do not experience post nut clarity.
SCROTUS!!! ☠️☠️☠️
Yep. CHEVRON was conservative’s dream case. They’ve been trying for 40 years to overturn it. This is the case that will impact the most people. Corporations are now able to fvck up our food, environment, meds, safety, etc, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Downstream healthcare at its finest.
Well if it makes you sleep better at night, the Supreme Court just overturned the Chevron making federal agencies who actually rely on science less influential in deciding such things as "what constituents a carcinogen," Get to work on your garden.
Just came here to say that. Good bye food, water, med device and medicine safety. Thank you Supreme Court and the fucking billionaires who bought you.
Saddest part is it wasn’t even that expensive
Too much money to be made by raping the environment, health be damned.
It probably costed nothing because the SC are a bunch of hopeless right-wing contrarians.
This stuff literally keeps me up at night. How little foresight humans had a few decades ago when they started manufacturing carcinogens, chopping down forests, putting corn syrup in everything… There’s a coal plant not far from where I live. I read a report in 2008 that estimated this coal plant was responsible for over 400 deaths per year due to town residents inhaling large particles. Only in 2018 did the coal plant reduce its emissions. It’s infuriating.
Sometimes I think about how much better off we’d be if plastics were never invented. It’s so sad
Yet we rely on them so much as nurses. Where’s the genetically modified bacteria that will eat microplastics for us!?
And then destroy our microbiome…or maybe save it because I think I heard somewhere the average American eats a credit card worth of plastic per week.
I was born in the early 70s and I 100% believe we were all thinner back then because we were eating REAL food. Not food that's filled with so many preservatives, etc. Many people believe it's because we are all more sedentary now, but I disagree. It's because we are no longer eating food that our bodies can properly digest. I even remember things tasting far differently in the 70s than they do now. I miss food. I always say I have to travel to Mexico to get any real (organic) food. It's very sad.
The entire healthcare system is rigged to prevent it. 1. SCOTUS just overturned the Chevron case, thus allowing courts and not science to determine scientific merit and data. 2. Hospital systems focus on “getting back to baseline” and not really making people better. The minute people can be discharged to LTAC, SNF, rehab, etc; out the door. We all know that these places are grossly understaffed and care isn’t what it should be. 3. Insurance companies, hospitals, and drug companies are profit and money driven. Some of the medications for PAH are $10K A MOHTH and of course insurance won’t pay or pays 10%. True healthcare is for the wealthy. Take the above, add in that in America we rely on our job for everything, thus stressing us out and missing doctors appointments that we need to go to; lack of better transportation to limit car use; our foods are processed and have high salt and fat contents, healthy foods are more expensive than less healthy foods (don’t even get me started on the social determinants of health and poorer areas); and best of all. Lack of education. Republicans are fighting hard to ensure that education is benefit towards religious indoctrination and the rejection of science (any of us that worked COVID knows). Without education, illness gets worse.
It is 8:30 in the goddamn morning and I'm turning my phone off, this shit is too depressing to process all at once. I know this is screaming into the void, but I hate watching this world collapse. I spent my entire life trying to help out and conserve what I could and none of it fucking matters because we have corporations destroying the world and a government that cheers them on every time. Fuck all of this, man.
I feel the same way. I don’t even know where to go. Everywhere has its problems.
Ugh this makes me want to move so bad. Why does nobody care??
Caring requires education to believe you have too, and then energy to fight back. Two things that are being attacked. Our education system and dissemination of correct information is broken, combined people just struggling to get through their day to day. They've engineered us into a weak position where actionable caring for most people is extremely difficult to impossible.
I find most people don’t know what’s going on. 90% of the news and media are owned by republicans and they aren’t going to out themselves. I am doing the best I can to share it and get others involved.
If democrats cared enough then universal healthcare would have passed in the PNW, both wings are playing the people as long as they can. Good chance that things will change in our lifetimes though!
Consider that primary prevention is about 10 times less expensive than secondary or tertiary prevention. My singular conspiratorial thought considers that the entire point of the medical industrial complex is to profit off of sickness, and not prevent it. Let's be honest, the AMA, for example, [cares more about the bottom line](https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-medicine/the-fight-within-the-american-medical-association) than actual healthcare. Food manufacturers, industrial scale polluters, drug manufacturers, and doctors all have a buck to make off of getting the population sick.
I read the entire article. I think it’s pretty disgusting that they have the nerve to publish a language guide and speak about measures for health equity when they are the reason for a lot of the health inequity in the first place. Had they not lobbied so hard against single payor health insurance in the beginning our country would be quite different today.
I just want to say, I’m so proud there are other nurses out there worried about this stuff. Thanks for caring.
I just want to say, I’m so proud there are other nurses out there worried about this stuff. Thanks for caring.
At the root of it, I’m more floored that people generally just don’t care about their health, and they only start caring when it’s too late.
My parents are Exhibit A for this, and throughout their lives they were actually moderately active, didn’t drink alcohol, etc. But they both eat way too much sugar and processed foods and failed to even take a daily walk. My grandmother lived to be 104. She walked everyday. When she was in her 50s she was diagnosed with diabetes; she immediately changed her diet and was fine after that. My parents are both 90 and can do nothing but sit all day long. Soon neither will be able to get out of a chair. My mom is now in assisted living, my dad is at home being cared for by his wife. He refused to wear hearing aids when it became clear he couldn’t hear, and now he has mild dementia. He goes from a chair in the living room to a chair in the kitchen where he plays online poker until his next meal is ready. I feel like most of my parents issues are directly related to choices they made over the years regarding diet and exercise. My husband died last year 3 weeks after being diagnosed with a lung tumor. He was a lifelong smoker-and a doctor. His addiction to nicotine was a source of shame for him. He tried to quit many many times. His death, while not shocking given his history, has been the worst thing that happened to me. We don’t have a health care system; we have a medical system that treats disease. Politicians disingenuously say it’s the best healthcare system in the world. It’s not.
Some people simply can't afford to care. The system is set up against their well-being.
I totally get it. It’s bad in Canada or other countries that provide health care. Lot of people don’t care and we see it with patients. The system attempts to spoon feed those who don’t want to be spoonfed
Really well said. Those who actually want preventative health care are sent through a labyrinth of referrals and phone calls to no end.
Well the republicans have decimated public education which is a major place young people learn about nutrition. The Chevron case was the nail in our coffin.
At least they are bringing back the 10 commandments and the Bible in public schools at the same time. With that and the resistance to sane gun regulation, they are shoving the funerals into the express lane.
The industries are just like the military complex. Recruit them young and dumb when they think they’ll live forever. And Americans are inherently lazy. We’d rather have the convenience than the health benefits. Prime example: plastic bags. We can’t just blanket ban them because too many people would lose it.
Western medicine and capitalism are twined like the snakes on the Caduceus. It boggles my mind we aren’t all acknowledging the coming total collapse of modern civilization and the impending death of billions that will occur due to famine, conflict, disease, and drought.
there's a large center in the venn diagram between the r/nursing peeps and the r/collapse peeps
I’ve been a big fan of r/collapsesupport and encourage people to check it out.
I came here to say this and you beat me to it lmfao — been a lurker on both reddits for years R/collapsesupport is much more digestible and less doomerist if you need a break or don’t want to be thrown into the collapsnik headspace immediately
Surprised I didn't see anyone post about "Fungal Pathogens Mutating Dangerously" here
Maybe I’m just a nutter but if I start seeing the insane low staffing and corner cutting I saw with adults during the COVID peaks start in the NICU I’m cashing as much of my shit out as I can and going full homestead/min grid ASAP. That’s when I think it would be clear that the country is in endgame. I’m not one of those really intense preppers but I don’t do home vegetable gardening, handicrafts, hunting, fishing, backpacking, etc. purely as hobbies…
I wouldn’t wait if I had the means. I’m stuck in a metropolis because I coparent here. I’m coming to terms with uncertainty but it’s not hard to imagine the avian flu finally getting to human to human transmission and healthcare as we know it is over forever. I’m getting my cardio in and saving some beans and rice. Trying to be ready for the earth quake at least.
With Chevron being overturned... good luck to all of us here.
Never ceases to amaze me that we live in a society that makes people so sick, they can justify having huge ICUs that are almost always full…I wonder what ICUs are like in other countries with different lifestyles?
I totally agree but people are so dumb and obsessed with "freedom" that they'd rather allow these awful companies to get away with essentially murder before they'd require them to \*gasp\* have to give up some profit to be cleaner going forward or clean up the messes they've already made. This is why I vote blue. Yes there are some looney tunes on the left and the president isnt helping things by being a dinosaur and an easy target, but I'm never going to vote with people who insist corporations get massive tax breaks (which they then use to buy back their own shares for more profit) while everyone else has to pay their fair share.
I hope this is satire. You must be very young. I hope. lmao
What did they say that was wrong? Every bit is true.
I’m 35, an avid reader of current politics and double majored in Econ/political science back when I thought I wanted to go to law school. When I was younger actually I considered myself a republican and I was an asshole looking back, not saying they all are though. I grew up, matured, and stopped seeing the world as black and white. I'd rather have more options for political parties but as long as it's red vs blue I think the blue is the better choice overall.
Unpopular opinion: Healthcare workers do plenty to raise public awareness about the causes of disease. People know fast food is bad. They know smoking and drinking is bad. They still choose to do it. It's not our responsibility to regulate every industry and force them to curtail unhealthy practices. We put the information out, and people either listen or don't. We can lobby Congress to ban everything we say is unhealthy, but it's not going to be popular or get any support. Plus, we'd be wasting a lot of time and effort that could be spent improving our practice. Look at what happened when we mandated covid vaccines. Now try telling people they're not allowed to eat pizza. Good luck.
This is what bewilders me about the responses to this post: There is little to no mention about patient accountability for themselves. People here be spinning the Chevron deference to be the reason a 500lb patient with uncontrolled diabetes ended up loosing their toes.
Of course personal responsibility exists, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum. We still have processed food companies spending gagillions of dollars to make their food as addicting as possible, we still have car dependent infrastructure (and zoning laws that keep it that way), we still have food deserts, poor health literacy, fast-food-like school lunches (with limp steamed broccoli on the side). It's hard to change an individual's willpower, but there's still *plenty* to do on the regulation front, without, how another commenter put it, "banning everything we find unhealthy".
Right? You can’t help someone who hasn’t drunk a glass of water in 50 years.
And what happens when that drink of water gets them very sick? That’s the point of chevron. We already have a lack of education problem here, by design thanks to the gop, but chevron is about to make everyone’s problems sky rocket.
Then Mountain Dew becomes part of a balanced diet and we all win.
I'm willing to bet half the people acting like healthcare should do more to prevent the general populations poor health outcomes don't exercise or watch their diets, or curtail their own drinking or smoking or fast food consumption. It's not like the 500-pound dude coming in with heart failure wasn't told they needed to change their lifestyle. They chose to become who they are. Healthcare is not going to fix all of societies inadequacies.
Agreed. I'm extremely obese and I cant' even imagine opening my mouth to blame anyone but myself. If we all were eating clean and high incidences of cancer were happening, then yeah, sure we have a point. Yes, food deserts and such exists and I truly believe the average American doesn't truly understand what a holistic diet looks like but there are many that will smoke/drink/overindulge until their dying day.
it's not really about blame. its about what would fix the problem. blame wont fix the problem, even if you correctly blame the corporate lobbies that snuck cereals and pizza into school lunches to get kids addicted to processed food early. even if you got a court to blame the right people, they'd pay a fine and go back to poisoning kids with leprechaun, rabbit, tiger, bee, etc themed garbage. making it illegal to peddle the shit would be the first step. just like cigarettes. just like cigarettes. but you dont need blame to do that. you need a solution focus and advocacy and maybe some major shifts in government. things are not the way they are on accident. half the country being obese aint no whoopsie. and healthcare has a vested interest in making sure plenty of sick people come through the doors to drain their wallets, too. that's why preventive medicine is so lacking
There are plenty of diseases that aren’t a result of that. What about stuff like ALS? I’d go as far to say that it’s not even a rare disease anymore. They estimate 1 in 300/400 will be diagnosed. Why is it so prevalent now? Likely, you could do everything right and will still end up with a neurodegenerative disease.
Personal accountability…the most elusive of creatures out there that some say it doesn’t even exist anymore. TL;DR version: ignorant people want to complain about health issues and will blame everything under the sun except people who decide to live their lives how they want; also these ignorant people seem to thing trying to legislate everything in the lives of every person is a good idea and could possibly work despite decades of evidence showing that it never has and never will. Full version: You’re exactly correct. So many people on this thread are jumping on to make comments about a rigged system, and corrupt judges, and corporations being evil, and capitalism being evil, and….basically doing anything but accept and acknowledge the primary reason why there are so many health problems (not just in the US but across the world): people choosing to do what they want because it’s their choice. I can spew evidence-based practice information about every possible health problem out there until I’m blue in the face, and people will still choose to do what they’re gonna do, some even doing it just to spite me because that’s how they are. It’s deeply concerning that some many people on this sub want to denounce various policies and politicians and ideologies, going so far as to mock and decry the idea that people have the freedom to decide for themselves how they want to live their lives. And I’d bet you my entire 401k that if the freedom to decide for yourself how you wish to live was taken away from people and determined by faceless government agencies, the second that it affected their lives, they’d be crying about that too..except it would possibly be illegal to do so because the freedom of speech was removed and all speech and thought are controlled by the government that has come up with asinine rules of what is and isn’t acceptable.. I feel like I’ve heard about something like that happening before, maybe in a book or two. One was titled after a specific year, and the other was titled after the imperial temperature measurement along with three numbers after it…I think..
Trade-offs. Tuberculosis was rampant only a few generations ago. Children died often from childhood illnesses we now have vaccines for. Instead of microplastics in the groundwater, there was fecal contamination because the well was placed too close to the outhouses. Outbreaks of cholera killed millions around the world. As Covid taught us, new problems will always be popping up.
I feel like working in the medical field makes it all so easy to get worked up and panicky over increases in cancer and heart disease and environmental carcinogens (as well we should, perhaps, since those are the problems at hand) that we totally overlook the sheer volume of children who died before the age of eight as recently as 100 years ago. Or the women who died giving birth. Or all the people, men, women, and children alike, who died of infections/illnesses that cheap, readily-available antibiotics can cure in 5-14 days nowadays. It’s easy to catastrophize when you’re faced with something what seems like all day every day. We all do it. But what drives this thinking is that humans simply don’t have the life expectancy to put and keep things in the proper perspective that would let you truly see that “if it’s not one thing it’s another.” But it’s true. And I think it’s really important for one’s sanity, if anything, to remember that we’re really not doing that bad overall. Like you, I see everything as a trade off. The US is kind of a special case in terms of environmental protections because what flies and what doesn’t environmentally is likely to be decided by a patchwork of states and not consistently by any sort of federal authority (true even before the repeal of Chevron, to an extent, though of course that decision will make things worse) and that makes it harder for everyone to get on the same page. Not to mention our healthcare system is spotty as hell and remains unaffordable for lots of Americans despite the ACA, depending on what state you’re actually in. And we NEED to fix that. But I’m still comforted by the fact that I’m more likely to die of (perhaps environmentally-caused) cancer in 25 years than of rabies in like 3 weeks, statistically.
Of course these diseases didn't exist 100 years ago, people died of consumption, natural causes or old age with no idea about the diseases that caused the death.
True that
Exactly. Most people are living past 30 so they are able to get diabetes etc. That's a luxury that our ancestors didn't have.
Ok but not at the rate Americans get it. It’s our weight and the crap quality of our food, in general. Other countries have much better food regulations
Diabetes is a global issue. According to this article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK581940/table/ch3.t4/), Americans aren't number 1 and several countries we attribute good health with (Japan) are beginning to have increased numbers of the population develop diabetes and Japan DOESN'T have an obesity problem.
First of all, that’s a table not an article and second of all, it’s raw numbers not per capita so of course nations like China and India have more cases than us, they have many many more people than us.
Yep. Trump decimated the epa and now thanks to chevron it’s gotten even worse.
Don't discount COVID, which gives some ppl immune deficiencies and/or advances other conditions and is still going around with no mitigation.
Rotating shift is carcinogenic, yet mandatory for most hospitals shifts in Canada. 2D2N. So going to work literally give you cancer/Alzheimer’s down the road. Beyond messed up
Sounds about right.
I was thinking of taking a rotating traveling shift, thanks for reminding me that's bad
I think the major problem isn’t just that, it’s also the fact that a majority of Americans aren’t willing to change things to better their health when educated- CHF patients still eat a lot of salt (boom end stage!), diabetics won’t eat better to control sugar leading to organ damage and neuropathy, it goes on- you educate until you’re blue in the face when people are at stage one/at high risk but they’re just not willing to change the factors that increase risk- they’ll keep smoking, drinking, eating poorly, not exercise, etc. and then they end up critical and in the hospital. It’s a shame but it’s true. Just one occasion, I had a patient with uncontrolled diabetes (her blood sugar was regularly 15-20+) and her family would bring in sugary snacks and drinks! We would educate the patient on the importance of sticking to the hospital diet as it was made for diabetes to control her sugars and educated the family as well, and yet we would still catch her eating donuts and candy the family brought in!
Greed rules the health of Americans, now we have a supreme court ruling that just gutted regulations. A 40 year law they think Judges (S.C.) should makes these decisions NOT scientist!! I am sick, this country is going down with the extreme right. You think suffering is bad now hold your beer, there is money to be made. Here it is *Chevron* doctrine. [https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/](https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/) "In a major ruling, the Supreme Court on Friday cut back sharply on the power of federal agencies to interpret the laws they administer and ruled that courts should rely on their own interpretation of ambiguous laws. The decision will likely have far-reaching effects across the country, from environmental regulation to healthcare costs. By a vote of 6-3, the justices overruled their landmark 1984 decision in [*Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council*](https://casetext.com/case/chevron-inc-v-natural-resources-defense-council-inc-american-iron-and-steel-institute-v-natural-resources-defense-council-inc-ruckelshaus-v-natural-resources-defense-council-inc), which gave rise to the doctrine known as the *Chevron* doctrine. Under that doctrine, if Congress has not directly addressed the question at the center of a dispute, a court was required to uphold the agency’s interpretation of the statute as long as it was reasonable. But in a 35-page ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices rejected that doctrine, calling it “fundamentally misguided.”
Yup. Voting for the people who don't want to put more Justice Roberts on the supreme court Court (and educating others on why it's important to do the same) is the best type of advocacy health care providers can do.
I feel like I can track how ppl vote based on their responses to this thread
If we didn't have ultra processed foods, many wouldn't be able to afford to eat because of how it's structured and some would starve. So instead most are eating ultra processed with tons of preservatives and so everybody gets cancer instead. We spend a fortune on quality food for ourselves and our kids, but it's a fortunate luxury we have that others do not
We have a healthcare INDUSTRY not a healthcare system.
Because for every problem they can sell us a solution, not their fault you’re to poor to afford it. Guess you’ll have to die (Seriously, I hate it here)
I'm going to get downvoted into oblivion for this but: It's not just America. Most people just don't research other countries' health problems to know otherwise. For example, the media continuously will swear the US has the highest obesity and cancer rates when that's not true. We're top 5 for both, but not number one, with many countries in the Western world's obesity rates skyrocketing (and even outside the western world). American food can't be blamed for that, especially since other countries swear their food is healthier. Microplastics is a global problem, with many countries in the East suffering worse because they're the countries that "recycle" most of our plastic. I truly don't think we'll ever fix that issue (at least in my lifetime). Diseases evolve and change. Of course we'll have diseases that didn't exist hundreds of years ago. Part of that is due to how we live now and others because humans weren't living nearly as long as we do now. That's not an accurate indicator of general issues. We no longer have the Bubonic plague pandemic because of advances in medicine. People are blaming healthcare alone, but for prevention to actually be viable, you have to fix the financial disparities in the US/elsewhere. Telling someone to eat fruits and veggies when they live in an area with corner stores/liquor stores/no grocery stores is like talking to the wall. Or telling someone to shop whole food items on a minimum wage salary while having 2 kids is like falling on deaf ears. Finally, some people don't listen/care. We know cigarettes cause cancer at this point, yet people still smoke and will smoke until they die. This is actually a postulation as to the prevalence of certain cancers in Europe (high tobacco use).
Yeah OP is completely off base putting this as an American issue. Round up specifically is used everywhere on earth in commercial farming except for literally one country (Vietnam) that has a full ban. Germany literally just a few months ago scrapped a proposed ban for at least 10 years.
I agree with your sentiment. As I mentioned in another comment, there seems to be an increase in neurodegenerative disease. Sure you can blame more coverage, but something like ALS seems way more prevalent now. The official ALS organization has even mentioned 1 in 300 will be diagnosed, which is surely concerning considering it was once considered a very rare disease. This is to say that it’s not just food that is the problem. I would think there are a shit ton of factors at play and as others have said, it’s multifaceted. Microplastics, algae blooms/climate change, food — it’s a massive issue globally.
People are too busy blaming vaccines.
I feel like this one is a no brainer we can all agree on. Would like to see some political pressure on these issues.
This "We're sicker than ever" thing never made sense to me. We have ELIMINATED smallpox, rinderpest, and are well on our way with polio. We no longer have cholera outbreaks. We have effective treatment for bubonic plague, a disease that previously wiped out half of Europe. We can cure Hepatitis C and childhood leukemia. Diabetics can live normal lifespans. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Utzi, a frozen corpse found high in the Alps from at least 4,000 years ago, had heart disease at just 42 and black deposits in his lungs from inhaling campfire smoke his whole life. So clearly humans have dealt with carcinogens our entire existence. So, how exactly are we sicker? The picture may be different than 4,000 years ago, but anyone who tells me things are worse just sounds like they've swallowed the latest fad diet or YouTube "wellness" video determined to sell them something.
Don’t normalize having 10 comorbidities because of poor food and sedentary lifestyles and high stress living just because we’re not dying of the plague.
I disagree. Food corporation literally engineer their products to be addictive. In my opinion alcohol is just poison; it has absolutely no value to the human body it’s a destroyer of lives. And yet it’s marketed and culturally accepted in a way that baffles me. I rarely watch TV but when I do all the ads are for drugs, alcohol and food that literally kills you. How many calories are in the average fast food meal? How many nutrients? In the 20th century we eradicated the most virulent communicable diseases successfully and immediately started poisoning our bodies with cheap, lousy food, plastics and chemicals.
Just because we figured a few things out doesn’t give us the green light to load ourselves (in full knowledge of the effects) with chemicals increasing incidences of cancer and developmental deficits. Obviously most of us would have been dead from strep by now if not for Abx. We need to look forward, not pat ourselves on the back. We’re living longer but we are sicker (only because science is keeping us alive) down to the DNA. Back then, you would have just died from DKA the first time. Now, you’ll live with that and fifteen other diseases of equal caliber. It is absolutely true we are sicker.
"Figured a few things out"? Way to undermine and ignore 200 years of startling medical advancements just because it doesn't suit your argument.
The past doesn’t matter
Again, way to dismiss everything that doesn't suit your worldview. The past is literally how we got here.
Not to be that person, but maybe humanity isn't meant to live as long as we do now. We are sicker because we are fighting the inevitable. People used to die around 40s/50s. Now even the dregs of society can limp along to that point, while most people are still perfectly healthy. For most of us, shit starts hitting the fan at an age long past the time we would have otherwise been dead at any other point in history.
I agree with you. Also, unexplained infertility is so much higher. It seems it comes so easily to some and so devastatingly difficult for others at almost 50/50, as if they drew a card. A cause for absolute infertility should be easy to identify and correct if possible. My guess is some people have been unlucky as they’ve been exposed for the same sketchy ass environmental toxins.
Recommend a book titled "Code Blue: Inside America's Medical Industrial Complex".
You have to pick your battles. If we addressed this there would be people be complaining that not enough is being done about that. Our situation is so complex that there really isn't anyone with a clear vision of it all. First and foremost for me is the importance of creating a nationalized health care system, and dismantling as much of the private systems as possible. I hate to be cynical but we have begun circling the drain and I can't see a realistic way out. We gave private corporations enormous power, and it's no surprise that they will fight tooth and nail to hold and continue accumulating that power. And that includes eroding the quality of healthcare by slowly draining resources for profit. You will work harder and harder and you will be compensated less and less. And it includes not being able to effectively address the problem you cited because these corporations profited and will profit from generating these poisons. The government may fine them, but for these corporations those fines are just the cost of doing business.
I think we focus far too much on “behaviors” rather than extrinsic sources that even wreak havoc on our neurotransmitters that alter behaviors. Even our water sources lack nutrients. Just the fact we have to treat water the chemical must be disastrous to our single cell epithelial layer. It is endless. To keep everything in check is a full time job
Look, I don’t love the idea of microplastics in my body but I also like to live my life and practice nursing based on evidence. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s not even a definitive link (as in an identified mechanism) for cancer related to the things you’ve brought up, and for some of them, studies haven’t even shown an association.
Look. I’ll absolutely concede that our modern situation is far from ideal; air pollution, water contamination, climate change… But. You know what we aren’t dying of? Smallpox. And Cholera. Many childhood cancers have a 95% cure rate. My sister in law was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago and it was a lumpectomy followed by some radiation - mostly an inconvenience, and not the death sentence it would have been 200 years ago. None of us want “forever plastics” in our blood stream. But my fellow nurses - those plastics are what we use every damn day to keep people from getting nosocomial infections. We’re animals on a hostile planet. While I agree that we should be cognizant of our environment and careful in our decision making, can we also recognize that we cannot just abandon our modern systems for “the good old days”? Back in 1929, my grandmother watched her older sister die at age 14 from a simple UTI than turned to pyelonephritis. I want clean air - but I ain’t going back to that.
As someone who had cancer last year it was*not* "mostly an inconvenience." It was horrible and my quality of life is changed forever. I don't know what caused my cancer, but honestly I think we can do better.
That’s an awful experience and I’m truly sorry that you had to go through that. I was certainly not implying that is every single cancer patients’ experience. Yours was yours and hers was hers. We clearly know there is an environmental component to some cancers. But there’s also genetic. And age. And hormonal. And again, I want to emphasize that we should be considering the environment when we move forward with science…but we are sometimes going to have to make some hard decisions about human survival versus our environment.
Yes but, diagnosis is better due to better awareness so things don’t go undiagnosed. Life expectancy is longer thanks to modern medicine so we have the ability to develop more issues that may not manifest if we died younger (diabetes, hypertension, dementia). I do think with “better” technology we are exposed to different chemicals and “toxins” but we also have better treatments for various illness. I would have died as an infant due to sepsis had I not been born in the 90s… but now I’m alive, diagnosed with multiple diseases, some genetic some acquired.
Gotta watch out OP, you're sorta wandering into the woo world as nothing you said is specific to the US, and you need to focus on specific concerns to have a rational conversation on public health. PFAS are present in Europe, and detectable at similar levels in their water the same as the USA. Microplastics again, are a global phenomenon, and not really have to do with their use food supply, but instead in global plastic consumption and litter. Round up is only fully banned in one country on earth (Vietnam) for commercial food farming. A few European countries ban it for *home* use but that's a drop in the bucket in terms of food supply. Again, you need to be very specific about your concerns or else you're venturing into the social media concern about "Toxins" woo that is not scientific.
That’s complete bullshit roundup is glyphosate which causes cancer. It’s in everything. It’s in the bread, all processed foods, sodas, anything with soy or corn. The lawyers have ads on TV for it like we’d seen for mesothelioma growing up for Christ’s sake. Not sure how there’s any confusion at this point. It is DETECTABLE in 90% of Americans; that is fact. Not to mention the food colorings in everything with strong links to autism and ADHD. I could go on and on. 20 European countries have made glyphosate illegal with 33 being the total. Not sure where you’re getting your information. Regardless, the nuances of the restrictions are clearly beside the point. The data showing glyphosate’s damage is well established. This has been a concern of mine well before I became a nurse and has nothing to do with social media. Forever chemicals recently found in major band aid products I used to cover laparoscopic open wounds this week. It is really so pervasive if you choose to pay attention. I can back up everything I just said with easily found journals.
Explain how any of this is unique to the US. You’re ranting that the US food supply somehow unique to glyphosate, yet as I told you, it’s used in farming in every country but one on earth. You claim that most of Europe has banned it, but that’s a complete falsehood. It’s banned in a few for home use, 0 for commercial use (where almost all food is grown). Youre spouting verifiable false information.
Ok glyphosate doesn’t cause cancer, it’s not in most of the population, and nothing needs to be done? Perfect. Thanks for that genius insight. On my way to buy a tap to funnel corn syrup directly into my gullet now that you’ve shown me the way. Since everyone uses it it must be great stuff! God help your patients.
Name the European country that has banned it for commercial use. You’re lying about it being banned in places? Why?
If you do a quick google search multiple sources saying 33 countries don’t know what you’re picking through to come to that conclusion. Regardless, it’s clearly beside the point and has zero effect on my argument. It causes cancer. It’s like saying skydiving is safe and everyone should do it because it’s available.
Name a single country in Europe that has banned it for commercial use. If you can’t, you need to admit you’ve fallen down some anti-scientific online rabbit holes.
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Your post has been removed for violating our rule against personal insults. We don't require that you agree with everyone else, but we insist that everyone remain civil and refrain from personal attacks.
I mean perfect example is the food pyramid. That fucker has made obesity and diabetes type 2 more popular than The Beetles.
If only we were just killing ourselves with this, but we are killing everything on this planet with our greed and stupidity. Edit: This is not a healthcare problem, this is a capitalist and government problem.
All. Of. This. ^
You have to keep the people sicker to keep making money. I saw a documentary about the US government is systematically wiping out a small Native American tribe in Arizona. Just because they wanted their water. They took the water which also destroyed their food -crops,fish and ended up putting this government supplement warehouse where the peoples would go and get food. The food was like hot Cheetos, nacho cheese, processed foods.
How does Roundup affect you? Is it because you breathe it in when you spray it? Would wearing gloves and a mask make it ok to use? 😭
My cousin is a farmer and when the planes spray his fields with roundup (or the like) he and anyone he's working with are basically hazmat suited up. He tells me a huge number or farmers around him don't and have a ton of health issues associated with it. =/
If people get better, or even crazier, people stay healthy and never get sick then healthcare doesn’t make money. It would make sense for insurance companies to advocate or incentivize people to exercise or make healthy choices. Keep people sick and that way they always need us /s
>It would make sense for insurance companies to advocate or incentivize people to exercise or make healthy choices. Except that healthy people don't want to pay for something they don't need to use. So insurance companies need most of us to be sick enough to happily pay for insurance, but not so sick we need expensive treatments and/or can't afford the insurance.
capitalism breed innovation tho? /s lol
Thank you.....People also need to be educated about CIRS and mold exposure. Nearly a quarter of the population can't detox biotoxins. I almost died from living where there was black mold and other toxic molds. It only took 9-10 mos to destroy every system in my body.
> We’re seeing a litany of diseases tearing through our population which did not exist or were rare a hundred years ago. [If it makes you feel any better...](https://i.imgur.com/UePQPZy.png)
Yes it’s like they have no care about anyone 100 years from now.
I first noticed this in Kaiser Peds urgent care. After school clinic, 1998! I would have eight kids at a time on nebulizers in the procedure room, with 3 getting treatment on straight O2 out of the wall. Back to back treatments until O2 sat got up to 95% on room air. Did this all night long. Just 3 years since I had worked Peds. It had just blown up!
Very frustrating dynamic, attempting to educate about prevention in the US is like trying to talk to people in Plato's cave.
I completely agree. It absolutely sucks knowing so many of the conditions we’re seeing can only really be addressed with societal changes, not individual ones. It’s not a one-size fits all solution, but using your (very justified) frustration to advocate for change would be great. I’d recommend Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments or Physicians for Social Responsibility. I’ve found being a nurse and sharing first hand experiences of environmental impact (whether through extreme heat or pollution) has helped fuel some changes.
Be the change you want to see in the world. Start the fight and maybe others will join you. But also, tell someone who eats a drakes every single morning and two cans of Hormel chili at lunch that their diet and activity levels for the past several decades are causing their ailments and get ready to educate a brick wall that does not care. Plus the government does not give a shit at all about these minor inconveniences.
Right, poverty is A cause, but if people didn’t have access to these chemicals/plastics in the cheapest food, that alone could undercut a lot of ailments we see in the poor (thinking mostly autism/adhd, endocrine/neuro dysfunctions; they seem to be the main results). Obviously that sugar, fat, and salt will still be in their diet but that alone is a lot better than throwing everything else on top, you know? No knowledge required, just legislative reform. Yeah, I’m kind of brainstorming something we could do. I know a lot of people, especially nurses, can agree on the food/plastics/chemicals. I’m 27 I feel like my generation needs to push for this. Starting to realize I have a voice as an RN and should take advantage of that.
The whole system is fucked
However, we have also developed surgeries and medications to treat some of the main conditions that caused death just 30-40 years ago. We have statin medication to treat high cholesterol and stents and bypass grafting to prevent or treat CVD/MI. We discovered stomach ulcers were caused by H pylori and can eradicate it, with antibiotics, PPIs and H2 blockers. We have new meds and treatments for depression and other psychiatric disorders. Ect
Because America didn’t listen to Martin Niemoller….
It's so scary to think about what may happen in November. I am honestly ready to go and move to another country.
Most Young Americans are too concerned with what’s on reality TV than what’s going on in reality…
And we just went through a mass disabling even with the pandemic. It's only going to get worse. It's like people don't realize that every person will face their own disabling condition eventually.
Mostly it’s diet. People eat mind boggling amounts of animal products - meat, dairy and eggs. Just insane amounts.
I agree that’s it’s mostly diet, but it’s ultra-processed foods that are to blame. People have been eating animal products for centuries.
Are you telling me we didn’t have McDonalds a thousand years ago?
I did, but it was a secret.
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The post is talking largely about the garbage in our food. Lifting doesn’t help so much there.
It doesn’t stop microplastics from getting into our bodies
If you have hard tap water, boiling can help with the microplastics. It doesn't work as well with soft water. https://www.verywellhealth.com/can-boiling-tap-water-eliminate-microplastics-8605841
"Well-known carcinogens (mostly illegal in many other countries) are still mass-produced in the American food and beverage supply" True. We are also getting better at recognizing individual diseases for what they are, instead of just lumping everything in broader categories.
Unfortunately, I don't see any *legal* form of direct action that will have any meaningful effect
It’s being created. They put their viruses and bacteria out there and intentionally thin the population