Spins-of-the-Day are short pieces, so space did not allow for a more extensive description of [[Diethylene glycol|diethylene glycol]], however in the Spin we provided a link from the name of the chemical to a more thorough description of it in PRWatch's tobacco portal, [[http://www.tobaccowiki.org TobaccoWiki.org]]. If you click on the link (which we provided again in this response), you will see that the second sentence the article points out that ethylene glycol is used as a humectant in tobacco, as well as in other products, like synthetic sponges, paper products, in cork compositions, and in book-binding adhesives. The information in this article about the uses and health effects of diethylene glycol was, in fact, taken from tobacco industry documents, and the industry got the information from the government-funded [http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?HSDB Hazardous Substances Databank], a division of the United States National Library of Medicine. You are welcome to contribute more information to TobaccoWiki's article on diethylene glycol, provided the information you add can be referenced to an authoritative source.
Regarding your statement that e-cigarettes are not marketed as smoking cessation devices, that is not true. While your company may not be marketing them this way, many other business are. A quick look on the Web found the [http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/243476822/Smoking_cessation_products_mini_Electronic_Cigarette.html "Smoking cessation products mini electronic cigarette"], and a Web site called [http://www.stop-smoking-updates.com/quitsmoking/cigarette-cessation/stop-smoking-methods/quit-smoking-with-electronic-cigarette.htm "Stop Smoking"] that writes that the electronic Cigarette is "a good aid in a stop smoking program." It further advises that using e-cigarettes in a cessation program can help people "give up their habit of smoking more quickly." There are also sales-oriented videos on YouTube, like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz59cKAA9wM this one] from ChinaVision Wholesale Electronics titled, "Stop Smoking: Quit The Electronic Way With E Cigarettes," that clearly promotes the e-cigarette as a smoking cessation device.
[http://greensmoke.com/ GreenSmoke.com] uploaded a video onto YouTube titled [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-StgIiL7OdI New Quit Smoking Cessation Product Try an Electronic Cigarette!] So, clearly e-cigarettes are being promoted all over the Web as cessation devices, your company nothwithstanding.
Neither Marlboros, Marlboro lights nor Marlboro ultralights have ever been marketed as a smoking cessation devices, so that claim is patently absurd.
I will allow that e-cigarettes may emit fewer chemicals than a traditional, combusted cigarette, and from this standpoint could potentially be a safer smoking alternative. The idea of pursuing harm reduction by designing a non-combusted, cigarette-like smoking device has been around for a long time, and has, in fact been created by the big tobacco companies (e.g., products like "Accord," and "Eclipse").
But whether someone is ingesting 3,900 fewer chemicals, or 10,000 or 20,000, "fewer" is immaterial. All it takes is one known human carcinogen to cause cancer. With e-cigarettes, the question is, what is the dose and frequency of exposure? Whether tobacco-specific nitrosamines come from chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes, pipes, or traditional cigarettes is similarly immaterial. The Hazardous Substances Databank still defines tobacco-specific nitrosamies as "the most abundant strong carcinogens" in smokeless tobacco and in smoke, and "major contributors to the induction of cancers."
you want your for-profit industry's stranglehold on health care for all Americans enshrined in law forever.
So nice of you to allow the American people to seek a public option from their government which exists, among other reasons, to "promote the general welfare," provided it doesn't actually compete with the for-profits. I don't think you need to worry too much -- I'm sure the industry lobby will see to it that any public option is so crappy most people will opt for not-much-better private offerings.
The for-profit industry is responsible for the disgraceful condition of U.S. health care today. Why should anyone listen to you at all?
"The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom" by Adam Curtis is a good addition to the "Century of the Self".
Another documentary by BBC — "Silent Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust" may be useful for exploring the subject on the Hollywood role in WWII propaganda campaign.
Ask "who profits most from current health care proposals and from a public option?"
The answer is clearly big corporations and not the public. Why is a venal, employee-abusive company like Wal-Mart is so actively supporting the measure? It is only to serve themselves.
Wendell Potter "speaks out" about an industry that makes about 3% profit on the health care part of insurance. Potter was just a communications executive and, like most of them, really doesn't know what he is talking about.
Potter says that insurers' expense management and purging actions resulted in collective medical-loss ratios of the seven largest for-profit insurers falling from an average of 85.3 percent in 1998 to 81.6 percent in 2008 and "that translates into a difference of several billion dollars in favor of insurance company shareholders and executives."
Potter cites that Pricewaterhouse result and assumes the cause - but a far more likely cause is the fact that "44% of workers with health benefits were covered by self-insured plans in 1999. That percentage had risen to 55% in 2007." In other words, insurance companies no longer had that risk and expense, thus improving their medical-loss ratios. Businesses funded their own plans.
86% of companies larger than 5,000 employees have become self-insured as have 76% of those with 1,000-4,999 employees. Companies like mine jumped on the bandwagon to reduce healthcare costs because 1) states all had different regulations to follow, and self-funded companies could simply abide by ERISA and 2) businesses saved all the state taxes of 2-6% that insurance companies have to pay on premiums.
What do big corporations get? With a public option, private options will fade away. Users will opt for the public option to save a few bucks on their share of premiums, not realizing what they are giving up in the long run. The costs paid by the big corporations will drop dramatically and their risk and liability as self-insurers disappears.
What does the consumer get with a public option? Look at Medicare - it means unilateral (and often unreasonably) reduced payments to providers. Users have to buy Medigap insurance to cover at least part of the difference between what this public option pays and the care they need. The rest comes out of their pocket or they go without.
Users receive less of the care their doctor says is necessary. As examples, when I was ill, I was sometimes mistaken for a Medicare patient. When my doctor said I needed my two deep wounds monitored, cleansed and treated daily by a home nurse for a couple of months, I was told Medicare would cover a few visits and then, "You have to find someone else to do it for you." I was also told Medicare covered only 20 colostomy bags a month and I would have to wash them out and reuse them. Fortunately, our actual insurance covered what I needed.
Yes, health care definitely needs reform in terms of efficiencies and, most likely, in prohibiting things like hip replacements for octogenarians on the brink of death from cancer. Yes, there should be reasonable options for those with pre-existing conditions and some sort of portability...but none of those fixes requires a "public option."
But no one is discussing that kind of improvement first. Instead, the public will lose out once again while the big-buck corporations profit thanks to their generous funding of both Democrats and Republicans. Beginning t age 65, mandatory end-of-life discussions are incorporated for patients (HR 3200 section 1233) Committees decide on "the most effective treatments" and all medical records must be filed with the government by 2014.
In business, if you unilaterally drop prices before you eliminate waste and fix the processes, then you lose money and go bankrupt, especially if you keep spending money you don't have. You have to fix the costs first. The Feds fail to do that....which is why they have programs that are never fixed and keep going bankrupt...
It's too left-wing biased to be an "Anonymous (not verified)." ;-)
Spins-of-the-Day are short pieces, so space did not allow for a more extensive description of [[Diethylene glycol|diethylene glycol]], however in the Spin we provided a link from the name of the chemical to a more thorough description of it in PRWatch's tobacco portal, [[http://www.tobaccowiki.org TobaccoWiki.org]]. If you click on the link (which we provided again in this response), you will see that the second sentence the article points out that ethylene glycol is used as a humectant in tobacco, as well as in other products, like synthetic sponges, paper products, in cork compositions, and in book-binding adhesives. The information in this article about the uses and health effects of diethylene glycol was, in fact, taken from tobacco industry documents, and the industry got the information from the government-funded [http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?HSDB Hazardous Substances Databank], a division of the United States National Library of Medicine. You are welcome to contribute more information to TobaccoWiki's article on diethylene glycol, provided the information you add can be referenced to an authoritative source.
Regarding your statement that e-cigarettes are not marketed as smoking cessation devices, that is not true. While your company may not be marketing them this way, many other business are. A quick look on the Web found the [http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/243476822/Smoking_cessation_products_mini_Electronic_Cigarette.html "Smoking cessation products mini electronic cigarette"], and a Web site called [http://www.stop-smoking-updates.com/quitsmoking/cigarette-cessation/stop-smoking-methods/quit-smoking-with-electronic-cigarette.htm "Stop Smoking"] that writes that the electronic Cigarette is "a good aid in a stop smoking program." It further advises that using e-cigarettes in a cessation program can help people "give up their habit of smoking more quickly." There are also sales-oriented videos on YouTube, like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz59cKAA9wM this one] from ChinaVision Wholesale Electronics titled, "Stop Smoking: Quit The Electronic Way With E Cigarettes," that clearly promotes the e-cigarette as a smoking cessation device.
[http://greensmoke.com/ GreenSmoke.com] uploaded a video onto YouTube titled [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-StgIiL7OdI New Quit Smoking Cessation Product Try an Electronic Cigarette!] So, clearly e-cigarettes are being promoted all over the Web as cessation devices, your company nothwithstanding.
Neither Marlboros, Marlboro lights nor Marlboro ultralights have ever been marketed as a smoking cessation devices, so that claim is patently absurd.
I will allow that e-cigarettes may emit fewer chemicals than a traditional, combusted cigarette, and from this standpoint could potentially be a safer smoking alternative. The idea of pursuing harm reduction by designing a non-combusted, cigarette-like smoking device has been around for a long time, and has, in fact been created by the big tobacco companies (e.g., products like "Accord," and "Eclipse").
But whether someone is ingesting 3,900 fewer chemicals, or 10,000 or 20,000, "fewer" is immaterial. All it takes is one known human carcinogen to cause cancer. With e-cigarettes, the question is, what is the dose and frequency of exposure? Whether tobacco-specific nitrosamines come from chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes, pipes, or traditional cigarettes is similarly immaterial. The Hazardous Substances Databank still defines tobacco-specific nitrosamies as "the most abundant strong carcinogens" in smokeless tobacco and in smoke, and "major contributors to the induction of cancers."
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