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Flexcin Offers Tips To Minimize Summertime Arthritis
Most people think arthritis is worse in the cold, winter months but a dirty little secret is that it can be just as painful during the hot, summer months as well.

Blogs Comment On Media Coverage Of Abortion Issues In Health Reform Debate, Other Topics
The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries. ~ "Mainstream Media Reinforces Unexamined Arguments Against Public Funding for Abortion," Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check: It "seems that mainstream media s ... believe that abortion is an effective cudgel to beat health care reform to death," Marcotte writes. According to Marcotte, the "unvarnished truth" is that there is "no way that any kind of public health care plan will have elective abortion coverage. Nor is there any real chance of abortion becoming mandated coverage." However, "you wouldn"t know it to read the media coverage of this issue," she writes, continuing that "we"ve got the toxic mixture of pants-on-fire lying anti-choicers and cowardly media outlets that give the opponents of health care reform an opportunity to lie about the potential for taxpayer-funded abortions." Those who defend health care reform are "so busy trying to shut down the misinformation about abortion coverage that we"re not having the more interesting discussion about whether or not abortion should be covered," Marcotte says. She adds, "And by not having that discussion, we"re allowing the belief that some people"s moral objections to abortion should dictate federal policy lay unchallenged," she continues. She writes that she "suspect[s] that anti-choicers latched onto taxpayer-funded abortions because they can count on a lot of the public to imagine the government funding female licentiousness." Marcotte concludes that the "good news is that this contempt for female sexuality has receded enough that the media debate hasn"t -- yet -- turned to whether or not health care reform should cover contraception" (Marcotte, RH Reality Check, 7/28).~ "Privileging Opposition to Abortion," Jamison Foser, Media Matters for America: Some reporters "have skewed their reports in favor of those who oppose" coverage of abortion in federally subsidized insurance plans, according to Foser. For example, Foser writes that on a recent episode of MSNBC"s "Hardball," host Chris Matthews asked Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) "leading questions that encouraged them to state their opposition to insurance coverage of abortion" but never asked them "one simple question: Why shouldn"t abortion be covered, given that the procedure is legal?" Foser adds, "Nor has he asked if there are any other legal procedures that shouldn"t be covered." The "premise that taxpayers who oppose abortion shouldn"t have to pay for them with their tax money carries obvious implications the media ignores," Foser writes. He adds that the "idea that taxpayers shouldn"t pay for insurance that covers medical services they don"t support is fundamentally incompatible with the very concept of insurance." He continues, "If every interest group wields veto power over the medical care insurance can cover, insurance simply can"t work." However, this is not the "only logical inconsistency on the part of abortion foes that the media fail to examine" in their coverage of abortion issues in the health reform debate, he writes. "Many of those who are most adamant that the government not allow abortion to be paid for by health insurance plans are the same conservatives who argue against health care reform by warning of the prospect of a government bureaucrat getting between you and your doctor," according to Foser. He continues that the "same people who want a government ban on insurance coverage for a legal medical procedure turn around and demagogue about government bureaucrats making medical decisions," which is "a pretty obvious inconsistency, the kind any reporter should be able to spot easily." However, the "tension between those two positions has gone unexplored in news reports about the abortion controversy," Foser concludes (Foser, Media Matters for America, 7/24).~ "Obama Abortion Backtrack Shows He"s All Rhetoric, No Fight," Bonnie Erbe, U.S. News & World Report"s "Thomas Jefferson Street": "[O]ne thing we know will not be incl
News of the day
Democrats Promote Sotomayor's 'Mainstream Record'; GOP Senators Seek More Documents
Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday circulated talking points stating that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has a "mainstream record of judicial modesty," the AP/Miami Herald reports. The document includes a quote from Sotomayor expressing her belief in basing judicial decisions on the Constitution rather than on politics.Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and ranking member Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) also wrote to the president of LatinoJustice PRLDEF, formerly known as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Educational Fund, requesting the quick disclosure of documents Sotomayor has requested in relation to her work with the group (Hirschfeld Davis, AP/Miami Herald, 6/19). Sotomayor worked with the group from 1980 to 1992, assisting in a number of legal briefs and helping the group develop stances on public policy matters (Stanton, Roll Call, 6/18). According to the AP/Herald, interest groups and members of both political parties are "competing to define" Sotomayor ahead of her confirmation hearing, which is scheduled to begin July 13. Conservative groups have focused on labeling her an "activist" and singled out her involvement with PRLDEF as evidence of her support for abortion rights. The group sided with abortion-rights supporters in several major Supreme Court cases during Sotomayor"s time on its board (AP/Miami Herald, 6/19).
Diagnostics

Rural Doctors To Invite PM On Rural Health 'fact Finding' Tour, Australia

The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) will write to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd this week to invite him to participate in a national "fact finding" tour of rural hospitals, rural practices, health centres and Aboriginal Medical Services. The call comes a day after the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission released its final report on health reform recommendations for Australia-a report which unfortunately lacked any substantial recommendations for much-needed new initiatives to increase the number of health professionals working in the bush. "We know Prime Minister Rudd is aware of the critical shortage of rural health professionals that is impacting so badly on access to healthcare in country Australia, but there is a big difference in being aware of the situation in a general sense and seeing it first-hand in community after community after community" RDAA CEO, Steve Sant, said. "We desperately need Mr Rudd to tour rural Australia from east to west, and north to south, to see for himself the devastating impact that the shortage of doctors, nurses and other health professionals is having on access to healthcare in rural Australia, and to hear about the crisis directly from those working on the frontline. "We"d like him to spend some real time with rural doctors to see the types of complex cases they deal with on a day to day basis, and to find out how far their patients have to travel if they need further diagnosis and treatment. We"d also like him to accompany these doctors in the middle of the night to attend an emergency or delivery at their local hospital, to show him just how important these doctors, the healthcare professionals they work with, and the hospitals themselves, are. "Mr Rudd has already promised that he will visit 24 major city hospitals as part of his consultation process on national health reform following the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission"s final report, but we are disappointed he has not made a similar promise to visit the country hospitals, general practices, health centres and Aboriginal Medical Services that play such a pivotal role in meeting the healthcare needs of the one-third of rural Australians who live in the bush. Such visits would enable the rural health professionals providing these much-needed services, as well as the rural patients they serve, to have their say. "We would like Mr Rudd to invest one week of his time in travelling with our President, Dr Nola Maxfield, to rural communities in each state and the Northern Territory-towns like Murray Bridge in South Australia, Cloncurry in Queensland, Karratha in Western Australia, and Moree in NSW just to name a few. "And importantly, we"d like him not only to experience the challenges facing the doctors and other health professionals working in the bush, but also the success stories-the towns where, because of the hard and constructive efforts of local communities and health professionals, sustainable healthcare services have been established and are thriving. "It is time for our politicians to see first-hand the value of supporting the provision of local healthcare in rural and remote communities-we sincerely hope that Prime Minister Rudd will be the first to take us up on our offer." Rural Doctors Association of Australia


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