May 2024

This month's topics covered include mammograms, product recalls, Obamacare, health and safety tips.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/courageous-doctors-pioneers-and-heroes--4488438/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
By listening and are watching this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast
as medical advice to treat any medicalcondition in either yourself or others, including
but not limited to patients that youare treating. Consult your own physician for
any medical issues that you may behaving. Courageous Doctors is a newscast about
healthcare topics of concerned to everyone,from health and safety tips to recall notices

(00:22):
and medical news. Here's your host, doctor Barry Pristosky. Hello, and
welcome again to Courageous Doctors, beingnew show for you and your doctor.
As always, we cover a varietyof topics, COVID updates, updates in
Obamacare and other regulations, we lookat other healthcare news of interest, and

(00:47):
we end with some health and safetytips. So let's begin. COVID not
too much to say. I justwant to mention about the flirt mutation that
the the government says we should havethe new mutations in our fall vaccines for
COVID. They've also said now,for example, I'm over sixty five and

(01:11):
anybody at risk or older can geta COVID shot now from last year.
But I'm gonna wait till the fallso i can get the new shot.
It doesn't look like this mutation iscausing a tremendous increase in severe infections or
hospitalizations. But any COVID, letme tell you, is painful. I
still have patients with COVID and itis very strong enough fun. Here's an

(01:36):
interesting thing I'll in with this oncovid. In case you're wondering how the
flirt the name flirt came around,it's actually the letter stand for the amino
acid proteins, the amino acids thatmake up the proteins that were mutated in
the new spike mutation. So,for example, fenylalanine is the F loosing

(02:00):
the L arching in the R andthree eating the tea. Okay, let's
move on to government regulations and Obamacare. Let's see what we got the Washington
Post. Oh yeah, you guys, this is really scary. Now.
The FDA says it's still safe todrink the pasteurized milk even though a good

(02:23):
percentage of the cows have bird flu. But don't drink raw milk, don't
drink under cooked eggs, don't eatundercooked meat. You know, make sure
your meat is at least one hundredand sixty degrees cooked and I think chickens
like one sixty five, so bevery careful your harb bowled eggs are really

(02:46):
hard boiled. Because the bird fluis in there now, it's not being
passed person to person as far aswe can see. The government is all
over this. I heard a recentupdate yesterday on c SPAN. The government
came the NIH and EXTRAUS Disease NATIONALISTSUDof balogy infection. All of them came

(03:09):
before Congress and they said that sofar there's no person to person transmission,
but workers who are working with thedairy cows have been infected. So far,
nobody's died, but they're estimating therecould be a fifty death rate with

(03:30):
it. So so far there hasn'thappened. Of interest, Again, this
is fresh out of the director ofthe National Institute of Valagene Infection. I
just heard it on TV and speakingto Congress, she said they've been following
these bird flute makeups of the virusfor over ten years as they occurred in

(03:53):
animals, and they think there hasnot been mutations. It's actually the same
virus that went from the animals tothe cows and to the dairy workers.
So this has allowed them to beginmaking vaccines. And I think they have
about four million doses their story,and they'll be able to make more if

(04:16):
it does go person to person.New York Times reports that they're following these
cows closely, so any cows thatare crossing state lines need to be tested
for birdflow. Okay, let's moveon the Associated Press. Oh yeah,
Biden is now allowing you know,the data the children of immigrants who were

(04:40):
never natural citizens here, he's nowallowing them access to Obamacare. That's a
good thing, CBS, this isno good. Still a lot of Medicaid
loss coverage. Remember we've been reportingon this ever since last year when the
emergency crisis for COVID was pulled off. The expansion of people on Medicaid,

(05:02):
A lot of them had to rere enroll, and a lot of that
there was a mess in terms ofpeople getting there and the government, you
know, going through all the newenrollees and but a lot of that stabilized.
But still at least six percent andup to seventeen percent have been kicked

(05:25):
off Medicaid for a variety of reasons. Either they never be enrolled or their
papers were messed up where they're justare no longer eligible since the expansion from
COVID has taken away. Now,why the variation Because states that have expanded
their Medicaid coverage in general nothing todo with COVID, they're going to have

(05:46):
a lower rate of the six percentrather than seventeen percent. Let's see health
payer intelligence. Yeah, this CMShas a final rule on increasing access to
the Medicaid and SHIFT programs. CHIPis where you have a little more money
the working for but you're still unableto you know, you still need the

(06:13):
government insurance for children, but theaccess includes state payments, community services.
Any primary care has to be seenwithin two weeks, mental health within ten
days. Let's see fierce healthcare.Oh yeah, the Federal Trade Commission has

(06:34):
come out with a ruling that ifthere's a breach in our healthcare you know
apps, whatever insurance or information we'reputting into healthcare apps, like when you
you know, when I go toa doctor, I have to download all
my information to the doctor. Anybreach in that has to be notified.

(06:55):
And Reuters says, oh, yeah, this is a bad one. Oh
you guys, Marble, I've beenwatching this all Overseaspan. The United Health
Group it's not actually United Health.It's a subsidiary that controls at least half
to eighty percent of the nation's healthcaretransmission information like moving money and claims,

(07:20):
getting services, whatever has to bemoved. It's through a cloud. All
that information help doctors and hospitals anddialysis centers and pharmacies. How they talked
to the insurance company. The breachcame through another company that was being used

(07:41):
called Citrix, which allows everybody onthe cloud to talk to each other.
So that's where the breach came from. But you guys, I let me
just take a minute, because thiswas very painful. For two months,
I couldn't get vaccines. We hadto take out how a small practice.

(08:01):
I'm a pediatrician. We had totake out sixty thousand dollars just for two
months to pay the staff and paybasic office bills and keep things going.
We couldn't afford vaccines. They're expensive. Vaccines for even a small practice cost
me twenty five thousand a month.And that's even though I get half of
them for free for Medicaid twenty fivethousand private. We couldn't afford it,

(08:26):
and because we couldn't pay our bills, the vaccines weren't going to give us
any freebies. So we basically,and it's not just me, I'm giving
you an example of how what hellwe went through For two months. We
couldn't talk to the insurance company,We couldn't move information, we couldn't not
only couldn't I send out a bill, I couldn't send out referrals to get

(08:46):
patient services. This hack on thenational healthcare system shut this country down for
two months. I mean, theremay have been some people twenty percent or
so that had another line, butmost of the country, like me,
we're using something called Change Change Health, which is the United Healthcare subsidiary that

(09:09):
was managing the cloud. It hasreally nothing to do with un Health.
It's a subsidiary managing the cloud.And it was the breach in Citrix,
which allows all the different players totalk to each other over the cloud.
So this was horrible. We stillhaven't paid back our loan. We're back
on our feet now, we haven'thad to borrow anything, but the billing
service says it's still horrible. Forexample, even though we're getting checks from

(09:33):
the insurance company, the insurance companycan't tell our billers who the checks are.
For, So we can't apply themoney to patients' bills. So we
can't even negotiate things that were denied, whether services or benefits or payments or
what have you. We don't evenknow who the money's going for. I
mean, this is just pure hell. So something's got to give. But

(09:56):
I'm sorry for preventing on you guys. But you have to realize is that
this was a major crisis in America, our biggest fear, and it happened.
All right, let's move on moneywatch USDA. Oh, this is
scary. They're saying that even frozenchicken when you buy it in the supermarket,

(10:20):
like let's say, let's say itwas cooked and then frozen, like
not raw, frozen like if itwas cooked and then it was sold frozen
for you to then thaw it outor something, if they has to be
chucked for salmonella. Now, becausethey're saying, especially things like chicken Cordon
blue or chicken camp that are normallycooked even less, they're saying that these

(10:43):
chickens were cooked and then frozen andsold to us and they weren't cooked enough
and people are getting salmonella. That'sreally really scary. Star Ledger Biden.
Oh yeah, Biden wants to limityou know, the all that plastic craft,
the p F a A S,the forever chemicals in the water.

(11:05):
He wants to limit it now tofour parts per trilliant. I don't know
how he's going to do it,but good luck to him. CNN says
that the Environmental Protection Agency is stilltrying to ban most uses of methyl chloride.
However, that poison is still foundin paint strippers, metal decreases,

(11:26):
aerosols, adhesives, paint encoading products. How these chemicals are all poisoning us
methyl chloride. CNN is Star Ledgersays that the Environmental Protection Agency is this
is great, is decreasing emissions fromfactories where they're homes nearby for the following

(11:48):
chemicals ethylene oxide, chloroprene, benzene, vinyl chloride, Buddha diene, and
ethylene dichloride. And that's a reallygood thing. They should do it for
everything. CNN says that CDC isstill warning us about counterfeit botox. Some
people have died and been injured frombotox. That you know, botox is

(12:13):
botulism, right, I mean,it's a poison. It paralyzes you,
and if it's not used correctly,you can die from it. New York
Times, the United States Preventive ServicesTask Force. Yeah, we've booked about
this before. You guys right,they're just repeating it that ladies need to
start their mammograms at forty years oldto rule up breast cancer. Washington Post.

(12:37):
The FDA proves a spine implant.Get a load of this. It
sent out some kind of pulser sowhen it detects a pain nerve starting to
stimulate a pain sensation, it pulsesit and stops it. And that's by
metronics. That was kind of exciting. The FDA proves a gene therapy for

(12:58):
homophilia B hemo figure B. Youknow there's A and B and that's great.
Let's see New York Times and StarLedger. Oh yeah, Wick,
you know the women's hipping children.A lot of my patients are on that.
They get, you know, subsidiesfor money. They want to give
money more for fruit vegetables and lessfor dairy. However, they still will

(13:24):
allow lackalse free milk, and theyalso want to add camfish and herbs.
CBC says that chocolate milk will remainin the school lunch. I heard in
Congress when the agriculture milk came through. I don't know if you guys watch
it. I'm a c SPAN junkie. So when the agriculture bill came through,
they talked about food stamps and wickand school lunches and all sorts of

(13:50):
things having to do with food,and there was a big thing about you
know what they're going to allow kidsbe well, chocolate milk is in because
they determine that they'd rather than drinkmilk than not drink milk. Now,
this is different dan Wicks for babiesfor babies, this is for big kids
in school. So you know,they're not trying to decrease milk. They
want them to drink milk. Sorather chocolate milk than no milk. New

(14:16):
York Times the USDA wants to decreasesugar and sodium in the school lunch USA
Today, the Council for Responsible Nutritionis asking the FDA for new melatonin packaging
guides due to an increase in emergencyroom physis with melotone and overdose. And

(14:39):
thell Hill newspaper reminds us that wewant shall detern packaging. Don't go away
there's more courageous doctors after these messages. Hi, I'm Ingrid Burke and I'm
Gina Hunger. Gina has known doctorBarry in a professional and personal capacity for
many years and we're thrilled to bein his building. We are psychotherapists and
we offer mental health counseling for agestwelve and up. We do individual,

(15:03):
couples and family counseling. We're alsoexcited to say that we have groups that
we have for teenage boys and girlsfor social skills, anger management, and
self esteem building. If you needto reach us, check us out at
lifeworksandja dot com. Our phone numbersare also listed on that website if you'd
like to contact us, Thank you, Thank you. Waxed In is a
full body unisex studio. We specializein hard wax, which is gentler on

(15:26):
the skin. We do all typesof waxing from head to toel. You
can come in with your friends soyou have the moral support we have our
dervs. You do have to havea minimum of eight people for that party,
and you would schedule that. Everybody'slooking for a hand to hold and
then someone to share the experience withso you can look that up on our
website. We have pre natal waxings. We take a little bit more time

(15:48):
with the new moms, and alot of people will schedule that once they
hit their second trimester. We dohave a waxing membership. It's set up
just like a gym membership, andand just like you would go to the
gym, comes that automatically and youjust show up for your wax. We
have several memberships for different services.We also have wax packages. The phone

(16:08):
number is nine seven three five fourto two eight four four to two.
The website is www dot Thewaxten dotcom. We have twenty four hour online
booking welome to the Waxten le WaxIt All Courageous Doctors continues with doctor Barry

(16:29):
Price Towski. All right, let'smove on to other healthcare news. As
always, I start with recalls,and I have the disclaimer that because I'm
reporting these late, a lot ofthese recalls may have already happened, may
no longer be on the shelf we'rein stores, but it's still important to

(16:56):
mention them because some of them mightstill be actively called, and because some
of them might be in your freezer, refrigerator, so just you know,
just check, check with where youbought it and see if what you have
is one of the recalled items.It's not a big deal. It's better
to be safe. Okay, let'ssee. NPR says the Trader Joe's package

(17:22):
basil package Basil has salmonella and infiniteherbs organic. Washington Post Consumer reports Lunchables
Lunchables to remove craft hinds from schooltrays because they have increased lead and sodium.

(17:45):
Fox says the Greater Omaha Packaging CompanyGround Beef has the coli and I
have an eest number for that,A nine six a USA today. Martinelli
Apple juice as arsenic. We reportedthat last month. Excuse me, BBC,

(18:10):
MDH and Everest Indian spice has ethyleneoxide. That's a poison. Fox
says Planters honey roasted nuts and lightlysalted mixed nuts at Lysteria. So it's
not all Planters Ai Planters the honeyroasted nuts and the lightly salted mixed nuts

(18:33):
at Lysteria. So again, justcheck, you know, you may you
may not have the batch that's involved. You just check the batch number CDC.
There's E coli in organic walnuts fromGibson Farms, and there's salmonella in
organic black fiases from Walmart Bees Insideand stat talk about oh yeah, we

(19:03):
mentioned this, the don eat withbird flu. Don't eat brawl milk on
cooked eggs or uncooked meat. Ohand they also remind you besides cooking the
meat to one sixty and the chickenthe one sixty five, and thoroughly boil
your eggs, keep utensils separate fromraw foods. Money Watch says that there's

(19:23):
still some insulin pump recalls, andHealth Watch says we're still seeing infected artificial
tear eyedrops and that now even dogsare getting infected with them. Okay,
let's move away from recalls and talkabout other healthcare associated press. Yes,
we are seeing measles. I'm stilllooking for it. We're all on the

(19:48):
look for it. I haven't seenit yet, but it is reported,
and so is whooping cough, bythe way, and the measles. A
lot of it's coming from people travelingfrom overseas. They go on a trip,
they come back and they weren't vaccinatedat the demic. That's the name
of the news thing. It mentionsin New York left us by rosis is

(20:12):
from the rat urine. A lotof rats, you know. I didn't
realize that there's even rats here inNutley where I practice. I saw it
on TV the other day. Reuterssays in Peru they're seeing an increased death
rate from dan gay fever. I'malways looking out for den gay. That's
a mosquito disease. Very scary.Independant says in the UK, Prozac led

(20:37):
to suicides. I wonder what's goingon there. I really don't know much
about that. I've never heard ofany body. I mean, people have
emotional problems that are on prozac,but I didn't know prozac can increase suicides.
CNN reminds us of the drug shortages. They're referring to the American Society
for Health System Pharmacists and the Universityof Utah Drug and Post Services. A

(21:03):
lot of its hospital drugs like sterilinjections, chemotherapy. I think that drugs
used in crash cards when somebody's heartstops. But on my side out here
in practice, maybe with the adddrugs and sam antibiotics. The FDA has

(21:23):
oh this is nice as gene therapyfor beta thal in the pallasmia. You
know, it's pretty common in myarea. And they do it by modifying
bone mammal stem cells to have thecorrect gene so that they can make the
right chemoglobin, and that's called sinTegglow from Bluebird Bio Bio in Massachusetts,

(21:48):
Australia reported in jama from the BakerHeart and Diabetes Institute that they are now
screening for cholesterol earlier. My AcademyPediatric says between nine and eleven to start
looking. Okay, let's move onto the last section. You guys,
we're moving rapidly along here for healthand safety tips. Not too much more

(22:11):
of you guys. Yeah, it'ssummertime, so let's talk about on screen
time. Time reminds us and wetalk about this every year that the titanium
dioxide in tincoxide, the barriers,the ones where you coat that takes stuff
on the skin and you have tokeep putting it on every two hours.

(22:33):
That does not get absorbed, whereasthe chemicals, the clean clear chemicals do
get absorbed, and we're not surehow much that damages, especially young kids.
Those chemicals on the labels would saythings like Homo salad oxybenzone AVO,
ben zone opti salaate, octocrylene,optioxalate, So all those ben seeing oxylate

(23:00):
chemicals are absorbed in the skin,and you probably don't want that if you're
breastfeeding or if you're a small kid, So stick with the barriers. They're
safer. Also, you want anSPA if at least thirty reapply it every
two hours, and you want tocover both A and B ultraviolet light.
Let's see star Ledger. Susan Liviois great. I love to read your

(23:22):
columns. Very interesting. The Jerseyhospitals are doing better on safety. We're
up to third in the nation.Thirty out of sixty seven Jersey Hospital's actually
got an A. So we're doingbetter there. And I'm well aware of
that because for many, many yearsI was on the pharmacy committee in my

(23:44):
local hospital and a big part ofthat was safety reporting. Let's see CNN.
Oh, this is scary, youguys, please be careful. I
ask all my teenagers. Here's anotherone. All kinds of crazy stuff with
vaping, all kinds of poisonings.Remember those kids were destroying their lungs.
Now they're finding lead and uranium.I mean, give me a break.

(24:07):
Leading uranium, as if fating wasn'tbad enough, Okay, CNN, Oh
no, this is terrible. Fortypercent of us are living in air pollution,
according to the American Lung. Ican tell your Jersey is probably highest
on that list. Let's see foodsafety. Oh yeah, you guys,
remember we always talk about this,those artificial sweeteners like nia, tame and

(24:36):
aspartame, zach grin, even sucuilos. Apparently the study came out in Medical
Journal of Frontier Nutrition. Doctor Chitcherand doctor Schill found that the sweeteners were
damaging the gut wool and therefore you'regetting disease problems. Let's see Dana Angelo,

(25:00):
I can tell me the Amador.They always had good articles. They
reported that the USDA. Oh yeah, remember we reported that the amount of
pesticides and strawberries and other fruits andthings were high. They said, it's
still safety, don't worry about it. We reported that last month star Ledger,

(25:21):
this is nice on sleep hygen.Yeah. I spent a lot of
time, especially with teenagers on this, and of course little kids too,
can you hunter. I did thisarticle with Molly at Wood at Johns Hopkins.
Psychiatrists try to set up a bufferzone. We call it sleep hygen.
They mentioned one hour maybe for adultswith kids, were like two hours

(25:44):
where you have us slow down,you know, calm stuff, read,
do with your family, do ahobby, don't do anything that's going to
excite you. Eat a little earlierso you don't have a full stomach.
And if you have to snack,make it a healthy snack. Drink caffeine
or alcohol too close to go into bed, and don't look at that
light on your phone all night.Fox. Oh, this is interesting for

(26:08):
I've been very much aware of this. I was for many many years was
a school doctor and I helped outwith the sports teams and we used to
have meetings with the coaches on allkinds of safety tips that I got from
my academy and pediatrics. And nowthey have something called guardian caps. The

(26:29):
pros are using them. They putit on their helmets so they get less
concussions. I've been talking to myteenagers. They said none of the high
school kids use them, but theyprobably should. Oh, this is good
to know. If you store thowedmeat in the fridge, look at the
time timing on that, so youthought out your meat in the fridge from

(26:52):
the freezers to the fridge. Forground meat, poultry and fish, you
should probably cook it in two days. For red meat, lamon beef in
five days. Cook it as soonas you take it out of the fridge,
and don't refreeze if it was onthe counter. Okay, let's see.
Brown and white eggs in case youguys were wandering, are really equal.

(27:15):
The white come from white leghorns andthe brown from Rhode Island red browns.
And you guys to me just Iwould like to end on a positive
note. Although that was pretty positive. I eat a lot of eggs.
Dylan Evans always has a good article. This is fun things. If you
want to prep your breakfast the nightbefore, consider some of these. Read

(27:38):
them slowly. Carrot cake, oats, apple pie, oats, brown batter
oats, Reese's peanut, butter cupoats, nut and berry parfe and keen
keen work pudding. All Right,you guys, it's been fun. Always
enjoy, have a safe, healthysummer. I'll try to get back to

(27:59):
you in a month. The twoprobably well into the summer. Remember the
thing on sunscreens, Remember all thesafety stuff. Be well, have a
happy Memorial Day and all the otherfestive holidays coming up and enjoy seeing you
and would love to hear from you. Take care now. Courageous Doctors,
Pioneers and Heroes. Executive producers BarryS. Price Hosky, MD and Patrick

(28:23):
Himmurucky. Post production Patrick Kmmurucky.Make up by Lisa McAllister, Saloon.
Jimmy Gerard's music provided by Video Blocks. Special thanks to American Medical Association and
New England Journal of Medicine. Visitus on the Internet at Courageous Doctors dot com.