Back to Basics

When The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and all other media in America begin to devote lots of space and time to the subject of bed bugs, you know America has a real pest problem.

Uniquely, I know a lot of pest control professionals because I have worked closely with the industry for a quarter century providing public relations services.

So let me say that I have the ANSWER to the nation’s plague of bed bugs.

It’s called PESTICIDES.

Not just any pesticides, but specifically the ones that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has successfully banned or forced pesticide manufacturers to stop registering or manufacturing because of the cost involved.

The truth you will never read elsewhere is that there are pesticides that will rid the nation of this massive bed bug population explosion and they will do so rapidly. Can you imagine an end to the current bed bug infestations just about everywhere in say, a month?

The problem is that the pesticides I have in mind are not available because the EPA has removed them from use by either pest control professionals or consumers. Meanwhile, pest control professionals are doing everything they can with the methods available to them, all the time being called unreliable or worse. The options they have at their disposal are few and usually expensive.

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite” is no longer a fashionable good-night wish for Big Apple kids, even in the city’s high-rent districts and posh hotels. Growing infestations of the ravenous bloodsuckers have New Yorkers annoyed, anguished, angry about officialdom’s inadequate responses, and “itching” for answers.

Instead, their Bedbug Advisory Board recommends a bedbug team and educational website. Residents, it advises, should monitor and report infestations. Use blowdryers to flush out (maybe 5% of) the bugs, then sweep them into a plastic bag and dispose properly. Throw away (thousands of dollars worth of) infested clothing, bedding, carpeting and furniture.

Hire (expensive) professionals who (may) have insecticides that (may) eradicate the pests – and hope you don’t get scammed. Don’t use “risky” pesticides yourself. Follow guideline for donating potentially infested furnishings, and be wary of bedbug risks from donated furniture and mattresses.

New Yorkers want real solutions, including affordable insecticides that work. Fear and loathing, from decades of chemophobic indoctrination, are slowly giving way to a healthy renewed recognition that the risk of not using chemicals can be greater than the risk of using them (carefully). Eco-myths are being replaced with more informed discussions about alleged effects of DDT and other pesticides on humans and wildlife.

Thankfully, bedbugs have not been linked to disease – except sometimes severe emotional distress associated with obstinate infestations, incessant itching, and pathetic “proactive” advice, rules and “solutions” right out of Saturday Night Live.

It is hellish for people who must live with bedbugs, and can’t afford professional eradication like what Hilton Hotels or Mayor Bloomberg might hire. But imagine what it’s like for two billion people who live 24/7/365 with insects that definitely are responsible for disease: malarial mosquitoes.

Malaria infects over 300 million people annually. For weeks or months on end, it renders them unable to work, attend school or care for their families – and far more susceptible to death from tuberculosis, dysentery, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition and other diseases that still stalk their impoverished lands.

In the past we have sought to demonstrate how inflation (devaluation) of the currency is the perfect crime.

We said that your paper money can be inflated (devalued) to zero even if it is locked in a concrete vault 40 miles deep and no one knows where it is. You may think it is safe and secure and that it is your stored currency paper money, but little by little its value declines.

The money creators (those who print paper money) can steal the purchasing power of your paper money no matter where it is. All they have to do is pour more water in the milk—dilute the value of all paper money by printing more.

What if you have gold and silver in a vault buried 40 miles deep? Well, as the money creators destroy the value of your paper money as we described, the value of your gold and silver increases in value, as related to the depreciating paper money.

Your gold and silver appreciates and gains in value even buried deep in your vault with no risk and no interest. It is safe from manipulation.

Bankers say gold (which they hate) is a very poor investment because it pays no interest. They don’t say that it gains in value as paper money is depreciated. So holding gold and silver is the ultimate asset/investment during times like now when governments all debauch their own currencies.

Keep your eyes focused on the rogue corporatist Congress over the next couple of weeks as the reconciliation process takes place to merge the House and Senate versions of the financial reform legislation in a conference committee.

While the provisions in the two bills which further centralize control over the financial system in the hands of power-grabbing chief executive are bad enough, a provision in the House version that has nothing at all to do with finance has really caught our attention and must be defeated.

It’s an amendment that would give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the authority to require supplement companies perform at least two human studies before making any claims for their products, according to the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH). Currently, supplements are regulated under the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA).

The amendment to HR 4173 was introduced by Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and has nothing to do with the financial services industry. But it will limit your ability to acquire and use natural health supplements.

The trials the amendment requires are time-consuming and beyond the financial means of most supplement companies, according to the ANH. And even if the companies could find the money, the FTC could require more and more costly versions of these studies, or more of those studies. At each stage, fewer supplements would be available, and those available would cost more and more, until they became as costly as drugs.

The decisions about supplements would then be placed in the hands of five unelected FTC commissioners who could issue binding regulations in a wide range of areas. And companies that didn’t comply with the new rules could be put out of business.

It’s not an unusual tactic as the FTC has done this before with other companies who didn’t toe their line.

“According to renowned constitutional attorney Jonathan Emord, ‘The provision removing the ban on FTC rulemaking without Congressional preapproval contained in H.R. 4173 invites the very same irresponsible over-regulation of the commercial marketplace that led Congress to enact the ban in the 1980s. FTC has no shortage of power to regulate deceptive advertising; this bill gives it far more discretionary power than it needs, inviting greater abuse and mischief from an agency that suffers virtually no check on its discretion.’” (www.anh-usa.org)

Waxman is an enemy to freedom, choice in medical decisions and to the supplement industry. On his website, Waxman writes: “I am troubled that the FDA lacks the basic information necessary to protect consumers from unsafe dietary supplements. The FDA clearly needs to have more resources to give consumers real protection. I intend to work with my colleagues in Congress to ensure that FDA has the tools it needs to address this and other important public health missions.”

What we can expect from the government takeover of our health care is already starting to reveal its deadly intensions.

The H1N1 vaccine, purchased by and controlled by the government, was a promise that couldn’t be kept.  There was supposed to be enough vaccine available for all those who were at risk as well as it sounding like for anyone else that wanted the vaccine.  Since early this year the government was telling the public how much of an epidemic the H1N1 flu was going to be and was encouraging everyone to get vaccinated.  But when the time came to pay up the government fell far short of their promises.

The H1N1 is a separate vaccination from the regular annual flu vaccinations.  The regular flu vaccination is controlled by private industry.  Those vaccinations have been produced, distributed and are available at your doctor’s office or clinic for anyone requesting it.  In fact, my family doctor asked at my annual exam if I wanted to receive the vaccination.

However, the H1N1 is a different story.  The vaccine was purchased and distribution is being controlled by the government.  While they promised to have enough to go around they fell far short.  The government is controlling all quantities of this vaccine, including where the vaccines are to be sent and how much.  It is only being distributed to government sponsored agencies, so your doctor probably didn’t even receive the vaccine.  In order to obtain the vaccination you have to go to a vaccination clinic.  Even then, if you are not considered high risk you may be denied the vaccination.  So by the end of this year’s flu season only 25% of the H1N1 vaccine will have been distributed.  The rationing has already begun.

Then this week I read an article from the New York Times about a government task force deciding mammograms for women are no longer necessary until age 50, and then only every other year.  They further decided that self-breast exams didn’t do any good and should be discontinued.  Their recommendation was between 50-75 mammograms should be done every other year and after the age of 75 they haven’t yet decided.  Could this be because they are embracing the ideas of the Obama Czars – that anyone over 75 isn’t worth the cost of medical treatment because they have served their usefulness in society already?

How many people know of at least one woman who is alive today because of early detection and treatment of breast cancer?  How many others hear of the terrible tragedy other women face when the breast cancer was diagnosed in a much later stage and it had spread to lymph nodes or other parts of the body.  Sure, they may not have died from breast cancer, but they died from cancer initially caused from the spreading of the breast cancer.

The American Cancer Society came out against the task forces finding.  Does the government task force know more about cancer that the American Cancer Society?  Shouldn’t this decision be between the woman and her doctor?  No, this is all about money.  The task force says that testing 1300 women to save one life is worth it, but testing 1900 to save one life isn’t.  This is the government playing God.  I’m sure if that life that could be saved were yours or a close family member or friend anyone would agree it was worth it.  What price do you put on a life?  What right does the government have to establish that price?

A real case of government healthcare…

One of my daughters became pregnant and found to everyone’s surprise she was going to have identical twins.  The news came with mixed emotions as well as difficult decisions.  This was not her first child and she, like many in the family, believes in natural childbirth without medication.  Only her first child was born in a hospital while all the others were born at home with a midwife.

She initially started seeing her midwife for prenatal visits, but when they discovered she was expecting twins the reality of government interference took hold.  The state of Arizona does not allow midwives to knowingly delivery twins, so they had to find a doctor.  They are on the state insurance, which poses it’s own challenges.  However, trying to find a doctor that not only would accept the state insurance but would also deliver twins and accept a patient at 10 weeks became almost an impossible task.  It took her a month to even obtain the booklet of doctors she requested from the state to start her search.  She went through the book and was more often turned down because the doctors no longer accepted the state insurance.  With the help of her midwife and fortunately a state employee willing to help, she was able to obtain the services of a high-risk OB team.

Through the ultrasounds they discovered the babies were identical twins, had separate bags of water but shared one placenta.  This put her in a higher risk category.  At one point during the pregnancy they determined she was experiencing twin-to-twin transfer and was then referred to a specialist.  Because of this the doctors wanted to see her 3 times a week and she underwent regular ultrasounds and non-stress tests.  During her third trimester an ultrasound indicated she actually had two placentas; that there was a division in the placenta that had not previously been noticed; the twins may not be identical.  At that time it was also revealed that she had not actual experienced twin-to-twin transfer, it was only borderline.  With only 4 weeks remaining until her due date the doctor told her she needed to find another doctor because she was now no longer considered high risk!

She took childbirth classes at the hospital she was to deliver at.  She is also a childbirth instructor so these classes were quite unnecessary from a childbirth aspect, but with this unusual pregnancy she wanted to be informed about the hospital, their procedures, as well as the special considerations in delivering twins.

During her regular doctor visits they discussed the expectations of delivery.  This resulted in a difference of opinion from the doctors and expectant parents.  The doctors believed in a medicated birth with a likely outcome of an induced labor as well as a cesarean delivery.  The parents believed in an unmedicated birth, as natural as possible, and only in an emergency to save the mother and/or babies did they want a cesarean.  They created their birth plan and the doctors made their modifications.  They were able to “negotiate” delaying an induction until 38 weeks.

She went in to labor naturally and the first baby came quickly.  They never made it to the hospital.  Labor never stopped and what seemed like a very short time later the second baby was delivered; he was a breech delivery.  Both babies were well and of good size, especially for twins (7 lbs. 14 oz. and 6 lbs. 9 oz.) with the mother and father cooperating during delivery; no one else was present.  This was a Sunday and at this point they did not want to go to the hospital because there was no need.  So they contacted one of their midwifes who came over to make sure mother and babies were okay – everyone was fine.  It also turns out the twins are identical, sharing only one placenta – the latest ultrasounds were wrong!

John McCain’s Town Hall Meeting – August 26, 2009

John McCain's Town Hall Meeting - Aug 26, 2009

A very passionate crowed attended John McCain’s town hall meeting held at the North Phoenix Baptist Church.  Even while waiting for the doors to open for seating, people became engaged in discussion with others about the bill and other political concerns facing the US today.

The pastor of the church welcomed everyone and said a prayer for all.  Betsy Bayless, CEO of Maricopa Integrated Health System gave a brief speech and introduced Senator John McCain, who received a standing welcome.  After giving his thank you’s and covering the etiquette of town hall meetings, he started his introduction into the health care issue when a woman in the crowd started yelling out comments and Senator McCain politely asked her to be quiet or leave.  She was escorted out while the crowd applauded.  I was sitting only a few seats from her and couldn’t understand a word she said, so other than creating a public display, she did nothing to further her personal cause.

The meeting continued, with no further outbreaks, no riots, not even one picket sign that I could see.  Individuals were allowed to speak, often with the crowds’ applause.  Depending on which side of the fence they spoke on, they might also have faced a mixed response with applause and booing, but all remained civil. One young lady voiced her concerns on government spending and how it will affect her grandchildren, and told Senator McCain to give her 10 minutes of his time and she could tell him how to fix it.  She was about 10 years old and you have to give her a lot of credit for speaking up.  Maybe a political career is in her future!

Senator McCain showed the Senate bill, the equivalent of House bill.  He did not go into many details about the bill, but did state there are earmarks in the bill, one of which covers union pensions.  He said we have the highest quality health care in the world and we need to preserve it and make it affordable.  He stated the spending going on in the government today is generational theft and we cannot continue to expand without the ability to pay for it.

He shared the Congressional Budget Office reports which indicated the president and democrat’s bill expands government, does nothing to decrease medical costs, and will in fact increase costs over time instead of decrease them.  He indicated the Mayo Clinic also spoke out against the bill indicating it misses the opportunity and does the opposite of what was intended.  He also stated the drug companies made a deal with the White House.