03/15/07
This Week In HealthBeat News:
This is a repeat of last week’s “urgent announcement.” It is SO important that I WANT TO BE SURE EVERYONE SAW IT. If you already took action, good for you and please go enjoy the other articles from this week’s HealthBeat. (And be sure to pass this information along to friends and family)……
More Proof-Positive That Big Pharma Doesn’t Give a Damn
About Your Health
by Dr. Dana Myatt
Breast cancer rates have not changed significantly in the last 50 years with one notable exception. The rates dropped an unbelievable 7% in just one year when the news about the connection between Premarin (Pregnant Mares Urine) hormone therapy and breast cancer finally broke. This was barely mentioned by the media, then it disappeared. I’m not sure if many people really caught the significance of this, so let’s review it in a nutshell.
In 2001, sales of Premarin and Prempro (conventional hormone replacement therapy for post-menopausal women) exceeded $2 billion. In 2002, the huge Women’s Health Initiative Study showed that both Prempro and Premarin significantly increased women’s risks of breast cancer, heart attacks and dementia. (This information was actually known 20 years ago, even before the Women’s Health Initiatit5ve Study, when I was just a medical student. But the news just “broke” to the general public in the last several years). As a result of the study’s findings about these increased health risks, use of Premarin and Prempro plummeted along with sales. Revenues from these poisons fell to less than $1 million per year ($880,000 to be exact) by 2004. That’s a drop of 99.96% in sales and profits if you need a little help with the math.
Benefits of Natural (Bio-identical) Hormone Replacement Therapy
Many women turned from these deadly Big Pharma hormones to natural, aka bio-identical, hormone replacement therapy which so far appears to be MUCH safer than the drug versions of hormones. The big difference is that natural hormone replacement therapy attempts to duplicate a woman’s hormones (replace the same approximate amounts the exact same hormones a woman has when younger), instead of giving un-natural amounts of only the strongest female horse-hormones, which is what the drug versions do. Here is what we know about the benefits of natural hormone replacement therapy (nHRT):
* Natural HRT has been used in the U.S. for almost 25 years without a single related death or complaint
* Unlike synthetic HRT drugs (typically made from horse urine), bio-identical hormones use the same four main sex hormones that the body makes, and in “physiologic” amounts (amounts similar to what the body makes)
* Unlike “one-size-fits-all” horse hormone prescriptions, natural HRT prescriptions are custom-tailored to individual patients
* Natural HRT still requires a doctor’s prescription and supervision
Because the nHRT duplicates the pattern of natural female hormones, they appear to be far safer than conventional HRT. In fact, there is evidence that nHRT may actually help prevent breast cancer instead of causing it. Many women have found relief from menopausal complaints over the past 25 years with this apparently far-safer form of hormone replacement therapy.
Big Pharma Doesn’t Give a Damn About Your Health
In October of 2005, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, manufacturers of Prempro and Premarin, filed a complaint with the FDA asking that the sale of ALL bio-identical hormones be banned. That’s right —Wyeth, makers of cancer-causing hormones, has petitioned the FDA to outlaw the natural HRT alternatives that are safer, more effective, and cheaper than their dangerous drugs. This should go a long way to preserving the less than one half of one-thousandth the dollars they used to make on these killers. Apparently, Wyeth cares more about protecting the now-miniscule market-share of their line of dismally failing drugs than they do for protecting women’s lives.
Wyeth’s drugs were causing at least 7% of the country’s breast cancers, yet now they want to take away access to the much safer hormone alternative. See how much our lives are worth to Big Pharma?
Why the FDA Sleeps with Big Pharma
Our lives aren’t worth any more to the FDA than they are to Big Pharma. After all, Big Medicine, Big Pharma and their Bed Partner the FDA are about Big Money, not altruistic endeavors. (I hope I’m not popping anyone’s candy-colored bubble here).
The FDA receives “drug user fees,” which totaled over 3 billion dollars in 2004 from pharmaceutical companies for the drugs they sell. The less drugs that Wyeth or any Big Pharma Company sells, the less money goes into the FDA coffers. Natural hormones, made by “compounding pharmacies,” are regulated by the states. The FDA does not receive any money from the sale of natural hormones. No wonder the FDA is just as eager as Wyeth to either outlaw natural hormones OR have compounding pharmacies fall under their (FDA) jurisdiction.
Because the FDA and Big Pharma are bedfellows, an FDA ruling on the matter would have gone in favor of Wyeth last year had it not been for a massive grassroots effort that appeared to put the matter to rest. Now enter the double-dealing “tag on” bill brought to you by our “Also don’t give a damn about the individual” politicians.
Crooked Politicians Aid and Abet The FDA and Big Pharma
(The Sneaky End-Run Around)
Another surprise to some of you, I know, but politicians actually aid and abet this Big Money Machine, not our individual health freedoms or our personal health concerns. Just several days ago, this “tag on” piece of legislation was introduced by Senators Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.), aka “the usual suspects.” It should be noted that Senator Kennedy is # 4 on the list of the top 20 political recipients of Big Pharma money, reporting a total of $221,550 received from the Pharmaceutical Industry in 2006 alone.
“The Safe Drug Compounding Act of 2007,” deftly tacked on the back of a major FDA funding bill, will be voted on the end of this month and will surely pass (so much for our legislators “reigning in” the FDA). What this sneaky “tag” will do is drastically curtail compounding pharmacies and place them under FDA control instead of state control. Expect to kiss your natural (bio-identical) hormone replacement therapy and all other compounded prescriptions
good-bye.
Notice how this “tag” was placed at the last minute (so few people would have time to hear about it, much less respond), and how it was added to a bigger bill that is sure to pass? Evil, dirty, rotten nasty politics. This stinks, but it’s the “modus operandi” of Big Government and other Big Money interests. You and I don’t matter at all to these people except for the money we can put in their collective pockets, and our individual health and freedom be damned.
Take Action Now to Preserve Compounding Pharmacy
and Natural Hormone Replacement Therapy
Remember that I promised to let you know when it was time to take action on an impending health freedom matter? The time is NOW to protect compounding pharmacy and natural hormone replacement therapy.
What You Must Do Today to Protect Your/Our Health Freedom
Since almost no one except HealthBeat readers have even heard about this yet, the opportunity for a grassroots movement to stop this legislation is cutting close. Don’t wait until next week to act. Here is what you need to do if you want to help save compounding
pharmacy and health freedom in general and natural hormone replacement therapy in particular.
You need to write a letter to both your state Senators AND your state Representatives. This letter should be FAXED to their office, not mailed. A fax is far more potent than a phone call (if you can even get through) or an email. It is estimated that each individual fax carries the weight of 13,000 voters (because they figure about one in about 13,000 who care about a particular subject will ever actually contact a representative). Here is what you need to say, and it is short and sweet:
(Please modify this into your own words, but this is the gist of it):
_________________________
Dear Senator BlowHard:
I am vehemently opposed to the proposed “Safe Drug Compounding Act of 2007” and request that you vote “no” on this stealthy tag-on legislation. Leave compounding pharmacy where it belongs, under state jurisdiction. Further, I believe the dysfunctional FDA does
not need more control over drug regulation, they need less.
Please help protect what shred of my health freedom remains by voting “no” on this senseless legislation.
Your Voting Constituent,
Joe Doaks
___________________________
How to locate your representatives:
Locate your representatives by state
Locate your senators by state
_____________________________
Political Action Steps Summary:
1.) Fax your state’s senators and representatives ASAP. If you don’t have a fax machine, http://www.faxzero.com lets you send out 2 free faxes per day. (Hot tip on free faxing courtesy of Steven C.). A fax really is that much more important and worth your time than an email, and a typed or legibly hand-written letter carries a LOT of weight!
2.) Pass this note on to friends, family, anyone who gives a darn about health freedom. (You know, all those people you forward e-mail jokes to). If you have friends who aren’t on e-mail, snail-mail them this information. Encourage them to pass it along to as many people as they can.
Grassroots movements have saved the day on other health freedoms issues in the past decade. We must not underestimate the power of the general citizenry (that’s us!) to slay the dragons that jeopardize our freedom. Since the pen is mightier than the sword, please draw your weapon and let’s see if we can save the day for health freedom once again.
In Pursuit of Health and Freedom,
Dr. Myatt
Why Don’t You Bill Insurance?
by Mark Ziemann, R.N.
[Dr. Myatt’s Note: The following commentary is a continuation of Nurse Mark’s Poor, Poor Pitiful Me: Why Some People Will Never Get Well and Would Your Plumber Work This Cheap? from previous weeks’ HealthBeat News. If you haven’t read these articles, you might want to check them out first to see what has gotten my mild-mannered Nurse in such a tizzy. I do believe this is the final installment of Nurse Mark’s indignation! ;-)]
“Why Don’t You Just Bill My Insurance?” This plea usually comes from someone wanting to book an appointment, but who is haggling and chiseling at the cost. “But she is so expensive – I couldn’t possibly afford that much money…” These people almost invariably go elsewhere, usually to their “conventional” doc, who is only too happy to give them a 5 to 10 minute visit, a mandatory drug prescription as a “prize” for visiting, and send them happily on their way. These doctors usually have a bustling office staff devoted to scheduling patients in at ten-minute intervals, and an even busier back-office staff devoted to doing all the preliminary paperwork that goes to the insurance company to generate income for the doctor and his staff. Even with a back-office staff doing much of the prep work, the doctor will still spend several hours each day finishing up his or her part of the insurance paperwork. This really is a major business, and must be run as efficiently as possible if that doctor is to achieve the desired income.
Here is the history behind Dr. Myatt’s decision to “opt out” of the insurance business. As she tells it, it was one of those rare “ah hah” moments in life. Many years ago, while working for a major holistic medical clinic in Phoenix (one that accepted insurance, as most do),
Dr. Myatt came into the office an hour early one morning to plow through the mountain of insurance paperwork that her busy medical practice required. Anyone who does their own income taxes has some idea of what these forms look like, with one notable exception. Each insurance provider has a different form and requirement of what information is needed.
So there sat Dr. Myatt, scratching her head and grinding her way through a mountain of paperwork when in walked one of the clinic nurses, announcing that there was a work-in patient in the ER, here before regular clinic hours with severe breathing difficulty and chest pain. Doctor Myatt was the only physician available (of course she was — it was over an hour before the clinic usually opened)! As The Good Doctor shifted mental gears from paper-pusher to emergency room physician, she found herself for just a moment feeling resentful. After all, how could she get the insurance paperwork completed if she was interrupted with patients? Like a splash of cold water in the face, this thought was immediately replaced with the realization of what the paper-pushing had done to her. Too busy doing insurance paperwork to see a patient? She got up, saw the patient (who was in severe cardiac distress due to a non-functional mitral valve) and decided right then and there that she would never resent seeing a patient for want of more time to fill out insurance forms.
Dr. Myatt “opted out” of insurance and Medicare at that time (it is no longer possible for a physician to “opt out” of Medicare), and has never looked back or regretted her decision. She now spends all of her time on patient care, and her results speak for themselves.
Here at the Wellness Club, we work at a slower pace. We book each patient for a full hour, and visits often run longer. We focus entirely on the patient and on how to make them well, not on how to comply with sometimes-impossible insurance forms.
I recently had a patient (one of our “incurable” success stories) ask me “do you really make any money at this?” and I had to answer honestly. We cover the bills and expenses and we are comfortable, but we are not “rich” and aren’t likely to get rich any time soon unless we hit the lotto.
People measure success by many different markers. Some see success as a big, fancy home (we live in a comfortable but modest straw bale home where we have clean air, clean water, and plenty of outdoors to enjoy). Others measure success by the car they drive (we have an older model van and an older model Saturn wagon). We also have a — you guessed it, older model — RV that allows us to travel to see patients, lecture, and teach. Still other people believe that their success is measured in their 401K’s, retirement pensions and gold-plated medical (sickness) insurance plans. We have no plans to “retire” for as long as we can keep helping people find better health, our “health insurance” is our daily supplement and vitamin regimen (especially Maxi Multis!), clean air, clean water, good food, and modest exercise, and our “retirement plan” is to build a modest home that is completely self-sustainable (no electric company or propane delivery required) and raise our own food.
Dr. Myatt could undoubtedly make more money if we “took insurance.” This would require seeing far more patients for far less time each, and there would be no time for individual “case study,” but it would certainly bring a bigger income.
Would we be “more successful” if we “took” insurance? Not if you calculate success like we do, by the number of people that we have helped. We sleep well at night knowing we are giving our all to each and every patient, and we never find ourselves feeling annoyed that a patient is disturbing our paperwork time. Most importantly, many patients reaffirm our “success” when they thank us for helping them with “incurable” medical problems that conventional medicine has given up on.
Now that’s success in our book!
Cheers,
Nurse Mark
P.S. Here is the information from the “Insurance” page of our website for those who are interested.
How Our Office Handles Insurance
Q: Does Dr. Myatt Accept Medicare or Medicaid?
A: No. Dr. Myatt “opted out” of Medicare years ago. Without a UPN number (universal provider number required by Medicare), there is no way for Medicare to cover Dr. Myatt’s services. Further, Medicare rarely covers the type of progressive, alternative care that Dr. Myatt and other holistic physicians provide.
Q: Does Dr. Myatt accept insurance?
A: No. Services are due and payable on the day they are rendered.
Q: Will Dr. Myatt fill out insurance paperwork if I file a claim myself?
A: Yes. Dr. Myatt will gladly complete any necessary insurance paperwork including writing letters of medical necessity, as required by your insurance company for you to file a claim yourself. However, all time spent completing insurance paperwork or writing such letters is billed at Dr. Myatt’s usual hourly fee of $240. For example, if it takes Dr. Myatt one-half hour to complete insurance paperwork, the patient will be billed $120.
Q: Why does Dr. Myatt charge for filling out insurance paperwork? My other doctor does this for free.
A: Your other doctor spends 5-10 minutes with you and charges for a complete office visit. Dr. Myatt charges for the office visit (typically one hour, the entire time of which is devoted to your care), then spends an average of 2-12 hours in “case study” following your exam or phone consultation. This additional time spent on case study is not charged for but is included in your visit. Very few physicians spend so much time and attention on an individual patient.
Insurance paperwork is incredibly time-consuming. This is valuable time that Dr. Myatt prefers to spend studying the patient’s case in order to get the patient well, not shuffling papers.
When you consider the true amount of time Dr. Myatt spends on an individual case, you will see that her fees are a bargain. When you find yourself recovering from an “incurable” illness, you will further understand why Dr. Myatt’s case-study time is so valuable and why we charge for the non-wellness time spent on paperwork.
Cheers,
Nurse Mark
The Bacon and Egg Cure for High Cholesterol
Is your cholesterol still “too high”? (Above 230, but this depends on what your “good cholesterol,” or HDL levels, are, too).
We get calls and letters literally every day with questions about how to lower high cholesterol. The self-treatment stories we hear include “I only eat good carbohydrates,” or “I almost never eat eggs.” To which we reply, “well no wonder your cholesterol is high!”
You see, what you have probably heard about how to lower cholesterol is completely backwards. If it was correct, you’d see big result in as little as a month. If you’ve been on your cholesterol-avoidance diet for more than a month and haven’t seen dramatic improvements, then you have proof that you are on the wrong track. Clearly, it’s time to try a new approach. Cholesterol levels don’t take that long to change.
I had a telephone follow-up with new patient Kim this week. She’s thrilled because the migraine headaches she originally contacted me about are gone. Not reduced, but completely gone, no drugs needed. As a side-effect, she’s lost 30 pounds and her once-high cholesterol levels have dropped like a rock, back into the normal range for the first time in many years. Her secret? She’s following my advice and having either a Super Shake or bacon and eggs for breakfast, along with following the rest of The Myatt Diet. It wasn’t an easy “sell” to convince her to eat this way, but now she’s an absolute missionary for The Myatt Diet. (You’ll see her testimonial in an upcoming HealthBeat). She also tells me that she’s amazed how her food cravings have completely disappeared, so she’s not missing her former junk food, including “good carbs.”
If you’ve bought into the prevalent but misguided idea that avoiding cholesterol will lower your cholesterol, here’s a hot “biochemical tidbit.” When you lower dietary cholesterol, your liver simply makes more. (Cholesterol comprises 80% of the cell wall of every cell in your body, so it’s a very valuable commodity indeed). Fortunately, your liver knows how to make cholesterol even when you don’t eat it. When you stop eating eggs, your liver detects a “cholesterol famine” and cranks out more of this life-giving fat. Your attempts to outsmart Mother Nature will fail. (You can’t get up early enough to fool Mama Nature)!
Low Cholesterol diets rarely work to lower cholesterol. Eating only “good carbs” rarely works to lower cholesterol. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” Stop struggling with your cholesterol levels and go have some bacon eggs for breakfast! — Dr. Myatt
* Calling All Fellow Gardeners! *
Greenest Envy: Make Your Garden The Talk of The Neighborhood
Grow Bigger Flowers, Greener Lawns, Humongous Produce
I like to garden. It pleases me no end to see my front yard filled with bright splashes of color all season long and bring fresh cuttings indoors for a continual warm-weather treat. And really, can you call those tasteless red things from the grocery store a tomato after you’ve tasted home-grown? A juicy red beefsteak still warm from the vine atop fresh-picked lettuce puts me in salad bliss. Not only is home-grown produce far fresher and more convenient, it can be FAR healthier than store-bought produce grown with synthetic fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides, then sprayed with anti-fungal agents, spoilage retardants and Goddess only knows what else so they’ll “keep” longer on the grocery shelf. The toxic spate of chemicals in produce often offsets the value of “eating green” in the first place! For my money and health, homegrown is better whenever I can pull it off. The problem is, how do you fertilize and keep bugs at bay without those nasty chemicals? Much as I hate to use them, there’s no doubt that many of them are effective at what they do.
Fortunately, I’ve found a marvelous gardening secret: Gardens Alive!
Gardens Alive! offers non-toxic solutions for just about every garden problem you can name. Got pests? They have non-toxic solutions that are effective and affordable. Lawn problems? Their seeds and growth enhancers (again, all non-toxic) will give you the greenest lawn on the block with far less effort. Their fruit, vegetable and flower growth enhancers produce bigger, healthier yields without fail. Kill nasty garden pests without harm to yourself or your pets; have an enviably perfect lawn and harvest eye-popping produce with these not-to-be-missed garden solutions. No more nematodes, blossom end-rot or meager yields for me, no siree! Bye bye deer and birds sharing my harvest (it wouldn’t be so bad if they’d eat the whole leaf or fruit instead of pecking one hole in every leaf, huh?). I even get a jump-start on the season with their ingenious little seed starter kits.
I’ve never seen anything like the array of products offered at Gardens Alive! They even have solutions for helping keep your pets healthy. Best of all, these non-toxic solutions are not only more effective than their synthetic counterparts, they are also less expensive in almost every case.
If you do any gardening at all, you owe it to yourself to take a look at these incredible products. Imagine the pride you’ll feel harvesting state-fair quality produce and flowers, or enjoying a golf-course quality lawn that will be the envy of your entire neighborhood! Please be sure to take “before” and after” pictures of your efforts so we can show them off to other gardening readers.
Here are some of my top recommendations:
Gardens Alive! Organic Garden With Seed 
Got 4’x4′ of space? You can have a complete organic garden with 10 vegetables, easy and weed-free. This kit R-O-C-K-S! I’m setting one up on my deck this summer and I’ll have organic salads all season long.
Vegetables Alive! Fertilizer Dramatically increase your yield of lettuce, peas, broccoli, cabbage, beans, cucumbers, melons and more.
Turf Alive! Brand 
Have a thick, green lawn the looks like a lush golf course without the toxic chemicals. Your neighbors will hate you.
Portabella Mushroom Kit Portabellas have a wonderful texture and flavor, plus they’re loaded with nutrients including vitamin B and potassium. They can be difficult to find at the supermarket (and they’re expensive), but with this kit you can grow your own and enjoy fresh mushrooms in 3-5 weeks.
No Fleas, Please! Stop fleas outdoors AND kill ’em indoors. Non-toxic, inexpensive, effective. Outdoor Flea Control
and Indoor Flea Control
AND, Here’s a “starter special” for you:
$20 FREE off your first order at Gardens Alive for Wellness Club Members!
Happy Gardening!
— Dr. Myatt
Laughter is Good Medicine : Best Single’s Ad Ever
This has to be one of the best singles ads ever printed. It is reported to have been listed in the Atlanta Journal.
SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I’m a very good girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I’ll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me. Call (404) 875-XXXX and ask for Lucy, I’ll be waiting…. (Click here to see the punch line):
DANA MYATT, N.M.D.
