A recent study published by scientists in Victoria, Australia provides even more compelling evidence that post-operative use of pain pumps in patients undergoing shoulder surgeries is a bad idea.   A number of researchers have noted that patients who utilized post-operative pain pumps which bathed their shoulder joints with anesthetic drugs were at high risk for the development of cartilage damage.  The condition was so striking (and virtually unprecedented as a result of other causes) that the condition was termed Post-Arthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis.  Most orthopaedic surgeons no longer place pain pump catheters in the intra-articular space as a result of the discovery of this devastating complication. 

Eighty-eight patients undergoing shoulder surgeries (rotator cuff repair or decompression) participated in this latest study.   The patients were given 1% ropivacaine and intra-operative IV parecoxib (a Cox 2 inhibitor similar to Vioxx, Bextra or Celebrex that is marketed under the name Dynastat) in connection with the surgery and then randomly assigned to a placebo or control group or given .75% ropivacaine by an elastomeric pump at 5 ml/hour.  The patients receiving the anesthetic drug report a “significant but clinically unimportant” decrease in pain for the first 12 hours following surgery.  Once adjustments were made for opioid use by the patients, there was no difference in the level of pain relief experienced by those who received intra-articular injections of pain medications versus those receiving a placebo.

The “Good Old Days” are gone when crops were organically grown, we lived off the land and grew our own produce and raised our own farm animals.

Our environment has become crowded; we have factories that mass produce our food items; and our water, in some instances, has become contaminated along with the air we breathe.

Over the past few years there have been several investigations of birth defects and various types of cancer caused by pesticides and other pollutants introduced into our environment; some knowingly and some unknowingly. 

Just this past week in an area of Palm Beach County, Florida known as the Acreage, it has come to light that there is an ongoing investigation of a possible cancer cluster.  The Acreage, before it became densely populated like it is today, was a large agricultural part of Palm Beach County.  It also was the site of dumping just about anything someone wanted to get rid of.  It is possible that some cancer causing agent has made its way into the soil or water system.  When cancer starts affecting people in a clustered area you can’t help but wonder what is causing it.  Hopefully, in the generations to come, we will find a way to limit the gases, pesticides, fuel emissions and other environmentally unfriendly pollutants that find their way into our environment thus making our planet a safer haven for the human race.

To read more on cancer clusters see www.cancer.gov and search for cancer clusters and agricultural health study.  You can also go to the Palm Beach Post website and search for “Parents in the Acreage fear possible cancer cluster; state looks at incidence rate.”

I saw recently that a U.S. Senator had sponsored a bill to have the FDA regulate the Tobacco companies.  According to an article in June 12, 2009 Washington Post newspaper, the bill was sponsored by Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

It seems the FDA has had poor success in regulating other substances recently.  For example, there was the peanut butter scare which, according to Huliq News, began on January 13, 2009 when the Peanut Corp. of America recalled 21 lots of peanut butter from their plant in Blakely, Georgia.  That recall was expanded by Peanut Corporation of America to include all peanut butter manufactured at the Blakely, Georgia plant since July 1, 2008, according to Huliq News.  That recall affected brand name food manufacturers, such as Kellogg’s and Little Debbie, who used the tainted peanut butter to make their products, according to the Huliq News article.  People are so worried that they are constantly checking ingredients lists of processed foods made with peanut butter.  And all of this public scrutiny is taking place because the FDA did not catch a company in Georgia that continued selling tainted peanut butter to a host of food manufacturers.

Because of a continuous flow of news about the FDA’s inability to keep check on food and drug manufacturers, people are seriously concerned about safe food and drug consumption.  For example, consumers are wary about which dietary supplement sold over the counter may cause permanent liver damage, or which cold medicine may cause them to lose their sense of smell.

The issue of funding is yet another important matter.  Industry funds the FDA in a range that falls between 60 % to 70 %.  Therefore, a pharmaceutical company or food manufacturing company , are both possible funding source for the Food and Drug Administration.  The FDA treats those companies more like customers than as companies that the FDA is supposed to be regulating.  Our government created the FDA to help keep the people of our country safe from contaminated food and bad drugs.  Now, it seems more of a case of the fox guarding the hen house.

After watching a CBS 60 MINUTES special on how the FDA’s regulatory process works, I am not sure if corporate America runs the FDA, or if the FDA regulates corporate America.  Now, Sen. Kennedy wants us to trust the FDA to regulate the tobacco companies.  It all just doesn’t seem logical.