Semi-OT: Satisfied with your health care?

[Luigi Zanasi]

Aspirin prevents heart attacks while Vioxx causes them?

[jo4hn]

I have the solution for you. Get yourself a nice blanket, soak it in warm salt water, assume the fetal position in a dark warm closet, wrap the blanket around you, and chant: "there is no hope and nothing will ever change". It's gonna be OK.

erk, j4

[keithw86]

No, you have that wrong. There's only hope that Obama 'll leave you with change.

[Kerry Montgomery]

No, you have that wrong. There's only hope that Obama 'll leave you with change.

Sorry to have not read the earlier posts on this topic, but just came across a very interesting article in the New Yorker:

[Glen]

Question - Didn't the Brits outlaw dado blades on home table saws?

Glen

[Han]

Luigi Zanasi wrote in news:0aa8e355-a682-4cec- [e-mail]:

That indeed seems to be the case. Exactly why is not quite sure yet. Other NSAIDs may act in either way or not .

This is the current explanation. Not everyone may believe all of it.

The protein involved in this all is called cyclo-oxygenase. There are 2 different forms of it. COX-1 and COX-2. Both convert arachidonic acid (AA, an n-3 or omega-3 fatty acid, which should be rather plentiful in your cell membranes) into a compound called PGH2 (prostaglandin endoperoxide). Depending on the tissue this occurs in (or near), this is converted then into several different compounds - prostaglandins, thromboxane, and prostacyclin. Thromboxane promotes thrombosis and other things, prostacyclin counteracts the tendency to thrombosis. PGH2, thomboxane and prostacyclin are inactivated in vivo in seconds ( aminute or 2 maximum). Therefore, in order to "work", they have to be formed over and over again (generally speaking).

COX-1 is really plentiful in blood platelets. Platelets do not (generally) make new proteins, what they are born with is what they carry. Aspirin reacts with an amino acid of COX near where the active site is, where AA is converted. The reaction effectively, very rapidly and irreversibly kills the enzyme activity. Since platelets live for about 10 days, a fairly low amount of aspirin once a day should keep platelets from making thromboxane from AA (via PGH2), and thereby prevent thrombosis.

COX-2 is more prevalent in inflammatory cells, but also in the cells lining the blood vessel that are an important part of the "machinery" that keeps blood fluid.

It was believed that perhaps the bad gastrointestinal effects of aspirin on at least some people could be avoided by targeting the inflammatory COX-2, with a drug that is specific for COX2. Vioxx was the second such drug. Their development was a great success story, at first. It is still being debated through what unintended consequences the inhibition of COX2, especially by Vioxx, resulted in it (Vioxx) "causing" an excess morbidity and mortality.

Sorry for the long lecture. It is a scientific subject of interest to me. I take a full aspirin tablet (325 mg) each day, because the baby aspirin doesn't seem to work sufficiently on my platelets, despite a huge body of research saying that 81 mg should suffice.

[LD]

Can they still own table saws? They need a weeks training before getting permission to buy a chain saw.

[CW]

No. They outlawed the sale of tablesaws with arbors long enough to mount a dado blade.

[Upscale]

So, how far does that law extend? Can a Brit ship in a dado comparable tablesaw from another country? Can the motor in one of their table saws be changed out for a motor with an arbour long enough for a dado blade.

In other words, what possibilities exist for getting around the attack on dados?

[Douglas Johnson]

With respect, Mark, I think it is very far fetched. First, the government is not close to taking over. The most aggressive serious proposal towards that is a government run health insurance program in competition with the private insurers. That is getting a lot of push back on the grounds that it would drive out the private insurers. Whether it would or not depends on the details, and we are a long way from details.

Second, there is already a large, government health care program (Medicare) where the government has not made a single move in 40 years towards banning any activity for recipients. Smokers are under a lot of pressure, but that is not just the government and there is no ban, nor does anyone I know think it would work.

What you suggest is certainly not impossible, but we are a long way from here to there.

-- Doug