Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for September 14, 2014

Do smokers continue to feel pleasure after the lung cancer diagnosis?

You’ll just get covered with earth!

What’s in French coffin-nails anyway? Or is it all the other healthier things they do? (Besides universal coverage!)

Yes, better to let the insurance companies do the rationing, where they cut you off the moment you receive the diagnosis. FREEEEE..DUM !! Yep, that invisible hand has shoved an invisible finger right up your . . . . . . .

I have no idea what Plopsie has been logorrheaing lately.

I want to hear the “Freakanomics” author weigh in.

So-called Obamacare continues to be a success, with premiums now actually dropping, wherever it has been implemented “correctly” and you still want to make up stories about it? The only failures are from those who predicted “death camps” and the like…

Smoking is not the best for your health or those around you, but the REAL killer is STRESS.

I wish that the tobacco companies would invent cigarettes that didn’t make a person stink so bad after they smoked.

And just where would those death panels be hiding?

Maybe GT should take on e-cigarettes next. I was surprised to find out that the FDA cost benefit analysis was a real thing. Yep. Google it. Smoking is incredibly bad. Most of the world is realizing this. My old dad used to say that he really missed cigarettes, having given them up after the surgeon general report in 1964. It has to be that they have something pleasurable in the smoking experience, we can admit that. It is just that one has a hard time buying into the 70% analysis of what is enjoyable vs what causes problems with this addiction.

Obamacare has begun to show so many positives, I am surprised that people haven’t begun to call it the Affordable Health Care Act, the original name. I never heard anyone calling Medicare LBJcare or Social Security FDRcare. Interesting. But oh well.

Smoking after lung disease diagnosis: Some 35 years ago I worked at a lung ward of at public hospital and never ever met so many smokers – and that on the staff.. And those diagnoses with cancer? They kept smoking – to calm their anxiety!

“The Daily Show” on Obamacare:

Mr Butts needs to get with the times. New smokeless e-cigs have made him obsolete. All the benefits of smoking without the stink.

“On that … There was a report this week of a study from France which seems to show that salt intake does not influence blood pressure. If this is true all the salt-reduced diets and “little pills” intended to assist sodium elimination from the body may have no effect on the condition."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I’ve suspected as much all my life. After all, we came from the sea (despite what the bible-thumpers claim).Our bodies need salt. (Even cows need salt — that’s why there are ‘salt licks’ on the farms.)I am a saltoholic — I have to salt my salt to make it salty enough.I’m 84 years old and going strong.

The ‘pleasure’ of smoking is the temporary cessation of the pain caused by smoking.

I had no idea this tobacco stuff was so terrible. I’m switching from tobacco to crack.

Did we pay for this?Are they working on a cba for heroin?“The pleasure of shooting up exceeds the cost of addiction by 105%. Including robbery to buy it, collapsed veins, jail time, HIV, and loss of family, friends and career.”

Oh there is more. You remember all the propaganda saying that butter, eggs, and other natural fats are bad? That margarine is better for your health?

All wrong. Butter and natural fats are good for you, in reasonable amounts, and contribute to weight loss and general health. Eggs have also been recognized as good food, not dangerous because of “cholesterol”.

Margarine and other hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oil “foods” are among the most toxic and damaging things you can eat.

I don’t get it. In order to do an apples-to-apples comparison, the FDA either assigned a dollar value to the pleasure of smoking, or assigned an emotional value to the cost dollars. Neither would be valid. What am I missing?

Smoking wtll kill you. Hence if you don’t smoke you will live forever. Always loved that logic,. Somethings gonna kill everybody. Time to change the message.

Sounds more like something the CDC would say. Anyway, the way the courts are going, therapy to help people quit smoking will soon be as illegal as other therapies for people who want to change their lifestyle are.

The doctor told me, 20 years ago, that my salt intake was NOT affecting my blood pressure. My high blood pressure was from other causes. Now it seems he was more right than we knew.

No, he QUIT smoking.

And I’ll stand by his decisions longer than I’d stand by the stonewalling and idiocy of the GOP in Congress.

I developed a little pain in my chest when I was living in Paris for a year; not wanting to deal with cancer in a foreign country, I stopped smoking. The little pain went away. When I returned home to Utah, I started smoking again…and the little pain came back. It kept at me until I stopped smoking. My body was talking to me and I listened. That was in the seventies. I’m still here and breathing easily.

Yes, you don’t want to deal with cancer in a foreign country, unless you have no other choice. I am surprised at the number of people who travel long distances even within the US. It would seem it would just make it harder on yourself and your family. I don’t think the oncologists are not sharing with each other as to what is effective from one place to another, as far as I know. Meanwhile, it makes it harder for your support system to help you if you are far away from home and you will need a lot of support.

This makes it official: FDA is not wholly owned by pharm companies any more. Tobacco companies have bought in.

Let’s be clear: There is no way to measure pleasure, so this study is bogus on its face. Anecdotally, I don’t see smokers getting much enjoyment from their habit, compared to drinkers or pot smokers.

A Gallup poll in 2013 found 74% of smokers would like to give it up, 72% say they are “addicted” and 85% have tried to quit (on average, smokers have tried to quit 3.6 times). That doesn’t sound like smokers themselves are getting much pleasure compared to the health problems, loss of productivity, inconvenience and high cost.

The rest of us don’t get any pleasure from smoking and a lot of “pain” – the smell, second-hand smoke, butt litter and heavy metals from butts leaching into soli and water, harming fish and plants.

Yeah, dukesy. BUT, I just read that excessive salt intake can exacerbate flareups in MS. I seem to have some kind of inherited nerve condition that makes me stagger and weave a bit, like my mom did at my age. (One of her sisters had Charcot-Marie-Tooth and the other siblings who lived long enough all had familial tremor.) Anyhow, I’m wondering whether all nerve conditions are affected by salt, and am considering cutting down on the brats and sauerkraut.

The correct term for what you call Obamacare is actually “Dolecare.” No one who voted for Dole in ’96 should complain that they got the kind of health care they wanted!

Let us not forget that smokers die sooner and are less a drag on the health care system..With that in mind, it would make SOME sense to give free smokes to inmates in prisons..vapor delivery systems, AKA eCigarettes, would have the benefit of giving addicts their fix without the stench. On the other hand, the deaths caused by tar would be reduced so they might not die anywhere near as quickly..Next stop, cost/benefit analysis of opiates, LSD, cocaine, “merry” juana, other assorted mind altering chemicals. I’m pretty sure Ecstasy would make the cut as long as users stayed hydrated..Think how happy alcohol users are when they aren’t killing others and themselves while drinking and driving, or when shooting each other in drunken rages, et cetera..DRUGS FOR THE PEOPLE

That’s because Oz has become a first world nation whike we’re sliding from second to third. Or being pushed by the republicans.

And where did I put that study, that shows Worrying About Cancer — Gives You Cancer!

And where did I put that study, that shows Worrying About Cancer — Gives You Cancer!