Rifle Scopes
was looking at the GRSC CRS Rifle Scope myself and really like everything it offers! I don’t like that it’s a Millett with w/ a great reticule because of the Millett’s weight and less than stellar performance. Some of the things mentioned above (minus the ridiculous comparison to NCstar) including the fact that no more will be made in the foreseeable future, steered me away from it.
I’ve come across the new Burris Rifle Scopes XTR-14 and have decided on it. 1-4×24 illuminated horseshoe/dot 100-1000yds bdc calibrated for 5.56 62gr approx $550. I was very pleased with my Burris FFII for a $200 scope; FFII is their budget line while XTR is top of the line!
bexdvve60
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All Saints Medical
All Saints’ Day: A list of medical saints - albeit an incomplete one.
Just went outside and all the ground is covered
I can’t remember this much snow in Houston. Granted its not much but I guess global warming is payin…
Aaron Zelman interviews Leonard Elliot
Our latest Talkin’ to America interview with Aaron Zelman interviewing firearms dealer Leonard Elliot, about his court win against the BATFE and its abuses.
Screening for Autism
I Screen, You Screen: The American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending that all children be screened for autism. They’ve only press-released their recommendations, however, so it’s difficult to assess them. Wouldn’t it be nice if professional organizations actually released their recommendations to their members before they did so to the public? It would make it so much easier for doctors to discuss the news stories with their patients. They’re releasing them today at their annual conference, and later in the November issue of their journal, which is not yet available online. (Though it may be in AAP member’s mailboxes.)
Part of any well child visit is screening for developmental delays, so one has to wonder what’s different about these recommendations. Are they setting lower limits for what’s abnormal so that those mild cases of autism (which some argue aren’t really autism or even disease) can be treated? If that’s the case, then don’t be surprised when a couple of years from now there’s a upward spike in the number of cases of autism. And don’t blame it on vaccines.
Statistics, Politics, and Medicine
Lies, Damned Lies, and, Well, You Know: The New York Times is parsing Rudy Guiliani’s prostate cancer statitistics:
“I had prostate cancer five, six years ago,” Mr. Giuliani, a Republican presidential candidate, said in a speech that has been turned into the radio commercial. “My chance of surviving prostate cancer — and, thank God, I was cured of it — in the United States? Eighty-two percent. My chance of surviving prostate cancer in England? Only 44 percent under socialized medicine.”
…. The Office for National Statistics in Britain says the five-year survival rate from prostate cancer there is 74.4 percent. And doctors also say it is unfair to compare prostate cancer statistics in Britain with those in the United States because in the United States the cancer is more likely to be diagnosed in its early stages.
“Certainly, if you intensively screen for prostate cancer, you will find early disease,” said Dr. Ian M. Thompson, chairman of the department of urology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “And simply because you find it earlier, you will always have longer survival after the disease is diagnosed.”
One reason that prostate cancer is diagnosed earlier in the United States than in Britain is that they don’t screen for it at all in Britain - at least not at the expense of the NHS. (Which is one of the reasons they spend less on healthcare than the United States. They don’t indulge in as much screening as we do.) At any rate, his statistics don’t appear to be all that far off the mark, at least for men in their 80’s. But even the NHS admits that prostate cancer survival is increasing because more people are starting to have their PSA checked - meaning that slow growing early cancers are being added to the mix, just as happens here in the US. As it happens, even back in 2002, the five year survival rate for prostate cancer in the US was 99% - still a much better figure than the UK’s 71%.
But, as the astute bloggers point out, prostate cancer isn’t the best example of the benefits of screening. Prostate cancer is, in most cases, slow growing - and although our screening policies detect many early cancers that would never do harm if left undetected, we also end up spending a lot more money treating these same cancers. When given the choice between watchful waiting and removal, many choose removal. (Another reason why we end up spending more and being less healthy in surveys like this.)
But the Astutes take a closer look at cancer in England and cancer in the US:
See this report, entitled “Cancer Survival Rates Improving Across Europe, But Still Lagging Behind United States” (and remember that England’s rates, not broken out, are among the worst in Europe).
Taking recent figures, female five-year cancer survival rates are 62.9 per cent on average in the US and 52.7 per cent in England. To compare America’s privately insured with England’s NHS patients, you’d need to bump up that American survival rate a bit (the uninsured most likely have lower survival rates–otherwise why worry about universal coverage) and bump down the English one (because some Brits have private insurance, and so buy better care).
Nationally, American cancer survival rates are significantly better. Certainly not by the 40-point margin Giuliani implied, but still.
Looks like the truth is somewhere between Rudy and the Times.
“Recipe for an American”
Inspirational Speech to download and distribute. Second in an ongoing series. For more information, go to www.jpfo.org/keepoutspeeches.htm .
Pilgrim Medicine
Thanksgiving Remembrance: Mayflower Medicine.