Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by photochemsyn 857 days ago
Body burning screening for toxic chemical accumulation should be a regular part of every American's yearly physical checkup with their doctor - which itself is an increasingly rare phenomenon, many people only go to doctors and hospitals after getting very sick as they can't afford to have a regular doctor or preventative health program. A body burden program would lead to the identification of the most problematic industrial and agricultural chemical products, and so it would be blocked by lobbyists from the fossil fuel, petrochemical, agribusiness, and manufacturing sectors.

America has the worst public health care / food safety system in the industrialized world, and not even a pandemic that killed over a million American citizens resulted in any political pressure to change the system.

1 comments

> Body burning screening for toxic chemical accumulation should be a regular part of every American's yearly physical checkup with their doctor

Is it just me or are yearly physicals and primary care doctors nearly worthless in practice (not in theory)? For adults, not kids.

Anything truly urgent is better served by urgent care or emergency room. They are useful for referrals for specialists when you actually have a serious issue. The screening you suggest seems like a good idea yet so far beyond the type of care they actually offer.

Its like they are the 1st tier tech support who cant really do anything and exist as a filter.

Many family doctors are like this, I think they want to minimize their work and many simply don't have the experience necessary. Would recommend you find a doctor at a bigger institution that wants to be there.
Primary care seems kind of like a personal trainer or other accountability person. Sure you can take your heart-rate, blood pressure, EKG, etc. and make assessments on your own (I got a pretty thorough setup for ~$150), but most people need the structure or else they won't even check their BPM.

Lab work is the one area that seems worthwhile. Bloodwork can give you early signals for tons of potential problems.

Typo: s/burning/burden/g

Initially I thought there was some test involving the combustion of a biopsy sample.