bean29
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Post by bean29 on May 25, 2011 17:12:15 GMT -5
mmhmm,
Yeah, my Dad is bipolar. They have tried to wean him off lithium and use other drugs. Every time he ended up in a bipolar high. They have put him back on lithium but they have lowered the dose.
My Dad's own family describe my Mom as a Saint - she is doing care that would be provided in an assisted living or nursing home situation in most cases.
I don't think I am in favor of adding things like fluoride and lithium to the water. If you need this stuff as a drug, a Dr. should be monitoring it's effect on your body. Don't just add it to the water and "hope" for a positive effect. I agree with the people who say this is a give away to the pharmaceutical industry. I don't know how else to appropriately describe it.
modified to correct spelling. Next time I will pay more attention to spell check's suggested words - ha ha.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on May 25, 2011 17:15:49 GMT -5
Ahhh. Well, if they've tried to wean him and his bipolar symptoms returned, that's the end of that. Sometimes, over the years a person will find his/her bipolar symptoms lessen on their own and the weaning from lithium is possible. Your father, unfortunately, isn't one of those. I'm really sorry for that. Bipolar disorder is hard on everyone ... the person suffering from it and those who love him/her.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on May 25, 2011 17:17:47 GMT -5
Pretty ridiculous if true. How would they calibrate the dose to avoid overdosing those already on Lithium or something similar, not to mention other drugs that could cause cross-reactions or ODs. However, Lithium was once a common additive to Soda Pop. It was the active ingredient in 7-Up during the 1930s. www.mariettasodamuseum.com/7up_facts.htmAs has been pointed out, lithium is not a "drug", per se. It's a mineral found naturally in the body, and in the foods we eat. To be concerned about how its levels would be controled in those already taking it in medical doses, and those with renal failure is a legitimate concern, IMO.
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formerexpat
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Post by formerexpat on May 25, 2011 22:03:42 GMT -5
Is it?
How much does the typical life cost? How many are lost or would be lost to running read lights? The amount of time people spend at red lights during their life multiplied by their rate of pay [i.e. time = money] is sure to be higher than the cost of the lives saved.
Certain states don't have the 3 second wait. MD is one of them. I was shocked when I first moved here to have someone beeping at me immediately when the intersecting light changed because I was used to the 3 second delay.
Wonder if incidences of running red light deaths is higher here than in other states?
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burnsattornincan
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Post by burnsattornincan on May 25, 2011 23:04:37 GMT -5
To be concerned about how its levels would be controled in those already taking it in medical doses, and those with renal failure is a legitimate concern, IMO.
You just don't get it. How about those who have none of those problems (you know, the vast majority) but just don't want to be subjected to some idiot's tactic on how to hopefully reduce suicides. Can you grasp this fairly simple concept?
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2011 23:18:18 GMT -5
I don't do drugs, by choice. Don't take any meds. I don't want to. I don't like it. I drink lots of water, and I drink tap water. Can't afford bottled, plus I do not like the flipping plastic in the landfills. WHY does the gov't have the power to put crap in our tap water, when it is already full of hormones, trace meds, questionable chemicals anyway?? This reminds me of my saved link on gov't experiments.... I can't believe some people are okay with the gov't adding anything except sanitizers to our water.
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cereb
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Post by cereb on May 26, 2011 0:56:35 GMT -5
It's pure common sense, not complicated, at all.Right, so how about using a little of it yourself. Naturally speaking, we are not supposed to be exposed to any extra chemicals or drugs at all no matter how small. Even if "naturally occurring" it doesn't mean amounts should be added, unnaturally, to any substance ingested. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with a condition known as iodine deficiency. This causes goiter( thyroid disease) and worldwide is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. The US and other developed nations reduced this preventable condition by the addition of iodized salts to common table salt. Folic acid is added to certain foods and used as a supplement for women of child bearing age to help prevent certain birth defects. The list goes on. Vitamin D in milk is yet another example of food additives which have had significant benefits to society as a whole and have been practiced for years. I'm not weighing in just yet on the lithium issue other than to say it's a pretty good idea to understand the components of the issue at hand.
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burnsattornincan
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Post by burnsattornincan on May 26, 2011 9:41:56 GMT -5
I'm not weighing in just yet on the lithium issue other than to say it's a pretty good idea to understand the components of the issue at hand.
I understand the "components" and would not be commenting if I didn't. You mention the fortifying of foods with certain vitamins ect. and that is a different story than adding lithium, fluoride or any other toxic chemical to drinking water. They add vitamins to foods purely as a convenience measure since we do not have enough time to eat every single food containing all the necessary vitamins/minerals for a healthy diet. Nobody pays you to think.
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Angel!
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Post by Angel! on May 27, 2011 13:38:22 GMT -5
Is it? How much does the typical life cost? How many are lost or would be lost to running read lights? The amount of time people spend at red lights during their life multiplied by their rate of pay [i.e. time = money] is sure to be higher than the cost of the lives saved. Currently the FHWA puts the cost of a single fatal car accident at 4 million. Studies say that timing the signal clearance to ITE standards will reduce red-light running accidents by ~30%. Suppose you have a fairly large intersection - 60,000 vehicles/day. A reasonable red light clearance based on ITE would be 2 seconds & suppose every one of those 60,000 vehicles was delayed 2 seconds (not reasonable since you don't stop at every light, but we will use it to be conservative). Say you prevent 1 fatality every 4 years, 2 injury accidents each year, & 5 property damage only accidents every year. You do the math on all that & what comes out is that the time delay is more costly than the accident savings only if the average hour/vehicle is valued at $100 & that is a conservative number when you assume everyone person is suffering from a 2 second delay. A more reasonable assumption would leave the math at $200/person. There are a lot of different values used for the cost/hr of vehicle delay, but they generally vary between $10-$30/hr. No where near the $100-$200/hr necessary to make the cost/benefit analysis of adding red-light clearance show that it is better to have no clearance time.
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cereb
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Post by cereb on May 27, 2011 18:15:36 GMT -5
"I understand the "components" and would not be commenting if I didn't. You mention the fortifying of foods with certain vitamins ect. and that is a different story than adding lithium, fluoride or any other toxic chemical to drinking water. They add vitamins to foods purely as a convenience measure since we do not have enough time to eat every single food containing all the necessary vitamins/minerals for a healthy diet. Nobody pays you to think."
Tad hostile are we? I'll ignore the snarky comment...for now.
The fact is, fluoride, lithium, and yes, vitamin D are not toxic to humans in the correct amounts. Lithium is found in nature and is a part of the human body. Of course, in large amounts, over the recommended amounts, very toxic. It is exactly the same thing. Look up Vitamin D overdose. Vitamins are not added as a "convenience measure" but as a way to promote a healthier population by eliminating or reducing preventable disease.
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burnsattornincan
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Post by burnsattornincan on May 27, 2011 19:53:03 GMT -5
Tad hostile are we? I'll ignore the snarky comment...for now.
You're right, sorry my sweet. I've been overloaded the last couple of days and I'm not my usual amicable self. I need to run again but will be back later tonight. Sincerely, Dalton
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2011 10:27:49 GMT -5
On the one hand I think of the government adding lithium to water as a way to "control" people & I think mind control. Then I look around at people today & think maybe we need it.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2011 10:32:31 GMT -5
Except that liberals don't drink tap water, do they??
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2011 20:21:24 GMT -5
Which is the problem here, tough, even from the ones that claim to know stuff.........
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2011 21:16:08 GMT -5
Even if the lithium made him "mad".
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koeth
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Post by koeth on May 29, 2011 17:23:21 GMT -5
haha funny thing
I've got some lead that want's to drug some scientists if this ever happens
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2011 18:13:05 GMT -5
You seem a little crazy to me, (twice today) and for that I will give you a KARMA and welcome to the madhouse.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 29, 2011 18:24:07 GMT -5
I don't think Lithium can make you crazy, but it can damage kidneys. In the meantime, if you have ever seen a real manic depressive, it is a scary thing and you won't want one to have only a pinch of Lithium. This is a serious illness that takes careful medication. I've seen quite a few real manic depressives and remain unconvinced that medication is the answer. I think with most manic depressives like unipolar depressions result from bad thought patterns that can be corrected. In spite of all the new medications, no medication and medication run about equal over time for treating depression. In addition, some of the reading I have been doing suggests that these meds permanently alter the brain increasing receptor sites for an neurotransmitter(s) if the drug limits the reuptake of that transmitter or similar.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2011 18:32:02 GMT -5
People I know that take psych meds are taking them from times they were addicts or in other extreme circumstances-- which CAN alter, temporarilly or permanentally , brain chemistry. WAY too mnany people on meds that just need counseling, time to dry out and reorganize their brains, etc. I'll flipping die before I take psych meds. I've seen WAY too many people put on them that were in temporary crisis and not offered ANY help with their problem. AA, people. If you don't abuse something, go any way. AA beats psych drugs hands down.
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Post by mtntigger on May 30, 2011 10:42:24 GMT -5
As I was personally asked, I'll give my 2 cents. First of all, I am assuming that the maximum amount of lithium that would be added to the drinking water system would not exceed 100 ug lithium /L of water and most likely, it'll be less than that. I'm assuming 100 ug/L as that was within the range of the initial Texas study (up to 160 ug/L was considered high... www.edjwater.com/Water_and_the_Incidences_of_Crimes__Suicides__and_Arrests_Relate_to_Drug_Addictions.pdf and the Japanese study (where lithium concentrations ranged up to 59 ug/L) bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/reprint/194/5/464. From what I could find, medical doses, BTW, are more in the range of 170 mg/day (500 times higher than the previously mentioned studies if assuming drinking 2 liters of water per day). I have no problem combating our environment with additives into the water system. The world is spinning faster (figuratively, not literally), people are growing more impatient and less satisfied with their lives, and we are bombarded with more inputs than we used to be. If there is something that can help calm everyone down a little, I would have no objection on taking advantage of that. Lithium, however, is not yet proven (IMO). I would be worried about the storage of lithium prior to it being added to the water system as lithium is highly reactive and flammable. It typically is stored in kerosene so that in and of itself causes concern especially for the food industry. Also, as lithium readily produces hydrogen gas and lithium hydroxide when combined with water, I'm not sure how the water treatment plants would add it to water outside of adding more minerals to bond with the lithium. Since we already provide chloride to the water treatment and that's a mineral, seems easy enough to add it as lithium chloride, right? Then, we can all keep going and going. The original Texas study looked at data from 1978 to 1987, a later Texas study compared data sets from 1980-1989 to 1990-1998 and determined that the suicide rate is increasing ( www.unt.edu/honors/eaglefeather/2006_Issue/2006_PDFs/Flanagan.pdf ). Thus, lithium in and of itself isn't the answer if the question is how to reduce depression/suicides. Then, there is the actual question of how does lithium work within the human body. That's still a large unknown to doctors. How do low doses of lithium over a long term affect the human body? Do humans become more immune to it over time? So, aside from not knowing how lithium works, the inability for it to solve what is being proposed, the storage of lithium and how it would actually be added to the water treatment systems, I'm all for it. Oh, and as to the argument that people who don't like lithium added to their tap water can just drink bottled water... good luck with that. That Texas study that I provided a link to earlier stated that people can intake 2 mg/day of lithium just by drinking certain brands of mineral water.
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Opti
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Post by Opti on May 30, 2011 10:55:52 GMT -5
Manic-Depressive mental illness is not the same as ordinary depression. To conflate the two is to ignore generations of experience. Lithium can and does help this problem. I have known people who had severe manic-depressive illness and have seen cops in riot gear having problems with them. The full-blown problem can include extreme grandiosity, promiscuity, wild overspending sprees, paranoia, and that is just one pole, the manic one. At the other end you can have murder and suicide. The medications to treat unipolar and maniac depressive illnesses are totally different and many mild forms of depression are easily treated by traditional counseling techniques. Try counseling a nut holding off a police swat team armed with tasers. Talk to him. Tough I know they are different. In spite of all the problems of mania, bipolar people do not commit more crimes than average. "I have known people who had severe manic-depressive illness and have seen cops in riot gear having problems with them." How do you know they were bipolar? That's a wickedly uncommon scenario even for crazy folks strung out on drugs or schizophrenics.
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burnsattornincan
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Post by burnsattornincan on May 30, 2011 11:56:31 GMT -5
So, aside from not knowing how lithium works, the inability for it to solve what is being proposed, the storage of lithium and how it would actually be added to the water treatment systems, I'm all for it.
Sounds like you don't know very much at all about something you're "all for". Oh well, carry on.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 12:52:57 GMT -5
Let me see if I understand-- this article I first posted about lithium and suicide is not true... but it is a current article pushing lithium in water. Thx for clearing this up. Lies, lies, lies... Just like so many things that get pushed on us. They SAY it is for some reason, that is later found to be false or ineffective, but we are already stuck with it by then.
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Post by mtntigger on May 30, 2011 14:58:20 GMT -5
LOL! You guys are so much fun to mess with. I exaggerated a lot of things to see what would happen. Thanks toughtimes for actually catching one. I'll give you some karma when I recharge. The thing is until the doctors and scientist know what lithium will do to the human body and at what concentrations would be "safe", there is no way in this day and age that this will get through U.S. legislation and then through the county or city bond program to gain approval for the required modifications/upgrades to the water treatment system. So, you are looking at 20 years at minimum before this occurs and probably much longer than that. Personally, I'll rather have my study dollars go toward researching cancer.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 15:22:14 GMT -5
Did the people in TX know they were guinea pigs, I wonder? Did they consent? Guess I could google that, but I'm lazy todayyyyyyyyyyyy..................
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Post by mtntigger on May 30, 2011 15:45:37 GMT -5
The Texas study (just like the Japanese study) was for naturally-occuring lithium in groundwater. The original Texas study was interesting and had some good points, although it was published in 1989. Krickitt - do you know why there is a sudden stream of articles now? I'm curious as to the reason why 20 years later, it is popping up again when very little new data are available.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 15:51:39 GMT -5
I have no idea, Slow. I admit knowing nothing at all about this until I read that article. I WONDER why now? I'll go re-read the article, knowing what I know now.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 16:02:45 GMT -5
I did see one thing in the article that COULD have something to do with it. It said that industry, like pharma, won't like this idea, but that for gov'ts and health agencies it could save money. So-- possibly being promoted as a great thing at this time when gov't is trying to take over health care?? Just guessing, but Slow made me ask.. and that is in the OP.. (((So-- this is what we want to do, and this is what we are going to tell the people...)))
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Post by mtntigger on May 30, 2011 16:20:17 GMT -5
That's a good possibility, krickitt. Although I doubt if the government(s) actually want to save money. I know, I know, I'm jaded.
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2011 16:27:36 GMT -5
LOL, Slow!! I don't know you, but being jaded about gov't on this board is....... normal-- to a few of us. ;D
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