This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy... Our own brain, our own heart is our temple, the philosophy is kindness.
--the Dalai Lama

Cardiac devices. Yep. Most of them are covered by insurance. All those fancy gizmos that they are so eager to install in us, whenever we have a little heart trouble, those gizmos are increasingly suspect. The situation has gotten so bad that the GAO is pushing the FDA to take a more active role in overseeing devices used by the cardiac care medical industry.

During the period covered by the report ('05-'09), medical-device makers initiated 3510 device recalls, which cover everything from "field corrections" to revised labeling to retrieving a device from customers. The agency categorized about 83% of these recalls as class II, indicating the devices may cause temporary adverse health consequences, and 14% as class III, indicating the device is not likely to cause any adverse consequences. Only 4% were class I recalls, deemed by the FDA to have a reasonable risk of causing serious adverse health consequences or death.

During this time, cardiovascular devices were the most commonly recalled products: 532 recalls, making up 15% of all recalls during this period, while the 40 class-I recalls of cardiovascular devices represented 31% of all class-I recalls in the period. The largest number for cardiovascular devices involved automatic external defibrillators.

The next most common category is radiological devices, which accounted for 484 total recalls but only two class I recalls, followed by general hospital and personal-use devices, which accounted for 388 recalls overall, including 31 class I recalls.

SOURCE
http://www.theheart.org/article/1244193.do?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=20110627_EN_Heartwire

A new study has verified what we already knew. The mechanism is unclear but the association is strong.
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Last week I went to my first ever Kundalini class, taught by a fellow student. I had no idea what to expect, and was open to whatever happened. In the beginning I was informed that Kundalini is NOT a Hatha yoga. OK. The practice involved several exercises in which we laid on our backs and held our arms and feet in the air, while practicing the breath of fire. The breath of fire consists of rapid forced exhalations with relaxed but fast inhalations. The exhalations may be through the nose or mouth, depending.
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