Tag: plastic

I’m The Problem? Poem.

I throw away plastic but am unable to make it

I wear synthetic clothes that I am unable to weave

I eat food that comes in plastic packing as I cannot farm

I heat myself with a source of power that I do not produce

I’m told that plastic is bad, constantly by media

And I believe it…I have it within my body and hate it.

So, how about stop making it?

Only the fossil fuel industry can.

Why lecture me to throw away less plastics?

I will. As soon as there is a new plan.

End

By Samantha Unextraordinarybint Harris

Planting Plastic Rather Than Pigs. Article on Clinical Judgement/Religious Choice.

There is a huge and growing problem in our healthcare systems. It is the same problem which is troubling our planet = plastic rubbish. Whilst plastic does have many great uses it often replaced other materials which did the job and had the benefit of not being bad for the planet.

So why did we change?

For support and information, a Facebook group called Slingthemesh has sprung up. Through that group the stories of humans dealing with this tragedy are heart-breaking. Bizarrely, one sentence is being continually said over and over by the surgeons as the reason for the mesh.

Following, in bold, italics, is the sentence.

“But they used to use pig skin.”

Mmmm not only pig skin, but hemp, cotton, flax …for hundreds of years, hundreds.

https://www.medibank.com.au/livebetter/be-magazine/wellbeing/the-history-of-the-suture/

It’s taken me far too long to realise that the surgical stitch, which was made from organic material, which worked, was changed to experimenting with different types of plastic stitches, mesh and skin grafts etc. for some reason…was it because using pigs are not kosher or Islamic? Or was it because plastic is another use for fossil fuels as plastics are derived from oil?  

Now let that sink in for a moment or two. I have faith the medical profession are here for our benefit…but if something isn’t broke why fix it. This is not a doctor or consultant bashing…I’ve realised you are just as ‘in the dark’ as patients.

It is not an overestimation to say that tens of thousand of humans have been maimed and are attempting to cope with the affects of plastic inside them. Some maybe still actually unaware, dealing with their pain alone, being told it’s nothing to do with the implants- perhaps even their doctors do not know their patients have been implanted.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931940-300-the-inside-story-of-the-vaginal-mesh-scandal-from-top-removal-surgeon/

Back in the 1990’s western medicine was at the top of its game regarding surgical procedures. They were using key hole surgery and looking at different ways to minimalize recovery times and improve outcomes for many patients.

The United Kingdom, Europe and America were doing great things in medicine and attempting to sell their expertise to other cultured countries in order to improve outcomes for more people across the globe.

Recently, they have had success – Kings College Hospital in Saudi Arabia, the sister hospital for the one in our own capital Kings College London – is a shining beacon of healthcare for Saudi Arabia. I’ve been able to find out how much the NHS is receiving for this hospital, but I hope it’s substantial.

This collaboration did not happen overnight. Such teamwork and sponsorship cannot be garnered so quickly. There are many obstacles and one of which must have been the use of pig skin as the Muslim faith – to which Saudi Arabia has much of its laws entwined with – forbids the use of pig. *I only use Muslims as an example as many religions have restrictions towards animal material see further down a full list.

It seems remarkable that a push towards plastic has been so severe in medical practises yet so hardened against so much in our normal daily use – look how fast plastic straws disappeared. When we want to and are motivated, we can achieve.

Yet my conversation with a gentleman this morning who is desperate to get his surgeon to use pig skin or cat gut for his stitches and hernia fix rather than plastic mesh and stitches again, makes me realise we are really up against a massive ignorance of the problems that plastic causes.

I feel that religion has been used to push plastics into us. Not by the religious people themselves, no, but by the Fossil Fuel companies because ultimately, they are the ones which profit…and one must always follow the money. Plastics come from Fossil Fuels.

This is a paper regarding a questionnaire asking about the use of animal materials in medical procedures. It is with concerned with all faiths and their hesitancy regarding certain materials. It should be noted that the conclusion did not consider that 100% of the participants agreed to religiously banned materials being used if their life depended on it…

The List.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4220589/

Conversations are happening in consultations involving people’s lives every hour of every day. At some point someone should say something…surely? There are law suits going on every day but the information is not being given to patients. I’m often concerned that the doctors and surgeons are not kept abreast of the negative impact of plastics they are recommending or insisting on.

Let’s be clear here, the plastic in medical devices industry is worth $33billion now a year. These are very important and influential companies.

However, shouldn’t non-religious people have a choice? You could argue that environmentalists should have something to say but often they include animal rights activists, so it becomes a more complicated issue. Personally I wasn’t given a choice and now face more surgery to remove the plastic. Along with others.

https://www.grandviewresearch.com/press-release/global-medical-plastics-market

https://www.drugwatch.com/manufacturers/johnson-and-johnson/ – This where J&J are called America’s most popular lawbreaker.

Our health, all of us, is reliant on our doctors and surgeons.

They in turn rely on the research – is it time for there to be a Government investigation into the use of plastics within our medical health providers? I think it is. And not one headed by industry lackeys.

In this historical time of transparency I feel that the end user – the patient – has a right to know they have plastic going into them and the real affects of that choice.

More research should be gathered from victims – there are thousands of us ready to tell our stories but the medical profession is deaf to us unless we are taking them to court but who wants to do that to the NHS? Informed consent should mean so.

https://www.medicalplasticsnews.com/news/medical-devices/mesh-devices-may-be-to-blame-for-autoimmune-symptoms/

Thank you for reading. I’d appreciate any comments on this, especially errors and mistakes.

Could TVT be Considered the Western Equivalent of FGM? – Article

Thousands of women in the United Kingdom are unable to have sex because of Johnson & Johnson’s mesh implants. Many are severely disabled too.

Research has shown that the medical profession within the NHS has known that the so called, minimally invasive operation, affects blood flow to the clitoris. In some cases it reduces it and other cases it can increase it…

Women are not warned of this common side effect of the mesh implant and as yet, no person has been able to gain any legal compensation, in the UK, from the medical authorities for damages due to mesh.

The plastic, polypropylene, in the mesh takes years to break down and start cutting back into the bodies connective tissue around the bladder and pelvic bone. The time limit on medical device damage is three years. There is no legal pathway to sue for damages in the United Kingdom – regardless of the stories run across social media.

There is no legal right to enjoy sex or intimate relations so it is also impossible to sue the doctors or the government for loss or damages on this account.

The NHS estimates that there are thousands of women suffering with the mesh who have yet to realise the cause of their troubles as the medical profession has not kept a log of whom they have fitted the devices in.

Many hospitals, clinics, doctors and consultants have made a good living by performing several investigative surgical procedures on women complaining of bladder or vaginal pain. With one women undergoing thirteen separate procedures, three at a private hospital paid by the NHS, to investigate the bladder when the bladder mesh was the obvious and continually overlooked cause.

One gets to the point where the consideration for the movement to ban the TVT is strong enough and there are several calls for recall in the United States. Johnson and Johnson are currently in highest court answering questions on this barbaric procedure.

The comparisons with female genital mutation (FGM) are present. Whilst FGM is illegal and ought to be, the fitting of the TVT is legal and advised as ‘healthy’. Patients are not informed of the risk. No one seems to care that informed consent is not being followed in NHS hospitals.

Essentially the TVT does the same thing to women as FGM. Fitting the TVT cuts the blood flow to the clitoris therefore making orgasm impossible or extremely painful for the women involved. It should also be noted that penetrative sex becomes more painful and difficult with a TVT fitted as the plastic shrinks closing the vaginal entrance.

The operations are done under the guise of helping the woman when it is known that the implant and the operation itself is not safe. I checked this morning before writing this piece and the operation including the plastic mesh is still being implanted in NHS hospitals and the associated paperwork does not mention the lack of blood flow to the clitoris.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0090429507005821

We need to start protecting our citizens from companies like Johnson & Johnson – they have no scruples. Our national health service is paying the price, a far too heavy a price, as the removals of these mesh devices take hours in surgery and leave the patient very ill.

Whilst I understand that many will see FGM as being a barbaric tradition at some point TVT should also be viewed as the same. As women we must stand up and be counted and listened to. FGM horrifies anyone civilised and yet the same civilised people turn away from those of us who have been damaged by mesh…

I ask for change and for the medical profession to stop profiling women as moaning about nothing and diagnosing sufferers with ‘faulty pain signals’. Its’ time for the government to get a grip with these companies and get control of the NHS back from those that don’t care and don’t listen.

I’d also like to see a change in the press. The media is awash with false stories and the TV adverts are constant regarding wetting one self…as if it is normal. Extremely short turn around after giving birth is probably the reason many women suffer from incontinence, it’s not rocket science.

In the UK, under our NHS system, women are discharged from hospital the same day and are often able to take it easy with a new baby. Gone are the two weeks bed rest.

It’s not rocket science.

The TVT and mesh slings implanted into soft tissue have scared, maimed and disabled the women they’ve been placed in. The surgeon removing them knows the damage is worse or similar to the damage done by FGM, it goes further into the body…

Samantha “unextraordinarybint” Harris is a writer based in United Kingdom.

NHS Magic – The Re-appearing Womb.

The UK Government is denying there is a problem with their systems. I would suggest that it spends some time listening. Twenty years of pain and eleven operations to ‘investigate’ mysterious bladder pain, when they know it’s the system.

Oh, I Could Strangle a Dolphin!

They scan sea-life that has been caught in plastic to check for the tumours plastic causes. They remove the plastic which has become entangled around the desperate creature’s bodies.

Scientists carefully remove the tumours before releasing them back into the water to enjoy the world. Thankfully the same marine biologists then monitor the health of the animal to ensure it recovers from the horror and attempt to do it all gently to avoid more trauma.

It is all heart-breaking. The amount of plastic in our environment which has not been disposed of properly. It has found it’s way into our oceans and is harming Earth’s wildlife and our environment.

The oil industry, which plastic is a by product of, move someway in some areas to help with the clean up with donations to ocean preservation charities and such like.

If I were to share a picture of a dolphin with plastic wrapped around it all my friends would share it in a moment because the Brits love animals. The BBC employ a huge posh orchestra to play alongside the programs we are screened for animals.

So why do they leave humans with the plastic inside them? – I am told to stop being dramatic and the medical profession are insisting that any tumours are coincidental. So, yeah, I’d like to strangle a dolphin.

Would that get me some of that media attention? Some attention from my friends and perhaps the doctors? Nope, it would just get me very wet and bloody – and they would probably arrest me for cruelty to animals.

I’d still be left with the plastic in me…and all the things I am not getting used to living with. The no sex for instance… bizarre that the only position we can achieve is the missionary.

The worse one for me is the pads. It’s embarrassing wetting and pooing yourself when you have only just turned 50 years old. Also they are so expensive. My GP could prescribe them but says he can’t. I use the big thick pads and they get used up quickly.

I can see you thinking about the fluffing kittens and gorgeous dolphins already. But this shit is important – pardon the pun. There are men younger than me stuck in the same position because of mesh used for their hernia’s.

Obviously, there is the pain relief. The judgement from everyone. The wheelchair etc. That’s not the half of it though. I’m denied basic rights and services too. Rights which I am entitled to under UN convention and these are all being stomped over.

I am often unable to get my medication – because they don’t have it or it is too expensive. Like nutrition milkshakes because I find it very difficult to eat. Even though nutritionist said I was to have them. At the moment they are unable to get me my HRT and using Brexit as excuse…

I’m in so much pain. I have to beg for pain relief and often prescriptions will run out before you are allowed to get another. Especially with the controlled drugs…pain killers.

They will not prescribe them before you need them. Fair enough. I am on 72 hour patch. I order on Friday. I run out on Monday but the doctor has a three day turnaround on prescriptions so…I can pick up my new patches on the Weds, I could go on.

Often the green sheets say you have been given medication you have not. My scan results are hidden from me – the dolphins and sea-life get more consideration.

I have TVT (put in 2005 plastic) and more painfully, if that were possible, a Stapled Hemorrhroidopexy. I feel ill. It was not the surgery my Rheumatologist requested for me. I already had Ehlers Danlos a serious problem with my collagen.

I use a stick and wheelchair where I can. Media is lying about pay outs…no we are just all dying slowly and painfully. As far as I am aware, at this moment in time not one person in the UK has had any recompense. I’m unsure why they would lie.

Disability awards in the UK. I keep getting temporary awards. Then the government decided to reduced payments. I was able to take my ID from my purse unassisted.

Gratefully I was assigned a support worker for a while to help me through the appeal. The governement then accepted the appeal, just before the appeal court date. They decided to award it but for just 18 months.

As it is tied in with your universal credit and rent payments this is a real tiresome chore.

They now say I have had the support worker for too long. It’s been over a year. I still have not had a referral for the removal of the plastic. I have not had any medical help other than trying really rubbish drugs and some physio therapy which caused the plastic tension vaginal tape to snap within me.

In my borough they have implemented a system called the Single Fraud Prevention Intervention and it only runs on housing benefit claimants. So we have to be proactive to gain our benefits. So for instance, if we don’t turn up for an appointment our benefits are stopped etc. Disabled people are included this program.

The benefit agency does not have disabled parking. I threw up in their staff toilets as their toilets were upstairs and there was no lift for the wheelchair. It was terrible. The staff have agreed that I do not need to attend to the office again.

I have tried to find out how to get an indefinite award but told I’m unlikely to qualify as I don’t have one of the qualifying illnesses but can’t find out what the qualifying illnesses are. Online Government pages says HIV and other serious illnesses like Diabetes are on the list.

I was asked to do a statement regarding my mesh – the plastic inside me. This was it. No dolphins were harmed during the writing of this blog piece.