Dr. Sam Benjamin discusses how you can help yourself if you do end up getting the flu (despite your best efforts)
Primary Care with Dr. Sam Benjamin
Thursday, January 31, 2013 @ 3:42pm
Health Update: What to do if you get the flu
By: Dr. Sam Benjamin
Tuesday, January 22, 2013 @ 5:15pm
Health Update: Getting cheaper prescriptions is easier than you think
By: Dr. Sam Benjamin
Dr. Sam Benjamin tells you a way to save money and get cheaper prescriptions right now.
Dr. Sam Benjamin and Arizona Sports 620's Doug Franz argue what the effects of legalizing doping drugs would have on the sport.
In broadcasting, there's a rule; "Never trust a microphone because you never know who's listening." Our KTAR hosts don't always get it on the first try, but that doesn't mean the camera stops rolling. Below are some of the funnier moments that didn't make the final cut.
Who has the best outtakes?
Dr. Sam Benjamin:
Chuck Powell:
Bruce St. James:
Mac and Gaydos:
Who has the best outtakes?
Dr. Sam Benjamin:
Chuck Powell:
Bruce St. James:
Mac and Gaydos:
Wednesday, December 26, 2012 @ 2:29pm
Health Update: Military women abortion rights
By: Dr. Sam Benjamin
Dr. Sam Benjamin expresses his feelings towards military women's rights to be covered for specialty case abortions such as rape and incest.
Friday, December 7, 2012 @ 5:30pm
Health Update: Shame on senate republicans - and congratulations to John McCain
By: Dr. Sam Benjamin
Dr. Sam Benjamin emphasizes his disappointment in certain members of the Republican party for not supporting the international treaty promoting the rights of people with disabilities.
Friday, November 30, 2012 @ 11:45am
Instead of spin, why don't drug companies just invent good products?
By: Dr. Sam Benjamin
You will hear lots of my colleagues mercilessly criticizing pharmaceutical companies and their products in favor of natural products.
I want to make my position crystal clear. First, there are many pharmaceutical products that have saved lives and made the quality of our lives better. Pain medications like Percocet or Oxycontin play an important role in relieving human suffering. The problem is how doctors prescribe them and how the pharmaceutical company markets them.
Antibiotics have unquestionably saved lives, but again doctors have and do over prescribe them and the drug manufacturers have not responsibly discouraged this abuse. The bottom line is sales and revenues, not necessarily health!
To develop and produce each new drug costs hundreds of millions of dollars and many more millions are spent on drugs that end never making it to market, so pharmaceutical companies ought to be able to recoup their losses and profit when they have invested in the development of drugs that do change our lives.
But progress in drug therapy -- real progress -- is getting harder and harder to achieve. Drugs will soon be married to new delivery systems to reach parts of our anatomies and body chemistry. Many drugs may be eclipsed by genes engineered to change a bodily defect or stem cells that will simply repair or replace "defective" human tissue. Capitalism should be the driving force to stir corporate creativity and competitiveness to make new products and profits.
Instead, drug companies have become lazy and use spin to sell products that have little, if any, contribution to our health. These drugs often cost our struggling economy a lot of money, but, have little, if any, value. Example?
If you suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome with abdominal discomfort and constipation, Linzess (very similar to another drug already out called Amitiza) will soon be prescribed by the same doctors that overprescribe so many drugs like antibiotics and pain medications.
The drug works in your gut to increase intestinal fluid and the motility of bowel contents. A physician would have to treat five to eight IBS patients for up to six months for one to have significantly less abdominal pain and at least one additional bowel movement per week according to Prescriber's Letter, a very reliable drug information source. All this would come at a cost of $7 per day!
When a product has dubious value and high cost in a free market, it should fall off the radar screen in a truly competitive market. In fact, it should never have come about, but the pharmaceutical company wants to recoup its expenses and make a profit and that is the primary focus. It will not meet with competitive forces because the drug company's spin doctors (hired guns) will carefully create a marketing tale that will be sold to doctors and patients to create a demand and subsequent prescribing for a drug that we do not need in a society where everyone is looking for a pill to cure them of one thing or another. God only knows what the long term side effects will be of this drug.
Remember VIOXX? A lot of people died after taking that miracle drug for arthritis. We learned of its dangers well after it was on the market, so why take any new drug that has dubious value to begin with?
To the pharmaceutical company giants I say: Wake up! Be creative! I want you making lots of money by actually creating good things for our society. Tell your stockholders you might actually be developing a conscience!
Wednesday, November 21, 2012 @ 11:26am
Health Update: New study on worms proven to help digestion
By: Dr. Sam Benjamin
Dr. Sam Benjamin has evidence of a new study that's proven to use worms to help your digestive system.
Monday, November 19, 2012 @ 4:28pm
Health Update - Devils claw can relieve lower back pain
By: Dr. Sam Benjamin
Thursday, November 15, 2012 @ 12:01pm
Crazy health warnings only build dependence
By: Dr. Sam Benjamin
I feel under pressure to compete with all of the docs in the media who have discovered miracle cures or warn of surprise dangers in your environment such as tap water, unless it is electrified with energy from the Planet Krypton and sold at your local health food store on Cave Creek and 345th Ave.
It may not be good enough anymore to get on the radio and encourage, diet, exercise, prayer and spirituality, along with relaxation and self-discipline. We are starting the new era of natural remedies as a way of life, the natural pharmacy which is no different than prescription pharmaceuticals because it inspires dependence.
I heard of a plant being sold locally that removes all desire for success, efficiency, self-respect and creativity, but it guarantees that you will become part of any available bureaucracy. I have been told that if I advertise it on my show, I will get a federal small business subsidy thanks to the Fair Disincentives Act of 2012. Now that plant will go over big!
Maybe I can compete with Mehmet's cures, Dr. Bob's remedies for every senior that still breathes and calls for free advice from a chiropractor and Dr. Joe Mercola's warning about every possible surprise secret danger in something you eat, drink, breathe, touch, smell, think about, read about or have fantasized about, like the dangers of thinking about sex while in your car on weekends before lunch when it rains.
They are running out of miracles and dangers to keep your attention while you are running out of time to take responsibility for your health, instead of investing in another pill, even if it is natural!
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