This Made Me Mad | Arthritis Information

And we could add umpteen other examples of disease types and disability situtations that are very expensive to society, but don't invoke such criticism of the sick and how much they cost.

I find it interesting that there's very little, besides smoking, that is personally blamable about the known RA triggers. (And I'm not whaling away at the smokers here either.) Being a woman is a big trigger for RA. Having female hormonal events is a big trigger--childbirth, menopause. Ooh, so being female is expensive and adds a big burden to society?

Accidents and very stressful life events are big triggers for RA. Hmm, hard to find anyone over 30 (not to exclude younger people either) who hasn't had a helping of that.

Cancer, heart disease, and a number of other very expensive 'drains on society' are far more associated with blame-worthy disease triggers (again, not that I'm getting into the blame game at all here) than arthritis. I don't hear anyone wanting to stuff all cancer and heart disease victims onto the proverbial ice floe and set society free of their burden. 

Makemelaff, here's an issue you can take with you to the summit!

The political issues associated with chronic progressive disease make the suffering so much worse.

It is a very ignorant article. Unfortunately, it is being distributed by the Associated Press which mean this highly inaccurate article is spreading across the nation.

Here's my summary of it's faults:

1. It assumes that all arthritic conditions are the same. Osteoarthritis and Rheumatoid Arthritis and the related autoimmune disease all seem fall within the same category in this article. They are not same kind of disease. As joints deteriate from Rheumatoid Arthritis, then Osteoarthritis can set in. Osteoarthritis is an extra burden to a person with Rheumatoid Arthritis. It is the medications used to treat the illness and inability, not the desire, to exercise that causes weight gain.
2. Osteoarthritis might be increasing because of overall weight gain by the population. But JRA affects the very young. Again, they are not the same illnesses and should not be lumped together.
3. You need to look at the real reason this cost is going up. The medications are become too expensive.
4. We should be looking for a cure, not a band-aid. Exercise is not going to keep a person with Rheumatoid Arthritis from developing the disease. The articles assumes this.
5. Once again, the victim of the illness is blamed and seen as a burden on society.

This is where I feel that the Arthritis Foundation really lets us down. They do not publish hard facts about our condition(s). They gain from the advertising and seem to be the central source for information for the press. But a lot of times, I find their information to be far from adequate and only paints an overall, glossy picture. By doing that, they bring us more harm than good. But they are all we seem to have. Their basic information is printed and distributed all over the net and throughout the media. If everyone would quit trying to just lay out being optimistic about this illness and face the real facts, we would all be better served. Because maybe then, they would work for a real solutions.

It seems like they make such a little deal about the illness that we get lost in the "it's all going to be okay." There's not much emphasis on the facts that the disease still progresses even in the best situations. Somehow, it is forgotten that we are destined to lose 12-15 years of our lives to this illness. But that's ok, because we are not going to die immediately. Hey, I want those 12-15 years. Those were mine. And, I think that we probably have a lot more deaths to this disease but they are lumped under "complications" from infections, etc.

We need real, hard facts to counteract this kind of ignorance.  

They just put information out there for any media to take and use. It is not exactly their fault other than they are not putting out there really hard facts.

Look at their site though, they sell books and magazines. Are they serving themselves or us? I've been on their site a lot and I usually leave because the information is so watered down it is practically useless.

You find much better info at emedicine, mayo and john hopkins. John Hopkins actually presents case studies of patients. There's a lot of info on these diseases, but the Arthritis Foundation is not the one presenting the cold, hard facts.

Here's the AP release: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070112/D8MJHTPO0.html

Here's the Centers for Disease Control's data and statistics on arthritis which spawned all this: http://www.cdc.gov/arthritis/data_statistics/cost_data.htm

Yes, definitely take a printout of the CDC statistics. That really says a lot about how many people are affected. Not dealing with this problem is costing our country a lot of money. How about dealing with it instead?

Those are some great links.

You know if they would stop granting SSI and SSDI awards for obesity only, alcohol abuse, drug abuse etc there just might be more in the kitty for those of us with progressive degenerative diseases.  These other disability awards can be corrected and it would be a lot less expensive than disability payments even if the government paid to correct them.

The sentence about teaching us to learn to live and work with chronic pain is absurd.  There is a lot more going on with us than pain.  I'll bet none of the authors of the article has RA, Lupus, PA etc.

One thing about that map is that is straight up numbers....so of course the cost is gonna be high in places like NY, Cali and TX...look how big and how heavily populated these states are..vs..montana..which has a low population. They should have done the cost vs. the number of people.

Shows how much they really researched that. Oh well they suck anyways... Wow.  What an infuriating article.  Self management and learn to live with it.  What a joke.  That's our government for ya.  By the rich but not for the sick, elderly, or overweight.  I have a suggestion for the government.  They should spend the day with one of us and gimp a foot in our shoes.  Oh wait, that will never happen.  We are too sick, elderly, overweight, and don't have enough money to be bothered with.  Plus those of us that can't work anymore aren't lining their pockets with our tax dollars.