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Archive for the ‘parenting’ Category
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
This was the seven-word message by the president of the California Endowment, Bob Ross, to a conference of grassroots, community health advocates Jan. 29 in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Ross told the standing-room only conference of activists, “You cannot build and sustain this economy without health care reform. It would be building on a house of cards.” The California Endowment is a health foundation that addresses the health needs of Californians.
The confluence of events–the on-going crisis of one in six Americans living without health coverage (BEFORE the lay-offs of 2008 that will add millions more to the uninsured rolls) and the financial meltdown–may make this FINALLY the year of health care reform. The cost of American health care, which increased 98 percent between 2002-2007, has contributed to the financial straits of American businesses. General Motors, for example, pays more for health insurance for its workers than for steel to make the vehicles, and this isn’t unusual.
For more than 50 years Congress has attempted to create a universal health program. U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, now chair of the House Committee on Energy & Commerce (the leading Congressional committee on health care), has been through many of the Congressional battles.
Rep. Waxman told the health care organizers, “To restore the economy it is necessary to reform health care right now. We cannot put it off. The situation is critical; the need is great. It’s our time to get this job accomplished this year!”
The Trioka that Blocks Reform
So as the new administration moves into Washington so, too, are legions of lobbyists for the insurance industry, pharmaceuticals, and the AMA, the trioka that historically has blocked health care reform. The AMA’s position may be more diffused at this point in history because many MDs recognize America’s crisis in quality of care as well as coverage and costs. (See the book Money-based Medicine or the upcoming documentary.)
Total Overhaul Needed
A complete overhaul of the health care sector is critical for the moral, economic, and social well-being of the nation. A poll by the Commonwealth Fund in 2007 found 84 percent of the population agrees on this. I have one daughter, 26, whose new job provides health insurance but there are seemingly no primary care physicians to be found. The youngest daughter, 23, is in graduate school and without any medical coverage currently–the condition of the majority of her age group, 23-30 years old. Every family has health horror stories. My daughters are fortunate to be living near the TCM doctor, a licensed naturopath, who has been the family’s primary care physician for ten years.
Self-care is fastest, best reform
While the overhaul of the system, the adoption of medical IT and more elements are critical, another dimension of health care reform is re-orienting and educating the consumer/patient to take personal responsibility for her/his health.
Americans moreso than other nations’ populations expect technological solutions to cure their ailments–the latest drugs (which, incidentally, are the most dangerous) will be their panacea. The prevailing American attitudes are due to the AMA obliterating health treatments other than the AMA’s (limited to drugs and surgery) from public discussion. And ten years of direct-to-consumer drug advertising has further constrained the public’s knowledge of how to take care of themselves.
The care of asthma, for example, is not to rigorously schedule use of a bag full of inhalers. The care and cure of asthma includes an analysis of indoor air quality (home and school/office), using air purifiers, breathing exercises, noticing what brings on symptoms and eliminating or minimizing those irritants, and using herbs to stregthen the lungs and immune system.
Teaching the population the use of homeopathy would dramatically reduce the need for doctor visits. If you don’t know what the problem is, get a diagnosis, but most of life’s daily ailments and injhuries can be treated at home with homeopathic remedies. Yes, they’ve all been clinically tested, and there are no unwanted side effects. A home kit, stored properly, has an indefinite shelf life. Homeopathy is routinely prescribed by MDs in Europe and in every other nation globally.
The use of homeopathy trains one to pay attention to our body, and to be able to treat effectively(and quickly recover) from illness is empowering. Not to mention the savings in time, energy and expense with no MD visit, not using pharmas but inexpensive homeopathic medicine–and speedy recovery allowing parent/child to return to work or school.
Americans use more than half of the world’s pharmaceutical drugs, and we’re four percent of the population. The rest of the world uses homeopathy and herbs, and the outcomes of 36 nations are better than ours–and at a small fraction of the cost.
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, advertising and medicine, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, media and health, medicial science, parenting, science, technology and health | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 1st, 2009
This blog and the WomensMedicineBowl website are dedicated to health, but our personal and collective health are greatly impacted by many factors beyond personal choices.
I’m reminded of one parent’s comment during heightened tensions in the Cold War: What difference does it make what toothpaste our kids are using when we’re in danger of nuclear annihilation? Many Boomers who waited until their thirties to have children questioned the wisdom of bringing children into this world due to the Cold War between the US and Russia.
At the beginning of the 21st century, with random acts of terrorism occuring in many nations the Cold War seems almost simple. The adversaries were known, specific, and contained. Now any individual can and does wreck havoc and horror.
Economic stranglehold on Palestine
The front pages of my local newspaper this week have been large photos of the carnage in Gaza. Earlier in December I was working in the West Bank. Over breakfast I listened to development consultants from around the globe talk about their travels around Israel. The Israelis have set up so many checkpoints that the effect is an economic stranglehold on the Palestinian territories. “International intervention is needed to end this (excluding the US),†was the consensus.
This was two weeks before Israel effectively declared war on Gaza—with armaments supplied by the US. Always, in my many years living abroad, American ex-pats have been told in foreign locales, “We hate the American government—but not the American people.â€
Hatred abroad extends to American people
In Ramallah in 2008, a colleague told me she’s now hearing people say they hate the American people. This is, indeed, a very sad state of affairs, but for how many decades can a population not be held accountable for the actions of its government? (Just as the Gazans are now being killed for the occasional rocket lobbed into Israel by their leaders—death toll this week: 400 Gazans, 4 Israelis.)
When visiting the US I’m always stunned by the slant of the news regarding Israel—it’s way off the mark from what I know from living and working in the Middle East. When I was a child I remember my dad making the comment, “Israel is our 49th state.†Dad, a Minnesota farmer and no politico, died in 1961. Two books by eminent scholars were published in 2006 on how the Jewish lobby influences and directs our foreign policy; still, nothing changes.
Support of Israel threatens US national security
The US reigning in Israel is a matter of US national security. The fury many Muslims feel over the injustices toward Palestine is directed towards the US. Will it take a dirty bomb in an American city to get the public’s attention? US support of Palestine would defuse Al Qaeda and most Muslim fury globally.
Here’s an alternative, more peaceful scenario:
US support of Israel is recognized as a threat to national security, and support is dramatically reduced.
The US develops its first national energy policy—and converts 18-wheelers and mass transit to natural gas, making the US fairly independent of Mideast oil.
Palestine is recognized as an independent state, and Israeli interference ends.
Palestine and Israel cooperate and live in peace.
The Arab nations do business with Israel as with everyone else. Iran is left alone, puzzled, that everyone else’s fury has dissipated and peace reigns in the Holy Land. The ayatollahs decide to focus on economic development, too.
Creating peace with collective consciousness
Last night celebrations of the New Year were canceled in Dubai. No extravaganzas in hotels, fireworks put away. More than 1,000 gathered on a beach in a peace vigil. This is how peace will be created in the Holy Land—by the prayers and intervention of those outside the conflict holding a consciousness of peace. The hatred and fury has gone on too long and runs too deep for those engaged in Israel and Palestine to create peace by themselves.
As individuals and collectively we experience whatever we prepare for. We have a Secretary of War, and so we find or start wars to engage in. What the US needs is a Secretary of Peace—let’s prepare for peace in 2009!
Salud!
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in US foreign policy, Uncategorized, parenting, planetary health, spirituality | Comments Off
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
Just last March (2007) the city of Sydney, Australia, launched Earth Hour, an hour in which residences and businesses turned off all unnecessary lights. Last week another 24 cities around the globe participated and turned off primarily llights that make our cities’ buildings and bridges look glamorous but aren’t really necessary for safety.
In Sydney, 2.2 milion residents and 21,000 businesses switched off unnecessary lighting, and the savings was a 10.2 percent reduction in electrical output according to the Earth Hour organization’s website. In Dubai, electricity usage dropped by 100,000 kilowatt hours when lights were turned off the Burg Al Arab Hotel and the city’s other architectural landmarks.
The significance of turning off unnecessary lighting and reducing electrical usage is that about half of the carbon emissions put into the atmosphere and causing global warming is due to coal-fired electrical generation. In Dubai alone the reduction in carbon emissions for the one-hour voluntary brown-out was estimated by the electricity agency to be 60,000kg.
Government Must Take Lead
While individuals can–and must–keep off unneeded lights and appliances, it is government agencies that must reduce use of lighting in public places where it’s decorative but unnecessary for safety. And businesses must turn off the lighting in buildings when it’s unoccupied.
In the early 1970s, when I was writing on environmental issues, it took more electricity to turn flourescent lights back on than to leave them on continuously. The technology has improved in 30 some years, and the real estate managers must turn off the lights, even use less during the day (it’s bad for our health anyway, but that’s another blog).
Raise Prices of Electricity
It’s unlikely the price of oil or a tank of gas is going to go back down substantially due to increasing demand from the giant economies of China and India. And the cost of food is rising and unlikely to return to earlier lower prices. One sure way to reduce electrical usage is to increase the cost of electricity for all of us–now when it might still make a difference in the planet’s condition.
Old-Fashioned Conservation
Maybe it was living in rural America, maybe it was having parents who had been children during the 1930s economic depression, maybe it was the semi-arid land the family was farming, maybe it was their frugal, conservation values applied (in child rearing) through the 1950s and 60s. Whatever the reason, the generation of Boomers was raised to turn off the light when you left the room and not to waste water under any circumstances. When did we forget to teach our children to turn off the lights?
Now there are energy-saving bulbs that give 75 watts of light for the energy usage of 25 watts. Don’t leave computers running (another health hazard, too). Appliances (TVs, etc) don’t have to left on standby. Sit on the porch and visit with neighbors (or gather at the neighborhood park or lake in the evening) instead of using air conditioning. Be inventive on alternative activities that free us of electrical appliances.
From Earth Day to Earth Hour
The launching of Earth Day on April 22, 1970, made a huge impact on bringing together groups, organizations, and individuals who were concerned about the polluted environment industry was causing. Twenty million Americans rallied that first Earth Day. Earth Day 2007 saw an estimated one billion people in 184 countries participate in save-the-earth activities.
That we have moved from Earth Day to an Earth Hour activity is symbolic of the urgency of the planet’s condition. Earth Day activities became year-round, continuous endeavors to take care of the planet. The voluntary brown-out of Earth Hour needs to be adapted as a way of life before it’s no longer voluntary.
Sobering Images
The photographs of the cityscape of Sydney and of the Sydney Harbor Bridge before the Earth Hour at 8pm and during the hour were sobering. The nighttime cityscapes we’re used to are brightly lit buildings and bridges. Sydney was much darker, and the Burg Al Arab lost much of its glamour without the colored spotlights.
But if we don’t keep the lights off, here are more sobering visuals:
A chunk of Greenland the size of Rhode Island, it was reported this week, is breaking away from the mainland.
If the planet heats up 6-degrees, we’ll experience another ice age (with changes in ocean currents due to melting polar ice caps).
The shocking image of Manhattan half submerged in water and ice in the final scene of Artificial Intelligence.
Tell your children (and practice it yourself)–When you leave the room, turn off the lights (and all electronics)!
Salud!
Beverly Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Uncategorized, parenting, planetary health, science, technology and health | Comments Off
Saturday, March 15th, 2008
As the number of childhod vaccinations being required by states continues to increase, the number of parents who are saying, “No! Enough!” is increasing–slightly.
Through the 1980s the number of vaccines required for infants and young children quadrupled. A spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Thomas Saari, threatened in 2006, that the Academy projected one or two vaccines will be added each year for the next 10 years–to the some 20 the children are already subjected to.
As of 2005 the CDC recommended vaccinating against 11 diseases, and the AMA is aiming to vaccinate against 16 infectious diseases. All of this makes our very young children veritable depositories of chemicals.
No one is quite certain why, but as surely as we increased the number of vaccinations cases of autism among young children escalated from 1 in 10,000 in the early 1990s to 1 in 150 today. Certainly, nobody in the medical establishment admitted to the preservative used in vaccines to being the cause of autism, but the mercury preservative, thimerosal, was removed from all but the influenza vaccines.
Parents Have Power to Say “No”
Nineteen states have laws similar to a “conscientious objector” exemption for parents to want to opt out of vaccines for their children. Less than one percent of school-age children in each state have exemptions, according to a NY Times report this month, but the numbers are going up.
And the number of parents paying attention to this had better rise as the number of innoculations is increasing just as the pediatrician threatened three years ago. This year state lawmakers in New Jersey approved requiring two more shots for preschoolers: flu and pneumonia and two more for sixth graders: meningitis and a booster against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis. In January, New York started requiring pneumonia vaccine for preschool children in day care (and mandatory flu shots for them is under consideration) and the DPT booster shot for sixth graders. Health officials in Connecticut are considering a whole slough of shots for preschoolers and school-age children including flu and Hepatitis A.
Who’s Lobbying for these Laws?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) makes advisories for the public, yes, based upon studies and reports from the physicians and the pharmaceutical companies. But the CDC doesn’t lobby state legislators to mandate that the population do this or do that. Who gains from this broadscale vaccination of sections of the population? We know the answer to this–the pharmaceutical companies. There are more pharma lobbyists in Washington, DC, than there are Congressional representatives. And they’re in the State capitols as well.
Viruses Mutate–Shots Aren’t Effective
In late February a CDC advisory panel recommended that all children ages 6 months to 18 years receive an annual influenza shot. Members of the panel must have been blinded by the $$ signs to not see the reports also out last month that this year’s flu shot is 44 percent effective against the viruses circulating this flu season. The effectiveness in other years has been lower (28%) and higher, but there are always side-effects–like getting the flu! The virus changes gradually as it circulates (genetic drift) among people. So shots are more likely to cause side-effects than to actually prevent flu.
For flu shots the emphasis (marketing target) has always been on the elderly and infirm. They were at greatest risks, we’ve always been told. However, despite all the years of flu vaccines, the number of hospitalizations and deaths associated with influenza had continued to rise in recent years (NYT, 6/6/06). It seems the elderly are at high risk for complications and death, so now let’s focus on the youngest set. In fact, a NY Times editorial thought innoculating the entire population was a good idea. That writer hasn’t heard it yet: THE SHOTS DON’T WORK.
Neither does the vaccination for pneumonia work. A recent study showed that if you had the shot you were less likely to die of complications from the disease than those who hadn’t had the vaccination. But you still got pneumonia! In 2003, a study tracking 47,000 subjects over age 65 for four years concluded pnemonia vaccination didn’t reduce the risk of pneumonia. Now clinical trials of drugs with infants and young children is rarely, if ever, done–it feels immoral? But these vaccinations will make the entire generation a pharmaceutical trial.
Disease-care, not Health-care
The whole approach of continually seeking yet another drug or vaccine for yet another virus or bacteria, etc. is sick itself. The approach is focusing on the sickness or the disease; it’s disease-care instead of health-care. The American population (directed by total reliance on MDs who are partners with the pharmaceutical companies) has lost sight of what health means–it’s wellness and balance. The body, left unto itself and given correct nutrition, is a remarkable organism and will heal itself.
I was reminded of this by a veterinarian who I took an injured pet rabbit to for medical attention. Hearing the cost of what I thought would be minor surgery, I asked, “What will happen if we don’t do this surgery?” She answered, “It (part of the paw) will just fall off and heal itself.” It was a Eureka! moment. And she instructed me on wound care to avoid infection.
The viruses mutate and new ones reveal themselves in populations, and governments spend billions of dollars researching vaccines for pandemics that are unlikely to occur. The sane, sensible, and only safe way to prepare ourselves for whatever comes our way–whether it’s sneezes at the nearby desk or on the commuter train or transported via planes–is by strengthening our immune system. With a strong immune system whatever bug is going around, goes around you.
My daughter noticed this after she been taking Ban Lan Gen tea (Chinese herbal usually for change-in-seasons) for reoccuring serious respiratory infections. “Everyone around me is sneezing or coughing, has a cold, and I don’t even feel a twinge,” she said. She hasn’t had bronchitis or a cold in four years. The immune system was bolstered.
A new study sponsored by the USDA recruited residents from 33 nursing homes to test the effects of daily nutritional supplements on incidents of pneumonia and use of antibiotics. The researchers concluded, “Zinc supplementation to maintain normal serum zinc concentrations in the elderly may help reduce the incidence of pneumonia and associated moribidity.” So there’s an alternative to a pneumonia shot–and known to work! As HSI’s Jenny Thompson says, we may see Haley’s Comet again before we see another government-sponsored report recommending nutritional supplements.
Parent Power
To find a coalition of parents concerned about vaccinations in your country or state see the website below. This is a concern world-wide.
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/groups.html
As adults, we make our own choices, and we have to live with the consequences. Children don’t have a choice, either of the foods they’re fed or medicines they’re given. It should be a conscious, educated decision of the parents, not the state’s decision by default.
Salud!
Beverly Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Politics and Medicine, US healthcare system, Uncategorized, economics of medicine, ethics of medicine, medicial science, parenting, science, technology and health | Comments Off
Saturday, March 1st, 2008
A slide show circulated last fall (Thanksgiving?) on the Internet that was a series of photos showing families of four standing beside a table of all the food stuffs they would consume in one week and a large price tag for those groceries.
About one dozen countries were represented, and the price tags ranged from $363 in the US (with Germany not far behind) to less than $2 for a week’s (meager) food stuffs for a family of four in Ethiopia. The message at the close of the slide show was, in effect, “Look how much we have to be thankful for.” (You can bet Americans were the ones passing this on the net.)
Give Thanks and Think about Our Choices
As I watched the slide show I was gauging the nutritional value of the week’s groceries. My assessment of the US picture (and each family member was overweight–have we forgotten what “healthy weight” looks like?) was, “Look at all the processed food and junk food Americans eat!” And the physical condition of the family illustrated the consequences of the American diet.
The American table was piled high with bags of chips, snack foods, boxes of processed foods, and six half-gallon bottles of soda. Fresh vegetables, fruits, meat–anything not boxed, canned or bagged–was minimal on the table.
The German table, close in price, had considerably less boxes, half the soda–their fresh food is simply more expensive. Our visits to relatives in Bavaria attest to this.
Of all the menus, I favored Sardinia’s at $163/week. The Italian table was piled high with lush vegetables, fruits, and meat, a veritable cornucopia of color and shapes, and few packaged goods to be found.
The choices of foods on the American table (and in our pantry) and conversations with 20-somethings in the past few months on three continents make me wonder if we are forgetting how to prepare our own food “from scratch.” Are we losing the art of preparing food? Or even of knowledge what food is?
From the Vine, not the Cupboard
We used to be surprised that children didn’t know milk was from cows, not the grocery shelf. Now I wonder if the youth know what real food is. While visiting 20-something friends they wanted to make a quick spaghetti dinner and found no bottled spaghettic sauce in the cupboard. Before they could head off to buy a jar of sauce, I asked if they had any tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, and lemon–we could make our own sauce. I knew they had the necessary herbs and wine. The dinner conversation was how all today’s sauces, salad dressings, and various other prepared products didn’t exist 25-30 years ago. No boxed soups (canned, yes–Campbell’s forever), cake frosting, hollandaise sauce, spaghetti, salsa, “sauces of the world” to add to meat, etc, etc.
I made a mean Mexican salsa (and tortillas from scratch), but the bottled tomato-based products are hard to surpass. I still have no interest in “air cakes” from a box–neither do the daughters. When we exchanged a new recipe for a pie-crust, I told my 24-yo that she and her sisters may be the only three of their generation making pie crusts from scratch.
In search of Tea–really!
The most amusing (and telling) tale of the state of cooking is my world-wide quest for “plain brewed ice tea.” Whether in Virginia, Capetown, or Dubai, restaurant staffs rarely comprehend that iced tea is simply hot tea poured over ice. It doesn’t have to come from a can or powder with the various additives. As usual, in Capetown I ordered a pot of (hot) tea and a glass of ice with a wedge of lemon. Putting a spoon in the glass to absorb the heat, I made a perfect and simple iced tea. The young waitress was intrigued–she said she would try that!
Vola! Iced tea is hot tea over ice. Apple sauce is apples cooked with a small amount of water. Cranberry sauce is berries and water (or OJ) and sugar. Leomonade is a cooked syrup of sugar and water with lemon juice and ice added.
The popularity of the US Food Channel is hopeful–if you actually get off the couch and cook! Rachael Ray shows us we can stop eating one in three meals at restaurants and cook tasty, fast dishes at home. However, Rachael is pulling a lot of bottles and packages out of the pantry (but no junk food). At 6:30 on a Wednesday, some prepared foods are necessary. The guiding rule in buying: the fewer the ingredients, the fewer the additives and the healthier it is for you. But let’s not forget how easy it is to prepare pure and unadulterated food.
Salud!
Beverly Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Uncategorized, nutrition and politics, parenting, technology and health | 1 Comment »
Saturday, December 15th, 2007
It was a silly childhood ditty that we all heard. We used it to defend ourselves when being bullied: “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”
That little ditty is oh-so-wrong! Words can slay the soul. Bones will mend themselves, but restoring the soul takes conscious effort, and most of us hardly recover. I am now working in a culture where children are shamed, and effects are life-long.
Words that nourish the soul are rarely heard anymore. In our media-rushed, sound-byte, txt msg world it’s rare that we truly listen, acknowledge, and honor each other. And it’s attention to the soul that shapes our inner being and collectively shapes our world.
A program that was created 20 years ago this spring, The Virtues Project, and is now taught in some 90 countries, attends to the soul and goes a long way in creating true “peace on earth.”
The creative and spiritual genius of psychologists Dan Popov and Linda Kavelin Popov and Linda’s brother, John Kavelin, The Virtues Project employs five strategies to create more peaceful societies–one person at a time. At the core of the Project is re-learning the language of the virtues, concepts such as tolerance, courage, patience, kindness–how is the virtue expressed, and then acknowledging that virtue in others when they show success in demonstrating it.
Between learning the language of the virtues and acknowledging it in others, is the strategy of listening. Listening! We so take it for granted, but the Virtues Project trains us in cup-emptying listening, framing questions so the individual “empties their cup” of emotions.
I was honored to be among the first trained in The Virtues Project in Seattle in the late ’80s. Individuals in our group were taking these strategies back to their corporations, schools, churches, and the Seattle police department. My young daughters had my foremost attention.
The eldest daughter came home from kindergarten shortly after my training, and declared she hated school and she was never going back. Leila was a strong-willed child on a good day, and this was not a good day. Asking cup-emptying questions was the only possible resolution for what could only be (another) war of wills. Thinking like an adult, I speculated that the problem at school was social–she wasn’t making friends–or academic–the program was too structured (that would be in first grade!).
When I used the listening/questioning strategy of The Virtues Project, my five-year-old told me she got too hungry before lunch! That was why she hated school. I had repeatedly asked her if she didn’t need an extra snack for the mornings, and she’d always declined. But, then, I was asking when she’d just had breakfast, and a young child’s “future needs” are about one minute out.
What Peace on Earth Feels Like
Since creation of The Virtues Project it has grown as a grass-roots program with facilitators all over the world. The program has been delivered in Canada’s First Nations communities; in prisons in Australia; in US and Canadian communities that have suffered trauma; in schools in America, Canada, and throughout New Zealand; in South Pacific Island states, just to name a few.
As I watched emails flying between facilitators in the weeks and months following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, as they supported each other, I saw a hundred candle lights of hope and love in the scores of message flags. This, I thought, is what peace on earth feels like. Give yourself, your family, your company, your community a gift of peace this season by visiting www.VirtuesProject.com. Buy the books to nurture yourself and then your loved ones. Put a poster on the refrigerator so everyone is reminded of the virtue of the week–hourly. You’ll be truly creating peace on earth, one person at a time.
Peace & Compassion,
Beverly A. Jensen, Ph.D.
President, www.WomensMedicineBowl.com
Posted in Uncategorized, parenting, planetary health, spirituality | Comments Off
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