rants of an unwitting radical feminist

A picture's worth a 1,000 words - and about $8 Trillion

cerulean_moon — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:38:08 GMT

Tracking the Bailout via an image in today's NYT (Click on image to see the full-sized version)

US Officials Flunk Civic Literacy Test

cerulean_moon — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 04:18:29 GMT

Amazing - a random sampling of 2500 citizens did better than elected officials (49 vs 44%) on a civic literacy test. Are these the same people that complain about immigrants not being "real Americans"! Food for thought... Take the test: http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx US officials flunk test of Amerian history, economics, civics Thu Nov 20, 2:24 pm ET WASHINGTON (AFP) – US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday. Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). "It is disturbing enough that the general public failed ISI's civic literacy test, but when you consider the even more dismal scores of elected officials, you have to be concerned," said Josiah Bunting, chairman of the National Civic Literacy Board at ISI. "How can political leaders make informed decisions if they don't understand the American experience?" he added. The exam questions covered American history, the workings of the US government and economics. Among the questions asked of some 2,500 people who were randomly selected to take the test, including "self-identified elected officials," was one which asked respondents to "name two countries that were our enemies during World War II." Sixty-nine percent of respondents correctly identified Germany and Japan. Among the incorrect answers were Britain, China, Russia, Canada, Mexico and Spain. Forty percent of respondents, meanwhile, incorrectly believed that the US president has the power to declare war, while 54 percent correctly answered that that power rests with Congress. Asked about the electoral college, 20 percent of elected officials incorrectly said it was established to "supervise the first televised presidential debates." In fact, the system of choosing the US president via an indirect electoral college vote dates back some 220 years, to the US Constitution. The question that received the fewest correct responses, just 16 percent, tested respondents' basic understanding of economic principles, asking why "free markets typically secure more economic prosperity than government's centralized planning?" Activities that dull Americans' civic knowledge include talking on the phone and watching movies or television -- even news shows and documentaries, ISI said. Meanwhile, civic knowledge is enhanced by discussing public affairs, taking part in civic activities and reading about current events and history, the group said.

Prop 8 and Civil Rights - majority rule?

cerulean_moon — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:57:12 GMT

Some interesting thoughts for pondering from a radio piece I am listening to: Gavin Newsom (current Mayor of San Francisco): “If you did a Prop 8 in 1967 for interracial marriage, would that have been right?” Newsom questioned whether issues like same-sex marriage or interracial marriage should be put to a popular vote. He said that when the US Supreme Court struck down miscegenation laws 40 years ago, 77% of Americans still objected to Blacks and Whites marrying. “I don’t think in the history of the Civil Rights Movement that many rights have been advanced by majority rule. Do any of us look back and say that interracial marriage should still be illegal on the day after Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States?” … Polls say that 70% of African Americans who voted in California voted for Prop 8 – the same demographic that turned out in record numbers to vote for Barack Obama was also key in the success of Prop 8, according to Frank Schubert, the head of the “Yes on 8” campaign. … Next week, in many pulpits around the state, there will be many sermons about how traditional marriage and religious freedoms have been protected. And on the other side, there will be protests and candlelight vigils to decry the hate and discrimination of Prop 8. Both will use language of the oppressed to express themselves. The question is - will anyone be listening? For the rest of the story see http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/11/08/prop_8_follow_up/

SNL Palin skit - most recent

cerulean_moon — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:26:54 GMT

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/couric-palin-open/704042/ This is hilarious! I cracked up out loud over and over - enjoy (while trying not to be too depressed about the situation)! Update: Oh, it gets worse. I just watched the actual interview - the SNL "skit" is more like a re-inactment than a spoof - Seriously, see for yourself: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/24/eveningnews/main4476173.shtml

a more radical solution would be nicer, but...

cerulean_moon — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 01:41:01 GMT

after thinking about what would be feasible in the near-term, I posted the following comment in response to a recent article on the political mess of the present. It seems the one thing that we've learned for sure throughout our economic crisis is that both McCain and Obama will change their minds and policy plans about what should be done to improve the economic situation if the change seems likely to bring them votes. Unfortunately, neither candidates' plans are realistic - our economy is in bad shape and we're going to have to pay for it one way or another. We cannot afford big tax breaks, so why promise them? Furthermore, the cost of health care and health insurance in our country is reaching proportions that are becoming unaffordable for many middle class Americans, not to mention those living at or below the poverty line. Neither candidate has proposed an affordable, feasible plan to address this either. So, when will the candidates tell us what they will do in office instead of telling us what they think we want to hear? I propose a radical idea – what would happen if a candidate decided to take up a conversation with the nation on economic and health issues. I am picturing a table surrounded by the candidate and their advisors as a forum to discuss the realities of these situations – pros and cons, ideas for change, concerns raised by “average Americans” and what we would like to achieve, what we are willing to give up and what we are not willing to back down on. This could be a series of televised sessions, each followed by a feedback gathering from said “average Americans” to see what additional questions and concerns have arisen during the forum and where the opinions of the majority of lie. What would happen if a candidate decided to respect and engage the American public? I am in the medical field and it seems that some of the features that make a good doctor might inform the candidates about what the public wants in a leader – someone who is a competent, critical thinker; someone who analyzes the pros and cons of each decision but who listens to, and ultimately respects, the choices made by the patient (read: public) once they have been given the proper information and had time to compare their values and the decisions to be made. What happens in the doctor’s office is a good patient-doctor relationship that translates to better care and patient satisfaction. It has been a long time since our economy and health payer systems have been well-managed or resulted in public satisfaction. Maybe this is the change that we’ve been waiting for.

What you can (easily) do for the Environment & the controversy between the Locavore Meat-eater & International Vegan

cerulean_moon — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:23:01 GMT

Note: the study that this article is referring to showed that use of dairy products was nearly as big a contributor to global warming as eating beef. Said study also showed that “replacing red meat and dairy with chicken, fish, or eggs for one day per week was like reducing emissions equal to 760 miles per year of driving, and switching to vegetables [vegan diet] one day per week cuts the equivalent of driving 1160 miles per year.” Yes, that means that the grander experiment of switching from a diet that contains some meat daily to a vegetarian diet would be the equivalent of reducing emissions by 5,320 miles of driving per year. Switching from meat to vegan would be like reducing emissions by 8,120 miles per year and from vegetarian to vegan like reducing by 2,800 miles per year. That said, if you’re not up for drastic change, even opting out of meat and/or dairy one day per week will make a difference. A Reference: http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2008/apr/science/ee_foodmiles.html (link is a summary of findings from CL Weber & Mathews, HS. Food-miles and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices in the United States. Environ. Sci. Technol. Web published April 16, 2008.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ARTICLE (finally!): UN says eat less meat to curb global warming Juliette Jowit, environment editor The Observer, Sunday September 7 2008 People should have one meat-free day a week if they want to make a personal and effective sacrifice that would help tackle climate change, the world's leading authority on global warming has told The Observer Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further. His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle global warning. Pachauri, who was re-elected the panel's chairman for a second six-year term last week, said diet change was important because of the huge greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems - including habitat destruction - associated with rearing cattle and other animals. It was relatively easy to change eating habits compared to changing means of transport, he said. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide. The agency has also warned that meat consumption is set to double by the middle of the century. 'In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity,' said Pachauri. 'Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there,' said the Indian economist, who is a vegetarian. However, he also stressed other changes in lifestyle would help to combat climate change. 'That's what I want to emphasise: we really have to bring about reductions in every sector of the economy.' Pachauri can expect some vociferous responses from the food industry to his advice, though last night he was given unexpected support by Masterchef presenter and restaurateur John Torode, who is about to publish a new book, John Torode's Beef. 'I have a little bit and enjoy it,' said Torode. 'Too much for any person becomes gluttony. But there's a bigger issue here: where [the meat] comes from. If we all bought British and stopped buying imported food we'd save a huge amount of carbon emissions.' Tomorrow, Pachauri will speak at an event hosted by animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming, which has calculated that if the average UK household halved meat consumption that would cut emissions more than if car use was cut in half. The group has called for governments to lead campaigns to reduce meat consumption by 60 per cent by 2020. Campaigners have also pointed out the health benefits of eating less meat. The average person in the UK eats 50g of protein from meat a day, equivalent to a chicken breast and a lamb chop - a relatively low level for rich nations but 25-50 per cent more than World Heath Organisation guidelines. Professor Robert Watson, the chief scientific adviser for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, who will also speak at tomorrow's event in London, said government could help educate people about the benefits of eating less meat, but it should not 'regulate'. 'Eating less meat would help, there's no question about that, but there are other things,' Watson said. However, Chris Lamb, head of marketing for pig industry group BPEX, said the meat industry had been unfairly targeted and was working hard to find out which activities had the biggest environmental impact and reduce those. Some ideas were contradictory, he said - for example, one solution to emissions from livestock was to keep them indoors, but this would damage animal welfare. 'Climate change is a very young science and our view is there are a lot of simplistic solutions being proposed,' he said. Last year a major report into the environmental impact of meat eating by the Food Climate Research Network at Surrey University claimed livestock generated 8 per cent of UK emissions - but eating some meat was good for the planet because some habitats benefited from grazing. It also said vegetarian diets that included lots of milk, butter and cheese would probably not noticeably reduce emissions because dairy cows are a major source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas released through flatulence. This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday September 07 2008 on p1 of the News section. It was last updated at 09:42 on September 08 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/07/food.foodanddrink/print

A (very) Brief Update & Related Post from a Recent WHO Statement

cerulean_moon — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:39:19 GMT

Hi All, This is a re-post from a daily email that I get from one of the past presidents of Physicians for a National Health Program (website: http://www.pnhp.org/ ). Many of the board members/affiliates/grassroots people who are working for and are part of the organization are at the hospital that I am doing my 3rd-year clerkship at, the Cambridge Hospital (TCH). TCH is part of the public hospital system in Massachussetts, the Cambridge Health Alliance, which is made up of 22 clinics and 3 hospital. I go between several of the sites, the med school proper, and various other venues for my 3rd-year med school education. As you'll no doubt realize from the post, this community of physicians is very active in promoting health for everyone regardless of financial, educational or legal status. I am so lucky to be surrounded by such a phenomenal group of people. That said, 3rd-year is a LOT OF WORK! It is also a priviledge to be privy to the most trying, precious, heart-wrenching and miraculous parts of human life and death. Days alternate between loving what I'm doing and wanting to run away and live in the woods - such is life. Anyway, I hope you're all well. I think of you all the time, Michelle ------------------------------------------------------------------------- World Health Organization August 28, 2008 Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through Action on the Social Determinants of Health Inequities are killing people on a "grand scale" reports WHO's Commission "(The) toxic combination of bad policies, economics, and politics is, in large measure responsible for the fact that a majority of people in the world do not enjoy the good health that is biologically possible," the Commissioners write in Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through Action on the Social Determinants of Health. "Social injustice is killing people on a grand scale." Wealth is not necessarily a determinant Economic growth is raising incomes in many countries but increasing national wealth alone does not necessarily increase national health. Without equitable distribution of benefits, national growth can even exacerbate inequities. Wealth alone does not have to determine the health of a nation's population. Some low-income countries such as Cuba, Costa Rica, China, state of Kerala in India and Sri Lanka have achieved levels of good health despite relatively low national incomes. But, the Commission points out, wealth can be wisely used. Nordic countries, for example, have followed policies that encouraged equality of benefits and services, full employment, gender equity and low levels of social exclusion. This, said the Commission, is an outstanding example of what needs to be done everywhere. Inequities within countries In the United States, 886,202 deaths would have been averted between 1991 and 2000 if mortality rates between white and African Americans were equalized. Universal Health Care Access to and utilization of health care is vital to good and equitable health. The health-care system is itself a social determinant of health, influenced by and influencing the effect of other social determinants. Gender, education, occupation, income, ethnicity, and place of residence are all closely linked to people's access to, experiences of, and benefits from health care. Leaders in health care have an important stewardship role across all branches of society to ensure that policies and actions in other sectors improve health equity. The Commission advocates financing the health-care system through general taxation and/or mandatory universal insurance. Public health-care spending has been found to be redistributive in country after country. The evidence is compellingly in favour of a publicly funded health-care system. In particular, it is vital to minimize out-of-pocket spending on health care. The policy imposition of user fees for health care in low- and middle-income countries has led to an overall reduction in utilization and worsening health outcomes. Upwards of 100 million people are pushed into poverty each year through catastrophic household health costs. This is unacceptable. Health-care systems have better health outcomes when built on Primary Health Care (PHC) – that is, both the PHC model that emphasizes locally appropriate action across the range of social determinants, where prevention and promotion are in balance with investment in curative interventions, and an emphasis on the primary level of care with adequate referral to higher levels of care. Recommendations Based on this compelling evidence, the Commission makes three overarching recommendations to tackle the "corrosive effects of inequality of life chances": 1. Improve daily living conditions, including the circumstances in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. 2. Tackle the inequitable distribution of power, money and resources – the structural drivers of those conditions – globally, nationally and locally. 3. Measure and understand the problem and assess the impact of action. Press release: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2008/pr29/en/index.html Executive Summary (40 pages): http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2008/WHO_IER_CSDH_08.1_eng.pdf Full report (256 pages): http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2008/9789241563703_eng.pdf Comment: On this Labor Day weekend, a time that we celebrate the great contributions of American workers, the release of this report could not be more timely. Hard working Americans are experiencing the adverse consequences of the increasing inequities in the social determinants of health, inequities that really only society is equipped to address. Today, Hurricane Gustav is descending on our Gulf Coast, testing further whether we as a society can join together to meet our challenges, or if instead those affected are simply left on their own. Please excuse me for a personal moment of introspection. For over ten years I've been a full-time volunteer for Physicians for a National Program. I remember well a conversation I had several years ago with David Himmelstein, a cofounder of PNHP. We observed that, while the task of achieving health care for everyone in the United States seemed almost arduous, it was a miniscule problem compared to the needs throughout the world. Ours was such a tiny task in comparison. We didn't need more money. We merely needed to fix the way we finance health care as an essential first step to begin to address these inequities. Ten years later one simple number gives us an inkling of the degree of our success. This report shows that over 800,000 African Americans have died prematurely in the United States in the past decade merely because we have failed to address these inequities in the social determinants of health. (moment of silence) Hopefully we'll do better with Gustav than we did with Katrina, having learned a lesson. But do we really need more lessons on the social determinants of health before we begin to act? Eight hundred thousand is far too many painful lessons for me. _______________________________________________ Quote-of-the-day mailing list Quote-of-the-day@mccanne.org http://two.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/quote-of-the-day

Playstation 2, cell phones, and some computers = blood diamonds??

cerulean_moon — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:11:00 GMT

Playstation 2 component incites African war Console war reaches past the couch and into the Congo, claims report. By Ben Silverman Has the video game industry dug up its very own blood diamond? According to a report by activist site Toward Freedom, for the past decade the search for a rare metal necessary in the manufacturing of Sony's Playstation 2 game console has fueled a brutal conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At the center of the conflict is the unrefined metallic ore, coltan. After processing, coltan turns into a powder called tantalum, which is used extensively in a wealth of western electronic devices including cell phones, computers and, of course, game consoles. Allegedly, the demand for coltan prompted Rwandan military groups and western mining companies to plunder hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the rare metal, often by forcing prisoners-of-war and even children to work in the country's coltan mines. "Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms," said Ex-British Parliament Member Oona King. So where's the connection to Sony? According to Toward Freedom, during the 2000 launch of the PS2, the electronics giant was having trouble meeting consumer demand. To pump out more units, Sony required a significant increase in the production of electric capacitors, which are primarily made with tantalum. This helped drive the world price of the powder from $49/pound to a whopping $275/pound, resulting in the frenzied scouring of the Congolese hills known for being ripe with coltan. Sony has since sworn off using tantalum acquired from the Congo, claiming that current builds of the PS2, PSP and PS3 consoles are sourced from a variety of mines in several different countries. But according to researcher David Barouski, they're hardly off the hook. "SONY's PlayStation 2 launch...was a big part of the huge increase in demand for coltan that began in early 1999," he explained. "SONY and other companies like it, have the benefit of plausible deniability, because the coltan ore trades hands so many times from when it is mined to when SONY gets a processed product, that a company often has no idea where the original coltan ore came from, and frankly don't care to know. But statistical analysis shows it to be nearly inconceivable that SONY made all its PlayStations without using Congolese coltan." Currently, the Playstation 2 is the best-selling video game console of all-time, having sold through over 140 million units.

Medical Miracles - "The Former 'Pregnant Man' Debuts His Baby"

cerulean_moon — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:05:20 GMT

It's been three weeks since his blue-eyed baby debuted in this world, but Thomas Beatie – better known around the world as the Pregnant Man – can already say this about his daughter's personality: "She's easygoing and mellow and intelligent." On June 29 at 8:55 p.m., Beatie, 34, a former female beauty pageant contestant, made cultural history as perhaps the first legally transgender male to give birth, bringing into the world a 9 lbs., 5 oz. baby girl named Susan Juliette. "She's so precious, I just can't stop staring at her," Thomas tells PEOPLE in his first interview since he and wife Nancy returned with their bundle from Bend, Oregon's St. Charles Medical Center. "Just holding her is the best feeling in the world." Susan – named after Thomas's mother and conceived through artificial insemination with donor sperm – arrived after 40 hours of labor, with Nancy at Thomas's side acting as his coach. "When Susan finally came out, it was like in slow motion," says Thomas. "I was full of wonder." Echoes Nancy: "There were tears of joy." Both father and daughter came through the birth in perfect health. "I weigh two pounds less than I did before I got pregnant," adds Thomas. "And I don't have a single stretch mark!" At home, the couple is adjusting to their new nightly schedule: Nancy breastfeeding (by induced lactation, a process using hormones and physical stimulation with a breast pump) and Thomas keeping company while watching TV. Crows Thomas, "Susan is a miracle! And we're finally the family we've been dreaming of." -- by Champ Clark, People Magazine, July 23, 2008

Thanks for your support

cerulean_moon — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:31:21 GMT

Thanks so much to everyone who has sent kind words and thoughts - they are much appreciated. The following post is as much for my reference later as anything else and gives various perspectives on the flooding. 81 of the 99 counties in Iowa are slated for federal emergency; much is already being bulldozed, it is being refered to as "another Katrina," and will certainly affect the food crisis in the months to come as most of the corn in the US come from this state whose crop has been decimated. Iowa Floods May Further Deepen Food Crisis http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91531164 9 Feet over Flood Stage, Iowa River Engulfs Campus http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91544422 After the Deluge in Iowa City http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91562360 Fresh Water a Top Concern in Flooded Iowa http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91532717 Listen: Iowa Gov. Chet Culver: 'Absolutely Heartbreaking' Listen: David Schaper: More Flooding Expected Listen: Farmer George Naylor: Crop Damage and Corn Prices In Iowa, Worries about Flood Damage, Insurance http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91535651 In Midwest, Rising Waters and Fears of Worse http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/us/14midwest.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin Photo Galleries: NPR: http://www.npr.org/news/images/2008/jun/16/floods/gallery/index.html New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/06/13/us/0614-FLOODS_8.html Map: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/06/14/us/14midwest.ready.html

My Hometown - Under Water

cerulean_moon — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:38:35 GMT

There have been massive thunderstorms, flooding and tornados over the past couples weeks in the Midwest. My hometown, and family, have been effected. Here's a video of some of the destruction from Mason City's newspaper. http://videos.globegazette.com/p/video?id=1923664 and a photo: http://globe1.fotki.com/breaking_news/flooding-2008/2008flood001.html

Some actual reporting? Animals, antibiotics, CAFOs, BPA, chemical & pharm industries...

cerulean_moon — Tue, 06 May 2008 03:01:51 GMT

Guess the Washington Post decided to do some real reporting... ================= 9. Washington Post ================= April 30, 2008 HEADLINE: Report Targets Costs Of Factory Farming BYLINE: Rick Weiss Factory farming takes a big, hidden toll on human health and the environment, is undermining rural America 's economic stability and fails to provide the humane treatment of livestock increasingly demanded by American consumers, concludes an independent, 2 1/2 -year analysis that calls for major changes in the way corporate agriculture produces meat, milk and eggs. The report released yesterday, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, finds that the "economies of scale" used to justify factory farming practices are largely an illusion, perpetuated by a failure to account for associated costs. Among those costs are human illnesses caused by drug-resistant bacteria associated with the rampant use of antibiotics on feedlots and the degradation of land, water and air quality caused by animal waste too intensely concentrated to be neutralized by natural processes. Several observers said the report, by experts with varying backgrounds and allegiances, is remarkable for the number of tough recommendations that survived the grueling research and review process, which participants said was politically charged and under constant pressure from powerful agricultural interests. In the end, however, even industry representatives on the panel agreed to such controversial recommendations as a ban on the nontherapeutic use of antibiotics in farm animals -- a huge hit against veterinary pharmaceutical companies -- a phaseout of all intensive confinement systems that prevent the free movement of farm animals, and more vigorous enforcement of antitrust laws in the increasingly consolidated agricultural arena. "At the end of his second term, President Dwight Eisenhower warned the nation about the dangers of the military-industrial complex -- an unhealthy alliance between the defense industry, the Pentagon, and their friends on Capitol Hill," wrote Robert P. Martin, executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, which wrote the report. "Now the agro-industrial complex -- an alliance of agricultural commodity groups, scientists at academic institutions who are paid by the industry, and their friends on Capitol Hill -- is a concern in animal food production in the 21st century." The report, "Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Production in America ," comes at a time when food, agriculture and animal welfare issues are prominent in the American psyche. Food prices are rising faster than they have for decades. Concerns about global climate change have brought new attention to the fact that modern agriculture is responsible for about 20 percent of the nation's greenhouse-gas production. And recent meat recalls, punctuated by the release of undercover footage of cows being abused at a California slaughterhouse, have struck a chord with consumers. The report acknowledges that the decades-long trend toward reliance on "concentrated animal feeding operations," or CAFOs, has brought some benefits, including cheaper food. In 1970, the average American spent 4.2 percent of his or her income to buy 194 pounds of red meat and poultry annually. By 2005, typical Americans were spending 2.1 percent of their income for 221 pounds per year. But the system has brought unintended consequences. With thousands of animals kept in close quarters, diseases spread quickly. To prevent some of those outbreaks -- and to spur faster growth -- factory farms routinely treat animals with antibiotics, speeding the development of drug-resistant bacteria and in some cases rendering important medications less effective in people. It appears that the vast majority of U.S. antibiotic use is for animals, the commission noted, adding that because of the lack of oversight by the Food and Drug Administration and other agencies, even regulators can only estimate how many drugs are being given to animals. The commission urges stronger reporting requirements for companies and a phaseout and then ban on antibiotics in farm animals except as treatments for disease, a policy already initiated in some European countries. "That's a good recommendation. A strong recommendation," said Margaret Mellon of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which released its own report last week documenting billions of dollars in farm subsidies to factory farming operations and annual federal expenditures of $100 million to clean up their ongoing environmental damage. The Pew report also calls for tighter regulation of factory farm waste, finding that toxic gases and dust from animal waste are making CAFO workers and neighbors ill. In calling for a 10-year phaseout of intensive confinement systems such as gestation crates for pigs and so-called battery cages for chickens, the commission adds impetus to recent commitments from some corporate operators to drop, gradually, those controversial practices. "These animals can't engage in normal behavior at all," said commission member Michael Blackwell, a veterinarian and former assistant U.S. surgeon general. Calls for comments from industry representatives were not returned. The report also calls for implementation of a long-delayed national tracking system that would allow trace-back of diseased animals within 48 hours after a human outbreak of food-borne disease. And it calls for an end to forced feeding of poultry to produce foie gras, a delicacy that Blackwell described unpalatably as "diseased liver." Activists said it will be up to Congress and agency officials, under public pressure, to implement some of the commission's recommendations. Congress is now considering a bill, the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, that would accomplish some of the Pew recommendations. ================= 10. Washington Post ================= April 30, 2008 HEADLINE: Senators Propose Ban on Chemical in Plastics BYLINE: Lyndsey Layton Senate Democrats introduced a bill yesterday that would ban a controversial chemical found in plastics from all products made for infants and children up to age 7 and would direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study the health risks the chemical may pose to both children and adults. "There have been enough warning signs about the dangers of this chemical that we cannot sit idly by and continue to allow vulnerable children and infants to be exposed," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). His bill to ban bisphenol A, or BPA, was co-sponsored by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Robert Menendez (N.J.). Schumer said he wants the CDC to weigh in because of conflicting scientific studies on BPA. A growing body of new studies has linked the chemical to prostate and breast cancers, diabetes, behavioral disorders such as hyperactivity, and reproductive problems in laboratory animals. This month, the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, was the first federal agency to raise concerns about the effect of the chemical on fetuses, infants and children. "The report earlier this month was an eye-opener," Schumer said. "Now we want to get one final, indisputable ruling, once and for all, on the effects of BPA on adults, and pregnant women in particular." But the chemical industry and the agencies that regulate the use of BPA, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, have deemed the chemical safe. The FDA's handling of BPA is being investigated by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) said he is concerned that the FDA based its safety rating on two studies, both funded by the chemical industry. More than 100 studies performed by government scientists and university laboratories have found health concerns associated with BPA; the industry-funded studies say it is safe. Yesterday, Dingell expanded his investigation to include the Consumer Product Safety Commission. While the FDA regulates bottles and food containers, the commission oversees a range of other goods aimed at children that may contain BPA, such as utensils, dishes, toys, car seats and play yards. Dingell has asked the commission if products it regulates contain BPA and what actions the commission has taken to protect the public health or warn consumers about possible hazards. Spokeswoman Julie Vallese said the commission agrees with the FDA that the chemical is safe. She said her agency believes BPA poses the greatest health risk when it is comes into contact with food and drink and not in the types of products overseen by the commission. The agency studied rattles, teething rings and pacifiers in 2002 and found BPA in five of 133 plastics samples taken from those items, Vallese said. It has not studied whether the chemical is present in other products it regulates, she said. BPA, in commercial use since the 1950s, is found in a wide variety of everyday items, including baby bottles, compact discs and automobiles. One federal study estimated the chemical is found in the urine of 93 percent of the population

hilarious!

cerulean_moon — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:35:37 GMT

this will make much more sense after looking at the previous post - enjoy : ) http://morningswithnpr.blogspot.com/2008/04/doctors-get-crash-course-in-healthful.html Doctors Get a Crash Course in Healthful Cooking (Spoof from Mornings with NPR, link above) A dinner of salmon and arugula might sound like an appealing meal, but for many people, what winds up on the table is more along the lines of frozen pizzas or taquitos. Chefs at the Culinary Institute of America would like to help Americans learn to eat better — and they're starting with a key group of diners. Through a collaboration with Harvard University's medical school, the chefs and at least one med student are training doctors to cook. -excerpt from NPR

Doctors Get a Crash Course in Healthful Cooking

cerulean_moon — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:05:54 GMT

This is an NPR piece that ran on Morning Edition this morning about one of the projects that I am working with/on - Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives. NPR link & listen: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89883788 HKHL link: http://www.healthykitchens.org Curious to hear your thoughts!

Floored by On-going Reality: Remembering not to be de-sensitized

cerulean_moon — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:58:43 GMT

(NYT) QUOTATION OF THE DAY "If this comes out well and represents a really consequential development, it will play to McCain’s strength, his argument that the surge is working and that training is a long-term effort. If it comes out in a gray area, and things start to unravel elsewhere, then it is going to validate the Democratic argument that we don’t know the half of what is going on." AARON MILLER, a former State Department official, on the Iraqi’s government’s offensive in Basra. Comment and NYT Headline Story today: Comment - From the link below you can find an number of multimedia timelines, blogs, photographs, news stories, etc. that the NYTs has put out over the past years of war. Taking a few minutes to look at some of these things serves as a good reminder to the human tragedy wrapped up in all this. The pictures of now dead soldiers smiling happily with their loved ones on previous visits home and images of the feet of women and children hanging bloody out of the ends of makeshift body bags are just of few of the emotionally flooring things linked from here. When deciding how to vote and when to voice your political views, please keep this reality in mind. Take care, Michelle http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/world/middleeast/30iraq.html?th&emc=th Shiite Militias Cling to Swaths of Basra and Stage Raids By JAMES GLANZ and MICHAEL KAMBER BAGHDAD — Shiite militiamen in Basra openly controlled wide swaths of the city on Saturday and staged increasingly bold raids on Iraqi government forces sent five days ago to wrest control from the gunmen, witnesses said, as Iraqi political leaders grew increasingly critical of the stalled assault. Witnesses in Basra said members of the most powerful militia in the city, the Mahdi Army, were setting up checkpoints and controlling traffic in many places ringing the central district controlled by some of the 30,000 Iraqi Army and police forces involved in the assault. Fighters were regularly attacking the government forces, then quickly retreating. Senior members of several political parties said the operation, ordered by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, had been poorly planned. The growing discontent adds a new level of complication to the American-led effort to demonstrate that the Iraqi government had made strides toward being able to operate a functioning country and keep the peace without thousands of American troops. Mr. Maliki has staked his reputation on the success of the Basra assault, fulfilling a longstanding American desire for him to boldly take on militias. But as criticism of the assault has risen, it has brought into question another American benchmark of progress in Iraq: political reconciliation. Security has suffered as well. Since the Basra assault began Tuesday, violence has spread to Shiite districts of Baghdad and other places in Iraq where Shiite militiamen hold sway, raising fears that security gains often attributed to a yearlong American troop buildup could be at risk. Any widespread breakdown of a cease-fire called by Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric who founded the Mahdi Army, could bring the country back to the sectarian violence that strained it in 2006 and 2007. “We don’t have to rush to military solutions,” said Nadeem al-Jabiri, a Parliament member from the Fadhila Party, a strong rival of Mr. Sadr’s party that would have been expected to back the operation, at least on political grounds. Instead of solving the problems in Basra, Mr. Jabiri said, Mr. Maliki “escalated the situation.” For the third straight day, the American military was reported to be conducting airstrikes in support of Iraqi troops in Basra. Iraqi police officials reported that an American bombing run had killed eight civilians. The American military did not immediately acknowledge the report. But Maj. Tom Holloway, a British military spokesman, said that the reports were being investigated and that he had no further information. Major Holloway did say that “coalition air power,” meaning American or British jets, dropped two more precision-guided bombs just after noon on Saturday on what was identified as “an enemy stronghold” in Basra. Shortly afterward, British artillery fired on a militia mortar team. The mortar was destroyed, Major Holloway said. At a news briefing in Basra on Saturday, Iraq’s defense minister, Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi , conceded that the assault had not gone according to expectations. “We were surprised by a very strong resistance that made us change our plans,” he said. In Baghdad, the American military was also drawn deeper into the violence generated by the Basra assault. The military issued a statement saying that American soldiers had killed nine Iraqis that it called terrorists in firefights around Sadr City, the Shiite slum that forms Mr. Sadr’s base of support. The statement said seven of the Iraqis were killed after they attacked an American unit, and two more when they were caught placing roadside bombs. Later Saturday, the military announced that two American soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb in Shiite-controlled eastern Baghdad. Iraqi Interior Ministry officials said they would extend a strict and citywide curfew indefinitely, in an attempt to keep the streets clear. Mr. Maliki’s forces may also have lost ground in the battle for public opinion when, in a well-publicized event in Sadr City, 40 men who said they were Iraqi police officers surrendered their weapons to Sadr officials, who symbolically gave the officers olive branches and Korans. The weapons were returned after the officers pledged not to use them against Mahdi Army members. “These weapons are for defending the country but not for fighting your brothers,” said Sheik Salman al-Fraji, head of the Sadr office there. Although a citywide curfew remained in effect in Baghdad, the booms of rockets or mortars were heard in the morning. It was not immediately clear who had fired them or where they landed, although the fortified Green Zone, the nerve center of American and Iraqi governmental operations here, has been a frequent target since the Basra operation began. Clashes between militias and Iraqi government security forces continued elsewhere. There was intense fighting for a second day north of Basra in Dhi Qar Province and its capital, Nasiriya, where officials said the toll on Saturday was 28 killed and 59 wounded. There were running battles on a main bridge in Nasiriya, an Iraqi police officer said, and gunmen controlled the town of Shatra, about 20 miles north. There also appeared to be a major operation under way around Baquba, north of Baghdad, where government tanks blocked streets in at least three neighborhoods as troops sought out members of the Mahdi Army. The Turkish military said Saturday that it had killed 15 Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Thursday using long-range land weapons, Reuters reported. In Basra, mortar shells rained down in the late afternoon on the area of the Presidential Palace and the Shatt al Arab hotel, where the assault has its operations center. Groups of 10 to 12 militia members set up a dense net of checkpoints throughout the northern and western parts of the city, carrying out raids on remaining areas in the city center still controlled by government forces. The government set up an Army recruitment center in the center of Basra. But anyone heading in that direction was stopped by Mahdi Army members, who questioned whether they were “Hakim’s people,” loyalists of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, whose armed wing, the Badr Organization, is a prime rival of the Mahdi Army on the streets of Basra. Few people were seen in front of the recruitment center itself. “Unfortunately we were expecting one thing but we saw something else,” said Ali Hussam, 48, a teacher, who said that after Saddam Hussein the people of Basra had hoped for peace. “But unfortunately with the presence of this new government and this democracy that was brought to us by the invader, it made us kill each other.” “And the war is now between us,” he said. Reporting was contributed by Qais Mizher, Ahmad Fadam, Mudafer al-Husaini, Hosham Hussein and other Iraqi employees of The New York Times in Baghdad, Basra, Nasiriya and Diyala Province.

Criminal Doublethink: Helping Medicaid Families become Better Shoppers!

cerulean_moon — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:46:45 GMT

In agreement with the comments on the following press release by Don McCanne: So under the new rules, a family of four living at the federal poverty level ($21,200) can be granted "greater control over their health care decisions" by being granted the opportunity to use $1060 of their own income in order to make them better health care shoppers. These are families who are not facing foreclosure on their homes (since they could never qualify to purchase them in the first place). They are not facing repossession of their automobiles (since they have, at best, a clunker, or they use public transportation). They are not impacted by a mandate to buy insurance on their clunker (since they have no funds to purchase the required coverage anyway). These are families who will not have to face additional credit card debt (since any cards they have are already maxed out, and they cannot qualify for new cards). These are families who are able to regularly experience new living environments (each time they are evicted for failing to pay their past due rent). These are families who have become very adept at budgeting (since they must stretch their $407 per week to cover their rent, food, clothing, utilities, transportation, school supplies, etc., etc.). Many studies have shown that cost sharing in health care literally can be a death sentence, especially for those living at or near the poverty level. Secretary Leavitt and Administrator Weems already know this. What kind of nation have we become? ________________________________________________ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) February 21, 2008 CMS Proposes New Rules for Redesigning Medicaid States Have Greater Flexibility in Benefits, Cost Sharing Two new proposed rules that would give states unprecedented flexibility in designing their own Medicaid programs, including adjusting their benefit package to more closely align with beneficiary needs and requiring increased cost sharing by enrollees, were announced today by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The proposed rules would implement provisions of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 and the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006. The rules are the latest in a series of regulations to implement the Administration’s goals of aligning Medicaid more closely with private market insurance and giving states more control over their Medicaid benefits packages. "These new rules recognize that states are in the best position to design plans that provide Medicaid beneficiaries better health care for the same or even lower cost," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. "The proposed rules will result in patients having more choices and greater control over their health care decisions." Individuals with family incomes between 100 and 150 percent of the FPL may see some cost sharing while monthly premiums can be charged to individuals with incomes above 150 percent of the FPL. As in SCHIP, all cost sharing must be limited to no more than five percent of the family’s income. The 2008 FPL for a family of four is $21,200. "Until passage of the DRA, states had few options, other than through waivers, to update the health benefit packages offered through their Medicaid programs to meet the needs of the people they serve," CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems said. "These proposed changes allow states to use modern methods of providing health insurance coverage and encourage families to participate in their own health care decisions." http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/press/release.asp (Click release for February 21, 2008)

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

cerulean_moon — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:38:03 GMT

A Message From the Hopi Elders You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour. Here are the things that must be considered: Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know our garden. It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time! There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel like they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off toward the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above the water. See who is there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, least of all ourselves! For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. The time of the lonely wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we have been waiting for. The Elders, Oraibi, Arizona Hopi Nation

laughter through the tangles

cerulean_moon — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:37:39 GMT

So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter. - Gordon William Allport Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity. - Václav Havel If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. - Winston Churchill, 1874 - 1965

0.1%

cerulean_moon — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:52:19 GMT

“When the human genome was sequenced…the most interesting thing to me was the discovery that human beings with their three billion genes are 99.9% identical genetically. If you look at all the different colors of skin, all the heights, all the widths, all the everything - it’s all rooted in one-tenth of 1 percent of our genetic make-up. Don’t you think it’s interesting that not just people you find appalling, but all the rest of us, spend 90% of our lives thinking about that one tenth of 1%? Don’t we all?” - Bill Clinton, 2007 Harvard Class Day speech

A reason to speak up and speak out: No more coverage of cancer treatment

cerulean_moon — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 13:28:35 GMT

I know that there are many dissenting opinions on government health care, not to mention that paid out for immigrant emergency care. Until the federal government decided this week to narrow the definition of medical emergencies and deny claims made by New York State for to match funds for MEDICAID (defined: government health care for the poor) for chemotherapy treatments for immigrants. Why is this a problem? 1) Health advocates say that many illegal immigrants who need and qualify for emergency care are afraid to seek help, and that emergency Medicaid is underused. Cancer is the second leading cause of death among both native- and foreign-born in New York. 2) Health officials see this as a way for the federal gov't to limit health care coverage for the poor. The definition of "medical emergency" is an injury or illness that poses an immediate threat to a person's life or long term health. This is certainly true of the top ten cancer diagnoses of the relatively small population of immigrants with cancer living in New York state (Top 10: 1 - trachea, bronchus and lung; 2) Breast; 3) Colorectal; 4) Lymphoid, hematopoietic and related tissues; 5) Prostate; 6) Pancreas; 7) Stomach; 8) Liver; 9) Ovary; 10) Bladder). 3) This immigrants are disproportionately exposed to hazardous materials and occupational exposures that the rest of the population. Often, this is due to recruitment to fill job positions that citizens will not take. If these jobs were left undone, food would rot in the fields and prices skyrocket at the market For years, emergency immigrant care has fallen under domain of MEDICAID. Doctors generally view the alternative is to watch people live a shortened life of suffering in the best case, or die a painful, agonizing death in the worst. As these individuals are commonly the breadwinners of the family, they also leave a growing trail of destruction. Please see the remainder of the article below and decide for yourself what the price of a human life is worth. When do people become disposable commodities? After CDC implementation of free breast cancer screening for underinsured and unisured women, the executive director of Susan G. Komen for the Cure said, “To allow women to be diagnosed with breast cancer and then create an obstacle for them to get treatment is a horrendous policy.” ___________________________________________________________________ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/washington/22emergency.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1190465450-IM1Yxdobn/t/yrsUQ7Evjg September 22, 2007 Immigrants’ Emergency Care Is Limited by U.S. Rule By SARAH KERSHAW The federal government has told New York State health officials that chemotherapy, which had been covered for illegal immigrants under a government-financed program for emergency medical care, does not qualify for coverage. The decision sets the stage for a battle between the state and federal governments over how medical emergencies are defined. The change comes amid a fierce national debate on providing medical care to immigrants, with New York State officials and critics saying this latest move is one more indication of the Bush administration’s efforts to exclude the uninsured from public health services. State officials in New York and other states have found themselves caught in the middle. The New York dispute, focusing on illegal immigrants with cancer — a marginal group of unknown size among the more than 500,000 people living in New York illegally — has become a flash point for health officials and advocates for immigrants in recent weeks. Under a limited provision of Medicaid, the national health program for the poor, the federal government permits emergency coverage for illegal immigrants and other noncitizens. But the Bush administration has been more closely scrutinizing and increasingly denying state claims for federal payment for some emergency services, Medicaid experts said. Last month, federal officials, concluding an audit that began in 2004 and was not challenged by the state until now, told New York State that they would no longer provide matching funds for chemotherapy under the emergency program. Yesterday, state officials sent a letter to the federal Medicaid agency protesting the change, saying that doctors, not the federal government, should determine when chemotherapy is needed. Federal health officials declined to discuss chemotherapy or the New York claims. But Dennis Smith, director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a statement, “Longstanding interpretations by the agency have been that emergency Medicaid benefits are to cover emergencies.” The federal statute that defines an emergency under Medicaid makes it clear that routine care for illegal immigrants and nonresidents, including foreign students and visitors, is not covered. But the only procedures it specifically excludes from reimbursement are organ transplants, leaving to the states the task of further defining an emergency. States and courts have grappled with the question for years, yielding no clear definition. Some states have maintained that any time a patient is able to schedule an appointment — as opposed to showing up at an emergency room — the condition would not be considered an emergency. Others, including New York, have defined an emergency as any condition that could become an emergency or lead to death without treatment. “There are clearly situations that we consider emergencies where we need to give people chemotherapy,” Richard F. Daines, the New York State health commissioner, said in an interview late yesterday. “To say they don’t qualify is self-defeating in that those situations will eventually become emergencies.” Dr. Daines said that for every effort in the state to use Medicaid “creatively” to cover the uninsured, “the Bush administration, at every chance, is pushing it back.” The state estimated that the federal government denied $60 million in matching funds for emergency Medicaid from 2001 to 2006, including $11.1 million for chemotherapy. Medicaid costs are typically split evenly between the state and the federal government. It is unclear how many other states are providing chemotherapy to illegal immigrants, because all emergency services are generally lumped together in state Medicaid reports. But others have also been challenged on emergency Medicaid claims. In Washington State, where illegal immigrants are entitled to Medicaid coverage for a month or more after treatment in an emergency, officials said a federal audit of their emergency Medicaid claims was under way, and the state has asked the federal government to provide a definition of emergency services. “The awkward position state Medicaid programs are in is trying to figure out what kinds of medical care should be available for emergency conditions,” said Douglas Porter, assistant secretary for the Washington Health and Recovery Services Administration. Washington and other states have also fought the federal government over Medicaid for infants born to illegal immigrants, an issue reflected in the ferocious debate over the national children’s health insurance program. In the wake of stricter federal rules, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and 20 other states have extended full Medicaid coverage, using only state money, to some immigrants who do not qualify for federal aid. Under federal law, proof of citizenship is required for full Medicaid coverage, but not for emergency coverage. But some states with growing immigrant populations, like Georgia and Arizona, have themselves moved to limit coverage under emergency Medicaid, leading to intense opposition from immigrant health advocates. Advocates for breast cancer patients said they were particularly concerned about the denial of coverage after lobbying the federal government for years to provide breast cancer screening to uninsured women. Under a program offered to underinsured and uninsured women, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides free or low-cost screening. “To allow women to be diagnosed with breast cancer and then create an obstacle for them to get treatment is a horrendous policy,” said Donna Lawrence, executive director of Susan G. Komen for the Cure in New York. In New York City, cancer kills 15,000 residents a year. It is the second leading cause of death among both the native- and the foreign-born, according to a 2006 survey by the city’s health department, with lung, breast and colon cancer the top killers. The state had initially accepted the federal finding that New York was not entitled to federal reimbursement for chemotherapy under the emergency Medicaid program. But until last month, state health officials had not informed medical providers that the treatment would no longer be covered by either state or federal funds. That provoked a pitched outcry from immigrant health advocates over the last few weeks, and state health officials reversed their position this week, saying Medicaid should cover the treatment. State officials said they were challenging the federal decision on the grounds that chemotherapy treatment qualifies as an emergency under the federal government’s own rules. Certain conditions, including diseases of the brain, spinal cord and bone marrow disease, could require immediate chemotherapy. The state’s letter also said that chemotherapy can be used to “cure cancer, control cancer and/or ease cancer symptoms,” and that if that the measures typically used to treat cancer were not available to patients, their health could be in serious jeopardy — one of the federal criteria in determining an emergency. The cost of emergency Medicaid is still a relatively small portion of state Medicaid budgets, experts said, and a majority of the money is spent on care for pregnant women, labor and delivery. But the demand for it rising quickly as the immigrant population balloons. Health advocates say that many illegal immigrants who need and qualify for emergency care are afraid to seek help, and that emergency Medicaid is underused. A recent study of emergency Medicaid services in North Carolina found that spending, largely devoted to pregnant women, increased by 28 percent from 2001 to 2004; still, the emergency costs accounted for less than 1 percent of total Medicaid expenditures. New York City public hospitals, which serve 400,000 uninsured patients a year, among them illegal immigrants, would continue to provide the cancer treatment no matter what, said officials from the Health and Hospitals Corporation. But if there is no reimbursement from Medicaid, they said, they will have to look elsewhere for financial support.

Cholesterol - it ain't all bad

cerulean_moon — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 00:01:20 GMT

I am posting this article in response to questions I've gotten over "good" and "bad" cholesterol. This Harvard Health Publications mailing touches on some important facts in a very approachable format. If you happen to read this and find it helpful, or have other questions about the effects nutrition and lifestyle habits on health, please comment or send an email. I'll get back to you or post something directly as time permits. Hope this helps! Cholesterol “ain’t” all bad In practical terms, the bottom line is simple: The higher your HDL cholesterol, the better. But the biological reality is more complex. Research into the molecular biology of HDL is spurring new therapies. Genes direct the body’s production of HDL. Some of us are lucky enough to inherit genes that result in a lot of HDL, while others are dealt a less favorable hand. But genes are only part of the story. Lifestyle factors and, to a smaller extent, medications can strongly influence HDL levels. Genes re-enter the picture, though, because for some people, balky genes limit their ability to boost HDL levels with exercise and other interventions. How HDL helps At first, scientists believed that HDL was simply a garbage collector that picked up cholesterol from an artery’s walls and delivered it to the liver for disposal. That’s still considered the main role of HDL, but research is starting to suggest that HDL can help protect the heart in many ways: Reverse cholesterol transport. HDL latches onto LDL embedded in an artery wall, lugs it back into the bloodstream, and carries it to the liver. The liver collects cholesterol from the HDL particles, packages it into bile salts and bile acids, and dumps it into the intestines for excretion. Antioxidant activity. LDL cholesterol in the artery wall is bombarded by oxygen free radicals, which turns it into oxidized LDL cholesterol. Oxidized cholesterol is the stuff that’s actually responsible for arterial damage — and research shows that HDL can help protect LDL cholesterol from free radicals. Anti-inflammatory action. HDL helps to quiet the inflammation of an atherosclerotic plaque. Elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) reflect the inflammation of such a plaque and HDL may neutralize CRP’s tendency to perpetuate the inflammatory cycle. Antithrombotic activity. Plaque rupture triggers the formation of an artery-blocking blood clot. By halting the flow of oxygen-rich blood, the clot kills heart muscle cells (heart attack) or brain cells (stroke). HDL reduces clot formation and accelerates the healing process that dissolves clots. Endothelial function. Blood vessels plagued with atherosclerosis sustain other damage. In particular, the endothelial cells lining the arteries fail to produce normal amounts of nitric oxide, the chemical that allows arteries to dilate (widen) when tissues need more oxygen. HDL helps preserve nitric oxide production and protect endothelial function. How much does HDL help? The Framingham Heart Study was responsible for many landmark discoveries about HDL cholesterol, and the Physicians’ Health Study helped confirm that HDL was protective, reporting that various HDL subtypes are all helpful. Data continue to show that the good cholesterol is very good indeed. Heart disease. Low HDL levels are associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, while high levels are protective. According to the Framingham Heart Study, cardiac risk rises sharply as HDL cholesterol levels fall below 40 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL). In general, each 1 mg/dL rise in an HDL cholesterol level can be expected to cut cardiac risk by 2% to 3%. Stroke. Strokes come in many forms, but the most common type, ischemic stroke, shares many risk factors with heart attack. High HDL cholesterol levels reduce the risk of stroke; in several studies, HDL cholesterol is a much better predictor of risk than LDL cholesterol, particularly in people older than 75. Erectile dysfunction. Normal erections depend on many things, including healthy arteries that produce good amounts of nitric oxide. It’s no surprise, then, that the Massachusetts Male Aging Study found that 16% of men with low levels of HDL cholesterol had erectile dysfunction, but none of the men with the highest levels did. Longevity. Several investigations suggest that high HDL levels are linked to longevity, particularly exceptional longevity. Other research links high levels of HDL cholesterol to preserved cognitive function in old age. More research is needed to learn if HDL deserves the credit or if other genetic factors are responsible. Your goal When it comes to HDL cholesterol, the higher your level, the better. Still, targets are important. The National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) and the American Diabetes Association advise aiming for HDL levels of at least 40 mg/dL. An even more protective goal, according to the NCEP, is 60 mg/dL or higher. Ways to raise your HDL Exercise. Exercise is an important way to boost HDL levels. On average, sedentary people who start to exercise regularly can expect their HDL levels to rise by 3% to 20%. The benefit can occur with as little as one mile of walking or jogging a day, but the more you do, the better your result. Brisk walking for 40 minutes a day is a good target, but if you need more help, aim higher. Watch your dietary fats. Saturated fat won’t affect your HDL cholesterol, but it will raise your LDL cholesterol. The latest American Heart Association (AHA) guidelines call for limiting saturated fat to less than 7% of your total daily calories. Reduce your intake of trans fats to less than 1% of your total daily calories. Trans fat lowers HDL cholesterol and raises LDL cholesterol, a double whammy to health. But unsaturated fats like virgin olive oil may boost HDL levels, and the omega 3 fats in fish, nuts, and canola oil may promote cardiac health even if they don’t affect your HDL reading. Watch your carbs! Or at least the types of carbs you’re eating. Diets that provide large amounts of rapidly absorbed carbohydrates are clearly linked to low levels of HDL cholesterol. Avoid highly refined carbohydrates in favor of coarsely ground, whole grain, unrefined carbs like whole grain bread, oatmeal, and beans. Alcohol. Moderate drinking will raise HDL levels by about 4 mg/dL, which should cut cardiac risk by about 10%. This translates to one to two drinks a day for men, and one drink a day for women. For this “prescription,” count 5 ounces of wine, 1½ ounces of liquor, or 12 ounces of beer as one drink. Weight control. Obesity is linked to low HDL levels, but weight loss can help. Exercise and diet are the dynamic duo for weight loss, but shedding excess pounds will boost HDL levels over and above the independent effects of regular exercise and a healthful diet. Source: http://clicks.health.harvard.edu/dm?id=AC961D2CC7EAEB25E09EF914797A44CE778F9F64377ED311

a "must watch" on youtube - Dick Cheney's thoughts on invading Iraq in 1994

cerulean_moon — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 16:04:52 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY trust me - this will be an enlightening minute or two.

universal health care: opponents out of arguments - left only with fairy tales and horror stories

cerulean_moon — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:51:47 GMT

Spending a week of explaining away the misconceptions about the "dangers" of universal health care on our "great America," I was particularly taken with this article in today's New York Times. I am happy to answer any questions about why I am pro- everyone deserves health care. Of course, I also support the right of people to seek out additional services of their choosing if they can afford to do so. I am not anti-freedom, just anti-pointless suffering. This suffering is not just for the poor, but for all of society. Illness and poor health care have many costs that affect everyone. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Waiting Game By PAUL KRUGMAN Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.” This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right? O.K., it’s not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada. The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care. Actually, the persistence of that myth puzzles me. I can understand how people like Mr. Bush or Fred Thompson, who declared recently that “the poorest Americans are getting far better service” than Canadians or the British, can wave away the desperation of uninsured Americans, who are often poor and voiceless. But how can they get away with pretending that insured Americans always get prompt care, when most of us can testify otherwise? A recent article in Business Week put it bluntly: “In reality, both data and anecdotes show that the American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems.” A cross-national survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund found that America ranks near the bottom among advanced countries in terms of how hard it is to get medical attention on short notice (although Canada was slightly worse), and that America is the worst place in the advanced world if you need care after hours or on a weekend. We look better when it comes to seeing a specialist or receiving elective surgery. But Germany outperforms us even on those measures — and I suspect that France, which wasn’t included in the study, matches Germany’s performance. Besides, not all medical delays are created equal. In Canada and Britain, delays are caused by doctors trying to devote limited medical resources to the most urgent cases. In the United States, they’re often caused by insurance companies trying to save money. This can lead to ordeals like the one recently described by Mark Kleiman, a professor at U.C.L.A., who nearly died of cancer because his insurer kept delaying approval for a necessary biopsy. “It was only later,” writes Mr. Kleiman on his blog, “that I discovered why the insurance company was stalling; I had an option, which I didn’t know I had, to avoid all the approvals by going to ‘Tier II,’ which would have meant higher co-payments.” He adds, “I don’t know how many people my insurance company waited to death that year, but I’m certain the number wasn’t zero.” To be fair, Mr. Kleiman is only surmising that his insurance company risked his life in an attempt to get him to pay more of his treatment costs. But there’s no question that some Americans who seemingly have good insurance nonetheless die because insurers are trying to hold down their “medical losses” — the industry term for actually having to pay for care. On the other hand, it’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare. That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it. The bottom line is that the opponents of universal health care appear to have run out of honest arguments. All they have left are fantasies: horror fiction about health care in other countries, and fairy tales about health care here in America.

my pet fat

cerulean_moon — Mon, 28 May 2007 14:38:54 GMT

now you can buy your own, anatomically correct replica of human fat! http://www.mypetfat.com/thetools.asp jay, the man who started this site to track his weightloss decided that he needed to change his mindset and that visual cues were vital - thus my pet fat was "born." just thought this was a unique, interestingly refreshing story after dealing with people constantly bombarded by weightloss schemes. excerpt: mini mypetfat = 220 calories what is it… a 1oz. anatomically correct replica of body fat. what’s it do… small and very portable it visually motivates and reminds you to stay on any dieting, exercise or wellness program. how’s it used… people keep it close at hand, on a desk, in their car, by the sink, in a purse or near a scale. the skinny… made of soft, pliable, vinyl plastic each mini mypetfat comes in it’s own metal tin and user’s guide. also comes in less portable 1# (3,500 Cal), 5# (17,500 Cal) sizes. pics of the larger sizes are striking and on the web link above ; )

Flowers, Chocolate, Diamonds: "How can gifts that bring so much happiness have come from so much pain?"

cerulean_moon — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 23:11:47 GMT

*Valentine’s Day: Labor Conditions at US-Owned Plantations Show Hidden Realities of Flower Industry (summary below) http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/14/1646235 ___________________________________________________________________ * “Diamond Life”: Documentary Examines How Diamonds Funded the Civil War in Sierra Leone * We turn now to the issue of conflict diamonds -- also known as blood diamonds. The documentary “Diamond Life” looks at how diamonds funded the civil war in Sierra Leone. Listen/Watch/Read: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/14/1646243 ____________________________________________________________________ * Child Labor: The Hidden Ingredient to the Billion-Dollar Chocolate Industry? * On Valentine's Day, chocolate is the currency in which people are supposed to trade their love. Little do they know that chocolate might have been made with slave labor. We speak with Brian Campbell, an attorney with the International Labor Rights Fund. Listen/Watch/Read: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/14/1647217 _______________________________________________________________________ * Global Witness Founder Charmian Gooch: “The Diamond Industry is Failing to Live Up to Its Promises” * For more on the diamond industry, we’re joined by Global Witness founder and director Charmian Gooch. Gooch says diamond companies have failed to deliver on promises to reduce the prevalence of blood diamonds. Listen/Watch/Read: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/14/1647221 ______________________________________________________________________ Today is Valentine's Day. Chocolate, flowers, diamonds. How can gifts that bring so much happiness have come from so much pain? We begin our coverage with a look at the flower industry. Nora Ferm of the International Labor Rights Fund talks about a new report on labor conditions at US-owned flower plantations in Colombia and Ecuador. We’re also joined by Beatriz Fuentes, President of the Sintrasplendor Union at Dole’s largest flower plantation in Colombia which has become the site of a growing worker’s struggle. [includes rush transcript] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today is Valentine's Day. Chocolate, flowers, diamonds. How can gifts that bring so much happiness have come from so much pain? ? Those lovely flowers you received - they were probably genetically engineered and grown in Colombia on a giant pesticide-soaked factory farm run by U.S.-owned Dole Foods. How about the chocolate? Well, over 40 percent of the world’s cocoa comes from the Ivory Coast, in West Africa, where the child labor and child slavery is widespread. And diamonds? They are a girl’s best friend. And they have been used to finance some of the most brutal warfare of the last two decades. Valentine’s Day. What’s not to like? Our guests today will give you all the unlovely details. We start by looking at the flower industry. Why should US consumers care where their flowers are cut? Well, according to a new report approximately 60 percent of all flowers sold in the United States come from Colombia. A third of Ecuador’s yearly production is exported to the U.S. for Valentine’s Day. Flower workers in these countries earn poverty-level wages, work long hours, and suffer significant health problems due to pesticides. The report also finds that over half of women workers in the flower industry in Colombia and Ecuador have been subjected to sexual harassment. Dole is the largest exporter of flowers in Latin America. Its largest flower plantation in Colombia is currently the site of a growing worker’s struggle. Over the weekend, Dole fired almost 200 flower workers from the plantation. Nora Ferm is Program Director at International Labor Rights Fund. She is the co-author of “A Valentine’s Day Report.” She joins us from Washington DC. And with Nora - is Beatriz Fuentes, President of Sintrasplendor Union, which is located at Dole’s largest flower plantation in Colombia. Nora Ferm. Program Director at International Labor Rights Fund. Co-author of “A Valentine’s Day Report: Worker Justice and Basic Rights on Flower Plantations in Colombia and Ecuador.” Beatriz Fuentes. President of Sintrasplendor Union in Colombia. She has worked nine years in Colombian rose plantations and is in the US to publicize the issues facing women workers in Colombia’s flower industry. Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3 Watch 128k stream Watch 256k stream Read Transcript Help Printer-friendly version Email to a friend Purchase Video/CD