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"There's no such thing as false hope. There is only false no-hope. You cannot tell the future of an individual. Doctors keep killing people with their words when they say there is no hope," wrote Dr. Bernie Siegel in his book Love, Medicine and Miracles. Hope - "the expectation of fulfillment or success" (Merriam Webster's Dictionary) - provides much needed energy for facing difficult circumstances. More and more, practitioners are recognizing the important role that hope plays in engaging and supporting the innate healing mechanism. Aquarius Productions, Inc. has released an inspiring, 37-minute video called Harbor of Hope, designed to encourage discussion about living with a challenging illness, healing, and hope. The video consists of interviews with 8 people with MS, cancer, or HIV/AIDS and brief comments from three professionals: Niro Markoff Asistent, PhD; Joan Borysenko, PhD; and, Christiane Northrup, MD. The video is divided into six segments: Where Do We Find Our Hope; Living in Darkness: Discovering That We Have Choices; Don't Take Away My Hope: The Power of Our Beliefs; Dancing With Life. The video offers no set answers or prescriptions, nor is it designed to. Rather, it introduces topics to be explored by patients in a group setting. A facilitator's guide gives suggestions for exercises and topics for discussion, such a maintaining hope in the face of suffering and how the doctor-patient relationship can be a source of suffering and of hope. A workbook-journal for participants encourages reflection about one's relationship to disease and healing and helps them get in touch with ways to nourish their spirits. "When we approach disease from the enemy, it creates a climate of battle. And then one has to win, and one has to lose. And a tremendous amount of energy is used that way. When you're willing to take as a hypothesis that disease is a teacher, it creates an acceptance. And that's an open door to look at places where we have never looked before...." (Niro Markoff Asistent) The video and workbooks form a framework for practitioners who are seeking ways to help seriously ill people on a non-physical level. I'd love to see medical and nursing students participate in this program because the exploration and discussion that Harbor of Hope is designed to evoke would deepen their understanding of what occurs after a difficult diagnosis is pronounced. Aquarius Productions offers several videos on health, disease and healing, disabilities, stress reduction, death and bereavement. To purchase Harbor of Hope ($225 + extra for workbooks) or to preview it, call 508-651-2963 or fax 508-650-4216. Customer demand has encouraged Swissair to offer organic food - including organic wine, beer, juice, and coffee - to its passengers on flights from Switzerland. At this time, only a portion of the airline's 30,000 daily meals contain natural and organic ingredients. By 2000, the company intends to ensure that 90% of the products used to prepare its meals are organically grown. The organic products will come from all over the world, including dairy products, bread, beef and vegetables from Switzerland; chicken and baby food from Germany; beef from Argentina; veal from the Netherlands; and noodles from Italy. By going organic, Swissair expects its food costs to increase by 15%, but the company intends to make up for this increase by using more accurate passenger data in planning meals. "Swissair Organic Food Flying High" by Christine Blank. (xerox - no source included) (1 graphic/1 photo) Rehabilitation in Western Mexico Health care and rehabilitation for disabled people in impoverished countries like Mexico face challenges unimagined by many in the US. Although NAFTA and the prospering global economy of recent years has increased the wealth of some, the majority of Mexico's population lives in poverty. Since the peso crashed in 1995, thousands of small businesses have gone bankrupt and many professionals are jobless. As poverty and hunger increase, vioience and crime have also risen. Ajoya, a village in Western Mexico, is facing these challenges and the additional problem of cocaine addiction among its youth. In 1981, Ajoya became the home-base of PROJIMO, the Program of Rehabilitation Organized by Disabled Youth in Western Mexico. Managed and staffed by disabled people, PROJIMO offers rehabilitation services to persons crippled by bullets, disease, or accident. In the last few years, robberies, assaults, kidnappings, rapes, and murders-for-money have forced hundreds of the village's 1,000 residents to flee and has discouraged disabled people from seeking aid from PROJIMO. Determined to continue their mission of rehabilitation among the disabled, team members decided to move their consultation and rehabilitation activities, which include advice and lessons for home therapy, to Coyotit‡n, a village of 2,000 about 40 miles from Ajoya. Coyotit‡n is more accessible and has less violence than Ajoya. Although their rehabilitation services have moved, PROJIMO has not deserted Ajoya. Hoping to find creative solutions to the village's problems, PROJIMO workers are converting the organization's buildings into a work-skills training program and production center. The work programs, headed by disabled workers at PROJIMO, will provide both skills and jobs for disabled persons and for the village's unemployed youth. Drawing on the knowledge and skills of PROJIMO workers, the programs include chicken farming, the carpentry of inexpensive coffins and repair of school desks, welding, and toy making. Work skills courses in sewing and dress making will be offered in cooperation with a training program run by the Ministry of Education. PROJIMO is also experimenting with a loan program to help poor people buy tools or materials for small home-based production of crafts or produce, which they can sell. This issue of HealthWrights' Newsletter from the Sierra Madre (Dec. 1997) made me aware of how greatly the health of a community affects the ability of individuals to heal. I was deeply affected by the challenges that the people in the mountains of Western Mexico face and awed by the wealth that lies in their creativity, energy, and skills. If you are interested in learning more about HealthWrights, a workgroup for people's health and rights, or in donating equipment or money, contact: HealthWrights, P.O. Box 1344, Palo Alto, California 94302, phone 650-325-7500; fax 650-325-1080. PROJIMO has an on-going need for knee-joints from discarded artificial limbs and orthopedic appliances so that the team can make high quality limbs and braces at low cost. Olestra (aka Olean), the fat substitute developed by Proctor & Gamble Co., is now appearing in US snack foods. As part of its marketing program, Proctor & Gamble emphasizes that Olean products are "fat-free." Olestra is made from refined cottonseed oil and soybean oil from which glycerine is removed and regular table sugar is added with the help of a catalyst. Our digestive enzymes are unable to break down the resultant sucrose polyester molecules, which are larger than regular fat molecules, so the Olean passes through the body undigested. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) reports that over 2,000 people in olestra test markets experienced gastrointestinal problems. Olestra also inhibits the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, causing concerns of vitamin deficiency. Because of this, the FDA requires products containing olestra oil to have the following warning on their packaging: "Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools. Olestra inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients. Vitamins A, D, E, and K have been added." So far, olestra is being used in Proctor & Gamble's "fat-free" version of Pringles potato chips. Two other food manufacturers - Frito-Lay and Nabisco - are using olestra to create "fat-free" versions of some of their current products. Frito-Lay's Ruffles, Lay's, and Doritos Wow! chips are being tested on the West coast. Nabisco's Ritz and Wheat Thins crackers made with olestra are being test-marketed in Marion, Indiana, and Grand Junction, Colorado. Although olestra is presently restricted to snack foods, a journalist for Proctor & Gamble's home town newspaper predicts, "The potential is off the charts - even for a $35 billion powerhouse like P&G - if the FDA eventually approves the use of olestra to make fat-free french fries, baked goods and possibly even to be marketed as a fat-free cooking oil or shortening similar to Crisco." "P&G, Frito-Lay launch lines" by Jeff Harrington. The Cincinnati Enquirer February 10, 1998. According to an article in Chemical & Engineering News, physicists, biologists, chemists, and other scientists have complained to federal representatives that the National Institutes of Health's Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) "is sullying the good name of NIH and OAM's funding ought to be drastically cut or eliminated entirely." The article quoted several critics. Jack E. Dixon, president of the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, stated that "OAM funds would be better spent if allocated to basic science research, which hunts not only for cures for disease, but also seeks to understand disease [etiology] in an effort to prevent disease." Yale University physicist and former presidential science adviser D. Allan Bromley said that "instead of being held to the standards of scientific excellence and peer review that apply to the rest of NIH, OAM has been allowed to give credibility to treatments that serious scientists dismiss as quackery." These criticisms are not new, but the response that this article received was most interesting. Six weeks later, letters from readers took exception to the disparaging comments of the scientists cited in the August article. Rustum Roy, Pennsylvania State University, pointed out that "[m]any of the great scientific advances in materials science have come serendipitously via careful observation by experienced practitioners, not from Ôfirst principles' or very basic science." Patrick A. Lonowski of Shenandoah, Iowa, wrote: "...anyone who studies the history of physics, chemistry, and other scientific disciplines will quickly see that theories, beliefs, and even well-established physical principles are not sacred. They are continually challenged and are subject to the inherent limitations of the very devices that substantiate them." Ronald A. Chez, a former NIH intramural branch chief who is now doing clinical research at the University of South Florida (Tampa), strongly supports the funding of rigorous research into complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies: "I am very aware of the paucity of evidence-based data to support the treatment regimens I now offer patients. The situation is worse when I try to respond to patient inquiries about the value and safety of a CAM intervention they are using or wish to pursue, because I cannot sufficiently improve their quality of life." A bill to increase, not decrease, federal funding to the OAM has been proposed by Representative Peter A. DeFazio (D-OR). The bill (HR1055) would combine the OAM with three other NIH offices to create the Center for Integral Medicine. This promotion to being a center ensures more autonomy and independent granting authority. The budget allocated for CAM research would also increase greatly. DeFazio has suggested a yearly budget of $198 million, "the same amount of money that NIH spends on dental research each year." The new center would fund CAM research and make its findings available to health care professionals and the public. "Alternative Medicine Slammed" by Lois R. Ember. Chemical & Engineering News, August 4, 1997. Letters are from the September 15, 1997 issue. For American Chemical Society membership & subscription information, call 800-333-9511 or 614-447-3776. The US government has finally recognized that safety standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other departments do not adequately protect children. Children are more susceptible to pesticides and chemicals in the environment than adults, yet existing standards focus on calculating safe exposure levels for adults. The 1993 National Research Council report, Pesticides in the Diets of Children and Infants, pointed out that children consume more food and drink per pound of body weight than adults. Their developing neurological, immunological, digestive, and other systems are also more easily affected and less able to detoxify foreign chemicals. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician and chair of the Mount Sinai Medical Center Department of Community Medicine, chaired the committee that prepared the report. He said that "Even though overall death rates are decreasing due to improved treatment, we've seen aggregate increases of 25-30% over the last couple of decades in the incidence of two types of childhood leukemia: acute myelogenous and acute lymphocytic leukemia." Brain tumors and a birth defect called hypospadias in boys (an abnormal opening of the urethra on the underside of the penis), both of which have become more common, are two other conditions known or suspected to be related to environmental toxins. Landrigan now advises the administrator of the EPA's new Office of Children's Health Protection. The newly-enacted Food Quality Protection Act ordered the EPA to reevaluate, within the next 10 years, all existing pesticide tolerances (about 9,000) for their effect on children. An executive order, issued in April 1997, has further advanced the move toward reevaluating environmental safety standards with children in mind. Executive Order No. 12606, "Protection of Children from Environmental Health Risks and Safety Risks," directs all federal agencies, within their mission and legal bounds, to "make it a high priority to identify and assess environmental health risks and safety risks which may disproportionately affect childrenÉand address disproportionate risks." Specific mandates in the order include the establishment of research programs focusing on children's environmental health issues and the accumulation of more complete information on how multiple chemical exposures and cumulative risks affect infants and children. Actual changes in environmental standards will depend upon politicians. "The ABC's of Protecting Kids" by Charles W. Schmidt. Environmental Health Perspectives July 1997. The malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium falciparum began to resist chloroquine, a major anti-malaria drug, 40 years ago. Malaria kills millions of people worldwide each year; and, that number grows as drugs, used to hold it in check, fail. For ten years, scientists studied the genetic structure of P. falciparum in the hope of learning how it resists chloroquine. They finally identified variations in gene cg2 as the key to the organism's resistance. Interestingly, the DNA sequence of this gene found in drug-resistant South American strains of the organism differs from the DNA sequence of the drug-resistant Asian strains. Both strains developed resistance to chloroquine at about the same time; Mother Nature apparently found more than one way to adapt to the drug although the same gene is involved in both cases. After scientists learn how cg2 functions, they hope to develop compounds that will inactivate the resistance mechanism so that chloroquine can once again be used effectively. "Gene Creates Malaria Drug Resistance" by J. Travis. Science News November 29, 1997. 800-552-4412. Researchers have shown that low-level electromagnetic fields can negate the effectiveness of melatonin and of tamoxifen in inhibiting cancer cells growth. In 1993, Robert P. Liburdy, a cell biologist at Lawrence Berkeley (California) National Laboratory, first reported that "while melatonin, a natural antioxidant hormone, would inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells exposed to 2 milligauss (mG) magnetic fields, its activity was essentially erased when the cells were bathed in a 12 mG field." Recently, Liburdy and colleague Joan D. Harland performed a similar study with tamoxifen. Tamoxifen, a synthetic hormone, inhibits breast cancer. The researchers treated breast cancer cells with tamoxifen, using concentrations typically found in breast cells of women using the drug, then incubated the cells in a 2 mG or a 12 mG field. Untreated cancer cells used as controls grew equally well in both fields. In the 2 mG environment, tamoxifen effected a 40% decrease in the cells' growth rate. Tamoxifen had no noticeable effect in the 12 mG field. Carl F. Blackman, a biophysicist with the Environmental Protection Agency (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), has confirmed Liburdy's melatonin research and is working on tamoxifen. US homes with 60 hertz current have an average magnetic field of 2 mG or lower. Homes with unusual electrical wiring may emanate as much as 12 mG. Electric razors, hair dryers, the sides of computer monitors, appliances with large motors (e.g. refrigerators) also create magnetic fields of 12 mG or higher. Some workplaces have fields with a density of 1000 mG. Numerous reports have correlated ELF with an increased incidence of cancer. This report makes me wonder if the cancer rate increase comes from an inactivation of hormones that help protect the body from cancer. "Magnetic fields can diminish drug action" by
J. Raloff. Science News November 29, 1997. |
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