Category: Health

Daniel Hirsch

The Week in Dope: January 19, 2010

By Daniel Hirsch, Jan 19, 2010 10:29 AM

For those watching the ever-changing landscape of marijuana laws and reforms, the future of the substance doesn’t just affect the weekend plans of teenage skaters. Marijuana reform touches on the lives of cancer patients, small business owners, prison populations, law makers, tax payers and just about everyone else you know. To help keep abreast of the latest dope across the country, we present you... The Week in Dope, a roundup of the week’s marijuana news and commentary. Sit back, relax, be informed.

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Silicon Valley Debug

Mind-Altering Drugs Are the Criminal Justice System's New Lobotomy

By Silicon Valley Debug, Jan 6, 2010 2:01 PM

Editor's note: This piece, from Silicon Valley De-bug, was written by Justin Collins.

Have you ever heard of a Lobotomy procedure? This is when a doctor goes in above the eye, breaks through the bone and scrambles the frontal lobe -- essentially robbing the subject of their personality, ability to form opinions and perform basic motor skills, and creating a vegetable.

Lobotomies are now illegal in the United States, but the desire to deny people their free mind is not. Lobotomies were once used to punish juvenile delinquents, unfaithful wives and people the state considered incorrigible. Now the same outcome is achieved through potent psychoactive medications like Rxsperadol, Triazadone and Xyprexa. These medications were originally conceived to aid in schizophrenics with violent hallucinations, or in order to quell disturbing voices.

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Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

Adventures in Multicultural Living: Swine Flu: How the "colorblind" H1N1 virus reveals our cultural differences

By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Jan 4, 2010 3:04 PM

I was invited to a special ethnic media briefing at Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle organized by New America Media (informally known as the AP of the Ethnic Press) with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get the word out about the H1N1 (swine flu) virus and vaccine to our ethnic communities.

At first, I was naively surprised to receive this invitation. I thought that the H1N1 virus ought to be “colorblind” and not care about race, ethnicity, or culture; that it ought to make our bodies sick the same way. Why would ethnic communities need special briefings?

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Paul Kleyman

"Is There a Doctor in the House -- or Senate -- Before 2013?"

By Paul Kleyman, Dec 23, 2009 2:25 PM

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seems to have his 60 blue ducks in order for a health care reform vote by Christmas Eve. And journalists on the political "dog watch" will start eyeing the conference committee process for reconciling the House and Senate versions to see where Democrats will have to sidestep congressional IEDs (improvised electoral detonators) for the 2010 and 2012 elections.

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Michael Kroll

Salt And Pepper

By Michael Kroll, Dec 17, 2009 2:38 PM

The latest issue of San Quentin News (AUG/SEPT/OCT 2009), a prisoner-run newspaper (that has the Administration’s blessing) is filled with the kind of stories you expect to find in prison publications. The front page features stories that explain the latest federal court ruling regarding overcrowding in California’s prisons (“Taking a Thorough Look at the Federal Court Ruling”), inmates donating money to the fight against breast cancer (“S.Q. Closing on $9,000 Goal For Its Breast Cancer Walk”), the possibility that Willie Nelson might do a concert there next spring (“Willie To Play At S.Q.?”), and a profile of a Bay Area human rights advocate recently fired by the White House (“Van Jones: A Life With Ups and Downs”).

But the two-sentence front-page story that caught my eye — and still has me shaking my head in disbelief — is titled, “SALT & PEPPER.” It’s a simple story: “Salt and Pepper will no longer be provided to inmates in their lunches. Food service officials say that health concerns led to the decision.”

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Paul Kleyman

Joe Lieberman's Headline Noose

By Paul Kleyman, Dec 17, 2009 1:38 PM

Yada, yada, yada! Today’s news cycle is replete with opprobrium directed at Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. (the “I” in this case stands for Insurgent). Sources from CNN to the New York Times are chock full of chatter. But should anyone be surprised that one show-boater could freely braid a noose around health care reform given the Democrats’ insistence on a “bipartisan” process requiring a 60-vote supermajority vote in the Senate? That minor exercise in democracy never bothered the Republicans when they held the White House and both houses of Congress.

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Eming Piansay

Japanese Workers Get 'Heartache Leave'

By Eming Piansay, Dec 16, 2009 11:24 AM

Heartbreak typically makes you want to crawl under a floorboard and never see the light of day. At least, that’s my initial reaction. Hope has left the building and misery has begun rising like the tide around my ankles.

The story about a Japanese marketing agency allowing their workers time off to deal with their heartache couldn’t have made news at the better (or worse) time. The guy who I have been in love with for the past year found himself a girlfriend, and everything my little brain had been clinging on to got ripped out from under me.

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NAM Youth Communications Team

"Too-Fat-To-Graduate" Is Wrong

By NAM Youth Communications Team, Dec 2, 2009 10:57 AM

Editor's note: This YO! blog was written by Alexi Drier.

Lincoln University, located in Oxford, Pennsylvania, has created a Too-Fat-To-Graduate Rule that has upset many people. At Lincoln University, students with a body mass index of 30 or above are required to take a thrice-weekly fitness course. Students who are required to take the course, but do not complete it, can't graduate from Lincoln University.

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Paul Kleyman

'Bipartisan' Purple Dogs Go Rogue with 'Task Force' on Social Security, Medicare

By Paul Kleyman, Nov 17, 2009 2:38 PM

Progressive advocates for elders must be wondering, “With Democrats like that, who needs Republicans?”

Last week, the Senate Budget Committee held a hearing on the proposal by its chair Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and top GOP member, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., to create the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action. The Conrad-Gregg task force would have the power to “improve the long-term fiscal balance of the Federal Government, including the fiscal balance of Social Security and Medicare.”

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Andrew Lam

GOP Takes It Out on Rep. Joseph Cao

By Andrew Lam, Nov 16, 2009 10:35 AM

Editor's note: This blog by Hao Nhien Vu originally appeared on Bolsavik.com.

Voting on principle can be costly. U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao is hit with a backlash for being the lone GOP vote for the health care reform bill, even as the party’s leaders are denying they’re osctracizing him.

After the vote, a GOP colleague, minority whip Eric Cantor, refused to shake Cao’s hand, according to the Orlando Catholic Examiner.

Cao has also had two fundraisers canceled on him, and some contributors are demanding their money back, reports the AP.

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Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

Sharing day and the meaning of autumn across cultures

By Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, Nov 11, 2009 10:52 AM

Editor's note: Frances Kai-Hwa Wang's column "Adventures in Multicultural Living" appears every week on the EthnoBlog. This post originally appeared here, on annarbor.com.

Every Friday is Little Brother’s “Sharing Day” (Show and Tell) at school. Sharing Day is very serious business in Kindergarten, and he spends the entire week thinking about what to bring. This week, he is supposed to bring something that reminds him of autumn. He asks his sisters, who give him all the regular ideas: a leaf, a pumpkin, his sister M dressed up like the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). However, because his turn is on Friday, they are pretty sure that other kids will have already brought in all those things, so he will have to be especially creative.

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Laura Goode

Health and Justice Now: California Women of Color Demand Health Care for All

By Laura Goode, Nov 10, 2009 1:43 PM

Editor's note: The Los Angeles-based organization and longtime NAM ally California Latinas for Reproductive Justice has co-authored an op-ed addressing the impact of health care reform and the House vote on the Stupak Amendment on women of color and immigrant women.  The authors, Rocio Córdoba and Destiny Lopez, are Executive Director of CLRJ and Executive Director of ACCESS/Women’s Health Rights Coalition, a statewide organization based in Oakland, respectively.

During Saturday’s historic vote on health care reform, the House jeopardized the health and well-being of women with the passage of the Stupak amendment, which would eliminate abortion coverage from both private and public health plans participating in the insurance exchange. The continued fight for affordable and comprehensive health coverage for all must not place women’s health and lives on the negotiating table and leave us worse off. The Senate, and the White House, must now take bold action to stave off further attacks from those wishing to make the health care battle solely about access to abortion.

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Marcelo Ballve

For Republicans, The Future Is Still Cao

By Marcelo Ballve, Nov 9, 2009 11:21 AM

Rep. Joseph Cao, a Vietnamese-American who represents a New Orleans-area congressional district, is being called a Judas by fellow Republicans after he broke with them to vote for the Democrats’ health care bill.

But as Amanda Terkel at Think Progress notes, Cao was motivated by dollars-and-sense concerns in a troubled district still grappling with the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina and a paucity of health care options. Rep. Cao, 42, said from the outset after his upset election win last year that he would put aside questions of race (his district is heavily African-American) and partisanship (his district is historically Democratic) in order to deliver constituents solution-oriented services, programs and policy.

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Silicon Valley Debug

"Precious" is About Women I Know

By Silicon Valley Debug, Nov 6, 2009 4:07 PM

Editor's note: This piece by Jean Melasaine originally appeared on Silicon Valley De-Bug.

When I saw the trailer for the new film "Precious" I cried. This film made me think a lot about an old life I was too familiar with. It made me think about a lot of women that I am close to. It made me think about my sister in her Tenderloin days, about that loud funny girl in class that smacked her gum too loud, about that girl in West Point who had AIDS and everyone stayed away from her, about that girl walking up and down Folsom pretending she has somewhere to go, about that teacher I used to have a crush on in middle school, about women. "Precious" women. This was their story.

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NAM Youth Communications Team

North Carolina College Gives Cash to Discourage Pregnancy

By NAM Youth Communications Team, Nov 6, 2009 11:51 AM

Editor's note: This piece by Valerie Klinker originally appeared on YO! Youth Outlook.

When I first heard that some place is paying young teenage girls to not get pregnant I thought I misheard--this, to me, was shocking. I don’t know how someone can pay a person to not do what their body is naturally supposed to do.

I am a mother and I think anyone who gets pregnant should have the opportunity to make a decision on what he or she wants to do and if they are ready to grow up. The reason I say that is because after you have a child you are no longer living for yourself: you can’t do the things you want to do or spend money on just anything you want, you will be living for your baby, you will have to make sure that everything you do benefits your child. You will have to teach, nurture, care of and love them unconditionally.

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Laura Goode

Sober Up Before You Hook Up...Or It's Your Fault?

By Laura Goode, Nov 3, 2009 3:34 PM

"Laura's going to flip out," was the conclusion drawn by my colleagues when they forwarded the following email message to me:

"Sober Up Before You Hookup is a smart message for all seasons and perfect for the upcoming holidays. The Sacramento County Department of Public Health is sharing the details of their campaign and the effective materials they developed. Just click here for the SWAP feature."

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NAM Youth Communications Team

I Don't Want the Vaccine

By NAM Youth Communications Team, Nov 3, 2009 3:31 PM

Editor's note: This post by Valerie Klinker originally appeared on YO! Youth Outlook.

Today I when came into work and got on the computer I came across a story that caught my attention. It was basically an article explaining the H1N1 virus. Well, actually it was talking about people who are at higher risk to catch the swine flu and it states their argument on why we need to get vaccinated.

I already knew about the swine flu being more of a risk for ages 18 to 22 year olds. Which means we are at higher risk to get the H1N1 virus. I think it has something to do with our immune system not being able to fight off the flu on its own, but I didn’t know that it’s also attacking little babies, children, the elderly, people with asthma or women who are pregnant.

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Crystal Carter

Even Michelle's Doing It: Hula Hooping Wheels into Newfound Popularity

By Crystal Carter, Nov 3, 2009 3:25 PM

Editor's note: Crystal Carter, NAM intern, is a freelance journalist in San Francisco. She has her own blog called www.popscampaign.blogspot.com.

Michelle Obama, the youngest first lady since 31-year-old Jacqueline Kennedy, is 45 and America’s new embodiment of health and femininity. Obama was photographed hula hooping on the White House’s South Lawn to promote physical fitness at the Healthy Kids Fair last week. She also double-dutched and completed an obstacle course.

“Hooping is a strong symbol of health and power,” said Cressie Mae Akin, 22, a hooping enthusiast and freelance hoopmaker. “Some people think that it’s just a toy from childhood, but it’s so much more.”

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Alan King

CDC Encourages Flu Shots, Dispels Fears

By Alan King, Nov 2, 2009 12:19 PM

Editor's note: Journalist and poet Alan King has written for East of the River (a publication of Capitol Community News), New America Media and the Prince George’s County Gazette.  This post originally appeared here, on his blog.

The copycat illnesses have ruined everything. To hear the health experts tell it, it’s almost impossible now for influenza to stand out in a crowd. A dry cough, a sore throat — even a runny nose — is not enough to get anyone’s attention anymore.

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Silicon Valley Debug

Confessions of a Youth Diet - Fast, Cheap, and Erratic

By Silicon Valley Debug, Oct 13, 2009 10:46 AM

Editor's note: The following, reprinted from NAM's San Jose youth media project Silicon Valley De-Bug, follows five young adults chronicling what they ate and drank for two days, from the time they got up to the time they went to sleep. All five have different backgrounds, jobs, living situations, and dietary habits. They vary from the guy who works at the mall and eats snack bar food on break to the college student living fat off of her girlfriend and birthday parties, to the homeless youth who has to hustle to get his meals when he can, to the skater who catches meals with friends on the go, to the young woman who lives with her family, but eats by herself.

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