Health, Politics, and You —a blog by the authors of A Return to Healing

[By Len Saputo, MD, and Byron Belitsos] On Friday October 23, President Barack Obama declared the swine flu outbreak a national emergency, plunging the H1N1 controversy ever more deeply into an Orwellian world of disinformation, fear, and confusion. The government’s program of swine flu vaccination was already the most ambitious of its kind since the anti-polio campaign of the 1950s. And now, this surprise declaration from the president raised anxiety levels by giving federal health officials much greater powers in the face of a supposed pandemic.

• Eat a healthy diet and avoid sugar
We know that without the raw materials our bodies need, we simply cannot make the nutrients required to boost our immunity; we also know that refined sugar impairs the ability of our white-blood cells to fight infection. That’s why it is crucial to avoid processed foods and consume plenty of fruits and vegetables each day to maintain a strong immune system.

• Stay fit—exercise often!
People who exercise moderately but consistently build stronger immunity; and, if they get an infection, they are more likely to recover quicker. Exercise every day!

Sometimes, in those rare moments—before the spin takes over—the unvarnished truth can escape from the mouths of genuine scientists who are otherwise ensconced in politicized medical bureaucracies. To his great credit, Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society (ACS), made one of those refreshing slips in a conversation with the New York Times that was published on October 21. Brawley admitted that certain screening practices formerly endorsed by the ACS actually create more cancer patients than there needs to be.

[Authored by Len Saputo, MD and Stacia Lansman, MD, with Byron Belitsos—October 22, 2009.] Our nearly sixty combined years of practicing medicine has taught us this, if anything: Be wary whenever “big pharma” is part of any health campaign from which it stands to profit. And this is all the more true when it comes to emergency immunizations like the swine flu vaccine, the most ambitious program of its kind since the anti-polio campaign of the 1950s.

Alpine mountain air, it seems, does wonders for health care policy. In fact, it turns out that if you live among the Alps in Switzerland, you can get health care that is superior in virtually all measures when compared to the U.S.

I helped coin the term “Health Medicine” in 1992. Health medicine is a new style of healthcare that blends integrative, holistic, person-centered, and preventive perspectives into health care. Its highest expression is the “Healing Circle,” as we explain in chapters 7 and 8 of A Return to Healing. When you begin to understand Healing Circles, you’ll appreciate that it is possible to blend the wisdom of indigenous healing systems (or traditional medicine) with the wonders of modern biomedical science and technology.

Picture your state of health as a spectrum that extends from one pole on the left—where there is (theoretically) perfect functioning of body, mind, and spirit—to the opposite pole on the right, where death exists. In between these two extremes lies a place where symptoms of dysfunction have not quite yet surfaced but where we have lost some of our "perfect functionality." We call this critical zone our wellness buffer. Sadly, in conventional medicine, this place is usually not on the map.

Not too surprisingly, the Senate Finance Committee’s pro-corporate health-care reform bill received a financial thumbs up this week (on October 7) from the Congressional Budget Office. The committee's unambitious proposal insures another 29 million Americans—while leaving 25 million still uninsured. (Let 'em tough it out in the streets, I guess.) To its credit, the bill meets Obama’s pledge to not add “one dime” to the deficit, and in fact may save money over time through better management of Medicare cuts and special new taxes.

A GUEST COLUMN BY SUZIE KIDDER

1) Access to good health care is a human right.

No one in the United States should lose a home or have to file bankruptcy because they get sick. None of us should be denied access to healthcare because we have experienced an illness in the past. Those of us with a “pre-existing condition” need more care—not less care.

2) I am my brother’s keeper.

America’s tepid response so far to Senator Max Baucus’s $776-billion health-care reform bill also points to the many bitter ironies facing “centrist” reformers. Here are just a few...