action figures sold separately

a farily compelling response to the October AAP statement on cosleeping…

The term “adult bed” usually includes dangerous sofas, sofa chairs, make-shift beds and waterbeds, which account for a large portion of the adult-surface deaths. Also, the term doesn’t necessarily mean cosleeping is occurring, only that an infant is sleeping on that particular surface. An infant sleeping alone on an adult bed is at greater risk than when sleeping there with a parent. Failing to understand these points makes appropriate adult bed-sharing mistakenly sound dangerous.

and

“Bed-sharing/cosleeping” statistics and comments usually lump together cases of infants sleeping with any adult in any state, including over-exhausted, intoxicated adults, smoking adults, other children and even combinations of these. These comments and statistics also generally include dangerous practices such as sofa-sharing. Another limiting factor of these definitions is that they usually include statistics on infants who coslept at any point during the night of their SIDS-related death — not necessarily at the time of death. Conscientious parents are scared away from safe cosleeping by such slanted reporting.

and

The numbers in the largest study on cosleeping around the world suggest that safe cosleeping reduces SIDS greatly. Most nations with SIDS rates much lower than the United States regularly practice cosleeping on firm surfaces with low rates of adult smoking. Countries with increased cosleeping frequency also show decreased rates of SIDS.

[another previous AAP article says that “The Data Neither Condemns Nor Endorses Bedsharing/Cosleeping” but they won’t let you read it unless you pay moola or are a pediatrician, for we can’t share that dangerous information with the masses… jerks!]

my previous links on this issue are now mostly broken. so here’s some new and better links highlighting how sadly common it still is for women to be harassed and/or discriminated against for exercising their basic right to breastfeed their child:

• walk for breastfeeding awareness
• woman stopped at 24-hour fitness in Laguna, CA
• and at a Pittsburgh PA MacDonald’s
• and North Carolina women stage a nurse in against a pool facility that stopped a woman from breastfeeding
• and at a mall in Santa Monica, CA, after which women staged another nurse-in
• an immigrant woman arrested near Dallas, TX for photos she took of her kid breastfeeding
• how to convince your boss
• a list of state legislation on breastfeeding

new from movementbuilding.org, and brought to you by the Produce Department at People’s, here’s a handy list of Oregon u-pick farms for 2003. Yum!!

Danzine is an awesome organization of folks in the sex work biz. They offer support and health and safety related info through their zine, needle exchange program, second hand store, “bad date line” and more. The Bad Date Line puts out information about abusive and violent customers so that working folks can protect themselves and each other. I went to some of their workshops in Seattle for the Harm Reduction Coalition conference and they and others are doing inspiring work: focusing on serious issues like violence, sexism, HIV and HCV while infusing their radical politics, community-building and advocacy with love and playful fabulousness. I was especially enthralled by the Bio Babes: a team of folks wearing sexy reflective vests who go around neighborhoods surrounding Danzine-sponsored needle exchange sites in order to clean up syringes and other biohazards. They keep detailed maps of where the hazards are found and do community outreach when neighbors ask what they are up to in their spiffy duds.

I checked out their website tonight to look something up for a patient and I found this:
“Hello there,

Teresa Dulce from Danzine calling. We have some big changes happening with the agency that I wanted to announce. This transition isn’t due to money alone, but it does lend a compelling argument.

Danzine, the non-profit organization, will end June 1, 2003″

Luckily the exchange programs and bad date line will still be operational and also there will be “a most EXLNT last fiesta on SAT, JUNE 14. Live music featuring STORM & the Balls, with DJ Dairy spinning his tunes. Event will be held in Chinatown at the Seven Seas Bar & Restaurant on 205 NW 4th Ave. Sliding scale ticket price from $10 to $1,000–bring your ones, bring your check book. A dollar off with a can of food. Food goes to the Womens Innercommunity AIDS Resource (WIAR). Doors at 9 pm, persons 21 years +.”

Head out and find out what this crew of awesome community organizers are doing next and help them to celebrate after 8 years of community service!

from a posting at the hipmama news pages, the story of a canadian mom who was targetted and harassed for trying to breastfeed her kid on a plane. the link there is busted, but the columnist did an interesting follow-up.

if you are not familiar with the issue of resident work hours, here’s a very brief intro:

A true story: “I was operating post-call after being up for 36 hours. I was holding retractors when I literally fell asleep standing up and nearly face planted into wound. My upper arm hit the side of the bed and I woke up at that point and caught myself before I fell to the floor. I nearly put my face in the wound which would have contaminated the entire field and could have resulted in an infection for the patient.” - Anonymous orthopedic surgery resident from CA

and you could check out this fact sheet (and powerpoint presentations and more) put together by the med students association with nuggets like:

• Resident-physicians work up to 120 hours a week, including 36 hour shifts for several weeks at a time.
• After 24 hours of wakefulness, cognitive function deteriorates to a level equivalent to having a 0.1% blood alcohol level. These doctors would be considered too unsafe to drive, yet they could still treat patients for 12 more hours.

so, last year there was a flurry of activity around this issue. and at the moment i’m quite confused: the nice folks at the legislative resource center told me that both hr3236 and s2614 died on Dec 18 with the last congress. yes, lthe legislation meant to put a cap on work hours and instill some santiy in the field went to this committee and that subcommittee and then now they are no more. former. deceased. they also said that nothing on the issue has been re-introduced. yet the med student activists are still urging people to push on those bills. so something seems to be going on with the issue that is not readily apparent…

in the hospitals like the one my sweetie works at and those of our friends from med sku, now scattered around the country, programs are scrambling to try to limit work hours as if the boom will be lowered any day. um, sadly, it does not appear as though much of anything, let alone any boom lowering will happen any day soon.

do watch this space as i will post updates as i get them, perhaps there will be a ray of hope or even just some clarity

update: the american council for graduate medical education wrote guidelines to limit work hours, which will go into effect july 1 (they have a detailed and rather large pdf format FAQ on the issue as well). the legislative affairs director at AMSA says that is what is prompting many programs to reduce work hours at this point, but that they are continuing their activism in hopes that legislation will in fact be re-introduced in a matter of weeks.

starting a new feature today, similar to the Harpers Index. click on the number to view the source material:

• rank of abortion among medical procedures most commonly provided to women in the u.s.: 1
• percentage of residency programs that require training in abortion: 12
  (note: the percentage of medical schools which require training is much smaller, approaching zero. the percentage of residency programs at which it is possible (but not required) to receive training is somewhat higher.)
• percentage of u.s. counties which have no identifiable abortion provider: 86
• percentage of u.s. rural counties which have no identifiable abortion provider: 95
• since 1997, dollars that the u.s. government has alloted to abstinence-only education programs: more than 500,000,000
• number of u.s. states that provide reimbursement for all medically necessary abortions for low-income women: 0

a pal recently told me that the fast food chain burgerville [warning: flash-heavy site] was listed as a “green business” in the portland greenmap. turns out that it’s not, but with their “healthy alternatives” menu, their many local/regional ingredients, and their partnerships with groups like the humane society, it’s easy to see why someone would think so.

so around the house and around the co-op, i’ve been having this argument with folks: yes, ok, more businesses behaving like that is better, and our support for BV can put pressure on the big ones like mcdonalds, which in turn can make even further reaching changes to the industry. but see, i’m not really looking for mcdonalds to change. mcdonald’s shouldn’t exist in the first place.

and here’s where the argument gets tricky. see, mcdonald’s does exist, and in a huge way. in our efforts for change, we have got to acknowledge that. but as we know from prison abolitionist work, it’s not very helpful or strategic or useful to talk only about “no more mcdonalds” or “no more prisons” in a way that specifically does not allow for and even integrate the “making mcdonald’s a bit better will indeed improve matters” or “longer chains and bigger cages is an important step on the road to freedom” arguments. part of the work then, i think, is about making lots of space for both pieces.

in some ways an even more important piece, i think, is acknowledging up front the real roles (as beneficial and destructive as they may be) that fast food burger joints (and for that matter, policing and prisons) play in the lives of every day working people who may or may not have the privelege/time/energy to debate these issues.

so yes, it’s a yucky liberal practice to promote burgerville in such a way that doesn’t ultimately lead to “no more fast food cuz that’s the antithesis of a healthy culture and economy.” but at the same time, i think we need to meet people, work with them on changing society from where they are. and for some, that starts with switching from mcdonalds to burgerville as a possible first step on the road towards vegetaianism, itself a step on the road towards shutting down all such businesses, which is a step on the road to making radical shifts toward a community-based, community-controlled economy.

the mcspotlight folks pose the questions themselves this way:

There is a much more fundamental problem than Big Macs and French Fries: capitalism. But what about anti-capitalist beliefs like socialism and anarchism? Is it possible to create a world run by ordinary people themselves, without multinationals and governments - a world based on sharing, freedom and respect for all life?

more on our environment and health and food links pages.

Breast feeding is still the best way to nourish an infant. But are there really no consequences of starting life on a diet of dilute chlorinated solvents and pesticides, as all children do today?

Nearly wrapping up several years research on hormone disrupting chemicals, Peter Montague at Rachel’s Environment & Health News breaks it down again (so to speak…)

both the electric writer/astrologer Rob Brezsny (in his email newsletter this week) and the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (in a piece posted at Znet) got good and noisy about fundamentalism, in all its forms. and so in celebration of our survival, and our persistence, and our resistance, and in reflection of the last year, i offer you these poignant yet wicked-sharp Brezsny excerpts:

The Sacred Uproar is coming to you live from your repressed memory of paradise . . . reminding you that life is crazily in love with you — wildly and innocently in love with you. // I won’t lie to you about your mission. You have to be a cheerful rebel fighting against all odds. You have to joyfully and exuberantly resist the temptation to swallow thousands of delusions that have been carefully crafted and beautifully packaged by Very Self-Important People who act like they know what they’re doing. You have to buck every system and go against every grain — even as you stay true to your vow to have a lot of fun. You have to be relentlessly skeptical and sweetly innocent as you overthrow the sour, puckered hallucination that is mistakenly referred to as reality. // First, we can create sanctuaries for spiritual freedom fighters, safehouses to shelter and nurture all of us who are devoted to the divine revolution. These might take the form of temporary events like parties or workshops, or they might be places like homes and treehouses and yurts under highway overpasses. The only requirement is that they be power spots in the network that supports our growing rebel paradise: insurrectionary homebases where we can be our unpredictably miraculous selves and perfect our skills as crafty, open-hearted, kick-ass lovers of life. // Both terrorism and the decimation of our civil liberties are immediate dangers that we are legitimately afraid of. But there is an even bigger long-term threat to the fate of the Earth, of which terrorism and the loss of civil liberties are but symptoms. That threat is fundamentalism — not just the religious fundamentalism of fanatical Muslims and Hindus and Jews and Christians. But also patriotic fundamentalism, the fundamentalism of materialism, the fundamentalism of science. Every fundamentalist divides the world into two camps, Us versus Them, those who agree with him and like him and help him, and those who don’t. There is only a right way and a wrong way to interpret the world: according to the ideas the fundamentalist believes to be true, and everyone else’s ideas. The fundamental attitude of all fundamentalists is that they take everything way too seriously and way too personally and way too literally. And here’s some bad news: Like just about everyone in the world, each of us has our own share of the fundamentalist virus. It’s not as dangerous to the collective welfare as, say, Osama bin Laden’s fundamentalism or the sentimental fundamentalism of American politicians or the CEOs who fervently believe that making a financial profit is the supreme good or the scientists who deny the existence of the 99 percent of reality imperceptible to the five senses. Our fundamentalism is not as virulent as theirs. But still: We are infected, you and I, with fundamentalism.

when making the classic chocolate chip cookies from your favorite go vegan galz, tanya and sarah, just don’t — unless you really can’t avoid it — don’t use whole wheat flour. yes, normally i love baking with it, but they just turn out so flaky.

this week, i’ll be home studying, studying, studying… any folks commenting or emailing with words of encouragement will be rewarded in this world and/or the next with genuinely delicious, possibly vegan, classic chocolate chip cookies.

Understanding Prison Health Care: Fostering Competence and Compassion in Treating Prisoners

– organized by Melissa Minor, MD (funded by the Arts and Humanities Medical Scholars Program at Stanford School of Medicine)

This educational web site uses narratives and artistic works to foster competence, compassion and activism in medically treating prisoner patients, a patient population that has traditionally been overlooked in medical education and marginalized in clinical practice. It is meant to inform, educate and challenge personal biases toward caring for prisoner patients. Without an understanding of prison health care issues, it is difficult to provide competent and compassionate care to prisoners, or any other culturally disenfranchised population.

Each page is devoted to a particular topic on prison health care. On each page is a collection of artwork done by prison artists or community activist artists (with links to the source when available). Additionally, at the bottom of each page you can hear the opinions of various experts in prison health care and prison rights (including physicians, advocates, community educators, lawyers and prisoners themselves).

Excerpts from the “Advocacy” and “Needed Changes” sections:

“Health care workers have a responsibility to advocate for the health and well being of their patients. Advocacy may take many forms, including educating a patient about diseases and disease prevention, speaking up for a patient when they may be unable to do so and lessening barriers to accessing health care. The role of advocacy is even more essential and influential when advocating for the health care rights of prisoners. As prisoners are in a relatively powerless position during incarceration, they often do not have the liberty of voicing their opinions for fear of retribution. They also near lack any ability to mobilize change in the prison system. Consequently, health advocacy is often in the hands of the health care professionals who treat prisoner patients.”

“Numerous changes in prison policy, programs and procedures are necessary if health care in prisons is to improve. Many of these changes must occur within the prison institution to strengthen prisoner access to health care (urgent care, preventive care, chronic care, specialty care) and health education materials. Other institutional changes must address the issues of assuring patient confidentiality, facilitating prisoners in taking partnership in their health care decisions and providing continuity of follow-up care, especially when an outside physicians is consulted.”

above artwork by Eric Drooker

Have you ever gotten a crack or fissure at the corner of your mouth that was painful, annoying and yucky looking? Well, with all of my travels as of late and spending 5 days in the gorgeous and incredibly arid southwest- my lips got super dry and I got a crack in the corner of my mouth and it hasn’t healed yet. As I’m going into family practice I love medical issues like these that plague and bother folks but are not as sexy to manage as more complicated and exotic stuff.

Saliva is the enemy- at least for mouth cracks. What happens is that in young folks you get an initial insult from wind chapping, thumb sucking, agressive flossing, or perhaps even a cold sore or zit. Older folks may be missing teeth or have diminished facial muscle tone from stroke or may simply have wrinkles in the wrong place. Then, saliva comes into play- capillary action draws fluid from the mouth into the fold and causes chapping, fissures, redness, oozing, and secondary infection with Candida organisms and/or staphylococci. The infection causes a sore fissure in a deep part of the skin fold. The sides of the fold or fissure will get crusty and red. To feel better, folks will lick the area and moisten it to prevent the painful cracking sensation upon opening or moving the mouth. Also- the spit situation is even worse in a person who normally mouth breathes or is super congested and has to mouth breathe.

Treatment Usually a combo of antifungals and steroid creams are employed. The antifungal is put on first (2-3 times a day) to get at the candida and the steroid cream (hydrocortisone is a good one- go for 1% which can be over the counter) is applied several hours later. If its really bad and there seems to be a pretty raging bacterial infection then a topical or oral antibacterial can be used. I’m going for an over the counter jock itch cream with fluconazole in it followed by an over the counter 1% hydrocortisone cream. I can stop when the redness and discomfort subsides but then I’ll be using pretty heavy duty lip balms to protect the area from spit. I know that there are good anti-fungal herbal treatments out there but I am not familiar with them otherwise I would suggest them- anyone want to school us in the comments section??