Haiti Also Needs Psychological First Aid
The earthquake in Haiti this past month is reportedly the region’s worst in over 200 years. In the immediate aftermath, Haiti’s President René Préval called the devastation “unimaginable” with the quake destroying the country’s infrastructure and claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. An early estimate by the Haitian government puts the death toll at 150,000. Sadly, the number of lives lost may never be known because many Haitians were forced to bury their own family members and some bodies may never be recovered from the rubble.
In disaster relief missions of this magnitude, the first response is to provide immediate relief to the region. This includes medical care, food, water, and shelter. It is important to note that those involved with this effort are doing a heroic job providing these absolute necessities. They help to create stability and safety while reducing the ultimate death toll. However, some in the mental health community are concerned that not enough will be done to take care of the emotional needs of the Haitian people. Many of whom are in acute distress and run the risk of long-term trauma-related illness if adequate crisis care is not provided. Read more
The President’s State of the Union: Missed Opportunities on the Push for Immigration and Health Care Reform
An insightful post from VivirLatino blogger Maegan la Mamita Mala. Worth reading to the last word.
After President Obama’s State of the Union address last night, I needed to get out of Casa Mala. I knew what was coming, the analysis, the discussion, and the disagreements about what needed to done and what tone to use in doing it. But I needed a drink, I need to sing and dance a little as an act of mourning because in all of these discussions, which I am now engaged in, there was little mention of actual people.
While I was preparing mentally for the State of the Union address, I saw on the Spanish language news about an immigrant mujer, Alexandra Nunez, who died from massive bleeding during an abortion in a clinic walking distance from Casa Mala. A single mother, like me, made a decision about her body and life within the limits placed on her because of law and who she is. Read more
Leaders Work to Counter Harsh Realities of Meat Packing
It is very difficult to have a good understanding of the hands that feed us every day and the harsh reality that workers undergo daily in the meat packing industry. They are some of the hardest jobs in the food industry and most dangerous in any industry. So it falls to the newest immigrants, refugees and people of color in general to fill these jobs and bear the burden of their risks.
I would like to share the reality of what is happening in rural Midwest communities. The suffering due to work-related injuries is increasing every day now, but many feel they have no other option. These are the highest-risk, lowest-paying jobs in the industry. Unfortunately, the employers know quite well the suffering of workers, but greed has overtaken where there should be humanity. Read more
Factory Farmed Meat Can Trigger a Global Pandemic
Kathy Freston AlterNet posted this article on the dangers of the factory-farmed meat industry. As we’ve discussed before on this blog, the low-wage workers at meat plants are often the most vulnerable to a health hazard and also the first line of defense for the general public.
The chicken and pork industries have wrought unprecedented changes in bird and swine flu. Billions could die in a deadly flu pandemic, the likes of which we have never seen.
I was intrigued (and disturbed) by a book I just read online — www.BirdFluBook.org — by Michael Greger, M.D. about the potential of a deadly flu pandemic, the likes of which we have never seen. Greger very clearly delineates how a virus begins, mutates, and becomes dangerous. As with so many problems we are seeing lately — environmental or health — factory farmed meat seems to be a big part of the cause. A graduate of the Cornell University School of Agriculture and the Tufts University School of Medicine, Michael Greger, M.D., serves as Director of Public Health and Animal Agriculture at The Humane Society of the United States. An internationally recognized lecturer, he has presented at the Conference on World Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, and the International Bird Flu Summit, testified before Congress, and was an expert witness in defense of Oprah Winfrey at the infamous “meat defamation” trial. His recent scientific publications in American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, Critical Reviews in Microbiology, and the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition, and Public Health explore the public health implications of industrialized animal agriculture. Read more
Fringe Groups Distort Debate Over Health Care
Journalists should use caution when reporting on immigrants and health care.
Anti-immigrant groups with controversial histories are crying fire when it comes to health care and immigrants in an attempt to use mainstream media sources to stir up mass panic.
Amid a rash of articles muddying the waters on whether immigrants will and should have access to health care, both documented and undocumented immigrants suffer an unfair battering. And the best interests of the American public are obscured.
A Washington Times article of November 30, 2009 relied exclusively on the shaky data of Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant group founded by John Tanton. In order to assert that “health bills fail to block illegals from coverage”, the article liberally quotes Center for Immigration Studies’ research director, Steven Camarota, and Iowa Representative Steve King. Read more
Real Health Reform Leaves No Human Behind
Rosa Parks was well respected in Montgomery’s segregated world of black and white. Nearly fifty-five years ago today she chose to represent those who faced the daily indignities of being treated as a second class citizen by refusing to give her bus seat up to a white passenger. To be clear, the struggle to secure full civil and human rights continues to exist today.
Discrimination continues to deny many equal access to employment, housing, education, and health care—opportunities no person should be unfairly denied. It is clear that what made a defiant Rosa Parks successful was a movement which had come to realize that no one, from the most powerful clergy to the lowliest sharecropper, could be left behind. Read more
Blog Highlight: The War on Soy
Tara Lohan of AlterNet published the following article, The War on Soy: Why the ‘Miracle Food’ May Be a Health Risk and Environmental Nightmare. Looks like soy is proving to be too much of a good thing.
Vegetarians aren’t the only ones who should be concerned; there’s soy in just about everything you eat these days — including hamburgers, mac ‘n cheese and salad dressing.
These days, you can get soy versions of just about any meat — from hot dogs to buffalo wings. If you’re lactose-intolerant you can still enjoy soy ice-cream and soy milk on your cereal. If you’re out for a hike and need a quick boost of energy, you can nibble on soy candy bars.
Read more
Anti-Immigrant Hysteria Could Block Black Access to Health Care
In an attempt to placate House Representatives associated with the extremist House Immigration Reform Caucus who are looking for a reason to oppose health care, Congress has put African Americans at risk. It is not the role of Congress to promote anti-immigrant bigotry and further disenfranchise African Americans. It is a false remedy with serious side effects and must be rejected.
Under [H.R. 3200]—America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009– millions of African Americans could potentially be denied Federal payments for affordability credits. H.R. 3200, SEC. 246 (No Federation Payment for Undocumented Aliens) reads:
Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for the affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States. Read more
Big Beef, Bad Burgers, FAIR Fellow
It’s not that we didn’t already know that the nation’s industrial food system is a toxic network of dangerous, low-paying jobs, often yielding dangerous products. But sometimes it helps to be jarringly reminded, as Michael Moss did yesterday in his New York Times story on e-coli in hamburger—a sober reminder that the enforcement of policies and laws to protect eaters from contaminated food is a sham and that, as always, bottom-line profitability rules over food quality and safety.
Like the big banks that are “too large to fail,” big beef—the four corporations that now control over 83% of all U.S. beef slaughter—seem to be relatively immune from government oversight and enforcement. On packinghouse floors low-wage immigrants and workers of color (now over 60% of the workforce) labor in difficult working conditions in some of the most dangerous jobs in the nation. Beef carcasses move by line workers at speeds that mock sanitation standards and invite contamination. The food factories that grind various “parts” into the stuff of hamburgers are notoriously lax in clean production oversight. In short, the burger you get at the store or restaurant may, indeed, be hazardous to your health.
What are the children drinking?
Nearly four decades after the clean water act was passed drinking water at thousands of schools across the country has been found to contain lead, pesticides, arsenic, and other toxins.
Not surprisingly, schools that have their own wells are the ones with the most apparent contamination; however it’s a widespread issue affecting schools in all 50 states. It’s also affecting both private and public schools in cities and small towns alike.
But the problem has gone largely unmonitored by the federal government, even as the number of water safety violations has multiplied.
Marc Edwards, an engineer at Virginia Tech who has been honored for his work on water quality, calls it an outrage but also points out that there is no system to “make people follow the rules and keep school children safe”.
Crosspost: Lawsuits Against Two West Michigan Meat-packing Plants
Workers in west Michigan are suing against two meat-packing plants for lost wages according to a recent article in the Grand Rapids News.
By Nardy Baeza Bickel, The Grand Rapids Pres…
GRAND RAPIDS — Two area meat-packing plants are being sued separately in federal court for allegedly not paying their workers for a full day, including the time spent putting on and taking off their required protective gear.
While the suit is being brought by a dozen workers, the number of plaintiffs could swell to 1,400 current or former meat-packing employees if the lawsuits achieve the class-action status being sought.
At issue are thousands of dollars in alleged unpaid wages, said Robert Alvarez, an attorney for employees of local Boar’s Head Provisions Co. Inc. and Michigan Turkey Producers Cooperative Inc. plants.
Insurance Premiums Rising . . . Again
This past week world-renowned TV show Scooby-Doo celebrated its 40th anniversary. As anyone who grew up with Scooby and the Gang knows, this curious, goofy dog and his four friends are famous for exposing otherworldly ghosts and monsters as nothing more than flesh and blood crooks.
Scooby and the Gang have yet to venture into politics, but I’m sure they’d be as curious as I am about why insurance premiums continue to rise faster than both the costs of health care and inflation. The average cost of a family policy now exceeds $13,000 a year, having doubled over the last decade, according to the new survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit research group.
If you’re like me, that data caught you off guard. What happened to a nation tightening its collective belt? Experts point the finger at the health care system’s inefficiencies, excessive administrative expenses and inappropriate care. These problems certainly exist. But Scooby and I both know that the real flesh and blood crooks are the private insurance industry and Congress, who are happy to sit in their pockets while mismanagement of the nation’s health care system continues.
How Do YOU Want to Die?
Who benefits if Americans are afraid to talk about death and dying? Or even making choices about the quality of their own end of life care? Clearly not the taxpayers, who according to a study by Duke University, save $2,309 for each Medicare patient who chooses to die in a hospice. Clearly not the family and friends who love the patient. Another study showed that patients in hospice live 29 days longer. Certainly not patients with a life-limiting illness, who can live at home with hospice care with less pain, fewer symptoms, and more dignity. Being able to talk about death, to plan and share advanced directives, benefits our country, our family, and the person who is dying.
So who benefits if people can’t talk about death and dying? The people who profit from the status quo, where 80% of health dollars are spent in the last two months of care, such as giant health care systems and huge pharmaceutical firms. The callous people who are paid to fight for these companies are preying on the fears of seniors to stop any movement toward a more patient-friendly health care system. Conservative politicians like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are stooping to lies like the government will “pull the plug on Grandma” to rile up the most gullible members of his base.
Read more
Whole Foods CEO Takes Cue from White Nationalists
There is a disturbing trend spreading in the business community to side with white nationalists when it comes to health care, even using the same arguments. Last weekend I was in Austin, Texas, where among the kitschy neon signs, sits the largest whole foods in the nation. It’s a store whose official values include promoting health and investing in the environment and local communities.
Yet Whole Foods CEO John Mackey recently spoke out against Obama’s plan to reform healthcare in a much talked about Wall Street Journal Op-ed. It’s ugly, and if you haven’t read it yet, check out the link here. Mackey even had the nerve to say that we need to make it easier for rich people to voluntarily donate money towards the health needs of the less fortunate. While Mackey famously reduced his salary a few years ago from 3.36 million to one dollar, his real salary comes from millions in bonuses and stock gains. I’d like to know how much he donates to his local hospital. Read more
Health Reform, Pound for Pound
One in three Americans are overweight. 12 million are obese. That is ironically close to the number of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. So why are protesters packing heat outside Obama’s town hall meetings and spreading conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest instead of making a stink about fat? Interesting that the protesters are mostly white, but not mostly skinny. Could it be that outspoken critics of health reform aren’t so worried about the economy, but actually race?
After all, those 12 million obese Americans put quite a strain on the health care system (the CDC reports that 9.1% of medical costs are obesity related). I should say the factors that make it difficult for them to stay healthy, such as access to healthy food, basic evolutionary hard-wiring, increasingly fatty processed foods, and corporate re-portioning schemes, are putting a strain on the system. Almost all of which relate to poverty. Read more
“I’ve got facts on my side, you’ve got Glenn Beck on your side”
Our Sunday blog highlight comes courtesy of Dave at the Fake Mexican:
Slam! I love it!
(video found on pam’s and crooks and liars)This is what it looks like when you take away shouting and threats. There is still insanity and misinformation. From the former stomping grounds of Shawna Forde, Congressman Rick Larson’s held his Town Hall meeting at a stadium in Everett this last week.
White Hot: The Health Care and Immigration Debacle
Filed under: Health, Immigration, News, Politics
While not as crude as the raucous Rushian rabble with their swastika placards at town hall actions, serious white nationalists are unfolding their three-for-one strategy to derail health care and immigration reform, and the Obama Administration itself. In light of the tepid response of Administration and Congressional reformists to the health care debacle, the possibility of more setbacks on all fronts grows by the day: to wit, the President’s announcement this week that immigration reform will see action “when we come back next year.”
When Members of the U.S. House of Representatives lamely cut and run in the face of “angry crowds” screaming about the alleged repeal of Medicare, forced euthanasia of the elderly, and free health care for “illegal immigrants,” it’s clear that Congressional backbone replacement should be the health reform order of the day. One can scarcely imagine what the Members will do when the anti-immigrant crowds are cranked up and come out in force. Read more
Health Care Reform: Help Get It Done
by Kathleen Duffy
“The principal weapon of those who want to maintain the status quo is, as always, fear. Fear immobilizes. And fear of the unknown crushes the desire for change, even in the midst of conditions that cry out for change.” – Robert Creamer, 7/30/09
In moving health care reform ahead, we are doing battle not just with the status quo, but with people who are willing to grotesquely distort the truth and outright lie in order to sway public opinion. When Sen. Boehner issues a statement saying that health care reform means that Democrats are trying to kill seniors, he knows that that is completely untrue. He knows, as you and I know, that Barack Obama is not trying to kill your grandma. He also knows that if he can push people into full-blown fear, that he has a good chance of getting them so freaked out that they subsequently advocate against their own best interest. What kind of people would use this baseless and deplorable tactic and still be able to sleep at night?
The fact is that on every single factor, health care reform will benefit the American people. We will pay less in health care costs and see more of every premium dollar we pay used for actual care and not multimillion dollar bonuses to insurance company executives. We will be able to escape the abusive practices of the insurance industry, like denying care because of pre-existing conditions, or rescinding insurance once you actually have a need for using it. Read more
Immigrant and Refugee Workers Share Health Concerns
by Axel Fuentes
En español y ingles
A momentous event occurred this past weekend. Sixteen Latino immigrants and Somali refugees, all workers coming from different communities around the nation, got together to discuss common issues that are affecting and limiting access to health care in their communities, including the meat processing plants where they work.
At this meeting both groups agreed that there were common issues affecting their health. Issues such as a lack of interpreters at health care facilities, the high speeds of work lines, and supervisors who ignored their needs by denying bathroom breaks and penalizing workers who need time off to attend to medical appointments. Arrogant and degrading treatment from some of the supervisors was a common experience, as well as a lack of proper training to operate equipment.
These and other common issues are being addressed by health action councils made up of the workers themselves. Their goals are to reduce worker heath deterioration, prevent work-related accidents and improve access to health care. Read more
Chicago Ready for Action on Green Food
Chicago is poised to be the first city in the nation to pass a resolution for a healthier, more sustainable food system. Last week Chicago’s Energy, Environmental Protection and Public Utilities Committee presented a proposal to the city council called the “green food resolution”. It is a nonbinding initiative that encourages the city to help make fresh, locally grown food available to Chicagoans.
“BE lT RESOLVED, that the Chicago City Council encourages individuals, civic associations, and community based organizations to grow local, organic gardens, and institutions and businesses to offer more plant based foods; and
BE lT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Chicago City Council promotes the expansion of the number of Farmers’ Markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs, community gardens, and other venues which provide healthful plant based foods.”
Although this uplifting rhetoric is making no promises, I believe it has the potency and the ability to motivate politicians to support the necessary task of building a sustainable food infrastructure. Read more
Categories
Authors
- Amy Mehta
- Amy Spicer
- Ana Turck
- Andrew Grant-Thomas
- Axel Fuentes
- Carlos Rich
- Chris Bober
- Cloee Cooper
- Eric Ward
- Garat Ibrahim
- George Garza
- Guest Blogger
- Imagine 2050 Editors
- James E. Johnson
- Jessica Acee
- Jill Garvey
- Joan Flanagan
- Katie Bezrouch
- Katie Irwin
- Ken Brown
- Noah Chandler
- Rev. David L. Ostendorf
- Sarah Viets
- Stephen Piggott
- Tom Dunmore
- Amy Mehta