Sunday, May 29, 2005

Stem cell debates and the culture of life

A few days ago, Public Brewery discussed the recent polls conducted to ascertain public views about stem cell research. Although how the polls were worded influenced how people responded, the majority of those polled support this research.

(Hello, are you listening Bush et al? If not, let me repeat these findings: The majority of the public supports stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research. Thank you for your time.)

Not only that, but many Republican Congressional Members support embryonic stem cell research. In fact, within the Republican party, Congressional Members are debating each other over this issue, as evidenced by this recent exchange of words between Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS).

What I find particularly interesting about these assorted debates is how people are backing up their positions by invoking support for a "culture of life." Yet how each person defines this "culture of life" differs, depending on their beliefs about stem cell research. The exchange between Specter and Brownback illustrates two different meanings given to the "culture of life" concept as it pertains to the stem cell issue.



The two Republicans differed sharply on their views of the status of frozen embryos.

Brownback questioned "what it does to the culture of life" when
government approves performing research on the embryos, which he considers "young human life."

Specter shot back, asking what it does "to the culture of life when you let people die because there are medical research tools which could keep them alive?"


Brownback's notion of the culture of life is in line with how the Bush administration defines the term in relation to the stem cell debate: embryos are persons and thus, destroying them for medical purposes is a form of murder. In contrast, Spector's definition of the culture of life emphasizes the potential lives (born and unborn) that embryonic stem cell research could save. He argues that taking advantage of these life-saving "medical tools" is what promotes a culture of life.

Another rethinking of the culture of life concept that various policymakers and others have invoked--and one that I find especially compelling--is similar to Spector's usage. If embryonic stem cells are not used for medical research, chances are they will at some point be destroyed because they are just sitting around in labs without a clear purpose. From this perspective, the most life-affirming act would be to use the cells for medical research--research that could help save future lives--instead of simply discarding them or letting them sit on shelves. Moreover, if Bush et al truly do believe that using these cells for medical research is akin to murder, I do not understand why they would find simply discarding these cells a more life-promoting option.

Stem cells aside, there is much to be written about the broader culture of life concept. It has been invoked in regards to the debates surrounding not only stem cell research, but also abortion, emergency contraception, the death penalty, among other issues. I personally find it an interesting concept, and am fascinated by the many different ways people have recently been invoking it in order to support their particular ethical, religious, sociocultural and political positions. I hope to write more about this issue later when I get back from the sunny Southwest.





Thursday, May 26, 2005

The Well Being will return soon...

Due to the usual end-of-the-semester frenzy, I have not posted in about a week.

In addition, I probably won't be posting much over the next two weeks due to a conference and a much needed vacation to the Southwest.

But expect the blog to be back in action by June 13. Hope to see you then:-)

Friday, May 20, 2005

Pet needs? Or human needs?

It's Friday afternoon, and I'm getting tired of writing about human health, so I thought I'd post some tidbits about dog health. In particular, I want to write about some new products on the market designed to improve the physical, emotional, and social well being of our canine companions.

The first product is doggles, which are doggie goggles designed to protect your pup's eyes from harmful UV rays (I've recently seen a beagle wearing them and he looked like a doggie aviator). I'm not kidding. But wait. It gets better. The next product is neuticles (I'm still not kidding). These synthetic doggie implants, which are the size and shape of, well, you know, are designed to help male canines regain their sense of masculine self confidence (no, I'm really not kidding) that was squashed at the hands of evil vets during the neutering process.


Now, don't get me wrong. I loves dogs as much as other folks do. In fact, I am the proud person of the best golden retriever in the whole world. I love Molly a lot, and Paul and I consider her to be a member of the family (she even gets to sleep on our bed). I try to provide her with a happy and healthy life, which includes giving her wholesome food, taking her to the vet, bringing her to the dog park daily, and buying her colorful collars and leashes that complement her blond coat.

I draw the line, however, at doggles and neuticles when it comes to pet care. It seems to me that products such as these are more about human needs and less about the actual needs of dogs (It's also a sign of capitalism running amuck, in my opinion, but that's an issue that goes beyond the scope of this post). Are we really to believe that male dogs feel a sense of shame and emasculation after they are neutered? I think not. It seems to me that as our society has increasingly come to see pets as companions with whom to forge emotional bonds ( as opposed to in the past, when dogs were treated more as lowly creatures whose place was in the backyard rather than in the family home), we have also anthropomorphized our dogs, treating them as if they are human rather than the "companion species" (in the words of Donna Haraway) of humans. Consequently, many of us have assumed that dogs share the same type of health concerns and worries as we do.

Certainly dogs have emotional and social lives, but they are not humans. And by treating them as such, we run the risk of expecting too much from them and/or not meeting the needs that they actually do have.

A geography of children's health and obesity

In a recent study of children's health, researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine found that when it comes to food outlets located within walking distance of most elementary schools in Harlem, junk food stores outnumered markets selling healthy foods by 6:1. The researchers found these results alarming because they suggest that young children may be consuming junk food rather than healthy products not simply because of personal choice but also because they have little access to the latter. With inner city children facing increasing risks of developing obesity and other related health problems, this lack of access is disturbing.

This situation is not unique to Harlem. Many inner city neighborhoods across the country house a disproportionate number of junk food stores. Moreover, some inner city neighborhood have no access to healthy foods because the only food outlets located in them are convenient stores. Given this lack of access to health foods, it should come as no surprise that overweight and obesity are significant problems in inner city communities.

In recent years, overweight and obesity have received significant attention by health care professionals, public health professionals, educators, health organizations, policymakers and the media. Some individuals and groups have constructed these health problems as individual/personal ones that can be solved by simply getting people to eat less, eat better and exercise more. Certainly there is much merit to this argument because people can't lose weight if they don't change their eating and lifestyle habits. At the same time, it is studies such as the one conducted by the Mount Sinai researchers that demonstrate the extent to which overweight and obesity are also public health problems that need to be addressed through community, state and national measures. People can't be expected to eat healthy, for instance, if they have no access to health food.

There is much more to the viewpoint that overweight and obesity are public health problems rather than simply individual/personal ones, but I will save more of this discussion for future posts.

Progressive fathering

In earlier posts, I've discussed on-line resources related to mothering, but today I came across two blogs by Daddychip (Daddychip and DaddyChip2: gender and social issues), who describes himself as "a former stay-at-home dad who wishes he could have stayed at home longer." Daddychip writes about parenting and in particular fathering issues from a feminist perspective. I like his blogs because he not only writes eloquently about his children and experiences with them but also serves as a model for "progressive fathering" by challenging gender stereotypes about fathers and the role they can play in their children's lives.

Daddychip also links to other blogs written by fathers and to an interesting site called Dads and Daughters: resources and support for fathers of girls. I have yet to go through all of his links, but when I do, I will be sure to list some of them in my own set of links.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Pew report on health information and the internet

As part of its Internet and American Life Project, Pew just released a report about the public's use of the internet for health purposes. Here's the report's summary which was written by Suzannah Fox:



Eight in ten internet users have looked online for information on at least one of 16 health topics, with increased interest since 2002 in diet, fitness, drugs, health insurance, experimental treatments, and particular doctors and hospitals.

As reported in the July 2003 report, "Internet Health Resources,"
certain groups of internet users are the most likely to have sought health information online: women, internet users younger than 65, college graduates, those with more online experience, and those with broadband access.

Some demographic groups showed notable interest in specific topics. 59% of online women have read up on nutrition information online, for example, compared with 43% of online men. Thirty-eight percent of online parents have checked online for health insurance information, compared with 26% of internet users who do not have children living at home. Forty-one percent of internet users with a broadband connection at home have looked up a particular doctor or hospital, compared with 19% of internet users with a dial-up connection at home.


A few thoughts about the report's findings: First, I am not surprised about the overall number of individuals who turn to the internet for health information. In the past twenty to thirty years, our society has shifted from treating physicians as god-like figures who always know best, to encouraging patients to question their doctors, get second opinions, and take an active role in their own health care decision-making. In addition, with physicians spending less and less time with each patient due to institutional and economic changes in medical practice, it wouldn't surprise me if people often leave their doctor feeling unsatisfied with the information and care they were given and consequently seek these things on their own.

Nor am I surprised about the groups most likely to use the internet. Take the cases of women and internet users under 65. Women often take the role of their family's primary caregiver, feeling responsible for not only their own health but also the health of their family. When it comes to the internet, then, women may have the health issues of several persons to research. In the case of internet users under 65, this is a group who--unlike their older counterparts--are more likely to have formed their beliefs about the doctor-patient relationship during the time when the cultural shift from putting complete faith in doctors to encouraging patient involvement was taking place or had already taken place.

I am also happy that Pew asked questions about internet service. What type of service people have--i.e., dial up, modem speed, broadband, etc.--can make a huge different in how, and to what extent, they go on-line. Too often, popular and scholarly studies of the internet tend to forget that the technology's material and digital apparatus does influence the ways in which people navigate and interact with on-line spaces. Given that such studies focus on the social and cultural dimensions of this so-called new media technology, this tendency to render the actual technology invisible is ironic (not to mention problematic).

Finally, one topic I wished the study addressed further was public participation in on-line support groups and communities. These groups often provide individuals with different types of health information and learning experiences than what they can receive from text-only resource pages. Because Pew focused on general internet use and the types of health information people researched, however, the study did not emphasize the different kinds of on-line spaces in which people get (and potentially give) health information.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Health care cartoons

People have said that laughter is the best medicine. So if you are in need of some (or if you just like editorial cartoons), check out Daryl Cagle's archive of health care cartoons by the nation's top editorial cartoonists. The archive, which is housed on Slate Magazine's website, is updated daily.

One of my favorite cartoonists is Pulitzer Prize winner Signe Wilkerson, who works for the Philadelphia Daily News. A good deal of her work has focused on women's reproductive rights, and in the early 1990s, she published a collection of her cartoons dealing with these issues entitled Abortion Cartoons on Demand. (I'm also fond of her work because like me, she's a Philly-area native who went to Swarthmore College)

Saturday, May 14, 2005

A creative way of dealing with allergies

Now here's a solution to chronic allergies that I bet you didn't think about before: Hunting the Lorax. This strategy seems a bit ethically and politically problematic to me, but given that I woke up this morning with what feels like large cotton balls shoved up my sinuses, I can see where Jody et al (a.k.a. PoliSciFi Blog) are coming from.

Public Brewery also wrote about Jody et al's solution. Check it out, because in the post he also writes about the Truax, who evidently speaks for the Wood Flooring Manufacturers situation. It appears that--at least in this instance--the PolySciFi bunch and the flooring people have something in common.

Friday, May 13, 2005

More evils of the tobacco industry

In the past couple of years, tobacco companies have developed a new breed of flavored cigarettes. Gone are the days of boring menthol. Instead, we now have flavors such as "Winter Warm Toffee," "Twista Chill," and "Kauai Kolada." And to make sure these hip new cigarettes are not overlooked by the public, they are packed in bright red, yellow, and black boxes.

Unfortunately for the tobacoo companies, anti-tobacco and health advocacy groups, not to mention some members of Congress, are not on board with these new cigarettes and are seeking to have them banned.

Why, you ask? Well, it's not because the concept of inhaling a nicotene-flavored pina colada grosses them out (although that's not to say that poor flavor combination isn't ample reason to have them banned, because I think it is). Rather, it is because officials believe that the companies developed these cigarettes as a way to lure new teen smokers. Think about it: candy and fruity-drink flavors, hip slang (with all due respect to teens, who else would find the word "twista" appealing?), and cool colored boxes. It also makes me wonder if the companies are trying particularly hard to attract teen girl smokers. Not that guys don't like fruity drinks and chocolate, but I think back to my teen days when berry wine coolers were the trendy drink among us underaged girls. Most guys we knew found them pretty gross and preferred their beer instead.

Of course, the tobacco industry denies that it is targeting teens, and says that consumption of these cigarettes by teens--which appears to be on the rise--is an "unintended consequence." Uh huh. We've heard that one before.

Thursday, May 12, 2005

HIV/AIDS and Infidelity in Africa

Following up on my discussion about HIV/AIDS in Africa: Yesterday afternoon, NPR ran a story about the topic in its program, "The World." This story examined how infidelity was helping to spread HIV/AIDS in South Africa, especially among women, and how a Soweto radio station is trying to stop this practice by hosting a show called "Cheaters." The focus of this two-hour program is to identify, interview, and shame so-called "cheaters" and those who were cheated on. Evidently, the radio station's listenership triples during the show, and many community members believe that it has made people think twice about cheating for fear that they will be exposed on the show. It's a very interesting story, and it is accompanied by photos of the radio show.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

A personal account of acupuncture

I came across PeaceBang's account of her first acupuncture session, and I wanted to write a post about it because 1) it gets at many of the reasons why I personally like acupuncture and 2) it points to some key problems with conventional medical practice. Don't get me wrong. I think biomedicine is a great thing, and I *love* my MD. However, I can empathize with PeaceBang's observations of and feelings about her doctor always seeming rushed and stressed, getting prescription notes thrown at you, etc. I often leave my doctor appointments feeling very frustrated that I wasn't able to address the various questions I had for her because my fifteen minutes was up. And don't get my started on the triage nurses who are supposed to be able to answer your questions in between appointments--in my own experience, they have not been particularly helpful.

For the most part, these problems are not so much the fault of individual MDs or nurses (although some health care providers are better than others) but are indicative of broader problems with our current medical system.

Oh, in case anybody is wondering, I have been getting acupuncture regularly for the past five years. I have chronic eczema, and although accupuncture hasn't "cured" my condition, it has decreased my symptoms without the use of potentially harmful steroids, antibiotics, etc. I recommend it for anyone suffering from eczema or other skin and allergy problems.

The politics of U.S. HIV/AIDS prevention policy

A friend of mine, Milo, just alerted me to this recent AlterNet.org news report detailing how Brazilian officials turned down $40 million dollars from the U.S. to fight HIV/AIDS in their country. They turned down the money not because they are unconcerned about HIV/AIDs in Brazil (to the contrary, Brazil has gained worldwide attention for its innovative AIDS education, prevention and treatment policies) but because they refused to comply with the U.S.' demand that to receive the money, Brazil would have to condemn prositution and sex work.

Brazil has refused to do this because sex workers have played a key role in the training of community HIV/AIDS educators, the mass dissemination of condoms and safe sex information/education, and in working with the government and other civic organizations to develop an extensive network of groups working to prevent HIV/AIDS. By including sex workers and their organizations in HIV/AIDS prevention efforts, Brazilian officials are not condoning prostitution per se. Rather, they believe that the best way to prevent HIV/AIDS is to take a practical approach instead of what they call an "ideological" approach, the latter of which they accuse the U.S. of taking by requiring countries to condemn sex work if they are to receive U.S. funds.

Brazil officials are not the first group to criticize the U.S. government for its ideologically-driven global HIV/AIDS and public health funding. The U.S. has also received criticism from NGOs worldwide for its refusal to fund HIV/AIDS efforts in other countries--including those in AIDS-ravaged Africa--if the organizations doing this work do not take abstinence-only approaches to HIV/AIDS prevention. Such abstinence only programs can have devasting consequences for countries such as those in Africa where HIV/AIDS rates are incredibly high, and gender inequality is a cultural given. For istance, many men believe that sex is their right and many women feel that they do not have the choice to say no to unwanted sex.

In the U.S., officials from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were required by government higher ups several years ago to remove references to condom use from its HIV/AIDS prevention website. More recently, the Department of Health and Human Services created a website for parents providing them with information on how to talk about sex with their teen children. The site takes an abstinence-only approach and the only information it has about contraception focuses on its negative and potentially harmful aspects. The abstinence-only approach to public health has frustrated many U.S. public health workers. Although they believe that abstinence should be encouraged among teens as a means of preventing both pregnancy and STD infection, they also believe that it is not realistic to expect all teens to remain sexually chaste until marriage. Thus, they believe that abstinence-only education is a bad public health strategy, and that to promote and protect adolescent health, especially the spread of HIV/AIDS, teens must also be educated about different forms of birth control and safe sex strategies.

Toxic cosmetics

In the past few years, scientists and environmental health activists have become increasingly concerned about phthalates, a type of endocrine- disrupting chemical that has been recently linked to reproductive health disorders in humans, particularly boys and men. A few researchers have also speculated about their link to breast cancer. Some of the most common sources of these chemicals are cosmetics, shampoos, skin creams, and other beauty/body care products. The Washington DC-based Environmental Working Group has worked with a number of other environmental health organizations to raise public awareness about the possible dangers from these chemicals. One outcome of their efforts has been the report Skin Deep, which can be found on Environmental Working Group's website. The report not only discusses the environmental health research conducted on phthalates but also provides an interactive site for readers to find out whether their beauty/body products contain these toxins. In addition th report outlines disease prevntion strategies that could be taken by individuals, industries, and regulatory agencies.

Not Too Pretty--one of the organizations with which EWG has worked--has done extensive activist work in Europe and the U.S. on the issues of phthalates in cosmestics. Check out their website as well.

Monday, May 09, 2005

Alternative medicine?

Although acupuncture, hearbal treatments, yoga, meditation, bodywork, and other forms of so-called "alternative" medicine are still for the most part considered outside the boundaries of conventional biomedicine, they are becoming more accepted and legitimated by health care practioners, health insurers, and the medicial establishment more generally. One example of the "mainstreaming" of alternative medicine is the establishment of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), which is one of the newest research centers within the National Institutes of Health. Founded in the late 1990s, this center, which used to be called the Office of Alternative Medicine, is funding and conducting research on the possible health benefits of an array of alternative healing modalities. The center's website discusses the center's studies, as well as serves as a databate on research conducted by other instutions worldwide. Although the center doesn't get nearly as much federal funding as, say, the National Cancer Institute (nor is the center an official "institute"), the government's acknowledgement that alternative healing modalities are worth scientific investigation is for the most part a good thing.

At the same time, the "western" biomedical approach to the healing potential of alternative modalities raises some interesting phenomonological and epistemological questions: for example, how do you measure the efficacy of traditional chinese acupuncture when the practice is based on the principle that the body has hundreds of energy channels running through it--energy channels that cannot be seen through visual means and do not necessarily corrolate with the biomedicalized body that consists of physical parts (organs, veins, cells, etc)? When studies find that acupuncture helps to relieve pain, nausea and other ailments, what explanatory frameworks for the practice's efficacy are put forth by researchers? As acupuncture has become increasingly legitimated by conventional biomedicine and increasingly practiced by medical doctors, has the practice lost any of its traditional chinese phenomonology, or have medical pracitioners found ways to integrate and embrace both notions of the body simultaneously? Of course, there are several high profile doctors who do this type of integrative work, including Andrew Weil, David Simon, Rudolph Valentine, Christiane Northrup, and Deepak Chopra.

I haven't done much research on this particular topic myself, but it is one that I'm interested in, and one that other academics have written about. A cool study that I'd like to conduct at some point would be to interview biomedical practioners who also practice accupuncture to learn the many ways that they integrate both "western" and "eastern" knowledge and "ways of knowing."

Episiotomies questioned

A study published in the most recent issue of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) found that routine episiotomies harm women more than they help them. Epistiotomies were first conducted on pregnant women in labor during the 1930s (a time period in which OB/GYN was a very male-dominated field), and since then have increasingly become a routinized childbirth practice. Currently, about 1 million women receive them each year. The presumed rationale for them is that they make labor easier and prevent less vaginal tearing.

The JAMA study discovered, however, that episiotomies may actually cause more health problems than they prevent. In most women, episiotomies do not make childbirth easier. In addition, they cause more--rather than less--vaginal tearing. Finally, they make post-pregnancy healing more difficult, and post-pregnancy intercourse more painful. Given these findings, the study recommends that the procedure only be conducted in high risk situations, and not as a routine childbirth practice.

So how did episiotomies become routinized if they actually harm women more than they help them? It turns out that they became established medical practice not because there was research backing up their health benefits but because their benefits were simply assumed and taken for granted. New generations of doctors practiced them because the older generations did (In other words, "If everyone else is doing it, it must be good"). Thus, the more that doctors and the medical profession got on board with them, the more that the procedure was presumed to be beneficial and acceptable. Moreover, episiotomies became routinized and established practice as U.S. medicine became more professionalized/institutionalized, and pregnancy/childbirth in particular became more medicalized.

Here's a link to an NPR interview with the study's primary investigator, Dr. Katherine Hartmann, that was conducted on May 4th.

The routine practice of episiotomies is not the only case of a medical procecure becoming institionalized based on factors other than ample scientific evidence. Other routine pregnancy/childbirth practices and the use of X-Rays (particularly during the 1940s and 50s), among other things, have similar histories.

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Iranian gender/sexual politics

Last night I attended a talk by Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian woman who was in Milwaukee as part of her U.S. book tour for her latest work, Embroideries, which explores the gender/sexual politics in contemporary Iran. I will come back to this post and say more about the book and her talk; for now, however, here's a recent interview she did with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about the book, as well as her previous ones, Persepolis and Persepolis II.

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

On-line health communities

I teach in a mass communication department and teach courses on internet culture, health and the media, and science, technology and politics. Currently, I have several graduate students who are all doing research projects on on-line health communities. One student is looking at autism discussion boards, another is studying Pro-Anorexia (Pro-Ana) websites/blogrings, and two others are conducting analyses of pregnancy discussion groups. I am very excited about these projects, as I am planning to conduct my own research about on-line health communities in the months to come, most likely related to mental health issues. In the Fall 2005 semester, I'm also hoping to organize a colloquium about on-line disease cultures and communities, with my students being the main participants. As they progress further with their research and writing, I will post updates about their (and my own) findings.

Queer Zine Archive Project

My friends Milo and Chris have started the Queer Zine Archive Project, which is an on-line archive of queer zines published over the past several decades. Although they are interested in collecting zines about any queer-related topics, they are especially interested in those focusing on queer health. If you have any queer health-related zines that you'd like to put in the archives, contact Milo or Chris. Their contact information is on the website.

Mothering/pregnancy email listservs

I recently found this extensive list of email listservs for women interested in chatting with others about motherhood, pregnancy, and childbirth. Most of the groups are geared towards particular groups of women (i.e., stay-at-home mothers, writer-mothers, lesbian and bisexual mothers, black single mothers), and/or focus on particular issues (i.e., breastfeeding, unassisted childbirth, raising healthy girls). Some of the groups also have a feminist perspective.

The list was put together by Joan Korenman, Director of the Center of Women and Information Technology at University of Maryland-Baltimore Campus (UMBC). At UMBC, she is also Professor of English Literature and an affiliated Professor of Women's Studies.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Hip Parenting

Even though I am not a parent (yet), I love Hip Mama. It's a quarterly zine based in Portland, Oregon, that approaches pregnancy, parenting, and family issues from a feminist, anti-racist, and queer-friendly perspective.

Ariel Gore, the hip mama who started the zine, has also written several related books, most of which I own and have read. The Hip Mama's Survivial Guide is a primer covering assorted pregnancy, child birth, and child rearing issues. The Mother Trip: Hip Mama's Guide to Staying Sane in the Chaos of Motherhood, deals with the trials, tribulations, and stresses of being a mother. Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the New Generation of Mothers, which is edited by Gore and Hip Mama co-editor, Bee Lavender (more about her in another post), is an anthology of mothering stories written by various hip mamas.