Health care remains in crisis. Despite the Herculean efforts made by the Obama administration and Democratic Party leaders in the House of Representatives in passing health care reform legislation, despite the frantic resistance by Republicans in opposition, we still have the same system that’s been in crisis because it consists of too much medicine and not enough health. Continue reading →

The Obama administration is working on what it calls “sweeping change” in the No Child Left Behind law inherited from the Bush administration. The reforms seem to center on changing the incentive system and standards for school and student performance. Although tests in math and reading are still at the core of the law’s implementation, the goal has shifted from being narrowly focused on proficiency in reading and math as measured by standardized tests to include something referred to as being college-ready. Continue reading →

It took a long time for chronic fatigue to be recognized as a physiological and not a psychological illness. The CDC now estimates that between one and four million people suffer. Chances are good that’s an underestimate. It’s certainly true that many people suffer because they are not properly diagnosed by physicians who don’t take the condition seriously. Continue reading →

I was clearing out my stash of research papers last week and came across a study that I hadn’t paid enough attention to when it first crossed my desk. The research was framed as being about the placebo effect and the health effects of exercise. But it was also framed as being about what the authors refer to as mindfulness and sometimes as mind-set. The upshot of the research is that self-awareness can have biological effects. Continue reading →

Barack Obama. What a disappointment. I didn’t think he could do anything more to sadden me, but he has.

Last week he announced loan guarantees for the construction of nuclear power plants. Continue reading →

At a recent talk about our book Too Much Medicine, Not Enough Health, I was given a note about a recent issue of the American Journal of Public Health that addressed the inadequacies of current public health education practices. This is an important issue: how to enable people to make health and medical decisions informed by good science. It’s the work Layna and I do on this show, in our practice, and in our book. Continue reading →

It’s no surprise that several times each year the mainstream media reports research about the ineffectiveness and even danger of nutrient supplements. Recently, research about the negative effects that antioxidants might have on the benefits of exercise have circulated in health-oriented media. Advocates of the view that you can get all your vitamins from food have used this research to promote their case. Continue reading →

The sanctity of market solutions and business culture are at the heart of our health care system’s problems and our failure to reform it in any meaningful way. Oddly enough, our commitment as a society to market solutions and business culture have also been at the heart of maintaining practices and products outside those approved by the official health care system—that is, access to vitamins, herbs, and practitioners of alternative healing arts in the various traditions of natural health. Continue reading →

The medical establishment has hurt its shoulder. It’s been patting itself on the back for its fine performance during what it calls the swine flu pandemic. In a New York Times article titled “U.S. Reaction to Swine Flu: Apt and Lucky,” the chairman of the Infectious Disease Society of America boasts that “we did a lot of things right” and the chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt Medical School gave Federal officials “at least a B-plus.” Continue reading →

I’ve been reading about the senses, how they work, and how that affects the art and science of self-care.

I’ll start in an unexpected place. In his acceptance speech for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama sounded to me very much like the political figures of the Vietnam War era. I kept thinking of the horrific statement I heard in my young adulthood: “We had to destroy the village to save it.” Continue reading →