Driving down to Friday's Chilmark party for John and Elizabeth Edwards, we saw a familiar man jauntily walking roadside. "Isn't that Monk?" said my husband, "Should we give him a lift?" Yes, it was actor Tony Shalhoub (also an island summer resident) with his chic wife, actress Brooke Adams just ahead. They proceeded up the lane and into the gathering.
Inside, we chatted with neighbors and ate mini-lobster rolls, waiting for the candidate as the day darkened over the wide green lawn. At sunset, the Edwardses arrived and mounted a small platform to address the Vineyard crowd: serious professionals, lifelong liberals, and unashamed patriots. "It's time for patriotism to be about more than just war," Edwards told us.
At this over-sized party, everyone knew that thousands would gather for Hillary the next night. Encountering this valiant couple, running hard while facing her life-threatening illness, filled the dusk with a passion tinged by poignancy.
Edwards has left the pack and named the beast -- the compromise of democracy wrought by corporate power, and near universal buy-ins and cooptation of government, media, and the health care establishment. Life circumstances (his son's tragic death and his wife's diagnosis concurrent with a lost or stolen election) have eaten away the comfort that leads to compromise. Yes, Hillary has the lead. But this slender man, physically recalling Robert F. Kennedy Sr,. has got the edge. He's been in a Bush-era presidential race. He will not easily concede.
"Our job is replacing a corrupt system," he told the Vineyarders. "We don't have universal health care because the drug, insurance companies, and corporate system prevent it. They stand between us and the change we need. Their voices already prevail. If we give these folks a seat at the table, they'll eat all the food. Being political and cautious will not do it. It's our responsibility to show some backbone."
Edwards favors universal health care, and when asked his views on transitioning from the "sickness-based" model of conventional academic medicine to a wellness-based health care model, he voiced his support for preventive treatments. This could help him capture the votes of the estimated 50 million Americans who avail themselves of wellness-oriented approaches.
Edwards wants prevention available from the beginning of life. But the way he defines prevention is incongruent. Although up until recently, doctors were the last to know about nutrition, now academic institutions newly espouse the triad Edwards mentions: diet, exercise, and screening. That's a beginning, but it misses the authentic foundational wellness strategies of integrative care: balancing, tonifying, and helping the body to detoxify. Unfortunately, Edwards' conventional medical advisors may lack familiarity with the real wellness triad -- and apparently, so does he.
For example, when conventional physicians pooh-pooh detoxification, they ignore that reality that man-made chemicals saturating the environment lodge in us and cause health problems.
With regulators skating back and forth between government posts and the industries they regulate, corporate producers aren't required to prove that the ingredients we're exposed to are safe. Industrial emissions, food, medicines, and even personal care products can contain harmful, and even carcinogenic substances, which build up in bodily tissues, as Bill Moyers showed in his classic program, Trade Secrets. Cancer onsets, like Elizabeth Edwards', seem to crop up overnight for no reason so long as you ignore this widespread exposure to chemicals in foods, medicines, and elsewhere.
While breast self-exams will reveal lumps, avoiding (or helping the body to safely eliminate) questionable or carcinogenic substances will prevent the bodily environment leading to lumps, something the conventional model ignores. So when Edwards recommends constant monitoring, I'd like to suggest: Please, Senator Edwards, learn the difference between detection and prevention.
In her touching book, Saving Graces, Elizabeth Edwards reveals that she drinks diet Coke, which is sweetened with aspartame -- revealed to be carcinogenic in a recent Italian animal study. Similarly, hormone replacement therapy (in use by women of Elizabeth Edwards' age group) was connected to fluctuating cancer rates, by the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, which in 2006 found that declining breast cancer rates was likely traceable to the widespread cessation of hormone replacement therapy.
Although it's just one example among many, HRT reveals the key danger of a sickness-based model. Medicine devised to treat one problem, such as hot flashes, can cause another -- increased rates of breast cancer. Gentler, low tech, natural approaches that balance and strengthen the person's overall system cause virtually none of the side effects of toxic drugs. Yet our evidence-based research model asserts that natural substances are unsafe unless they are studied via research protocols designed for toxic chemicals. This is where corporatized science crushes common sense.
In the vanguard on other issues, the Edwardses would do well to venture beyond corporate medicine in their new vision of medical care. While it's human with health problems like Elizabeth's to seek out the most authoritative academic institutions, sadly these are the very places that support the sickness-based model and treat the disease rather than the whole person.
With more dollars, and more research, academic institutions promise that miracle breakthroughs are just over the horizon. But that's "pure fantasy," says the distinguished scientist, Rustum Roy, professor emeritus of science, technology, and society at Penn State University, and founder of Friends of Health, a non-profit organization. Professor Roy points out, "No substantive medical discovery has emerged from academia in the last 50 years."
When Elizabeth Edwards assured the Vineyard gathering that, "We want to include preventive medicine as integral to health care so that other people don't have to face what I am going through," it's impossible not to feel moved by her valor. But for her sake and ours, just as she and John Edwards have drilled through to the deeper causes of society's ills, I hope that this exceptional and caring woman finds her way to the path to true wellness and healing-based health care models.
Follow Alison Rose Levy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Alirosewriter
13 mainstream research studies in 24 months showing aspartame toxicity, also 3 relevant studies on methanol and formaldehyde: Murray 2007.08.17
Very little has been publicized in mass print and broadcast media.
Also highly relevant are a study in South Korea that finds levels of methanol similar to those from aspartame drinks cause the hangovers from alcohol drinks, a study in China on Alzheimer's type damage in nerve cells from low dose formaldehyde, and an IARC review by 25 experts that determines formaldehyde to be a human carcinogen.
Eur J Clin Nutr. 2007 Aug 8; [Epub ahead of print]
Direct and indirect cellular effects of aspartame on the brain.
Humphries P,
Pretorius E, resia.pretorius@up.ac.za,
Naudé H.
[1] Department of Anatomy, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
[2] Department of Anatomy, University of the Limpopo, South Africa.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1463
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1457
aspartame bans, tis more an avalanche than a trend...: Rich Murray 2007.08.17
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/message/1458
ASDA, Wal-Mart's UK supermarket chain, bans artificial colors, trans
fats, MSG and aspartame, Marguerite Kelly, The Washington Post: Murray
2007.08.03
So far, USA print and broadcast media are deaf, blind, and dumb,
regarding recent major bans of aspartame and MSG in the UK and EU.
The EU Parliament voted July 12 to ban artificial sweeteners
in newly born and infant foods.
On May 15 four huge UK supermarket chains announced bans
of aspartame and MSG, food dyes, and many additives
to protect kids from ADHD --
Sainsbury, Tesco, Marks & Spencer, and ASDA, a unit of WalMart.
Rich Murray, MA Room For All rmforall@comcast.net
505-501-2298 1943 Otowi Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aspartameNM/messages
group with 82 members, 1,467 posts in a public,
searchable archive http://RMForAll.blogspot.com
I just went through -- not too long ago -- a seven day fast/detox/colonic program for the reasons that you mentioned here in your post; I only drank fruit and vegetable juices along the way. I can't tell you how wonderful I felt afterwards. I thought it would be really tough, but it was surprisingly easy.
I am curious to know what you think about the book, 21 Pounds In 21 Days: The Martha Vinyard's Detox Diet? I have not read it yet.
I agree that eliminating grains that absorb too fast in the blood stream will lead to better health by cutting down on the over-dosage of insulin secreted in the pancreas. Is that basically your position? But, if grains such as those found in unleaven bread/Pita (no bleached flour), which seemingly have a much slower rate of absorption, are consumed, in moderation, wouldn't you agree that eating 'certain grains in moderation', is o.k.?
I will be sure to check out your book; thanks again for your wonderful post!
:)
Edwards' proposal has the most immediate benefit for working people by including (1) an actual tax credit for premiums (and possibly health care expenses) paid by working people -- i.e. spend $100 at the doctor, subtract $100 from your tax bill; and (2) creating "pools" of people who can get large group insurance and group rate discounts. It does not immediately eliminate the health insurance industry, but it would be an enormous step forward for the people who are financially simply unable to afford any healthcare.
As far as alternative cures, I'm uncertain how we can evaluate some of these claims, and/or whether they are really a form of medical treatment as opposed to simply lifestyle changes. Why would people need insurance for that?
Hillary: they will trash her and try to polarize the nation. I'm afraid they can do it.
Barack: they can't wait to tell everyone his middle name is Hussein. They will use insinuation and innuendo to appeal to the lowest form of human: the bigot. I just hope he has the ability to hit back, hit quickly and hit hard.
Edwards is a populist and certainly the most electable. I'm simply amazed at his willingness to serve the public with everything he and Elizabeth are going through.
Top drawer, Mr & Mrs Edwards. This country needs you. Thank you for being willing to serve.
The things that are make us sick make others money. We seem to live in a culture that chooses profit over safety, it has been that way for many years now, smoking? Seat belts?
Large corporations have been fighting safety laws for a long time now and their priorities are now affecting everyone in a serious way. This whole society needs to be detoxed, I know I do.
I've been trying tirelessly to ensure my daughter does not have the same issues by banning soda, corn syrup and trans fats from her diet. SHe gets organic whenever available and she asks for water when she's thirsty. I have removed toxic cleaners from our homes and want to continue to make our house safe for her. But what about schools? I can't keep her safe from the foods they have etc. How can we stop this if the Government keeps ensuring that the things that are making us sick are cheaper and easier to get for the average family.
I hope John Edwards does win the nomination and that he wins the presidency and that Elizabeth lives so she can be the best first lady ever.
I agree with you about the holistic medicine approach to well-being. I wish John and Elizabeth were better informed about it, but you might say they have had a lot on their plates. I love them both and pray that John is our next President - I have been a supporter for four years and I know that he is very open to new views and would welcome knowing more about preventative medicine as well.