Indian Country Looks to Tom Daschle for Help

Former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle will soon be seated as the head of the Health and Human Services. As a man who grew up in South Dakota and served as its Representative and Senator for many years, he, probably above all others, is highly qualified to know and understand the health problems prevalent amongst the Native people of his state.

Within the HHS is the Indian Health Service, an agency that serves the needs of the 1.8 million members of the 560 federally recognized tribes. The Indian Health Service has 15,102 employees and in 2008 operated under a budget of $4.3 billion. I.H.S. oversees 46 hospitals, 324 health centers, 309 health stations, and 34 urban Indian health programs.

Established in 1921 within the U. S. Department of the Interior, the Indian Health Service was transferred to HHS in 1955.

Now all of the above statistics makes the Indian Health Service sound pretty impressive and for lack of a better term, it is doing pretty well under difficult circumstances. And yet the average age of Native Americans is 25 percent less than that of the white population. The twin epidemic of diabetes and infant mortality is much, much higher than that of the average American.

Several months ago I wrote about several Lakota babies that died at birth and every week since then there has been a Lakota baby listed in the daily obituaries of local newspapers. The listings are no longer just a surprise, but instead are shocking. Why are so many Indian babies stillborn or why do so many die shortly after they are born? With all of its employees and facilities why can't the Indian Health Service determine the cause of this epidemic?

There is another dreadful illness on the Indian reservations of America that is just as shocking and apparently unsolvable. The rate of adult onset diabetes is decimating the Indian people. Nearly every month I lose a friend or a relative to this disease. So far I have lost two sisters and many cousins.

One of the most prominent families on the Pine Ridge Reservation is the Red Cloud family. They are the descendants of the famous Oglala Lakota leader, Chief Red Cloud. He authorized the purchase of the land upon which the Holy Rosary Indian Mission was built. As a student there many years ago I vividly recall his name on the façade of the gray, concrete building. Red Cloud Hall was the place that housed our classrooms, a gymnasium and our dormitories.

The Red Cloud family has been involved in the politics of the Oglala Lakota for more than 150 years. The Chief is buried in what has become known as "The Old Mission Cemetery" overlooking Red Cloud School.

There is no such thing as royalty amongst the Lakota people, but if there were, it would rest upon the shoulders of the Red Cloud's. Oliver Red Cloud, the great grandson of Chief Red Cloud now sits in a wheel chair having had one leg amputated because of diabetes. He has lost his son Verdell (two weeks ago) and his daughter Nancy, to diabetes. His son Lyman, a man that was always so active in the politics of the reservation, is now in a wheel chair in a rest home in Rapid City. Both of his legs have been amputated because of diabetes.

Oglala Lakota attorney Mario Gonzalez, a descendant of the respected Quiver family of the Eagle Nest District of Pine Ridge, lost his mother, Geneva Eloise Wilcox Gonzales to diabetes. Gonzalez said he was just shattered at losing his mother and so many friends and relatives to diabetes. He said, "When Nancy Red Cloud was put on the dialysis machine I knew it would just be a matter of time for her because I have seen so many Lakota end up on that machine."

On the lands of the Gila River Reservation in Arizona it has been reported that nearly 50 percent of the population has been decimated by diabetes. Several studies have been ongoing there to determine the causes and to seek solutions. Gila River was the home of that famous United States Marine, Ira Hayes, and the Pima Indian that helped to raise the flag at Iwo Jima.

Tom Daschle has been a friend of mine for more than 30 years. I wrote him to congratulate him on his appointment to head the HHS. He knows the problems of infant mortality and of the diabetes epidemic in Indian country better than anyone ever appointed to head that agency. He also knows that cancer can be added to the list of diseases that are now destroying so many Indian families. He also knows that the people of Indian country are counting on him.

(Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was the founder and publisher of Indian Country Today, the Lakota Times, and the Dakota/Lakota Journal. He can be reached at [e-mail])

Comments

[CouldOnlyRememberMyName]

indians fought indians so all this talk of white vs indians could be called nonsense

the natchez were wiped by tunicas and french i think

i think the lakota warred on sac and fox Indians according to black hawks biography

[CouldOnlyRememberMyName]

the Serbs have been driven out by turks and Muslims and Albanians and bill Clinton and nato

so what have you Americans done to save kosovo?- nothing

im white and Cherokee

who cares

[CouldOnlyRememberMyName]

Webster tarpley on his radio show i think said Tom Daschle is bad news

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster_Tarpley

Clinton raised taxes and cut people off welfare

you democrats hate republican wars and so do i but you think its just great i guess that obama bombs pakistan and clinton bombed serbia?

i think its sick

you want health? take the advice of these two sites Dr. Russell Blaylock and www.mercola.com

dr amen on pbs is good too

[CouldOnlyRememberMyName]

id think if you stopped buying food in stores there would be less diabetes

white flour processed foods not to mention alcohol

so just buy brown rice and whole foods fruits and vegetables

iread about this in book sugar blues by dufty and the aldele davis books years ago

i have a feeling most americans buy and eat too much junk

meds also cause illness

people never learn excpt some do

[OYea]

Mr. Giago:

I am very familiar with the challenges that the people of Pine Ridge Reservation are facing... including numerous health issues. I am going to send you a private email at the address that you have listed. I have some information which I believe you will find most interesting. Please be on the look out for it. Thank you.

All the best ~ O

Mitakuye Oyasin

[MomfromTexas]

Mr. Giago,

Thank you for this very informative article. I did not have any idea that diabetes was such a problem among the Native American people. I have a large, extended family on both my mother's and father's sides, and I always say that I have a family history of every disease that can kill you, but we don't have any diabetes. In fact, I am fifty, and I do not know one person, who has died of diabetes. I am curious, then, about the causes of this disease among the Native Americans. There appears to be speculation among posters here, as to why this disease is in epidemic proportion amoung the native people, but I am curious what your thoughts are. Are you saying that Native Americans are not receiving the insulin they need to combat the disease, that their diets are such that improper diets are causing the disease, that improper diets are linked to the poverty in which many Native Americans live, that high rates of alcoholism are linked to the increase in diabetes, and/or that all health measures have been taken (insulin, proper diet, refraining from drinking alcohol) and the Native American people are still dieing in great numbers from this disease? What are your thoughts, and what do you think can be done to help the Native American people deal with this epidemic?

[curledup]

Jared Diamond recently addressed diabetes prevalence differences in populations in a NATURE article, summarized in a UCLA press release (http://www.college.ucla.edu/news/03/diabetes.html):

(snip)
"Immediately following Europe's last widespread famines centuries ago, a diabetes epidemic appears to have killed a large number of Europeans with these genes before they could be passed on to successive generations...Meanwhile, traditionally poor or rural non-European populations have not experienced a diabetes epidemic - until lately. So these people still carry the genes in large measure, and as a result they become highly prone to diabetes when they move into urban or Westernized settings, where the disease's risk factors are more common."

If accurate, Diamond's theory means today's soaring diabetes rates will continue to mount as people whose ancestors were never exposed to the epidemic adopt the disease's twin risk factors: abundant food and more sedentary lifestyles. Already, the disease affects 150 million worldwide.
(snip)

Similarly, genetics and environmental factors both come to bear on Native American alcoholism rates (http://www.indiana.edu/~rcapub/v17n3/p18.html addresses the genetics aspect):

(snip)
We have identified two genes that protect against heavy drinking, and these are particularly prevalent among Asians...Native Americans, who have a high rate of alcoholism, do not have these protective genes. The one that is particularly effective is a mutation of the gene for the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase, which plays a major role in metabolizing alcohol.
(snip)

[MomfromTexas]

Curledup,

Thanks for the information on diabetes. I've learned something new today. Fascinating information.

[exhale09]

My hope is that with the new Administration, and with Tom Daschle now heading HHS..finally once and for all, our country will seriously address the plight of Native Americans and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

The treatment and then neglect of these people has been indefensable for 300 years....we must find ways to begin doing right by them, because if we don't we have NO business telling any other country how to treat THEIR people.

[easarsfield]

Tim - I am not an expert on Native American Issues. But I do know that some Indian reservations are terribly poor, 3 of the 10 poorest counties in the US are Sioux reservations in S. Dakota. Some put the living conditions of these reservations on par with that of developing countries, which would probably explain the dire health of many residents.

I think that we need to examine the whole picture. In addition to diabetes, reservations tend to have very high rates of alcoholism and suicide. We need to dig down to the roots to see what is causing these problems. Is there a correlation between poor reservations and high levels of diabetes? To me, that would say something about the quality of healthy food available, seeing as junk food tends to be cheaper, easily accessible and often leads to obesity and diabetes.

Frankly I believe that reservations need financial assistance. Jobs need to be generated, education needs improvement - both things that I believe would have a significant impact on the quality of reservation life. I hope that Daschle will use his position to bring to light the problems of your people, as I believe that we Americans owe Natives much more than they have been given.

[curledup]

Re: the financial assistance comment, several non-profits in the state address community development needs - South Dakota Rural Enterprise, Inc. (SDREI) and DakotasAmerica, LLC, the latter of which facilitates the New Market Tax Credit Allocation to the places in our state that have the toughest economic conditions. The NMTC-eligible census tracts listed on the DakotasAmerica website (http://www.dakotasamerica.com/qualcomm.html), based on low-income population, unemployment rates and out-migration, significantly include areas of high Native American population.

Both SDREI and DA focus on entrepreneurship as the path to financial health of communities. A few of the "success stories" mentioned on the SDREI website include Native Discovery Tours (http://sdrei.org/nativediscoverytours.htm), promoting Cheyenne River, Rosebud and Pine Ridge Indian Reservations as in- and out-of-state tourist destinations; and Heathershaw Designs (http://sdrei.org/heathershaw.htm), a custom embroidery business that is flourishing with assistance from the Lakota Fund.

These types of assistance, both funding and coaching, are integral investments to self-sustainability in these regions. I trust that President-elect Obama's administration will continue boosting programs like the NMTC as part of the overall economic stimulus enacted together with Congress...

[cayuse]

Today the plight of theOccupied people is similar to what you say and I beleive for the Western Indian. Be it Gaza, West Bank, Iraq, or Afghanistan

2 questions:

1) Would the Western Indian fair better if they did not resist the white man. Or would he have locked them up anyway

2) Does this make sense to you?

http://www.yogananda-srf.org/writings/world.html

[newworldman777]

The "Western Indian" (of which I am one) would have been driven from his ancestral land -- much like the J_ewish people were driven from Israel, by the Romans 2000 years ago -- regardless of his relations to the "white man." The Europeans practiced what they now call "naked aggression" against the Native Americans for 300 years, taking the best land and forcing the Indians onto the worst land. Ironically, Americans now condemn other countries for committing the same type of attrocities that their own ancestors regularly committed against the Native Americans. That makes it very difficult for Americans to take the high moral ground, when it comes to human rights. They have no right whatsoever to criticize others.

[quindy]

You are right. I traveled through South Dakota this summer and I was shocked to see so much poverty. I haven't seen one single fresh produce stand anywhere. We ate at diners that served fatty food with no nutritional value. People we talked to were extremely nice. We talked about history and politics. But the level of poverty is such that even if you have farm land you cannot work it properly because there is no money to invest in machines or fertilizers or whatever else is needed. We, the white people, own everything to Native Americans. Although I was not born in this country I felt a deep shame at what was done to these proud people. Maybe our PE will come up with initiatives to start programs that focus on nutrition and education that can finally lift the people out of poverty. I will be the first to sign up and volunteer if needed.

[reliant1]

Ya"at" eeh from an old auntie

[makeitright]

Tim Giago, Akscita, holding back the warriors. Thank you. Thank you.