Thick, juicy slices of eggplant take the place of traditional pizza crust in this healthy recipe. If you want to cut even more calories, go light on the cheese and get creative with toppings.
Ingredients:
1 large eggplant
1 tbsp. olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
1 14 oz. can fire-roasted tomatoes
1 tbsp. garlic gold
1 tsp. Italian seasoning
Cheese of your choice (about 1-2 c.
Directions:
Slice eggplant into discs. Rub with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Flip eggplants. Add tomato paste and then pile on tomatoes (draining slightly if yours are runny . Top with garlic gold, Italian seasoning, and cheese. Bake 10 minutes more.
Makes 2-3 servings.
Recipe provided by Kath Eats Real Food
It may not be summer just yet, but this flavorful pasta is perfect all year long, especially when you want to indulge your carb cravings. Though the mouthwatering dish is on the heavier side, it includes plenty of fresh veggies (eggplant, zucchini, squash, and cherry tomatoes and protein (chicken . You’ll walk away completely fulfilled!
Ingredients:
1 eggplant, cut into 1/2 in. thick slices
2 chicken breasts, about 4 oz. each
1 zucchini
1 yellow squash
1 c. grape or cherry tomatoes
2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing
Salt & pepper
Non-stick spray
Grill seasoning
6 oz. angel hair pasta
5 tbsp. good, olive oil-based Italian dressing, divided
8-10 fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced or torn
Directions:
Lay eggplant slices on a cooling rack. Generously salt each side and let sit for 10 minutes. Blot excess moisture and salt off the top with a paper towel. Brush each side with extra-virgin olive oil and season with pepper. Spray chicken breasts with non-stick spray and season each side with grill seasoning. Cut the ends off the zucchini and yellow squash, then cut in half. Cut into strips with a vegetable peeler or sharp knife, then add strips and tomatoes into a medium-sized bowl and toss with 2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil and grill seasoning. Heat a grill pan to medium-high heat and generously spray with non-stick spray. Grill the chicken until cooked through, about 4 minutes per side. Grill the eggplant slices until tender, about 3 minutes per side. Grill squash, zucchini, and tomatoes together until tender, tossing every so often, about 5 minutes total. Chop chicken and eggplant into bite-sized pieces. Meanwhile add angel hair pasta to a large pot of salted boiling water, and cook according to package directions. Drain and return to the pot. Toss with 3 tbsp. Italian dressing. Divide pasta between four plates. Top with grilled chicken, eggplant, zucchini, squash, and tomatoes. Drizzle each plate with the remaining Italian dressing, and sprinkle with fresh basil.
Makes 4 servings.
Recipe provided by Iowa Girl Eats
Crunchy eggplant strips coated in whole-wheat breadcrumbs taste just like fries, except without all the empty calories! Tossed in a mix of spices like paprika, cumin, and garlic powder, and accompanied by a creamy lemon dill dip, this savory baked treat is a much healthier alternative to French fries.
Ingredients:
For fries:
1 eggplant, cut into strips
1/3 c. plain soy yogurt
1 tbsp. dried parsley
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. onion powder
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 c. whole-wheat seasoned breadcrumbs
For dip:
1 c. plain soy yogurt
1 tsp. dill
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp. lemon juice
Fresh black pepper to taste
Directions:
For fries:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with a non-stick baking mat or parchment paper. Cut the top and bottom off of your eggplant. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise and then into quarters. Next, cut the eggplant quarters into slices roughly 1/4 in. thick. Now cut the eggplant slices into strips roughly the size of French fries. Combine yogurt, parsley, garlic powder, paprika, ground cumin, onion powder, lemon juice, and apple cider vinegar in a large bowl. Toss eggplant fries in soy yogurt mixture, coating evenly. Place breadcrumbs on a plate and lightly coat eggplant fries with breadcrumbs. Spread out evenly on trays making sure they don’t touch. Bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown and crispy. Turn halfway during baking to brown evenly. Serve immediately with lemon dill dipping sauce.
For dip:
Combine all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Place in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour to chill and allow flavors to combine.
Makes 6 servings.
Recipe provided by Virtually Vegan Mama
This classic comfort food is often high in fat and calories since the eggplant is typically dipped in bread crumbs, then fried. Coated in almond meal, garlic powder, and egg whites, this version is far more nutritious yet still brimming with crunch and flavor.
Ingredients:
1 eggplant, sliced into 4 thick slices (about 3/4 of the eggplant
1/3 cup almond meal (just ground up raw almonds in your blender/food processor
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. dried parsley
Sea salt
2 egg whites (or 1/4 c. carton egg whites
4 oz. pre-cooked chicken
1 cup jarred marinara sauce (choose a low-fat, low-sodium kind
4 tbsp. parmesan cheese, grated
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle eggplant slices with sea salt. Let sit for at least 20 minutes (up to 2 hours , so the eggplant releases some water. Wipe with paper towel to remove excess salt. You could probably skip this step if you’re in a rush. Dip eggplant in egg white and into breading of almond meal, garlic powder. and parsley. Repeat process for a 4 slices of eggplant (or 2 slices if you want to lower the fat in the recipe; in this case, you’ll only need 3 tbsp. of almond meal for 2 slices of eggplant . Using a saute pan at low to medium heat sprayed with cooking spray (don’t have it on high, or the almond meal will burn! , brown both sides of the eggplant. Next, in a oven proof bowl or dish, place 1/4 c. pasta sauce in the bottom of each bowl. Then, place one slice of eggplant. Next, place 2 oz. of the cooked chicken. Then, top the chicken with another 1/4 c. of pasta sauce. Finally, place the second piece of eggplant on top, and top with Parmesan cheese. Place in the oven (cover each dish with tin foil and bake for 15-20 minutes until the eggplant softens.
Makes 2 servings.
Recipe provided by Busy But Healthy
We couldn’t resist including yet another variation on baked eggplant fries! This one, however, is infused with exotic flavor, thanks to a generous dose of curry powder. A coating of panko bread crumbs and shredded coconut is a crunchy bonus too!
Ingredients:
1 medium to large eggplant
2 c. all-purpose flour
2 c. whole-wheat panko bread crumbs (Ian’s brand
1 1/2 c. unsweetened, unflavored almond milk
1 c. unsweetened, all-natural shredded coconut
4 tbsp. Bragg’s liquid aminos
4 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. ginger powder
1 vegan bouillon cube
3-5 tbsp. coconut oil
Directions:
Peel and slice eggplant into fry-sized pieces. Preheat oven to 385 degrees. Mix bouillon cube, liquid aminos, ginger powder, and curry powder together. Set aside. Note: if your bouillon cube does not mix well, heat up the milk for a minute. Mix flour and shredded coconut together and set aside. Grease your cookie sheet with coconut oil. Pour out the panko crumbs on a plate. Dip eggplant into the non-dairy milk mixture. Roll it into the flour. Dip it into the non-dairy milk mixture again. Roll it into the panko bread crumbs. Place onto your cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes.
Makes 6-8 servings.
Recipe provided by Veg Obsession
If your late-night cravings won’t let up, pass over the greasy potato chips in favor of baked eggplant crisps instead. These veggie chips get a spicy kick from a sprinkle of paprika powder, and they won’t break the calorie bank. Even better, dip them into a tahini spread for extra snacking pleasure!
Ingredients:
For chips:
1 eggplant, thinly sliced
Sea salt
2-3 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. paprika
1 tsp. turmeric
Pinch of cayenne powder (optional
For dip:
1 heaped tbsp. tahini
1-2 tbsp. cold water
1 tsp. raw honey
1 small clove of garlic (optional
Olive oil
A sprinkle of paprika
Directions:
For chips:
First prepare the eggplant by slicing it thinly and then covering each piece of sliced eggplant with a sprinkle of sea salt. Place in a bowl for 1 hour-overnight. This step helps reduce the bitterness and baking time of the eggplant. Once that time is over and your ready to cook drain out the water that would have come off the eggplant and dry each piece of eggplant. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. In a separate bowl mix together the olive oil, paprika, turmeric, cayenne (if used and a little bit of salt. Brush each piece of eggplant on both sides with the spice-oil mixture. Place covered eggplant pieces onto a baking tray and cook in the preheated oven for 30-40 minutes (fan-forced or until lightly browned and crispy.
For dip:
Mix together the tahini, water, honey, and garlic. You may need to add a bit more water to thin it out. You want it to have a syrupy texture but not watery so adjust the water content to get your desired texture. Pour a bit of olive oil in the middle (around 1 tsp. and sprinkle with paprika. Serve the tahini dip with the eggplant chips.
Makes 6 servings.
Recipe provided by Health Food Lover
Inspired by this blogger’s honeymoon to Chania, a city on the island of Crete, this dish is a kosher version of traditional moussaka, which typically includes ground lamb and Bechamel sauce. Instead, this healthier recipe calls for lean ground turkey and a plethora of veggies such as eggplant, Swiss chard, and carrots.
Ingredients:
2 large eggplants, cut into 1/4-in. round slices
Salt
2 tbsp. olive oil, plus non-stick cooking spray as needed
1/2 bunch Swiss chard, chopped, or spinach
1 green pepper, chopped
Ground cinnamon to taste
3 tbsp. trans-fat free margarine
2 medium onions, sliced into half moons
Garlic cloves, sliced, to taste
3 carrots, cut into 1/4-in. round slices
2 tbsp. currants or raisins
15 oz. tomato sauce, canned or homemade
1 lb. lean ground turkey
2 tbsp. whole-wheat bread crumbs
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a rectangular baking pan with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside. Place the eggplant slices on paper towel. Sprinkle with salt. Top with paper towel, and place a pan or other weight on top. Let rest until ready to cook. The salting will draw out the bitterness from the eggplant, drawing out the salt with it. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add the eggplant and saute until slices are browned on both sides. Add cooking spray as needed to keep sauteing the eggplant. Transfer the eggplant to the baking pan, forming a layer on the bottom of the pan. It’s okay if the eggplant overlaps slightly. Add the chopped Swiss chard and green peppers to the pan and saute about 4-5 minutes. Transfer to baking dish and season with cinnamon. Spoon tomato sauce over the vegetables. Add 2 tbsp. of margarine to the pan. Add onions and garlic and saute for 4-5 minutes until onions are translucent. Set aside in a bowl. Add the carrots and currants to the pan and saute 3-4 minutes, until the carrots are tender. Set aside with onions. Add ground turkey to pan, breaking it up with a fork. Cook most of the way and then transfer to the baking dish, spreading the turkey evenly. Top with more sauce, followed by the onions, carrots, and currants. Press down to compact, and add more cinnamon to taste. Sprinkle with bread crumbs. Add the last tablespoon of margarine to the pan and heat until melted. Drizzle melted margarine over the breadcrumbs. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Uncover and cook for 15 minutes longer until golden brown and bubbling around the edges. Serve with bread or rice.
Makes 4-5 servings.
Recipe provided by Nutritioulicious
The good news: You only need five ingredients to whip up this creamy eggplant-based soup! The bad news: It will disappear so fast you won’t have any left over for tomorrow’s lunch. A blend of eggplant and white beans creates a chunky consistency that will leave both vegetarians and meat eaters completely satisfied!
Ingredients:
2 medium eggplants (aubergine
2 knobs butter or olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 14 oz. cans white beans
2-4 tbsp. lemon juice
Directions:
Preheat oven to its highest setting. Cut eggplant in half lengthwise and place on an oven-proof tray cut side down. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until eggplant is very soft. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large saucepan and cook onion, covered for about 15 minutes or until very soft and golden. Add beans and the liquid to the onions and bring to a simmer. Cook for about 10 minutes or until your eggplant is ready. Scrape the flesh from the cooked eggplant and add to the soup. Simmer for a minute or so, then puree if you like. Taste and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
Makes 3-4 servings.
Recipe provided by Stonesoup
This hearty whole-wheat pasta serves up one truly satisfying meal. It’s packed with vegetables, including eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, onions, and mushrooms, and bursts with intense flavor, thanks to spices like oregano and red pepper.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 red peppers, cored and cut into 1-in. wide strips
2 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-in. cubes
2 summer squash, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-in. cubes
8 cremini mushrooms, halved
1/2 small eggplant, diced
1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced into 1-in. strips
1 tsp. salt, divided
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper, divided
2 tsp. dried oregano
2 tsp. dried basil
Garlic powder to taste
Pinch of crushed red pepper
Whole-wheat penne pasta (16 oz.
3 c. marinara sauce (store-bought or homemade
1 1/2 c. frozen peas, thawed
1/2 c. grated fontina cheese; 1/2 c. grated mozzarella; 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese>p>
Directions:
Chop all the veggies and preheat your oven to 450 degrees. On a baking sheet (or in a casserole dish/large pan , toss the peppers, zucchini, squash, mushrooms, eggplant, and onions with olive oil, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. pepper, and dried herbs. Roast until tender, about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook for about 6 minutes. Since you will be cooking the pasta a second time in the oven, you want to make sure the inside is still hard. Drain in a colander. Once the veggies are done, toss the drained pasta with the roasted vegetables, marinara sauce, cheeses, peas, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper. If you used a large casserole dish/pan to roast the veggies in, you can just dump all of the additional ingredients (pasta etc. into that pan to mix everything together. Using a wooden spoon, gently mix, until all the pasta is coated with the sauce and the ingredients are combined. Top the pasta with the remaining cheese (about 1/3 c. . Bake until top is golden and cheese melts, about 25 minutes.
Makes 6 servings.
Recipe provided by The Picky Eater
This vegan-friendly recipe is easy to make with just a handful of common ingredients. Instead of a rich ricotta stuffing, each individual rollatini bursts with a faux tofu ricotta filling. Serve with spinach or a side salad for a satisfying low-carb meal. As a bonus, these yummy eggplant bites are almost too pretty to eat!
Ingredients:
2/3 block of extra-firm tofu
Juice from half a lemon
Dash of salt
Dash of dried basil
2 tbsp. nutritional yeast
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 c. tomato sauce
1 large eggplant
2 tbsp. whole-wheat bread crumbs
Directions:
Combine the tofu, lemon, salt, dried basil, nutritional yeast, and olive oil to make a crumbly "tofu ricotta" mixture. Spread some tomato sauce on the bottom of an 8x8 in. pan. Thinly slice the eggplant, length-wise, so each slice is about a 1/4-in. thick. Spread the eggplant slices with tomato sauce and tofu ricotta. Roll each eggplant slice and place (seam-side down if possible in the baking dish. Top with remainder of the tomato sauce, tofu ricotta, and bread crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serve on a bed of steamed spinach or with a side salad. If vegan eats aren't your thing, feel free to un-veganize with the addition of some shredded mozzarella cheese inside the eggplant rolls as well.
Makes 6 servings.
Recipe provided by Sound Eats
If the soft, tender flesh and glossy purple skin of eggplants don’t appeal to you, then the veggie’s rich health benefits will! Thanks to nasunin, an antioxidant in eggplant peels that helps protect brain cells, and a host of other vitamins and minerals, this wholesome veggie is an ideal brain food.
Whether you want to burn fat, build lean muscle, or finish your first marathon, you’ll reach your goals faster by making sure your body is well fed. The best way to do that? Stock your kitchen (office, gym bag, etc. with healthy fare that tastes good.
A Texas physician and six others were indicted on Tuesday in the largest healthcare fraud case in U.S. history, federal law enforcement officials reported.
The massive scheme allegedly robbed Medicare and Medicaid of $375 million.
According to the indictment, Dr. Jacques Roy, owner of Medistat Group Associates in DeSoto, Texas, led a scheme that billed Medicare for home health services that were not medically necessary or were never delivered. The federal indictment also charges Dr. Roy with creating a false identity and sending funds offshore with the intention of fleeing the country.
Dr. Roy’s office manager and five owners of home health agencies (HHAs were also indicted.
The documents, filed in the Northern District of Texas and unsealed Tuesday, charge Jacques Roy, M.D., 54, of Rockwall, Texas; Cynthia Stiger, 49, of Dallas; Wilbert James Veasey Jr., 60, of Dallas; Cyprian Akamnonu, 63, of Cedar Hill, Texas; Patricia Akamnonu, RN, 48, of Cedar Hill; Teri Sivils, 44, of Midlothian, Texas; and Charity Eleda, RN, 51, of Rowlett, Texas, each with one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.
Dr. Roy is also charged with nine counts of substantive health care fraud, and Veasey, Patricia Akamnonu and Eleda are each charged with three counts of health care fraud. Eleda also is charged with three counts of making false statements related to a Medicare claim.
The indictment alleges that from January 2006 through November 2011, Dr. Roy or others certified more Medicare beneficiaries for home health services and had more patients than any other medical practice in the country.
These certifications allegedly resulted in more than $350 million being fraudulently billed to Medicare, and more than $24 million being fraudulently billed to Medicaid by Medistat and other HHAs.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also announced the suspension of an additional 78 home health agencies associated with Roy based on credible allegations of fraud against them.
U.S. Attorney Sarah Saldana said that Dr. Roy used the home health agencies as “his soldiers on the ground to go door to door to recruit Medicare beneficiaries.”
“The conduct charged in this indictment represents the single largest fraud amount orchestrated by one doctor in the history of HEAT and our Medicare Fraud Strike Force operations,” said Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
HEAT is a joint initiative between the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services to prevent and deter fraud and enforce anti-fraud laws across the country.
The indictment alleges that Medistat maintained a “485 Department,” named for the number of the Medicare form on which the plan of care was documented. Dr. Roy allegedly instructed Medistat employees to complete the 485s by either signing his name by hand or by using his electronic signature on the document.
Three of the HHAs Dr. Roy used as part of the scheme were Apple of Your Eye Healthcare Services Inc., owned and operated by Stiger and Veasey; Ultimate Care Home Health Services Inc., owned and operated by Cyprian and Patricia Akamnonu; and Charry Home Care Services Inc., owned and operated by Eleda.
According to the indictment, Veasey, Akamnonu, Eleda and others recruited beneficiaries to be placed at their HHAs so that they could bill Medicare for the unnecessary and not provided services. As part of her role in the scheme, Eleda allegedly visited The Bridge Homeless Shelter in Dallas to recruit homeless beneficiaries staying at the facility, paying recruiters $50 per beneficiary they found at The Bridge and directed to Eleda’s vehicle parked outside the shelter’s gates.
Apple allegedly submitted claims to Medicare from Jan. 1, 2006, through July 31, 2011, totaling $9,157,646 for home health services to Medicare beneficiaries that were medically unnecessary and not provided. Dr. Roy or another Medistat physician certified the services.
From Jan. 1, 2006, to Aug. 31, 2011, Ultimate submitted claims for medically unnecessary home health services totaling $43,184,628. Charry allegedly submitted fraudulent claims from Aug. 1, 2008, to June 30, 2011, totaling $468,858 in medically unnecessary and not provided home health services.
The indictment alleges that Sivils, as Medistat’s office manager, helped facilitate the fraud scheme by, among other actions, supervising the processing of thousands of plans of care that contained Dr. Roy’s electronic signature and other Medistat physicians’ signatures, permitting HHAs to bill Medicare for unnecessary home health services and accepting cash payments from Cyprian Akamnonu in exchange for ensuring plans of care contained Dr. Roy or another Medistat physician’s signature.
As outlined in the government’s request to the court to detain Dr. Roy, in June 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services suspended provider numbers for Dr. Roy and Medistat based on credible allegations of fraud, thus ensuring Dr. Roy did not receive payment from Medicare.
Immediately after the suspension, nearly all of Medistat’s employees started billing Medicare under the provider number for Medcare HouseCalls.
The court document alleges that Dr. Roy was in fact in charge of day-to-day operations at Medcare, and that Dr. Roy continued to certify patients for home health despite the suspension.
Each charged count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and substantive health care fraud carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Each false statement charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The indictment also seeks forfeiture of numerous items including funds in bank accounts, a sailboat, vehicles and multiple pieces of property.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael Elliott, Mindy Sauter and John DeLaGarza of the Northern District of Texas and Trial Attorney Ben O’Neil and Deputy Chief Sam Sheldon of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.
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On the Net:
Yes, this salty, sweet treat is the definition of indulgence, but thanks to full-flavored ingredients like whiskey, caramel, marshmallow, and of course, bacon, you can bet each piece is simply addictive. And that’s not a good thing since the full pan comes in at 6,762 calories. If not tasting is not an option, indulge in a 1-inch square for 105 calories.
Photo courtesy of Endless Simmer
We first stumbled upon these luscious-looking griddle cakes on Pinterest, where we couldn’t help but drool over the thick stack! Though a single cake only amounts to 291 calories, you can be sure that if you whip these tasty babies up, you’ll have a hard time stopping at just one!
Photo courtesy of Recipe Girl
Bacon and chocolate make an irresistible pairing, and this recipe fuses salty and sweet in the most appealing—and fattening!—way. Each rich chocolate morsel is filled with bacon bits and garnished with maple frosting. Rest assured you’ll pay for every scrumptious bite in calories, though!
Photo courtesy of The Novice Chef
Sizzling pork medallions individually wrapped in bacon sound like every meat-lover’s dream. But if you’re diet-conscious, this dish is definitely a special occasion item only; although it’s low in carbs, it’s super high in sodium!
Photo courtesy of The Way The Cookie Crumbles
This recipe gives the humdrum hot dog a totally indulgent twist. Filled with melty cheese and wrapped in bacon slices, the sausage links get a slightly less healthy makeover (though they’re sure to be a hit with party guests! .
Photo courtesy of Barbara Bakes
Now that you've perused some seriously decadent bacon dishes, it’s time to shift gears a little. Kicking off the list of healthier ways to cook with bacon, this hearty quiche (which features bacon crumbles for extra flavor uses whole-wheat tortillas in place of a high-calorie, flaky crust. And that’s not the only good thing about this dish! A mix of broccoli, onion, and mushrooms melt into an eggy, cheesy base.
Ingredients:
?4 7-in. whole-wheat tortillas
?1 c. broccoli florets
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
4 pieces of cooked bacon, crumbled
4 oz. sliced mushrooms (about 1 1/2 c.
1/2 c. feta crumbles
3 eggs
1/2 c. plain Greek yogurt
Salt and pepper
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a greased 9-in. pie plate, overlap the tortillas to make a crust; place on a rimmed baking sheet. Meanwhile, steam broccoli until crisp-tender, about 1 minute in the microwave. In a skillet, add the olive oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add the onion and mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and cook until the mushrooms are golden, about 3 minutes. Stir in the broccoli; season with salt and pepper. Spread evenly in the tortilla crust, then add bacon and crumble the feta on top. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and yogurt and season with salt and pepper; pour into the tortilla crust. Bake on the baking sheet until just set in the center and lightly golden, about 30 minutes. Let rest for about 10 minutes before serving.
Makes 6 servings.
Recipe provided by Carrots ‘N’ Cake
These beans turn deliciously soft and tender while heating up in a slow cooker. Bacon infuses the legumes with a meaty aroma, while a bit of molasses and Worcestershire sauce lend a sweet, spicy flavor. The final result? A succulent dish that’s surprisingly low in sugar and fat!
Ingredients:
4 c. Great Northern Beans or another white bean like navy beans (Note: must be dried beans
2 c. onion, chopped
4 slices bacon, chopped
1/4 c. lower sugar ketchup
1/3 c. molasses
12 packets Krisda stevia
1 tsp. pepper
1 tbsp, Worcestershire
2 tsp. dry mustard
6 c. water
Directions:
The night before, put the dried beans in a big bowl and add water (enough water to fully immerse the beans, since they will almost double in volume . Make sure you give them at least 10 hours to soak. Once beans have soaked, drain and rinse them well and place all the ingredients in your slow cooker. It will take a long time for the beans to cook as it’s a big batch. Cook on HIGH for 8-9 hours. If you halve the batch, it should take about 4-5 hours on HIGH.
Makes 16 servings (1/2 c. per serving .
Recipe provided by Busy But Healthy
Sick of the same bowl of oatmeal every morning? Whip up this breakfast of champions! Egg and spinach on a whole-wheat pita offer a tasty a.m. alternative, while crumbled bacon bits add just the right amount of salty crunch.
Ingredients:
1 whole egg
1 egg white
Salt and pepper to taste
Dash of hot sauce
2 c. baby spinach, chopped
1 whole-wheat pita
1/4 c. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 piece cooked, crumbled bacon
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Whisk together egg, egg white, salt, pepper, and hot sauce in a small bowl. Set aside. Heat a small skillet over medium heat and spray with non-stick spray. Add spinach and cook until wilted, about 1 minute. Add egg mixture and scramble until eggs are just barely cooked through. Line a baking sheet with foil and place the pita on top. Pile the egg and spinach mixture
on top of the pita, followed by the cheese and cooked bacon. Bake for 6-8 minutes, or until cheese is melted and bubbly. Cut into four slices and serve.
Makes 1 serving.
Recipe provided by Iowa Girl Eats
True, this savory hash is made with bacon and potatoes, but it’s still an overall nourishing dish! Every meaty, mouthwatering bite is loaded with nutrient-packed veggies like zucchini and corn. Plus, you’ll feel full for hours after digging in.
Ingredients:
1/4 lb. bacon (4-5 slices
4-5 Yukon gold potatoes
1/2 yellow onion, chopped (approximately 3/4 c.
2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. dried and ground coriander
1 tsp. ground black pepper
1 tsp. salt
2 ears of corn
2 small-ish zucchini
Directions:
Chop the potatoes and onions into bite-sized pieces. Preheat a cast-iron skillet over medium-high and add the bacon. Cook for 5-6 minutes on each side, or until the edges are crispy and browned. Remove from the pan and set aside in a large bowl. Meanwhile, cut the corn off the cob and chop the zucchini. Add the potatoes and onions to the skillet, along with 1 tsp. paprika and the coriander. Cook, flipping occasionally with a spatula, until the potatoes are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside when pierced with a fork, about 10-13 minutes. Meanwhile, when the bacon is cool enough to handle, tear it into bite-sized pieces. Remove the potatoes and onions from the skillet and add to the bowl with the bacon. Add the corn, zucchini, 1 tsp. paprika, pepper, and salt to the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are browned and tender, about 6-10 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat. Stir the bacon and potatoes into the vegetables until well-mixed. Serve.
Makes 4 servings.
Recipe provided by Savvy Eats
Not only do these egg creations taste divine, they’re also easy to make! A little bit of bacon goes a long way in these muffins, which get an added flavor boost from fresh basil and juicy tomato.
Ingredients:
9 eggs
1/2 c. fresh spinach, chopped
1/3 c. skim milk
1/3 c. spelt flour (or whole-wheat pastry flour
1/4 c. 2% cheddar cheese, grated
1 tbsp. fresh basil, chopped
1 small tomato, chopped
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 tsp. cracked black pepper
1/4 c. cooked, crumbled bacon
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk. Add the rest of your ingredients and mix it all together! Add spoonfuls of the mixture to a cooking sprayed or nonstick muffin tin. Pop them in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Fork check to make sure they are done.
Makes 12 muffins.
Recipe provided by Fannetastic Food
In this case, they are voting on whether to table the amendment, so here's how it will go down. They need 50 votes to table. Since this is a motion to table, opponents of the Blunt amendment will vote "YES" and supporters of Blunt will vote "NO," because they are voting on the question, "Do you want to table the Blunt amendment?"
Sen. Susan Collins, (R-ME just announced that she will vote with Blunt, interestingly enough. Sen. Collins has apparently decided that there's no longer any future in being a "moderate" or in standing up for women. With just 46 Republicans present (Sen. Mark Kirk is out , they would need four Democrats to cross over, and can't lose any of their own caucus to prevail.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE is a cosponsor of the amendment, so he'll be a no. Other Democrats to watch are Joe Manchin (WV , Bob Casey (PA , and Claire McCaskill (MO .
8:29 AM PT: Props to Sen. Frank Lautenberg for this in his floor statement.
When it comes to women, they don’t get rights. They get restrictions… I have five daughters and eight granddaughters, and the one thing I worry about more than anything else is their health. I like to see their happy faces. I like to see them feeling good… So I want them to have doctors making decisions, not some employer who has a self-righteous moral view that he wants to impose on my daughter, my granddaughter, my wife. Nuh uh. On our side of the aisle, we believe that women are capable of making their own healthcare decisions.
8:36 AM PT: Watch on C-SPAN2.
8:42 AM PT:
8:44 AM PT: Aye votes to note: McCaskill, Snowe.
8:45 AM PT: No votes: Casey, Manchin, Murkowski, Ben Nelson. They're still voting. Remember, yes votes in this case are good, no votes bad.
8:46 AM PT: Scott Brown a no. Good for Elizabeth Warren.
8:48 AM PT: Ridiculous vote from Bob Casey, and totally unnecessary.
8:50 AM PT: Lieberman decided not to be a dick today. Voted "aye."
8:52 AM PT:
Eagerly awaiting new Joe Manchin ad in which he puts a bullet through a condom wrapper from 20 yards away— @BenjySarlin via TweetDeck
8:56 AM PT: Ayes 51, Nays 48. That was too close for comfort.
To prepare: Muddle mint leaves with white rum and the juice from lime wedge (1/8 of the lime . Muddling is done by lightly crushing the mint (just until the leaves bruise using a mortar and pestle or whatever you have on hand. Just don't shred the mint!
Run the squeezed lime wedge around the rim of the glass, and then dip the top of the glass in a shallow plate of granulated sugar to coat the rim. Pour the muddled mixture into your glass, fill with crushed ice, and top off with the diet soda.
One Twitter follower replied with her own touch: with vanilla Bacardi and pink lemonade Crystal Light. @Jaymidann tweets that it "tastes like cotton candy!"
"It's unbelievably tasty and refreshing," says Sergio Rojas, a certified nutritionist and owner of reDEFINED Fitness & Physical Therapy in Chicago, Ill.
"I send this quick recipe [for a raspberry lemonade martini] to my clients who are looking to cut down on the calories but still indulge and enjoy life with a cocktail now and then," she says.
To prepare: Mix one shot of vodka, one shot of Triple Sec (leave this out if you’re on a tighter calorie budget , and Tropicana Trop50 Raspberry Lemonade (to fill the martini glass . Shake it all with ice and pour it into a chilled martini glass. Add a twist of lemon and voila!
If you want something with even more flavor, try the Eppa Punch by mixing one bottle of Eppa Sangria, one green apple, cranberries, oranges, and cinnamon sticks. Just chop the apples and cranberries and pour the mixture into a decanter with a bottle of Eppa Sangria. Allow the blend to chill in the fridge for an hour and enjoy!
Ingredients: a dash of dry vermouth, 2 oz. of Bombay Sapphire Gin, and one botanical ice cube at the base of the glass.
To prepare: Simply combine the vermouth, gin, and ice in a strainer, line the inside of a martini glass with frozen cucumber wheels, place one botanical ice cube at base of martini glass, strain the cocktail into your glass, and serve.
So, how do you make a botanical ice cube? Roughly chop two English cucumbers, leaving seeds and peels intact. Combine with 1 oz. of cilantro seeds and one cup of simple syrup (1/4 water 3/4 sugar in a blender to puree. Strain the combination through a fine siv and freeze in silicone mold or some container with a wide surface area for shaving ice. It'll make a great conversation starter at your next cocktail party!
Blend one cup of ginger juice, one cup of lemon juice, one cup of water, and one-fourth of a cup of honey and serve!
Photo Credit: La Costa Resort and Spa
Ingredients: Voli Lyte Vodka (a brand-new, reduced-calorie brand of vodka , pineapple juice (known for its detoxifying properties , lime juice, agave nectar, and fresh tarragon (which aids in digestion and contains more 70 phytonutrients .
Photo Credit: Lexington Social House
Aptly called the "No. 44," the ingredients include: 1 oz. Oban 14-year Scotch, 1 oz. grapefruit juice, 1 oz. pomegranate juice, 1/2 oz. of Felernum, a dash of orange bitters, brandied cherries, and orange peel to be used as a garnish.
Photo Credit: FIVE Restaurant
Photo Credit: Kathy YL Chan
Sage will not only improve one’s memory, but it also relieves sore throats, aids in digestion, and calms allergies. To prepare this wellness elixir, mix 2 oz. of Don Julio Blanco tequila, 1 oz. of Cointreau, 2 oz. of fresh squeezed lime juice, 2 oz. of Simple Syrup, and 3 fresh sage leaves.
Combine all ingredients in a tumbler, shake, and pour into traditional margarita glass.
Photo Credit: Summer Winter
Photo courtesy of Flickr user Mr. T in DC.
Grab some chocolate, pop an aspirin and wash it all down with red wine. You're on your way to a heart-healthy life, right? Not so fast.
According to Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, much of the information Americans use as a guide for heart health is little more than folklore.
"It's appalling," he said. "And it's getting worse. These days, you can conduct an Internet search for any heart condition and get a lot of information. The problem is most of it is wrong. And a lot of the common mythology is wrong, too."
In a new book, "Heart 411," Nissen and his colleague, cardiac surgeon Dr. Marc Gillinov, approach some of the more popular rumors "the way a jury would approach a trial": Is there evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that red wine is good for your heart or that red meat is bad?
On this final day of American Heart Month, Nissen shared some of their verdicts.
Myth 1: Red Wine
"It turns out that there's no information to suggest that red wine is better than any other form of alcohol for your heart," Nissen said. "But there is information to show that moderate alcohol intake of any kind -- red wine, white wine, beer or hard spirits -- benefits patients in preventing heart disease. It does so by raising the good cholesterol, or HDL.
"The myth about red wine came from the so-called French paradox -- that the French drink a lot of red wine and they have a relatively low instance of heart disease, despite the fact that they eat a lot of fat. People began to think maybe red wine was protecting them. And there was a little bit of research in animals showing that an element of red wine known as resveratrol seemed to be protective in mice. But what the public didn't get was that they gave thousands of times more resveratrol to the mice than humans would ever get from drinking red wine, and the research just didn't hold up in additional studies.
"At the end of the day, we don't recommend taking up drinking to benefit your heart. But if you do drink a glass or two of alcohol per day, depending on your body mass, it can be a heart-healthy activity."
Myth 2: Red Meat
"Red meat is a source of saturated fat, and all other things being equal, saturated fat does tend to raise the bad cholesterol, LDL. And so it's not a good thing," Nissen said.
"However, we stress the importance of a diet we call, 'no-fad.' One of the most disturbing current trends promises that if you eat no meat and virtually no fat, you'll become 'heart attack proof.' Our conclusions from the research out there is that this is just utter nonsense -- that there are no 'heart-attack-proof' diets, that completely eliminating fat, including meat, does not have a convincing health benefit, and that in fact a balanced diet is best.
"We advocate what is called the Mediterranean diet -- one that actually has quite a bit of fat -- good fat like olive oil and canola oil, fats that contain polyunsaturated fatty acids and not a lot of trans fats. If someone promises you that a diet will melt away the plaque in your coronary, run as fast away from those diets as you can.
"Eating red meat in moderation is not a problem. It's not good for your heart, but if you don't exceed reasonable quantities -- small amounts of red meat as part of a balanced diet -- it is not something people need to avoid."
Myth 3: Chocolate
"There is a little bit of evidence -- and it's not very strong -- that dark chocolate is probably an OK food for the heart," Nissen said. "There's even a small study that seems to indicate that dark chocolate might lower blood pressure a little bit. But the effects are very small, and all chocolate tends to have a fair amount of calories and a lot of sugar.
"And so to call any chocolate a heart-healthy food is a mistake. This is another example, because it's cutesy, because it's newsy: Whenever one of these poor-quality studies comes out, they get latched upon by the media. But the truth is there are no randomized control trials of any quality on this subject.
"In our book, we talk about the difference between an observational study and a randomized control trial. Most of the alcohol and chocolate studies do not come from randomized control trials, where you would give half the people these substances for five years and half of them would avoid it altogether and you find out who does better. In fact, they come from observational studies, which are inherently flawed. And so the solidity of the evidence is much more limited when you have only observational data."
Myth 4: Work-Related Stress
"It's not a huge factor, but it does appear to play some role in a minority of heart attacks," Nissen said. "We actually have some pretty good scientific data that extreme levels of stress can cause something called Broken Heart Syndrome, which is caused by a sudden rush of stress.
"The best data comes from some interesting observations that during the Super Bowl, when a person is rooting for his or her team and their stress and anxiety goes up, there appears to be more heart attacks. But even better data comes from places like Israel, during the first Gulf War (and the Scud missile attacks. When people were under tremendous stress, there was a big bump in the rate of heart attacks.
"All of this shows that stress under some circumstances, particularly when it's extreme, can trigger a heart attack. But it is also important to note that we are pretty well-adapted as a species to handle stress. Our ancestors had lots of it. When we were swinging from the trees in the jungle, there were predators chasing after us. And so stress is not just a function of modern life. We don't think chronic stress is good for people. It does seem to raise levels of inflammation in the body. But people should not believe that if they've got some stress in their lives, it's going to make them have a heart attack. Stress is a factor, but it's certainly not the most important factor in heart disease."
Myth 5: Sex
"It's extremely rare, but you can have a heart attack from sex," Nissen said. "There is some data -- and this is perhaps comforting to some spouses in the country -- that sex with your regular partner does not raise the heart rate and blood pressure to levels that are strongly associated with having a heart attack.
"However, sex with a non-regular partner, particularly if you're in an extramarital relationship, does seem to have an association with an increased risk of a heart attack. And I think the reasons that most people have surmised is that there is more excitement involved. There may be a fear of being caught and there's maybe some guilt. For all of those reasons, heart rate and blood pressure go up and may act as a trigger for a heart attack.
"So it's one more reason to stay faithful to your spouse. On the opposite end of the spectrum, don't count on sex as your form of exercise for the day. For most of us, the duration of activity is insufficient to meet the aerobic needs of an exercise program."
Updated March 1: Here is the second set of myths as explained by Nissen:
Myth 6: Dietary Supplements
"Almost all of our patients come in taking dietary supplements, and they believe that it will help their heart health because it says right on the bottle, 'Promotes heart health.' These are products like fish oil, coenzyme Q, and the big rage now, Vitamin D. You know, if you go into the local pharmacy, you can find row after row after row of dietary supplements -- many I haven't even heard of. And none of these claims have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
"In fact, in a great national tragedy in 1993, Congress passed a law that barred the FDA from regulating dietary supplements. And so we don't even know whether most of the dietary supplements actually contain the ingredients they claim to contain. At the moment, everybody is taking Vitamin D, and there just isn't evidence that it protects the heart. More importantly, it diverts patients away from the real therapies that they need.
"Often when we go on a book signing, we will ask the audience how many people take fish oil. And lots of hands go up. And then we ask them, 'Do you think the fish oil lowers your cholesterol?' and most of the hands go up. Fish oil actually raises levels of LDL cholesterol -- it doesn't lower it, it raises it. But the problem is those claims cannot be regulated because the FDA is virtually powerless. Sooner or later there will be a major national catastrophe.
"We also warn people that these dietary supplements can even interact with their prescription medications, causing them to become toxic or ineffective. And so there are no dietary supplements that we recommend for patients."
Myth 7: An Aspirin a Day
"Another long-standing myth is that it's a good idea to take an aspirin a day for people who are at risk for heart disease. In fact, if you're at low enough risk -- if you're an otherwise healthy 40- or 50-year-old man or woman -- it actually increases your risk of adverse consequences, including bleeding into your brain and into your stomach. That's because aspirin is an anticoagulant, it prevents clotting of the blood. And that is, of course, a benefit but it's also a risk.
"In the stomach, it has been found to irritate the lining by affecting something known as the prostaglandins, which are protective in the stomach. When those prostaglandins are altered, the stomach is more vulnerable to the effects of acid, leading to erosion of the stomach and bleeding. And the second mechanism is that because aspirin is an anti-platelet agent, it actually prevents blood clotting. And so the combination of irritation to the gastro-intestinal tract plus the anti-coagulant effect is what leads to an increased risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, which is quite significant.
"As for the brain, people of certain ages have areas of weakness in the blood vessels of the brain, and if you get a little bit of a break in those blood vessels and your blood clots normally, nothing bad may happen. But if you have an anticoagulant on board, you may have a serious cranial bleed. When you add it all up, for people who are otherwise healthy, the risks exceed the benefits of taking an aspirin a day."
Myth 8: Stress Testing
"This is an often-unnecessary test in which a patient walks on a treadmill and has their electrocardiogram monitored so that the physician can look for changes that may be a consequence of not getting enough blood flow to the heart muscle. It's a test that's very commonly done in America millions of times each year, and many people are having them done who shouldn't. In fact, we strongly discourage it in most cases unless the patient is having chest pain symptoms.
"The problem with it is that there are too many false positives and no evidence that screening people with stress testing actually improves their health. These tests often lead to an angiogram and ultimately, to unnecessary coronary interventions, like a stent. Why is this being done so much? Well I hate to be so cynical, but one of the reasons is that are certainly economic incentives for doctors to over-test. Some people have the test done simply because they tell their doctor they want to start an exercise program and their doctor will say, 'OK, well let's do a stress test on you.' People should push back against those kinds of recommendations if they don't have any of the symptoms of heart disease."
Myth 9: Calcium Testing
"This is another test commonly performed and widely advocated that we don't recommend. People are put in a special kind of CT scan and their doctor looks for calcium in the coronaries of the heart. When you see calcium, it usually means there's plaque in the coronaries, and physicians can then try to prevent heart disease. The problem is that we should be preventing people with risk factors whether or not they have calcium in their coronaries. And so essentially it doesn't give us information that we can use productively to prevent people from dying or having a heart attack.
"Even though it may have some predictive value, it also can lead to more testing and some pretty significantly bad consequences. If a minor blockage is found, the temptation is often very high to do an angiography, to do a catheterization, and sometimes, even to put in a stent. There's no evidence that if you take somebody who doesn't have symptoms and do a heart catheterization, that anything you find will actually benefit the patient. And so it's driving up health care costs. America spends more on health care than any other country by a factor of about two, and this is one of the reasons why."
Myth 10: Women Don't Feel Chest Pain During Heart Attacks
"This one is just pervasive. After a recent article in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association , this has been covered by the media a lot -- that many women who have heart attacks don't have chest pain. While that may be true for some women, it's important to understand that the principal symptom of a heart attack in both men and women is chest pain. About 12 percent of women are more likely not to have chest pain during a heart attack, but that's not a huge difference.
"Women may just have a shortness of breath or dizziness or pass out, but the same is true for a small percentage of men. Men and women are more alike than dissimilar. There are some differences, but they're not as big as people may think. For heart attacks, the same advices should be given to both genders: If you have chest pain, if you have a sudden onset of severe shortness of breath, if you get dizzy, light-headed and sweaty all of a sudden, take it seriously, call 911 and get to the hospital -- whether you're a man or a woman."
The state of abortion access in Canada
Features
Sarah Vitet — Capilano Courier (Capilano University
VANCOUVER, B.C. (CUP — In 1988, Dr. Henry Morgentaler challenged Canada’s abortion regulations in the Supreme Court of Canada, where they were struck down and found to be in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A year later, another case was brought to the Supreme Court in regards to fetal rights, after a man tried to get an injunction so that his ex-girlfriend could not have an abortion (Tremblay v. Daigle . The final ruling declared that a fetus has no legal status in Canada as a person, both in Canadian common law and Quebec civil law.
Since then, Canada has had no laws regulating abortion access. However, there continue to be multiple barriers for Canadian women faced with unwanted pregnancies, including societal perceptions and stigma and lack of access in rural and remote areas.
Access denied
In Prince Edward Island, the government does not provide any abortions at all on the island.
“P.E.I. does send some women to Halifax,” explains Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. “They will pay for their abortion in Halifax, but it’s an onerous process for women to go through. Confidentiality is lost because of the paperwork, and they have to get approval from a doctor there, which adds to the delay.”
Women are required to travel off-island at their own expense, and the only other option for women facing an unwanted pregnancy in P.E.I. is to travel to the clinic in Fredericton and pay around $800 for the procedure. “So [abortion is] really just an option for women who can afford it,” says Arthur. “Which is discriminatory, because young women, or low-income women, can’t even afford to get off the island.”
The P.E.I government will only fund abortions that happen in a hospital, not a clinic, and the woman must have a referral from two doctors. In 2011, only 49 women from P.E.I. received an abortion at the hospital in Halifax, while 73 women went to the clinic in Fredericton and paid for the procedure themselves.
According to Arthur, this has resulted in women attempting self-administered abortions in P.E.I. Psychologist Colleen MacQuarrie, as reported by the CBC, conducted interviews with women in PEI regarding abortion. She recalls talking to a “14-year-old who found herself pregnant and was desperate to not even tell anyone she was pregnant, and so engaged in two weeks of intense self-harm, ingesting different chemicals, just doing anything she could to bring on a period.”
The Health Minister in P.E.I., Doug Currie, says the status quo is acceptable and abortions are just one of a number of health services that the Island has chosen not to perform in order to save resources. "To me, it’s not about the political discussion, it’s more about another service," he told the Charlottetown Guardian.
Arthur argues that this is a weak excuse and notes that all hospitals have the equipment to perform a miscarriage and other standard procedures. “So, it’s all set up and ready to go, they can do abortions. It’s a bad excuse, except they don’t have a doctor there to do it. The anti-choice movement in P.E.I is strong, and no doctor there is going to do abortions because of the harassment they would get,” says Arthur.
There are reportedly eight obstetricians in P.E.I., a profession in which abortion training is part of their instruction; however, the government claims that no doctor has ever applied for privileges to perform abortions on the Island and been refused.
“Keeping P.E.I. ‘Canada’s Own Life Sanctuary,’” reads an advertisement by the Right to Life Association in P.E.I. The organization is one of many groups who disagree that abortion should be made available on the Island.
“We certainly made it clear to the minister that we’re really just beginning our campaign,” association spokeswoman Anne Marie Tomlins told the National Post. “It’ll get as big as it has to get to make things go away.”
With no intention of implicating the Right to Life Association, it is worth mentioning that doctors do have reason to be nervous when deciding whether to become an abortion provider or not: Dr. Garson Romalis, a provider from Vancouver, was shot and seriously wounded in 1994, and then attacked again and stabbed in 2000; the Toronto Morgentaler clinic was fire-bombed in 1992; and two other Canadian doctors were shot between 1995–97.
Globally, abortion providers have been the victims of escalating acts of violence, including harassment, stalking and kidnapping, and even arson and murder. In the United States, the Christian terrorist anti-abortion group, called Army of God, are responsible for many of the above-mentioned acts, as well as bombings, the assassination of providers and anthrax threats.
Stigma and distance
Prince Edward Island is not the only province limiting abortion access. A 2003 study by the Canadian Abortion Rights Access League found that fewer than one in five Canadian hospitals provide abortion services, nationally, and those hospitals are located only in larger communities.
New Brunswick, like P.E.I., does not fund abortions unless they are performed at a hospital. As there are only two hospitals that can perform abortions in N.B., the demand is higher than can be met, so the rest of the abortions are performed at the unfunded Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton. This means women must pay for the procedure themselves.
The preliminary findings of a federally-funded study by Christabelle Sethna and Marion Doull indicated that “nearly 23 per cent of women who have obtained abortions in a freestanding clinic had to pay for it up front; 15 per cent travelled more than 100 kilometres from home.” Clinics perform roughly 45 per cent of all abortions in Canada.
Manitoba did not fund abortions done at clinics until 2004, when a non-profit clinic successfully sued the provincial government to pay for abortion procedures. Quebec had similar restrictions, but in 2008 ruled that all abortions would be funded, without any limitations. In the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, abortions are accessible only in the capital cities, but the territorial governments do pay travel costs for women from remote areas.
Although access in B.C. is better than in other provinces, the public stigma regarding abortion continues to make the process difficult, and services are still limited to larger communities.
When Mary Scott tried to get an abortion in Penticton, B.C., she faced both geographical and societal barriers: “There’s no actual place in Penticton to get one [an abortion], so if you lived in Penticton, Summerland, etc., you had to go out to the one clinic in Kelowna," Scott explains. Penticton is a one-hour drive from Kelowna. "They only do abortions on Tuesdays and are incredibly hard to get a hold of."
Kelowna is well-known for being a community with active anti-abortion groups. As reported in the Globe and Mail, “protesters stage weekly vigils outside the Kelowna General Hospital, [and] a doctor has to be flown in from Vancouver to perform abortions.”
Scott says that due to protesters, the clinic did not have an answering machine, and every time she went past the clinic she was yelled at and called “a murderer.” When she went in for her ultrasound, Scott says that the nurse told her she was “wasting taxpayer dollars,” and she was given very little advice or guidance.
Globally
While Stephen Harper has been popularly quoted as saying, “As long as I’m Prime Minister, we are not reopening the abortion debate,” Conservative backbenchers continue discussing the issue in the media, and in the past have brought forward private member’s bills in attempts to give personhood rights to fetuses, or ban coercion to have an abortion.
In April 2011, the federal government denied funding to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF , which had applied for an $18 million grant. Later in the year, the Canadian International Development Agency did grant IPPF with a $6 million grant over three years. The renewed funding has been criticized by anti-choice advocates such as Conservative MP Brad Trost, who said that IPPF should not receive federal funding due to its support for abortion.
IPPF is an organization that promotes and advocates sexual and reproductive health and freedom internationally, as well as provides information and education, promotes access to services, and campaigns in order to improve legislation and remove barriers to services. Their website says they do provide "safe abortion services," including providing qualified practitioners in clean conditions.
The CIDA funding for IPPF is to go towards services in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Sudan, and Tanzania.
In 2001, the United States, under then-president George Bush, reinstated a policy which prohibited funding to non-governmental organizations performing or promoting abortion. Once the policy took effect, the rates of induced abortion rose in sub-Saharan Africa, leading researchers to speculate over the connection. A study done at Stanford University in 2011 concluded that “reduced financial support for family planning may have led women to substitute abortion for contraception.”
A 2007 World Health Organization study indicated that 67,000 women die each year due to complications from unsafe abortions, primarily in countries where abortion is not permitted under the law.
Medically necessary
John Hof is the president of the Campaign Life Coalition of British Columbia, which he describes as “the political activist arm of the pro-life movement in B.C.” The CLC puts on various campaigns both nationally and in individual provinces, including the 40 Days for Life campaign, the Defund Abortion Rally, and the Pro-Life day of Silent Solidarity.
“Planned Parenthood,” says Hof, “should not receive a penny of federal funding.”
One of the goals that Hof and the CLC are working toward includes “defunding of abortion from the medical services plan.” However, this has been attempted previously, with little success.
In 1995, under pressure from the Committee to End Taxpayer-Funded Abortions, the Alberta government attempted to define “medically required” abortions as versus those that are not medically necessary in an effort to fund only those deemed required. The Alberta Medical Association and the College of Physicians and Surgeons were asked to clarify the distinction, but they refused.
“You have to leave it up to the doctor to decide, based on the patient’s best interest,” says Arthur. “We can’t distinguish between different types of abortion as to whether they are medically necessary or not, because that would require women having to state their reason and then someone having to decide whether their reasons are legitimate or not, and it just won’t work. You can’t have decisions being made around women’s health that are not related to what the woman needs herself.”
Arthur also notes that not funding abortion would be discriminatory, as women who are well-off could easily get an abortion, “but it’s the poor women and the disadvantaged women who are stuck, and that’s unjust,” she says.
The ARCC also emphasizes that defunding abortion or imposing restrictions would be a violation of women’s rights to life, liberty and security of person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“Abortion must be funded because it is not an elective procedure, any more than childbirth is,” Arthur writes. “Pregnancy outcomes are inescapable, meaning that a pregnant woman cannot simply cancel the outcome — once she is pregnant, she must decide to either give birth or have an abortion. To protect her health and rights, both outcomes need to be recognized as medically necessary and fully funded, on an equal basis.” This echoes the sentiment expressed by the Morgentaler Clinic, “Every mother a willing mother.”
According to Hof, “Eliminating the child should never be suggested as a solution with total disregard for subsequent effects on the mother and the child.” He believes that “in a civilized society it [abortion] should not be tolerated.”
In a 2010 online Angus Reid poll, 39 per cent of respondents responded positively to the statement, “The health care system should only fund abortions in the event of medical emergencies.” Another poll reported that 27 per cent of Canadians describe themselves as “pro-life.”
However, the ARCC warns that popular opinion polls are not a good way to make decisions regarding women’s health. “Voter opinion on this issue has been shaped by anti-choice misinformation, as well as lingering prejudice about women who have abortions,” they say.
Arthur also explains that 90 per cent of abortions happen by 12 weeks, the other eight per cent happen by 16 weeks, and one to two per cent are done by 20 weeks. Only roughly 0.3 per cent of abortions happen after 20 weeks, and in those cases there are major complications, such as serious fetal abnormalities, or extremely young women who were unaware of their condition.
“Late-term abortions are the ones that are the most desperately needed of all, done for medical reasons, and so it’s ridiculous to criminalize those,” says Arthur. “The idea of criminalizing abortion would just be from the myth of women having a lot of abortions, but that doesn’t happen,” she says.
Coercive forces
Hof explains that another goal of the CLC is to ensure “protection for women being coerced into abortion.”
In 2010, Bill C-510 was put forward in order to amend the Criminal Code, and would make it illegal to coerce a woman into having an abortion. It was put forward by Conservative MP Rod Bruinooge and was not supported by Stephen Harper. Threats and illegal acts, such as coercion, were already illegal under the Criminal Code, and the bill did not turn into law; but it did spark conversation in regards to various influences over women’s fertility.
A 2010 study by the Guttmacher Institute found that women in abusive relationships were often coerced into childbirth: “Pregnancy promotion involves male partner attempts to impregnate a woman, including verbal threats about getting her pregnant, unprotected forced sex, and contraceptive sabotage,” the study read. Seventy-four per cent of respondents reported experiencing this kind of coercion.
The concern over coercion in regards to pregnancy and abortion is evident from both pro-choice as well as anti-choice groups. Crisis pregnancy centres such as Birthright International advertise that they are “here to help you in making a decision about your pregnancy,” but critics suggest that they are misleading, and exist in order to coerce women out of having abortions.
“I have nothing against anti-choice places if they want to help women … [and] give them resources and support to have their babies,” says Arthur. “The problem with these hotlines and these crisis pregnancy centres is that they are very deceptive. You see, all the advertising [says], and they say, they will help you with all your options … but in fact, that’s not what they get … They engage in all the standard misinformation tactics, and scare them [women] and confuse them with really unprofessional counseling techniques.”
Prevention
A 2010 report by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada showed that there has been a 36.9 per cent decline in Canada’s teen birth and abortion rate between 1996 and 2006, owing to an increase in contraception and birth control use.
In Canada, however, the Medical Services Plan does not universally fund birth control or contraceptives, though there are advocates that say they should.
In the United States, the Obama administration announced that all health insurance plans must cover birth control as preventative care for women, as it is also more cost-effective than dealing with unwanted pregnancies and births. Many Conservative and Republican leaders have spoken out against the requirements, although they do not officially come into effect until 2013.
Globally, countries with the best access to contraceptives and sex education have the lowest abortion rates. The Netherlands, for example, have one of the lowest abortion rates in the world, and they have fully funded birth control, as do many other European countries with similarly low abortion and teen pregnancy rates.
In regards to the Canadian government funding birth control, Hof does not believe we should add more costs to the health care system. “Birth control and contraception are life style choices. In no other situation do we facilitate choices by financially supporting them with tax dollars,” says Hof. “We don’t buy people cigarettes if they choose to smoke. We don’t use tax dollars to enable people who choose to do drugs to do so. The suggestion that people’s choice to use birth control should be paid for with tax dollars is wrong on so many levels,” he says.
However, Arthur counters that we give people free health care, regardless of why they need it, including smokers with lung cancer and people with addiction: “Ninety-eight per cent of women have used contraception at some point,” she says. “The main cause of abortion is unattended pregnancy, and the main cause of unattended pregnancy is no use or improper use of contraception.
"Women still have to pay for that, in most cases, and it’s expensive," she said. "Contraception is essential preventive health care for women — and all of society.”
-30-
Serves: 16
Prep time: 35 minutes
Cook time: 10-30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 ? cups Bircher mueslix (recipe to follow
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tbsp. baking soda
1 tsp Maldon salt
1 tbsp. caraway seeds
2 oz. butter
? cup Granny Smith apple, grated
? cup dried apricots, julienned
? cup dried currants
? cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
2 oz. honey
8 oz. low-fat buttermilk
For the Bircher mueslix:
Adapted from New York Central restaurant at Grand Hyatt New York
1 container Quaker Rolled Oats
1 quart apple cider
1 ? quarts skim milk
1 tsp. Ceylon cinnamon, ground
1/2 tsp. nutmeg, ground
1 ? tsp. Tahitian vanilla extract
?6 oz. honey
Directions:
For the mueslix combine above ingredients and let sit overnight. Use for up to one week.
1. Preheat oven 380 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Sift flours with baking soda and place in mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add salt and caraway seeds.
1. Add diced butter and paddle until butter is pea sized. Add mueslix and paddle until very shaggy.
2. Add apple, apricots, and currants, paddle for 10 seconds to distribute.
3. Whisk together honey and buttermilk. Add to dough, mix until just combined.
4. Form 16 rolls with a scoop or large spoon and floured hands, or form 2 loaves and place on a parchment lined sheet tray.
5. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar and salt.
6. Cut an X on top of each roll or loaf
7. Bake rolls 10 minutes and loaves 30 minutes, until golden.
Nutrition score per serving (one roll or 1/16 of loaf :
Calories: 189
Fat: 6g
Carbs: 39g
Protein: 6g
Recipe courtesy of Executive Pastry Chef of the New York Central restaurant at Grand Central Hyatt Katzie Guy-Hamilton.
Serves: 6
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 60 minutes
Ingredients:
For the filling:
3 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1-? lbs lean ground beef
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 medium carrots, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
? tsp. cayenne pepper
2 tbsp. all-purpose or whole-wheat flour
2 tsp. soy sauce
1 tbsp. tomato paste
1 cup low sodium chicken stalk
1 cup chopped canned tomatoes
1 cup frozen peas
salt and pepper to taste
For the sweet potato puree:
4 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into large equal sized chunks
2 tbsp. honey
1 ? tbsp. soy sauce
? tsp. cinnamon
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tbsp. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
For the filling:
Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and saute the chopped onions, celery, and carrots for 5 minutes. Add in the finely chopped garlic and saute for another 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the ground beef to the vegetables. Mix in and season again with salt and pepper. Let the meat release its juices.
When the meat starts to brown on the bottom add in the flour, cayenne pepper, soy sauce, chopped tomatoes, chicken stalk, and tomato paste. Mix and let simmer on medium low covered for 10 minutes. Take the lid off and simmer for another 10 minutes. Make sure to keep stirring because the meat can stick to the bottom. Check seasoning and stir in the frozen peas. Turn off heat and keep to the side until ready to assemble.
For the sweet potato puree:
Fill a large pot with water add the sweet potato chunks. Bring the water to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. When the potatoes are fork tender, strain them from the water.
Mash the potatoes with butter, olive oil, cinnamon, soy sauce, honey, salt, and pepper.
Heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Fill the bottom of a 9-inch by 11-inch baking dish with the meat mixture. Top with the sweet potato puree and spread evenly getting all the way to the edges. Place on top of a baking tray (in case it spills over and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve right away.
Nutrition score per 4-inch square serving or 1/6 of the recipe:
Calories: 400
Fat: 18.2g
Saturated Fat: 3.6g
Carbohydrates: 34.4g
Protein: 27.9g
Iron: 3.2g
Fiber: 6g
Calcium: 94g
Sodium: 526 g
Recipe courtesy of Eden Grinshpan, host of Eden Eats on the Cooking Channel.
Serves: 8
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 55 minutes
Ingredients:
3 tbps. canola oil
1 lb. lean beef stew meat, preferably top sirloin
1 tsp. fine sea salt
? tsp. finely ground fresh pepper
? cup pearl barley
28 fl. oz. water
12 fl. oz. Guinness
? lb. carrots
? lb. yellow onion
1 tsp. dried thyme
2 tbps. Inglehoffer Extra Hot Horseradish
Directions:
Trim all outer fat and cut the beef into ?-inch cubes. Season the beef with salt & pepper
Rinse the barley in cold water and strain.Thoroughly wash the carrots in cold water & cut into 1-inch lengths. Remove the outer layer of onion skin and finely mince. On medium high heat, in a cast iron or enameled Dutch oven, saute the beef in the canola oil. Add the onion and saute until caramelized. Add the water, 6 ounces of Guinness, and the barley. Cover the pot with baking parchment and place the lid over the parchment to seal. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to medium low.
Continue to cook for half an hour. Remove the parchment and lid .Add the carrots, remaining 6 ounces of Guinness and replace the lid. Cook for an additional 15 minutes on low heat. Return the stew to a rapid boil and add the thyme and horseradish. Stir to thoroughly incorporate the ingredients.
Nutrition score per one cup serving:
Calories: 200
Fat: 8g
Satruarted fat: 2g
Sodium: 270mg
Sugar: 4g
Protein: 11g
Recipe courtesy of Beaverton Foods.
Serves: 6
Prep time: 50 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
For the fish
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp.salt
1?4 cup hot sauce
1/4 cup buttermilk
4 cups corn flakes, crushed to make about 1 2/3 cups
6 Alaskan wild cod fillets (4-6 oz. each
2 tbsp. canola oil
For the chips
48 small potatoes, red bliss, Yukon gold, or Peruvian blue
3 tbsp. olive oil
3/4 tsp. kosher salt, divided
ground pepper to taste
1?4 cup fresh herbs including chives, parsley, rosemary, thyme; minced
Directions:
For the fish
1. In a shallow dish mix flour and salt. In another shallow dish, beat buttermilk and hot sauce with a fork. Place crushed cereal in a third shallow dish.
2. Dip fish in flour, coating well. Shake off excess.
3. Dip floured fish in buttermilk mixture and then in cereal, coating all sides completely. Place coated fish on an ungreased plate.
4. In a 12-inch skillet, heat oil over medium heat until hot. Keeping at least 1-inch between fish fillets, cooking in batches, if needed. Cook fish in oil 3 to 4 minutes on each side, turning once, until well browned and fish flakes easily with a fork.
5. If needed, place cooked fish on paper towels on a cookie sheet and keep warm in a 225 degrees Fahrenheit oven while cooking the remaining fish.
For the chips
Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Wash and scrub potatoes. Cut potatoes in half. Pat potatoes dry with paper towels. Place potatoes on a sheet pan and drizzle with 1 1/2 tablespoons of oil, 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt and pepper. Toss potatoes to evenly coat in oil and salt.
Place potatoes cut side down and put into preheated oven. Roast for 30 minutes until the bottoms are browned and the potatoes are soft.
While potatoes roast make an herb oil by mincing your herbs very fine and stir into the remaining oil with the last 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper. Stir well.
Once potatoes are roasted remove from the sheet pan and place in a bowl. Drizzle the herb oil over top and toss.
Nutrition score per serving (one cod fillet and eight potatoes :
Calories: 281
Fat: 6.5 grams
Carbs: 25.9 grams
Protein: 28.1 grams
Recipe courtesy of Chef Maxcel Hardy author of Recipes of Life.
Serves: 2
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Ingredients:
1 tsp olive oil
1 small sweet onion, thinly sliced
4 egg whites
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups tightly packed baby arugula or spinach leaves, or a combination
2 tbsp. grated Parmesan
salt
red pepper
Directions:
Coat a medium non-stick skillet with a thin layer of olive oil, and saute the onions over a medium flame, stirring very infrequently. Once they soften and begin to brown on each side, return the flame to low and allow to slowly caramelize. During this time, it is important to make sure the onions are spread as evenly as possible across the pan.
Slowly crisp the onions for about 20 minutes. Every few minutes, scrape the bottom and redistribute the onions so each gains the maximum amount of surface area. The onions will sweeten by condensing in their own juices. If you stir too often, the onions will turn to mush.
Beat the eggs and egg whites together with ? teaspoon of salt and a pinch of red pepper. Push the onions to the side of the pan, and pour the eggs in the middle. Slowly scramble over low heat, scooping up the partially cooked pieces from the bottom and redistributing the raw egg. When the egg is almost entirely cooked, add the arugula and the cheese. Stir to combine and cook for another minute or so until the eggs are cooked, but not overdone. Taste for salt and serve immediately.
Nutrition score per serving (about ? cup :
Calories: 152
Fat: 8g
Saturated fat: 2g
Carbs: 5g
Protein: 15g
Iron: 3mg
Fiber: 1g
Calcium: 90mg
Sodium: 325mg
Recipe courtesy of Big Girls, Small Kitchen.
Serves: 4
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Ingredients:
1 tsp. olive oil
1/2 cup onion, diced
1 cup cabbage, chopped
6 cups chicken broth
1 cup ham, cut in 1/2-inch dices
1 cup parsnips, cut in 1/2-inch dices
1/2 cup sunshine rutabagas, cut in 1/2-inch cubes
1 15 oz. can mixed vegetables, drained
Directions:
In a medium size heavy-bottomed pot, heat the oil over medium heat and saute the onions until transparent. Add the cabbage and stir briefly, then add the broth and bring it to a boil. Add the ham, parsnips and rutabagas. Return the liquid to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook 15 minutes. Add the mixed vegetables, and simmer another 5 minutes. Serve very hot with crusty bread.
Nutrition score per serving (1/4 of recipe :
Calories: 119
Fat: 1g
Carbs: 19g
Protein: 6g
Recipe courtesy of www.allens.com.
Serves: 15
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
500g baby spinach, washed, drained (hint: 1 large container of baby spinach
3 eggs
1/4 cup melted coconut oil, plus additional for oiling pan
1 1/4 cup honey
Juice and rind of 1 lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups spelt flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda (note: this is to offset the acidity of the honey
Plain nonfat Greek yogurt for garnish, optional
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375F.
2. Puree spinach in a food processor; set aside. Whisk egg and honey. Add oil, lemon juice and rind, vanilla and pureed spinach. Then add flour, baking powder and baking soda. Mix for a few minutes. Pour into an oiled rectangular cake pan.
3. Bake in oven for approximately 30 minutes. (TIP: Check with a toothpick to test doneness; bake until toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
4. Once cooled, remove cake from pan. As an optional garnish, cut off sides of cake (about 1 inch wide and process in food processor to create a powder; set aside. Slice cake when ready to serve and spread with Greek yogurt. Then sift cake powder over top.
Nutrients per serving:
Calories: 124
Fat: 5g
Saturated fat: 3.5g
Cholesterol: 33mg
Sodium: 150mg
Carbs: 17g
Fiber: 3g
Sugars: 2g
Protein: 4.5
Recipe courtesy of Sammie Kennedy, CEO & Creator of Booty Camp Fitness.
You don’t have to pass on Irish classics like soda bread, and beef stew, or your annual St. Paddy’s Day kegs and eggs with these healthy twists on traditional St. Patrick’s Day recipes.
“The consumption of added sugars, which are sweeteners added to processed and prepared foods, has been associated with measures of cardiovascular disease risk among adolescents, including adverse cholesterol concentrations,” the CDC said in its report, which is based on consumption among U.S. children and adolescents between 2005 and 2008.
“Although the percent of daily calories derived from added sugars declined between 1999–2000 and 2007–2008, consumption of added sugars remains high in the diets of Americans,” the CDC said.
According to the report, kids are consuming an average of 322 daily calories from added sugars, or roughly 16% of their total daily caloric intake. Boys consume 362 calories per day from sugar, while girls consume 282 calories.
These amounts exceed the CDC’s 2010 guidelines, which call for limiting total intake of discretionary calories, which include added sugars and solid fats, to 5%–15% of daily caloric intake.
Added sugars include table sugar, brown sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, maple syrup, honey, molasses and other caloric sweeteners in beverages and processed foods.
The CDC’s analysis did not include sugars in fruit and 100% fruit juice.
Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the CDC found that 59% of added-sugar calories in children’s diets come from foods, while 41% come from beverages. However, soft drinks are still the largest single source.
"Soda consumption is high, but we shouldn't lose sight of the added sugars in foods such as muffins, cookies, sugar-sweetened cereals and pasta sauces," said Cynthia Ogden, senior author on the report and an epidemiologist with the National Center for Health Statistics.
“Many processed foods have added sugars. Those foods contribute more than the beverages."
Sixty-three percent of calories from added sugars are consumed at home, and there was no difference in consumption of added sugars by household income levels among children and adolescents, the report noted.
A previous government analysis by Ogden showed that teens who drink soda, energy drinks and other sugary beverages are consuming about 327 calories per day from them – the equivalent of about 2? cans of soda.
High sugar diets are linked to many adverse health conditions, such as obesity and high blood pressure.
The CDC’s findings are based on the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which is considered the gold standard for evaluating food and beverage habits because the data come from face to face interviews. The survey included more than 7,100 interviews conducted from 2005 to 2008. Parents answered questions for children under age 9 years of age, while those older than 9 participated in the survey themselves.
The full CDC report can be viewed at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db87.pdf.
The CDC’s tips for parents to help children maintain a healthy weight can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/children/.
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February 29, 2012 If I get sick or injured, I want to know that the antibiotics that I need to take are going to work. Unfortunately, with all the antibiotics that industrial agriculture feeds to livestock, today's antibiotics are at risk of becoming ineffective. Take action today to keep antibiotics working in the future!According to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA , 80 percent of antibiotics in the U.S. are sold for use in livestock production. Often, antibiotics are fed to entire flocks or herds of animals to prevent illnesses they may never acquire or have little risk of contracting. The overuse of antibiotics encourages the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This is a global threat to human health and must be stopped. Bacteria, like everything else in nature, mutate naturally and do so in such a way to continue their own existence. Not all bacteria are destroyed by antibiotics, and the surviving bacteria then multiply, creating a new strain that the antibiotics cannot kill. We're seeing more and more types of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but we can help stop this. The FDA is seeking comments on the use of one specific type of antibiotic in livestock. The deadline for comments is Tuesday. Will you submit a comment today? Send an email to the FDA today to stop the overuse of antibiotics: http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=9495 Thanks for taking action,  Meredith Begin Education & Outreach Organizer Food & Water Watch mbegin(at fwwatch(dot org | |||||||||||||
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| Food & Water Watch, 1616 P Street, NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036 • (202 683-2500 | |||||||||||||
Today we begin commemorating
Women’s History Month. Hooray! But funny thing about that. As far as women’s rights are concerned, you’d think it was 1912 all over again! Where is Margaret Sanger when you need her?
Today I’m celebrating something I never thought I’d be celebrating in 2012—the failure of a bill that would have allowed employers to deny women birth control coverage on “moral” or “religious” grounds. Fun times! I don’t know about you, but the idea of Roy Blunt or Orrin Hatch having any say in my sex life or what I do in the bedroom or what I talk about with my ob-gyn is kind of a turn-off. As I’m sure it is to my 19-year-old daughter.
On the other hand, we must give a shout-out to the long-suffering Olympia Snowe. She was the only Republican senator who voted against the bill. But, alas, just announced her retirement from the Senate because her party has morphed into something unrecognizably batty and there’s no room anymore for a sensible Maine moderate like her.
As ThinkProgress reported:
By a vote of 51-48, the Senate agreed to table a Republican amendment offered by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO that would have empowered employers to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of personal moral objections. The measure represented the GOP’s response to President Obama’s rule requiring employers to provide contraception and other preventive health services as part of their health insurance plans. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME — who announced her retirement earlier this week — was the only Republican to join Democrats in “tabling” the amendment, while three Democrats, Sens. Ben Nelson (NE , Joe Manchin (WV , and Bob Casey (PA voted to preserve it.
As elated as I am that the Blunt amendment went down, here’s the deal, ladies: we’re not out of the woods on women’s health yet. There’s all sorts of insidious legislation being cooked up--and passed--in Alabama, Georgia and other states on contraception and abortion. Alabama, for one, wants to force women to undergo a “conscience” ultrasound before an abortion because women--silly, emotional women--clearly can’t be trusted to make these decisions themselves, much less their doctors.
I hate to be so glum on a holiday, but if you don’t want to go back to the good old days when women put aspirin between their knees during sex, we’re going to need to do something truly radical during women’s history month.
What do you think? What's something we could all get behind that would make a
difference? It doesn't have to be about women's health, although that would be swell. What issues are you passionate about that you think need attention? Send me your ideas and we'll post them here!
Piramal Healthcare is one of India’s largest healthcare companies, with a growth track record of above 27% CAGR since 1988. Piramal Healthcare had consolidated revenues of Rs. 2,990 crores in FY2011. With assets across North America, Europe and Asia, Piramal Healthcare is also one of the largest custom manufacturing companies across the world. It has significant presence in the critical care space with sales of anesthesia products to over 100 countries. In FY2011, Piramal Healthcare sold its domestic formulation business to Abbott USA for a consideration of Rs. 17,200 crores and Diagnostic Services business to Super Religare Limited for Rs. 600 crores. The Company has three retained businesses
Post : Cancer Drug Discovery - Senior Research Scientist
No of Post : One
Experience : 3 to 7 yrs
Job Description :
a. Lead drug discovery programs
b. Design and perform cancer in vitro and in vivo studies
c. Propose new targets for cancer drug discovery
d. Work closely with cross functional partners such as chemists, HTS,
e. PK and biomarker scientists
Education : PG - Biology, Life Science
Location : Mumbai
Salary: INR 7,00,000 - 9,00,000 P.A
Contact Details :
Contact Company : Piramal Healthcare Limited
Address : 1, Nirlon Complex, Off W. E Highway,
Goregaon East Mumbai, Maharashtra,India 400063
Email : research.recruitment@piramal.com
Deadline : 24.03.12
From: AdvHealth
Date: 28 February 2012 19:48
Subject: Report of Steering Committee on Health for the 12th Five Year Plan
I am directed to enclose the final version of the Report of the Steering Committee on Health for the 12th Five Year Plan.
We in the Health Division are extremely grateful for your contribution to the drafting of this report, and the work of the Steering Committee. We look forward to your continued support for the task ahead.
With best regards,
Rakesh Sarwal
Adviser, Health
The Silent Time Bomb on Your Plate - When Will Your Moment of Truth Arrive?
Posted By Dr. Mercola | February 26 2012 | 172,031views
The Earth's soil is depleting at more than 13 percent the rate it can be replaced. The documentary "FRESH" celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. The film demonstrates how we can collectively transform the current "industrial agricultural paradigm" into a healthier, more sustainable way of feeding the world, while restoring the health of our ailing planet. I hope you will set aside the time to watch it, as it will be time well spent. We have already lost 75 percent of the world's crop varieties over the last century. Over the past 10 years, we've had 100 million tons of herbicides dumped onto our crops, polluting our soil and streams. The agriculture industry now tries to convince us that housing 110,000 to more than one million chickens or 20,000 hogs in a warehouse is a necessary practice to feed the masses. The quality of our food is in free-fall, and disease is rampant. Not to mention that the quality of life for those animals is so horrid that many people cannot bear to look. Meanwhile, the human population on our little blue globe continues to rise, recently topping 7 billion souls. We simply cannot sustain this growth with our current model. If we continue along the present path, world hunger will continue to escalate without a viable way to meet the need. Forging more sustainable alternatives is imperative if we hope to survive. As illuminated in the film, one of the major issues is that farmers have been forced into the practice of monoculture, or monocropping, which is detrimental to our soil, water, plants, and animals—and therefore detrimental to us.
Playing "Chicken" with Mother Nature
In the words of Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and a number of other bestsellers: "Mother Nature destroys monocultures." What is a monoculture? Monoculture (or monocropping is defined as the high-yield agricultural practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land, in the absence of rotation through other crops. Corn, soybeans, wheat, and to some degree rice, are the most common crops grown with monocropping techniques. In fact, corn, wheat and rice now account for 60 percent of human caloric intake, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. By contrast, polyculture (the traditional rotation of crops and livestock better serves both land and people. Polyculture evolved to meet the complete nutritional needs of a local community. Polyculture, when done mindfully, automatically replenishes what is taken out, which makes it sustainable with minimal effort. Some critics of monocropping claim it even contributes to unsustainable population growth and mass starvation. According to an article on GreenFudge.org, monoculture is detrimental to the environment for a number of reasons, including the following:
- It damages soil ecology by depleting and reducing the diversity of soil nutrients
- It creates an unbuffered niche for parasitic species to take over, making crops more vulnerable to opportunistic pathogens that can quickly wipe out an entire crop
- It increases dependency on chemical pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics and genetically modified organisms (GMOs
- It increases reliance on expensive specialized farm equipment and machinery that require heavy use of fossil fuels
- It destroys biodiversity
The Most Famous Monoculture Disaster: The Great Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s
Monoculture farming practices have sadly resulted in a widespread shift away from sustainable family farms and local foods, and toward industrialized agriculture, massive farming complexes, and confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs , all driven by large corporations whose chief motivation is maximizing profit. Countless small independent family farms have been squeezed out by "Big Ag" and replaced by massive monocultural operations. Thousands of animals in small spaces means large quantities of antibiotics are needed to prevent rampant disease. Outbreaks of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy , salmonella, E. coli, avian flu, and campylobacteriosis are all products of industrialized food production. Antibiotics are fed to livestock and poultry to ward off low-grade infection. Weak strains of pathogens are killed off, allowing strong strains to mutate and become even stronger. You consume these bacterial strains in your meat, which then contribute to the spread of infections that are increasingly resistant to the antibiotics your physician prescribes... The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s is a perfect example of how monocropping can lead to disaster. Lack of genetic variation in Irish potatoes was a major contributor to the severity of the famine, allowing potato blight to decimate Irish potato crops. The blight resulted in the starvation of almost one of every eight people in Ireland during a three-year period. But the greatest shortcoming of monocrops may lie in the compromised quality of those foods, and the long-term effect that has on your health.
There's No Such Thing as Cheap Food
Food is most nutritious in its whole, fresh form. This is why local food is more healthful. Freshness means better taste AND better nutrition. The more you process food, the less nutritional it is. The greater the variety in your diet, the better nourished your body will be. Supermarkets are full of processed foods whose nutrients have been expunged in the name of "convenience." Michael Pollan said it best:
"Cheap food is an illusion. There is no such thing as cheap food. The real cost of the food is paid somewhere. And if it isn't paid at the cash register, it's charged to the environment or to the public purse in the form of subsidies. And it's charged to your health."In other words, pay now or pay later. Consider organic eggs, for example. They cost more, but they're WORTH more. Organic free-range eggs are far richer in omega-3 fatty acids, beta-carotene, and vitamins A and E—a 79-cent cage egg just can't compete. Grass-fed beef contains three to five times as much CLA as cheap, conventional corn-fed beef. But there are people who cannot afford high quality food at these prices. In today's environment, organic food is expensive to put on the dinner table because it's expensive to produce. And millions of Americans live in "food deserts" where fresh produce is hard to find but processed food is available everywhere. You can find Ramen noodles, but you can't find an apple.
Enterprising Farmers Show the Impossible is Possible
Virginia farmer Joel Salatin, featured in the films "FRESH" and "Food, Inc.," is a living example of how incredibly successful and sustainable natural farming can be. He produces beef, chicken, eggs, turkey, rabbits and vegetables. Yet, Joel calls himself a grass-farmer, for it is the grass that transforms the sun into energy that his animals then feed on. By closely observing nature, Joel created a rotational grazing system that not only allows the land to heal but also allows the animals to behave the way the were meant to—expressing their "chicken-ness" or "pig-ness," as Joel would say. Cows are moved every day, which mimics their natural patterns and promotes revegetation. Sanitation is accomplished by birds. The birds (chickens and turkeys arrive three days after the cows leave—via the Eggmobile—and scratch around in the pasture, doing what chickens do best. No pesticides. No herbicides. No antibiotics. No seed spreading. Salatin hasn't planted a seed or purchased a chemical fertilizer in 50 years. He just lets herbivores be herbivores and cooperates with nature, instead of fighting it. It's a different and refreshing philosophy. Instead of making 150 dollars per acre per year from a crop that produces food for three months, but lays fallow for the rest of the year, he's making $3,000 per acre by rotating crops throughout the year, thereby making use of his land all 12 months—and maintaining its ecological balance at the same time. This generates complimentary income streams. But can the entire world be fed this way?
Monocropping is More Productive and More Profitable… WRONG!
Proponents of monocropping argue that crop specialization is the only way to feed the masses, that it's far more profitable than having small independent farms in every township. But is this really true? Recent studies suggest just the opposite! Studies are showing that medium sized organic farms are far more profitable than ANY sized industrial agricultural operation. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Michael Fields Agricultural Institute (results published in 2008 in the Agronomy Journal found that traditional organic farming techniques of planting a variety of plants to ward off pests is more profitable than monocropping. The organic systems resulted in higher profits than "continuous corn, no-till corn and soybeans, and intensively managed alfalfa." Rotational grazing of dairy cows was also shown to be more profitable. The researchers concluded:
"Under the market scenarios that prevailed between 1993 and 2006, intensive rotational grazing and organic grain and forage systems were the most profitable systems on highly productive land in southern Wisconsin."The research team also concluded that government policies supporting monoculture are "outdated," and that it's time for support to be shifted toward programs that promote crop rotation and organic farming. As it turns out, when you eliminate the agricultural chemicals, antibiotics, veterinary treatments, specialized machinery and multi-million dollar buildings, fuel costs, insurance costs, and the rest of the steep financial requirements of a big industrial operation, your cost of producing food makes a welcome dive into the doable. And did I mention… the food from organic farms is better? So, if small to medium-scale organic farming is more profitable, why aren't all farmers doing it?
Government Subsidies and Food Processing Monopolies have a Chokehold on American Farmers
The government is subsidizing the makers of high fructose corn syrup but doing nothing to subsidize the growers of healthy, fresh produce. That's issue number one. The second issue is that a very small number of very large companies control the food chain, from seed to plate. Farmers are held captive by huge food processing companies you may have never heard of, because they sell very few products directly to the general public. Two major players are ADM (Archer Daniels Midland Company and Cargill, each having ENORMOUS power in agriculture. Current.com reports Cargill has greater interests in soybean production and trade than any other company on the planet. Cargill is responsible for more than 75 percent of Argentina's grain and oilseed production and has partnered with the Gates Foundation to introduce similar soybean monoculture to Africa. So, here's how it works… Food processors, like ADM and Cargill, sell the farmers seed, fertilizers and pesticides. Then when the crops come in, those food processors turn around and buy the corn and soy, processing it into high fructose corn syrup and soybean oil that they then sell to huge food industry clients, like fast food chains. They also own feedlots. According to "FRESH," 83 percent of commercial beef in the U.S. is processed by just three meat processors. These players tell the farmers that, if they want to play the game, they play by their rules or not at all. These food-processing monopolies also promote GMOs. In 1998, Monsanto partnered with Cargill to develop and distribute genetically modified food and feed products. We need to level the playing field.
Growing a Movement
Farmers and lovers of real food, such as those portrayed in this film, show us that change IS possible. But your help is needed! As was suggested in the documentary, if each of you purchased only 10 dollars of food each week from your local farmer's market or organic food stand, the market impact would be tremendous. There are "10 FRESH actions" you can take in order to live a more sustainable lifestyle:
Please show your support for FRESH by ordering a copy for only $15. The proceeds will go back to the producers of this film so that they can continue to spread the word.
- Buy local products whenever possible. Otherwise, buy organic and fair-trade products.
- Shop at your local farmers market, join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture , or buy from local grocers and co-ops committed to selling local foods.
- Support restaurants and food vendors that buy locally produced food.
- Avoid genetically engineered (GMO foods. Buying certified organic ensures your food is non-GM.
- Cook, can, ferment, dry and freeze. Return to the basics of cooking, and pass these skills on to your children.
- Drink plenty of water, but avoid bottled water whenever possible, and do invest in a high quality water filter to filter the water from your tap.
- Grow your own garden, or volunteer at a community garden. Teach your children how to garden and where their food comes from.
- Volunteer and/or financially support an organization committed to promoting a sustainable food system.
- Get involved in your community. Influence what your child eats by engaging the school board. Effect city policies by learning about zoning and attending city council meetings. Learn about the federal policies that affect your food choice, and let your congressperson know what you think.
- Spread the word! Share this article with your friends, family, and everyone else you know.
References:
- Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
- Green Fudge September 2009
- Straight April 17, 2008
- Berkeley Library
- Polyface, Inc.
- Tech Herald April 7, 2009
- Agronomy Journal August 15, 2008
- Chavas, et al. 2008. "Organic and Conventional Production Systems in the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial: II. Economic and Risk Analysis 1993–2006" Vol. 101 No. 2 p.288-295
- Current September 6, 2010
- New York Times May 15, 1998
Source: FRESH the Movie
Related Links:
Much of the Food Industry Runs on Bribes Refuse to Eat These Foods - They Could Destroy Your Reproductive Organs FDA Says: Drinking This Natural Food is a Crime
That means blood sugar regulation is compromised and you'll crave more sweets and junk food. The increased appetite for unhealthy snacks puts you at risk for abdominal weight gain, diabetes and obesity. Yikes!
Get into a routine. Try going to bed half an hour earlier each week or set a bedtime. This will get your body used to a schedule.
Relax before bed. Turning the television off and taking some time out for yourself before bedtime, whether it be relaxing with a good book or meditating. This will help reset your brain and get it into sleep mode.
Cut out the caffeine! As we all know, caffeine keeps us stay alert and ready to start the day. If you are the type of person that gets a jolt from caffeine, cutting it out four to six hours before bedtime can help ensure that you get a restful night's sleep.
Eat a high-protein snack before bed. This can provide the L-tryptophan your body needs to process melatonin and serotonin.
Avoid alcohol You may think that having a drink before bed might make you sleepy, but the effects are short lived. You will often awake several hours later, unable to fall back to sleep.
Patients with a common type of metal hip implant should have annual health checks for as long as they have the implant, according to the UK body for regulating medical devices. The all-metal devices have been found to wear down at an accelerated rate in some patients, potentially causing damage and deterioration in the bone and tissue around the hip. There are also concerns that they could leak traces of metal into the bloodstream, which the annual medical checks will monitor.
Hours before critical coverage from the British Medical Journal and the BBC, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA issued new guidelines on larger forms of ‘metal-on-metal’ (MoM hip implants. Advice on smaller metal devices or those featuring a plastic or ceramic head has not changed. Previously, guidelines suggested larger MoM implants should only be checked annually for five years after surgery. The agency now says the annual check-ups should be continued for the life of the implant. Check-ups, they say, are a precautionary measure to reduce the “small risk” of complications and the need for further surgery.
Together with the recent controversy over PIP breast implants, the news has caused some medical quarters to call for tighter regulation of medical devices, perhaps bringing the approval process into line with that of medicines, which must undergo several years of laboratory, animal and human testing before being approved for wider use.
What types of implants are involved?
There are numerous designs and materials used to make hip implants. In recent days the MHRA has issued major updates to its advice on a type of metal-on-metal (MoM hip replacement. As the name implies, MoM implants feature a joint made of two metal surfaces – a metal ‘ball’ that replaces the ball found at the top of the thigh bone (femur and a metal ‘cup’ that acts like the socket found in the pelvis.
The MHRA’s updated advice concerns the type of MoM implant in which the head of the femur is 36mm or greater. This is often referred to as a ‘large head’ implant. The agency now says that patients fitted with this type of implant should be monitored annually for the life of the implant, and that they should also have tests to measure levels of metal particles (ions in their blood. Patients with these implants who have symptoms should also have MRI or ultrasound scans, and patients without symptoms should have a scan if their blood levels of metal ions are rising. The previous guidance on this type of hip implant, issued in April 2010, advised that patients should be monitored annually for no fewer than five years.
What about other types of hip implants?
Advice on monitoring patients with other types of hip implants remains the same, and guidance has not changed on:
- MoM hip resurfacing implants – where the socket and ball of the hip bone has a metal surface applied to it rather than being totally replaced.
- Total MoM implants where the replacement ball is less than 36mm wide.
- A particular range of hip replacements called DePuy ASR – these hip replacements were recalled by their manufacturer, DePuy, in 2010 because of high failure rates. The company made three types of ASR implant.
- Implants featuring plastic or ceramic heads.
How many people are affected?
It is estimated that, in total, 49,000 people in the UK have been given metal-on-metal implants with a width of 36mm or above. This represents a minority of the patients given hip replacements, who mostly have devices featuring plastic, ceramics or smaller metal heads.
In 2010 there were 68,907 new hip replacements fitted, and approximately 1,300 of these surgeries used an MoM implant sized 36mm or above – a rate of around 2%.
What exactly is the problem with MoM implants?
All hip implants will wear down over time as the ball and cup slide against each other during walking and running. Although many people live the rest of their lives without needing their implant to be replaced, any implant may eventually need surgery to remove or replace its components. Surgery to remove or replace part of the implant is known as ‘revision’ and, of the 76,759 procedures performed in 2010, some 7,852 were revision surgeries.
However, data now suggest that large head MoM hip implants (those with a width of 36mm or greater wear down at a faster rate than other types of implants. As friction acts upon their surfaces it can cause tiny metal particles (medically referred to as ‘debris’ to break off and enter the space around the implant. Individuals are thought to react differently to the presence of these metal particles, but, in some people, they can trigger inflammation and discomfort in the area around the implant. Over time this can cause damage and deterioration in the bone and tissue surrounding the implant and joint. This, in turn, may cause the implant to become loose and cause painful symptoms, meaning that further surgery is required.
News coverage has also focused on the MHRA’s recommendation to check for the presence of metal ions in the bloodstream, potentially released either from debris or the implant itself. Ions are electrically charged molecules. Levels of ions in the bloodstream, particularly of the cobalt and chromium used in the surface of the implants, may, therefore, indicate how much wear there is to the artificial hip.
There has been no definitive link between ions from MoM implants and illness, although there has been a small number of cases in which high levels of metal ions in the bloodstream have been associated with symptoms or illnesses elsewhere in the body, including effects on the heart, nervous system and thyroid gland.
The MHRA points out that most patients with MoM implants have well functioning hips and are thought to be at low risk of developing serious problems. However, a small number of patients with these hip implants develop soft tissue reactions to the debris associated with some MoM implants.
How are medical devices regulated?
In the UK, the MHRA is the government agency responsible for ensuring that medical devices work and are safe. The MHRA audits the performance of private sector organisations (called notified bodies that assess and approve medical devices. Once a product is on the market and in use, the MHRA has a system for receiving reports of problems with these products, and will issue warnings if these problems are confirmed through their investigations. It also inspects companies that manufacture products to ensure they comply with regulations.
This system differs greatly from that for testing and approving drugs. Drugs require several years of research testing and trials before they can be approved for clinical use.
What action have regulators taken?
The MHRA has convened an expert advisory group to look at the problems associated with MoM implants. This meets regularly to assess new scientific evidence and reports from doctors and medical staff treating patients. The agency says it is continuing to monitor closely all the latest evidence about these devices and may issue further advice in the future.
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA says it is gathering additional information about adverse events in patients with MoM implants. In the meantime, it advises patients with MoM hip implants who have no symptoms to attend follow-up appointments as normal with their surgeon. Patients who develop symptoms should see their surgeon promptly for further evaluation.
What actions have critics called for?
In light of the PIP breast implant controversy and this new information on hip implants, there is currently intense scrutiny on the way medical devices are regulated in the UK and Europe, with patient groups and the media arguing that medical devices should be regulated in a similar way to medicines.
Clearing a medicine for use in the UK is a lengthy process involving several stages of laboratory and animal testing, and then carefully controlled and monitored tests in humans. Only once there is enough evidence to suggest that a medicine is reasonably safe can it enter clinical use, and even then patients will be monitored to look at the longer-term effects of the drug.
However, medical devices are not required to go through human trials before entering use, and can currently be approved on the basis of mechanical tests and animal research. While certain devices, such as hip implants, have been monitored through systems such as the National Joint Registry, in light of the recent health concerns over PIP breast implants, patient groups are calling for more testing before devices are allowed into clinical use, and closer mandatory monitoring schemes to ensure their safety once they enter the market.
Links To The Headlines
Annual blood tests for hip patients over poison fears. The Daily Telegraph, February 29 2012
Hip replacement toxic risk could affect 50,000. The Independent, February 29 2012
MHRA: Metal hip implant patients need life-long checks. BBC News, February 29 2012
Metal scare over hip replacement joints. The Guardian, February 29 2012
Toxic metal hip implants 'could affect thousands more people than PIP breast scandal. Daily Mail, February 29 2012
“We've had bird flu and swine flu - now scientists have found BAT FLU,” says the Daily Mail. The newspaper reports that the strain “could pose a risk to humans if it mingled with more common forms of flu”.
The Mail has gotten in a flap over the flying mammals based on new research that found type A flu virus in fruit bats captured in Guatemala in Central America. The discovery in bats is new as the virus is typically found in winged birds, and not winged mammals.
Researchers collected 316 bats of 16 different Latin American species. Types of flu virus were found in three,little yellow-shouldered bats, a fruit eating variety common across Central and South America. After analysing the genetic code of the bat flu virus the scientists concluded it contained segments that were significantly different from those found in known influenza A viruses. They also found that some aspects of the bat flu virus could work inside human lung cells grown in the lab. This led them to conclude that the virus has the potential to mix with human flu virus, which could, in rare circumstances, lead to the creation of a new flu strain that is capable of causing a flu pandemic, like bird flu or swine flu.
Despite this warning, scientists have not been able to grow the new bat virus in chicken eggs or human cells, which is possible with existing flu strains. This suggests that the immediate risk of infection to humans is small. Rather than highlighting a danger to human health, this study is likely to guide further research that may improve the understanding of potential pandemic flu threats to humans in the future.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from Centres for Disease Control and Prevention outposts in Atlanta and Guatemala, and was funded by the agency’s Global Disease Detection Program.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA (PNAS .
The story has appeared on several online news sites and in the Daily Mail. In its headline the newspaper suggests that bat flu “could pose a threat to humans”. While the inclusion of the word “could” makes this a fair statement, the article does not make clear that the immediate risk to humans is very low. Generally, the tone of the piece emphasises a potential risk from the virus. It says there is a hypothetical risk of transmission to humans if they eat food contaminated with traces of the virus. Again, the risk of this happening seems low.
What kind of research was this?
This study was laboratory research looking at the genetics of a specific strain of type A flu virus found in bats captured in Guatemala. Originally, the bats had been examined as part of a study looking at rabies, which revealed that bats were able to carry certain forms of the flu virus.
As their names suggest, new pandemic flu strains such as the high-profile bird flu and swine flu strains often originate in animals, typically waterfowl and pigs. Usually, non-human flu strains do not cause serious harm in the original host, for instance, bird-flu does not cause death to most birds and human flu is not usually fatal to healthy humans. However, animal flu strains have the potential to swap genetic material with human strains and create a new virus strain capable of infecting and harming humans. It is the mixing of genetic material and the creation of these new viruses that represents the main danger of new flu pandemics.
The researchers say that early detection, characterisation and risk assessment of flu viruses in their animal hosts before they spread to humans is “critical” to protect public health.
What did the research involve?
Researchers collected 316 bats from 21 different species from eight locations in southern Guatemala over the course of two years.
Researchers swabbed the bats’ bottoms to gather traces of any influenza virus A. The swabs were tested in the laboratory for signs of flu genetic material using standard molecular biology techniques. Tissue samples from the bats’ mouths, livers, intestines, lungs and kidneys were also tested for flu virus.
Researchers then examined the genetic code of the viral material that had been detected in the bats and looked at how similar they were to other flu viruses that have previously been decoded.
To demonstrate ‘proof of theory’ that the bat virus could function within human cells the scientists created a mini version of the flu virus’ genetic material. They placed this into human lung cells in the laboratory and assessed whether certain functions of the bat virus could be carried out within a human cell.
The researchers attempted to grow the virus strains in a variety of mammalian cells (including bat cells and human lung cells grown in the laboratory to study how infectious the strains were to these different types of cells.
What were the basic results?
Three of the 316 bats tested positive for influenza virus A from their swabs. All three samples were collected from little yellow-shouldered bats, which is a fruit-eating bat that is abundant throughout Central and South America.
In these three bats, all of the further samples taken from the liver, intestine, lung and kidney tissue tested positive for flu virus genetic material.
Researchers found that a specific genetic sequence within the virus, containing the code for making a vitally important flu protein called haemagglutinin, showed differences from the previously documented strains. In one of the bats the genetic material coding for a second crucially important flu protein, called neuraminidase, showed “extraordinary” differences from other known flu viruses.
In influenza A viruses the forms of haemagglutinin (H and neuraminidase (N proteins on the surface of each virus provide the main basis for the way it will be named and classified. For example, the combination of these proteins found in the recent swine flu outbreak meant it was known as H1N1, while the latest bird flu scare was caused by a virus known as H5N1. There are many influenza A virus subtype combinations circulating in animals in the wild. In this research the H proteins found in the samples were so different from other types of influenza that the authors say it could be classified as a new subtype, which they called “H17”. In one of the samples the researchers say they could not classify its N type as there were so many different and unusual types of N proteins.
The scientists reported that attempts to grow the virus in human cells in the laboratory and chicken embryos were unsuccessful. This suggested the virus differed from other known viruses, which can be grown under these conditions.
The researchers demonstrated that some functions of the bat flu virus had the potential to work inside laboratory-cultured human lung cells.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers conclude that “despite its divergence from known in?uenza A viruses, the bat virus is compatible for genetic exchange with human in?uenza viruses in human cells”. This leads them to suggest that there is potential for the bat virus to mix with existing human flu viruses creating a “new pandemic” virus that could pose a threat to human health.
Conclusion
This study of the genetic material of flu virus A in three fruit bats in Guatemala provides important new information to those involved in flu research and pandemic awareness. Previously, non-human flu strains were thought to be confined largely to birds and pigs, but this study highlights the potential for bats also to harbour flu viruses that could potentially threaten humans, given the correct sequence of rare events. The awareness this research provides may lead to a better understanding of the potential risks posed by bat flu to humans in the future.
The following points should be considered when interpreting the results of the study:
- It is important to realise that the researchers have found a new segment of genetic material in the bat flu virus that is different from other flu strains sequenced. They have not discovered a completely new virus in bats that is capable of infecting humans, and so the immediate threat to humans is likely to be minimal.
- As yet, scientists have not been able to grow the bat flu virus in chicken eggs or human cells, which is possible with all other commonly occurring flu strains. Given that they were actively trying to grow the virus and failed, this also suggests the immediate risk of infection and harm to humans is small.
- The potential threat the authors and the media warn against for the future is that the new bat virus genetic material could mix with other flu strains to create a new strain that will be capable of infecting and harming humans, like swine flu and bird flu. To date, there is no evidence that this has happened so there is no cause for immediate concern.
- Fruit bats in Guatemala do not bite people, so direct transmission of the bat virus to humans is unlikely. A suggested route of virus transmission has been if bat droppings contaminate food that is then eaten by people. This could allow the bat flu and human flu genetic material to mix, potentially creating a new strain capable of a pandemic.
This study provides no evidence to support or refute the implication that if someone were infected with the bat virus now it would be harmful, and the risk of this bat strain causing a pandemic is not known at the present time. However, a series of rare events would need to happen in sequence for a pandemic to occur. Despite the rarity, this has happened before in the case of other pandemic flu strains including swine and bird flu, although the initial transmission from these species has generally occurred through sustained close contact with livestock, such as sleeping among the droppings of chickens reared in the home.
Following the discovery of this new form of flu it will surely be explored further by agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which would report any evidence of risk to the World Health Organization and its flu surveillance teams, which constantly monitor and evaluate any potential flu-based threat.
Analysis by Bazian
Links To The Headlines
We've had bird flu and swine flu - now scientists have found BAT FLU (and it could pose a threat to humans . Daily Mail, March 1 2012
Scientists report first evidence of flu in bats. The Daily Telegraph, March 1 2012
Links To Science
Tong S, Li Y, Rivailler P et al. A distinct lineage of influenza A virus from bats. PNAS, Published online before print February 27, 2012
PATIENTS THINK THAT DOCTORS STAND IN THE WAY OF THEIR RECEIVING THE BEST TREATMENT AND CARE
A 400-page report, What do patients think of doctors?, published in early-March 2011 by UK research organisation PatientView, finds that over half (53% of the 2,500 respondent patient groups think patients believe doctors are standing in the way of their receipt of the correct diagnosis, treatment and and/or support—and are making patients ‘fight the system’ to obtain the care they need.
The situation is at its worst in five countries—Canada, Germany, Italy, New Zealand and the UK—where 60% or more of patient groups say that health professionals need to improve their relationships with patients by not making patients fight the system for their medical needs. 70% of patient groups representing the interests of patients with gastrointestinal problems, 60% representing the interests of patients with multiple sclerosis, and 60% rare diseases, feel that health professionals need to stop forcing patients to ‘fight the system’ to get the care they need.
Poor doctor-patient relationships have a negative effect on patient health
What do patients think of doctors? focuses on the current state of doctor-patient relationships, and offers numerous insights into how they can be improved. The report finds that less than a third of groups representing patients believe GPs and consultants remain traditional and patriarchal in their attitudes to patients. On the other hand, only 15% believe that doctors treat patients as equals (and act on that belief —the rest believe that the situation varies from doctor to doctor, or that doctors may intend to take a partnering role, but fail to live up to it. Relationships between doctors and patients are undoubtedly in need of considerable improvement, especially in some of the less well-performing countries. The state of doctor-patient relations has an important bearing on how well patients respond to treatment. In the report, patient groups are quoted as saying that poor doctor-patient relationships prevent patients from coming forward for medical treatment and care—even when treatment and care is needed.
Doctors need to listen more to the patient
When asked what single intervention would most improve doctor-patient relationships, the groups cite “enhancing the communication-and-understanding skills of the healthcare professional” as their main choice, second only to “the provision of treatment and care that improves quality of life”. In Australia, Italy, New Zealand and the UK, improving doctors’ communication-and-understanding skills is ranked first, as the most important way of improving doctor-patient relations. Groups representing the interests of patients with cancer and HIV/AIDS also see such a development as the favoured way of improving doctor-patient relations among the patients in their disease specialties.
About the survey
What do patients think of doctors? is based on the results of a November 2010 PatientView survey of 2,500 patient groups from around the world. The survey asked the respondent groups what they think of current doctor-patient relationships, and how they believe those relationships might be improved.
The report covers most subject areas in which patients would like doctor-patient relations to be improved, including: l Access to health professionals l Access and choice during diagnosis and treatment l Patient information provided by health professionals l Doctor-patient communication l Gaining patient trust l Respecting patients’ valuable time l Accountability of health professionals l Improving prevention practices l Which single action do patients want from government and payers to improve doctor-patient relationships? l Which pharmaceutical companies are having a positive effect on doctor-patient relationships? l Why pharma can have a negative impact on doctor-patient relationships.
The report analyses doctor-patient relations in 11 countries and one region of the world: Australia [number of completed responses = 60]; Canada [138]; Eastern Europe [105]; France [80]; Germany [100]; Italy [110]; the Netherlands [30]; New Zealand [55]; Spain [80]; Sweden [56]; the UK [566]; and the USA [292]. Doctor-patient relations are also analysed for the following 12 specialties: cancer [160]; diabetes [55]; gastro-intestinal [40]; heart and circulatory conditions [70]; HIV/AIDS [72]; mental health [170]; multiple sclerosis [35]; neurological [195]; Parkinson’s disease [30]; rare diseases [70]; respiratory [35]; and rheumatological conditions [55].
Ingredients:
- Chicken tenderloins
- Red, yellow, and orange bell peppers
- Onion
- Cilantro
- Tomato
- Avocado
- Whole wheat tortillas
- Taco sauce or hot sauce
And these drugs are also linked to a significantly increased risk of cancer among those taking high doses, the study, published in the journal BMJ Open, shows.
The study, analyzing 10,500 people who took a wide-range of sleeping pills including zolpidem, diazepam and tamazepam, found that the top third of sleeping pill users had a 5.3-fold higher death risk and also had a 35 percent higher risk of cancer. And people who were on higher doses of tamazepam were six times as likely to die in the next 30 months, the study found.
“We are not certain. But it looks like sleeping pills could be as risky as smoking cigarettes. It looks much more dangerous to take these pills than to treat insomnia another way,” study leader Daniel F. Kripke, MD, told WebMD.
The sleeping pills in question are known as hypnotics and include such brands as Ambien and Restoril. Hypnotic sleeping pills actually cause a person to fall asleep. This is in contrast to other sleeping aids, such as melatonin, which promote sleep through relaxation. Kripke and colleagues said other dangerous hypnotic sleeping aids include Lunesta, Sonata, Halcion, and Dalmane.
Kripke, retired professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, began studying the effects sleeping pills have on the risk of death in 1975. Since then, he has co-published 18 studies finding links between the two.
In the latest study, Kripke and colleagues analyzed data from a large Pennsylvania health system from between 2002 and 2007. They obtained medical records for 10,529 people who used prescribed hypnotic sleeping pills and for 23,676 matched patients who were never prescribed sleeping pills.
Over an average of 2.5 years, the death rate for those who did not use sleeping pills was 1.2 percent. For those who were prescribed sleeping pills the death rate climbed to 6.1 percent.
And after taking into account factors likely to influence the results - including age, sex, weight, lifestyle, ethnicity and previously diagnosed cancer - the study’s results pointed to a 3.6-fold higher death rate in those who only took 18 or fewer doses.
Based on their findings, Kripke and colleagues estimate that sleeping pills are linked to between 320,000 and 507,000 US deaths each year.
“We think these sleeping pills are very dangerous. We think they cause death. We think they cause cancers,” said Kripke. “It is possible but not proven that reducing the use of these pills would lower the U.S. death rate.”
The associations of increased death risk was found in every age group, but were greatest among those aged 18 to 55. Supplemental material published alongside the paper showed that, although the overall numbers of deaths in each group were quite small, there were clear differences among them.
For example, there were 265 deaths among 4,336 people taking zolpidem, compared with 295 deaths among the 23,671 people who had not taken sedatives or sleeping pills.
Kripke pointed out that studies showing association do not necessarily prove cause and effect, however. But the findings do back up previous research showing an increased risk of death among sleeping pill users, he added.
“The meager benefits of hypnotics [sleeping pills], as critically reviewed by groups without financial interest, would not justify substantial risks,” wrote Kripke. “A consensus is developing that cognitive-behavioral therapy of chronic insomnia may be more successful than hypnotics.”
Sleeping pills are thought to also increase risk of depression and can impair driving skills. Kripke has passed the study findings on to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA , the watchdog to the US pharmaceutical industry. The authors of the study said their findings, together with similar findings in previous studies, should be used by authorities to re-assess whether even modest doses of sleeping pills are safe.
“Although the authors have not been able to prove that sleeping pills cause premature death, their analyses have ruled out a wide range of other possible causative factors,” wrote Dr Trish Groves, editor in chief of BMJ Open. “So these findings raise important concerns and questions about the safety of sedatives and sleeping pills.”
National Health Service (NHS guidelines recommend zolpidem should only be used at the lowest possible dose and for a maximum of up to four weeks. Zaleplon should only be used at the lowest possible dose and for a maximum of up to two weeks, while temazepam should be taken for a maximum of four weeks.
Most of those in Kripke’s study were taking Ambien or Restoril. Sanofi-Aventis, the maker of Ambien, noted that Kripke’s study had a number of faults.
“Ambien has more than 17 years of real-world experience and is safe and effective when prescribed and taken according to its labeling,” Sanofi told WebMD in a statement. “Ambien should be prescribed in strict adherence to its labeling and patients should take their medication as prescribed. The Ambien labeling carries specific warnings against driving and against intake of alcohol together with Ambien.”
And although experts note the Kripke study certainly raises concerns, they said it does not prove that sleeping pills kill.
This “very provocative and interesting study raises a lot of questions,” Nancy Collop, MD, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and director of the Sleep Center at Emory University School of Medicine, told WebMD.
“You cannot assume, just because you find this kind of association, that hypnotics are killing people,” she said. “People who go on sleeping pills are a sicker population. I know they tried to control for that, but these people simply are not as healthy.”
Michael Yurcheshen, MD, head of the sleep fellowship program and assistant professor of neurology at the University of Rochester, NY, noted that much can be missed in a study that looks back at medical records rather than at the patients themselves.
“It is implausible to think that so many of these medications, spread across several different drug classes, could have the same biological effects,” Yurcheshen told WebMD.
Yet, both Collop and Yurcheshen praise Kripke for raising the issue of sleeping pill dangers.
“One part of the Kripke study I really did like is when they point out that part of the problem with hypnotics is they are really best for people with acute, short episodes of insomnia,” Yurcheshen said. “Very few insomnia drugs are approved for long-term daily use. And so it is fair to say that the long-term safety of these drugs has never been explored for use in that way.”
Collop said she is torn on the issue of whether hypnotics are “good or bad.” She noted that it can be harmful to be dependent on hypnotic sleeping pills for a long period of time. But they can be very helpful to those who are having great difficulty in falling asleep for some specific reason.
She noted that sleeping pills are mainly short-term use aids. “So the ideal patient would be someone with a very high stress level for some reason, such as the recent loss of loved one or a divorce, or for a traveler adjusting to a new time zone. This should be for a limited time period and only as needed, not on a nightly basis. In such situations these drugs are appropriate and effective,” she told WebMD.
Kripke, colleagues and the experts all agree that a form of short-term psychotherapy -- cognitive behavioral therapy -- is surprisingly effective for people with chronic insomnia.
Collop says it’s time to see a sleep specialist if you have tried sleeping pills and they don’t work anymore. Looking for another brand of sleeping pill will not work.
Nina Barnett, spokesperson for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society told The Telegraph: “This is an important study and although it is unlikely to radically change prescribing in the immediate term, it should raise awareness and remind both patients and prescribers to the potential risks of sedative use for insomnia.”
“The association between mortality and sedation is not new and this research tells us is that people who took these medicines were more likely to die than people who didn’t take them. However it does not mean that the deaths were caused by the medicine,” she added. “Patients should not stop taking any prescribed medicines straight away. If you are concerned about your medicines discuss this with your pharmacist or Doctor about other ways of getting help with sleep problems so you don’t have to use medicines.”
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“This flies in the face of popular belief,” Michael Grandner, PhD, lead author of the study said in a statement. “These results force us to re-think what we know about sleep in older people – men and women.”
Researchers have extensive and sophisticated equipment to measure the duration and disturbance in sleep study volunteers. However, this does not always match the volunteer’s own opinion on their night’s rest.
The study, conducted by the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania, focused on asking large numbers of randomly selected people about the quality of their sleep and correlated it with their race, income, education, mood and general health.
While being depressed or having health problems was linked to poor sleep quality, once the researchers had adjusted the results to compensate for this, a distinct pattern emerged. The researchers found that complaints about poor sleep quality fell as age rose, with the lowest number of complaints coming from those over their 70s.
“Even if sleep among older Americans is actually worse than in younger adults, feelings about it still improve with age,” said Grandner, Research Associate at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the Perlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Once you factor out things like illness and depression, older people should be reporting better sleep. If they’re not, they need to talk to their doctor. They shouldn’t just ignore it.”
Professor Derk-Jan Dijk, Professor of Sleep and Physiology and Director of the Surrey Sleep Research Center, told BBC that the study was “interesting”, and, “we have got to get away from all these myths about ageing - many people are very content with their sleep.”
However, he said that asking people for their subjective opinion about sleep patterns could produce answers that were dependent on their mood at the time. “If you are angry because your boss didn’t give you a pay rise, your perception of sleep quality may be very different from someone who is feeling generally content.”
Grandner concluded, saying the study’s original intent was to confirm that increased sleep problems are associated with aging, using the largest and most representative sample ever to address this issue.
Instead, the results challenge the conventional wisdom that difficulty sleeping is perceived more by older adults, and challenge the general clinical practice of ignoring sleep complaints from older adults as a normal part of aging.
The study appears in the March edition of the journal Sleep.
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The Endometriosis Research Center (ERC is pleased to once again honor those with endometriosis through the organization’s 15th annual “Awareness Month” recognition. Often stigmatized as merely “killer cramps,” endometriosis is a poorly-understood disease characterized by pelvic pain, painful menstruation, infertility and pregnancy loss, pain with sexual activity, gastrointestinal and urinary tract difficulties and more. Primarily affecting the abdominopelvic organs, endometriosis is also sometimes found in extrapelvic locations such as the lungs or diaphragm. The disease is often linked to other painful conditions including autoimmune disorders, Interstitial Cystitis, Pudendal Neuralgia, and rarely, certain malignancies.
During normal menstruation, the lining of the uterus (endometrium breaks down, bleeds and exits the body. With endometriosis, however, these endometrial glands and stroma aberrantly implant on internal structures. The wayward tissue responds to normal hormonal commands, resulting in microscopic internal bleeding, inflammatory reaction, formation of debris-filled ovarian cysts known as endometriomas, and development of fibrosis, scar tissue and adhesions. The disease commonly causes severe, debilitating and often chronic pain as well as sexual dysfunction and impairment of the reproductive, bowels, bladder and nearby organs. Surgical confirmation is required for accurate diagnosis.
Endometriosis, for which there is no absolute cure, affects over 176 million women and girls globally with staggering societal costs soaring past $100 billion annually. “We continue to find endometriosis is routinely misunderstood, under-diagnosed and ineffectively treated, despite being one of the most prevalent causes of hysterectomy, infertility and pelvic pain in women and girls around the world," said Michelle E. Marvel, ERC Founder and Executive Director. "Despite hallmark symptoms, the average delay in diagnosis remains an astounding 6 or more years, and a woman will seek counsel from at least 5 physicians on average before her pain is adequately addressed," she added.
Though definitive causes remain debatable, late studies indicate that genetics, stem cell pathophysiology and immune dysfunction play an important role. Endometriosis can affect women from all races and socioeconomic backgrounds from adolescence to post-menopause, and the symptoms can be life-altering. “It is not unusual for a woman or girl to undergo repeated surgeries and different medical therapies; many with significantly negative side effects and none offering long-term relief,” said Heather Guidone, the Surgical Program Director of the Center for Endometriosis Care and an ERC Board Member. “It’s imperative that society really starts recognizing the far-reaching impact this illness has on women of all ages - not just those trying to conceive - so that our next generation doesn’t continue to suffer through delayed, substandard care as millions have before them,” said Guidone.
ERC has traditionally celebrated March as Awareness Month, coinciding with the organization’s annual anniversary. A pioneer and continued leader in the efforts to increase disease recognition, the organization previously worked with U.S. Congress to establish the country's first-ever National Resolution, H. Con. Res. 291. The first national legislative act of its kind, the Resolution “...expresses the sense of Congress with respect to the disease endometriosis and strongly supports the Endometriosis Research Center's efforts to raise public awareness of endometriosis throughout the medical and lay communities, and recognizes the need for better support of patients with endometriosis, the need for physicians to better understand the disease, the need for more effective treatments, and ultimately, the need for a cure."
ERC strongly advocates for early intervention, timely diagnosis and efficacy of treatment. To get involved and learn more, visit the organization at www.endocenter.org.
The Endometriosis Research Center & Women’s Hospital is a 501 (c 3 non-profit organization. A copy of the official registration and financial information may be obtained from the Division of Consumer Services by calling 1-800-435-7352 toll-free within the State of Florida . Registration does not imply endorsement, approval or recommendation by the State. Registration #SC-07844. Donations are received 100% by the ERC.
The DEA says the Lakeland distribution center posed a danger to public health. A DEA investigation found Cardinal shipped 50 times as much oxycodone to its four top pharmacies in Florida as to its other retail customers. In 2011, a CVS pharmacy in Sanford, Fla., purchased 1.8 million pills from Cardinal, DEA records show.
An average U.S. pharmacy dispenses 69,000 a year, the DEA said.
The amounts "were astounding — far above what I would expect from pharmacies of similar size in a city such as Sanford, Florida," DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart said in a sworn statement.
Mentally ill people are four times more likely to be victims of violence, the BBC has today reported.
This alarming statistic is based on a review of research looking at how often people with a range of disabilities had experienced violence in the previous year, and how this compared with non-disabled people. After combining the results of 26 previous studies, researchers found that more than 24% of those with a mental illness had been physically attacked in the previous year, as had more than 6% of people with intellectual impairments and more than 3% of people with all types of disability. People with disabilities were generally more at risk of violence than non-disabled individuals.
Although it had some limitations, this large well-conducted review supports previous research suggesting that people with disabilities are at increased risk of violence, and those with mental illness are particularly vulnerable. Most of the previous studies it looked at were in high-income countries including the UK, so the findings are particularly relevant for this country.
Further research on this important issue is now required to understand the magnitude of the problem in the UK and to develop further public health strategies to protect vulnerable groups.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from Liverpool John Moores University and the World Health Organization (WHO . It was funded by the WHO Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability. The study was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet.
The BBC’s report was fair and included comments from independent UK experts.
What kind of research was this?
This was a systematic review and meta-analysis combining the results of previous research on violence against people with disabilities. It looked both at studies reporting on the rates of recorded violence against disabled adults, and at those that examined risk of violence to disabled adults compared with non-disabled adults.
The authors point out that about 15% of adults worldwide have a disability, a figure that is predicted to increase because of ageing populations and the rise in chronic disease, including mental illness. People with disabilities seem to be at increased risk of violence because of several factors including exclusion from education and employment, the need for personal assistance with daily living, communication barriers and social stigma and discrimination. The authors also say that there is an increasing number of media reports highlighting cases of physical violence and sexual abuse of disabled individuals living in institutions, but point out that formal research to quantify the problem is scarce.
What did the research involve?
The authors searched 12 online research databases to identify any studies that had reported on the prevalence of violence against adults with disabilities, or their risk of violence compared with non-disabled adults. They searched for all relevant studies published between 1990 and 2010. They also used additional methods to look for further studies, including hand searching reference lists and web-based searches.
To be deemed suitable for inclusion, studies had to meet various criteria. For example, their design had to be either a cross-sectional, case-control or cohort, they had to report on specific disability types, and they had to report violence occurring within the 12 months prior to the study.
All the identified studies were independently assessed by two separate reviewers using accepted criteria for assessing the quality of research. Individuals in the studies were grouped according to the type of disability: non-specific impairments (physical, mental, emotional or other health problems , mental illness, intellectual impairments, physical impairments and sensory impairments. The types of violence examined were physical violence, sexual violence, intimate partner violence and any violence.
The researchers calculated prevalence rates and the risk of violence faced by disabled people compared with non-disabled people, using standard statistical methods.
What were the basic results?
The researchers’ initial search identified 10,663 studies on the subject, but only 26 were eligible for inclusion. Overall, these studies provided data on 21,557 individuals with disabilities.
Of these studies, 21 provided data on the prevalence of violence among disabled people, and 10 provided data on the risk of violence compared with non-disabled people. By combining their results, researchers found that over the previous year:
- 24.3% of mentally ill adults had been subjected to violence of any type (95% CI: 18.3 to 31.0%
- 6.1% of adults with intellectual impairments had been subjected to violence of any type (95% CI: 2.5 to 11.1%
- 3.2% of adults with any impairment had been subjected to violence of any type (95% CI: 2.5 to 4.1%
However, the researchers did note significant differences between individual studies (heterogeneity in their prevalence estimates. Heterogeneity provides an indicator of how suitable it is to combine the results of different studies, with greater heterogeneity suggesting studies are of lower compatibility with each other.
When they pooled the results of studies comparing disabled with non-disabled individuals they found that, overall, disabled people were 1.5 times more likely to have been attacked than non-disabled people (odds ratio: 1.5; 95% CI: 1.09 to 2.05 .
There was also a trend for people with specific types of disability to experience more violence, but not all associations were significant:
- People with intellectual impairments were 1.6 times more likely to have been physically attacked than people without intellectual impairments (results from three studies; pooled odds ratio: 1.60; CI 95%: 1.05 to 2.45 .
- Mentally ill people were no more likely to have been physically attacked than non-mentally ill people (three studies; pooled odds ratio: 3.86; 95% CI: 0.91 to 16.43 .
- People with non-specific impairments were no more likely to have been physically attacked than those without (six studies; pooled odds ratio: 1.31; 95% CI: 95% 0.93 to 1.84 .
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers conclude that adults with disabilities are at a higher risk of violence compared with non-disabled adults, and that those with mental illnesses could be particularly vulnerable. However, they add that the available studies have methodological weaknesses and that gaps exist in the types of disability and violence they address. They also point out that good studies are absent for most regions of the world, particularly low-income and middle-income countries.
Conclusion
Violence and abuse against anyone is not acceptable, but there is an even greater need to ensure that vulnerable groups who may be less able to help themselves receive adequate protection against this type of victimisation. This valuable systematic review helps to establish the proportion of people with disabilities who have experienced violence, as well as how this compares to people without disabilities. The estimates it provides may prove useful for planning services and policies to protect vulnerable individuals, such as people with mental health issues.
However, the review does have several limitations, many of which the authors acknowledge:
- The studies were limited to looking at violence within the 12 months before each study, which means the review probably underestimates people’s lifetime exposure to violence.
- It is not clear from some of the studies whether the violence was a cause or a result of people’s health conditions, i.e. whether disability led to violence, or if violence caused people to develop disability such as mental health issues. This factor could particularly affect studies of people with mental illness, which form a large proportion of the studies included.
- The studies included in the review varied in quality, with only one achieving the assessors’ maximum quality scores. The researchers say that combining the results of individual studies was severely hindered by lack of methodological consistency between studies, including variations in samples used, definitions of disability and violence, and methods of data collection. When they pooled the study results there was significant heterogeneity (differences between individual studies in the proportion of people who experienced violence, making it difficult to give an accurate estimate of the prevalence. Also, many studies failed to include comparison groups, which are needed to compare risk of violence between those with and without disability.
- In studies that did compare people with and without disability, overall there were higher odds of experiencing violence in those with any disability compared with those with none, but analyses by individual type of disability did not consistently give significant associations.
- Regardless of whether or not people have disabilities, they may be unwilling to report violence or abuse and, therefore, the rates reported in the reviewed studies may not reflect what happens in reality.
Despite these limitations, this is a valuable attempt to quantify the prevalence and the risk of violence faced by disabled people. Further high-quality research on this important issue is required to understand the magnitude of this problem if strategies are to be developed that can help prevent it.
Links To The Headlines
Mentally ill 'at high risk of being victim of violence'. BBC News, February 28 2012
Links To Science
Hughes K, Bellis MA, Jones L et al. Prevalence and risk of violence against adults with disabilities: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies. The Lancet, Early Online Publication February 28 2012
“Playing active video games won’t help you stay fit,” the Daily Mail has today reported.
In what will surely come as a blow to people who think tennis can be played from the sofa, researchers conducting a new study found that a selection of sporty, movement-based games for the popular Wii console did not make children any more active than traditional button-bashers like Super Mario Bros.
The games were tested in a 13-week trial that randomly gave children with an above-average weight ‘active’ video games controlled by moving around the room or games that did not require physical activity. After comparing activity levels between the two groups the researchers say that there was little difference, even though active video games have been shown to increase children’s physical activity levels in a laboratory setting.
In recent years, movement-based video games have been seen as a potential way to keep children healthy. Unfortunately, this research does not support the idea that we can prescribe a course of Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 3 to keep them active. That said, there were limitations to the study that mean that the results are not certain and need to be corroborated through larger trials.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine in the US and was funded by the US National Institutes of Health and US Department of Agriculture and Agricultural Research Service. It was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Pediatrics.
The Daily Mail covered the research appropriately, although it did not report on any of the study’s limitations, including its small sample size or confounding factors that may have influenced the results.
What kind of research was this?
This was a randomised controlled trial that examined activity levels in children given a new Nintendo Wii console with either active or inactive video games. The Wii is a games system where players can play games either with traditional button-based controls or by using movement-sensing controllers that direct the action on screen. Some games also use a pressure-sensitive mat that can identify how people are standing or walking on it during activity-based games. The children were given a new video game to play at home, but were provided with no instructions on how much they were expected to play or which game they should play.
The researchers say that this approach mirrors more closely how children would use video games in a real-life setting, and may provide a more accurate indication of the actual impact of active video games than research carried out in a laboratory, where the type of game and intensity of activity can be monitored and controlled.
What did the research involve?
The researchers gave a new Wii video game console to 84 children between the ages of 9 and 12 years old with above-average body mass index (BMI . BMI is an estimate of body fat calculated using a person’s weight and height. The researchers randomised the children to either the active or inactive video game groups, and each child was allowed to select one video game from their assigned group at the start of the trial, and another video game from the same category seven weeks later.
The active game list featured:
- Active Life: Extreme Challenge
- EA Sports Active
- Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 3
- Wii Fit Plus
- Wii Sports
The inactive game list featured:
- Disney Sing It: Pop Hits
- Madden NFL 10
- Mario Kart Wii
- New Super Mario Bros
- Super Mario Galaxy
Each child also wore a device called an accelerometer, which records movement and activity. Physical activity was monitored at weeks 1, 6, 7 and 12 over the course of the 13-week trial. In addition, the children and their parents kept a diary of game play, recording which game was played and for how long. Data were collected at the start of the study on child gender, age, ethnicity and the highest educational attainment in the house, and a questionnaire of parent perception of neighbourhood safety was conducted.
The researchers then used the accelerometer data to compare the average physical activity duration and level of children in the active video game group to the averages in the inactive video game group. They analysed the data while controlling for demographic factors as well as ‘neighbourhood safety’, which was taken to indicate how likely it would be for the child to play outside.
They also used the diaries of game play to determine which games were played in the two groups, and whether or not children in the inactive group played active games, and vice versa.
What were the basic results?
Of the 84 original participants, six did not complete the study (all six of these children were from the control group receiving the inactive games . The 78 remaining children had an average BMI that was higher than approximately 81% of their peers.
The researchers found no significant differences in the average amount of time spent engaged in sedentary, light physical activity or moderate/vigorous physical activity between the active game and inactive game groups. There was no evidence to suggest that neighbourhood safety, child BMI score, the number of total video games in the home, the number of active video games in the home, family income or education attainment influenced this finding.
Using the information provided by the game play diaries, the researchers found that some children in the inactive group obtained and played active video games. This was found to be true in the other group as well, with children in the active game group playing inactive games.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers conclude that “there is no reason to believe that simply acquiring an active video game under naturalistic circumstances provides a public health benefit to children”.
Conclusion
This was a small randomised controlled trial that indicates that there is little difference in activity levels between children given active video games and those given inactive games. While the results of this study appear to contradict those seen in previous studies carried out in more controlled environments, there are several limitations that should be kept in mind:
- There is no way to tell to what extent crossover between the video game groups distorted the results. The study did not prevent children in the active game group from playing inactive games, or vice versa. Therefore, their activity levels cannot be attributed solely to the group they were assigned to.
- The researchers assessed differences between groups, but did not report whether or not there were any significant differences within the groups over time. This means we do not know whether or not children who were given the Wii consoles were significantly more or less active after receiving the game. This may be important given that there was some crossover between the groups in the types of games played.
- The researchers say that their results indicate that merely giving children access to active video games does not produce a significant difference in activity compared with children given inactive games. They point out, however, that this study did not assess the impact of providing active games along with some instruction on the amount of time they should spend playing them.
- The researchers further say that it is not clear why there was no difference between the groups, and suggest that the children in the active game group may have compensated for any increased activity during playing the video games by decreasing their activity throughout the rest of the day.
- Some of the active games on the list, particularly those marketed as improving fitness, are targeted at a mature audience, and may not appeal to children.
- The study reported that many children had access to newer, more advanced consoles. This may have influenced the children’s behaviour, making them less likely to become enthusiastic about the older Wii console.
All in all, this was a small study that attempted to quantify differences in activity between children given two types of video games. This type of research in a natural setting can provide an indication of the impact of games in real life, and may be important in terms of providing an alternative view to that provided by game manufacturers.
Analysis by Bazian.
Links To The Headlines
Does Wii work? Study shows virtual boxing, bowling and dancing do not help children with exercise requirements. Daily Mail, February 29 2012
Links To Science
Baranowski T, Abdelsamad D, Baranowski J et al. Impact of an Active Video Game on Healthy Children’s Physical Activity. Pediatrics. Published online February 27 2012
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