Tuesday, September 1
Saturday, August 29
Almost Unbelievable
(NaturalNews) Ever wonder how the drug companies REALLY want to sell pharmaceuticals? Here's the answer: Through vending machines! Bypass the doctors, advertise drugs directly to consumers, and get them to insert their credit cards into drug-dispensing machines that pretend to "diagnose" diseases by asking people to take an instant survey.
by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
How the FDA extorts money from nutritional supplement companies
NaturalNews has learned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is running a criminal extortion racket designed to drain cash from health supplement companies and shift it into the pockets of top FDA contractors. This organized crime operation has been running for years, and it has operated with impunity because each company targeted by the scam feels isolated and alone, unable to face the astronomical legal bills of going to court and battling the FDA. So one by one, they agree to "settle" with the FDA for crimes they never committed. Part of the settlement, of course, involves the payment of FDA employees or contractors who pocket the money extorted from health companies.
by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Friday, August 28
Mammograms and Radiation
Instead, get a Thermogram
Yes, it's true: A couple of CT scans can expose your body to as much radiation as standing a few miles from an atomic bomb explosion. This is a simple scientific fact.
by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Sunday, August 9
The Cost of Working at LANL
August 17, 2008
By Suzy T. Kane
This month’s article about the struggle of the workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to be compensated for their compromised safety on the job—“The Cost of Working at LANL”—concludes a three-part series that has also addressed the issue of pit production at LANL (“Bombs Away,” April 15, 2008) and the experience of the workers involved in the manufacture of nuclear weapons (“Voices of LANL,” June 15, 2008).
In April 2000, then Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Bill Richardson admitted for the first time that workers at nuclear weapons plants had been harmed by radiation and toxic poisoning. In October 2000, he pushed for President Bill Clinton to sign into law, becoming effective in July 2001, the Energy Employee Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA, “ee-ok-pah,” or the Act,) calling on stage a cast of acronyms that make the diminutives in Russian novels look easy. By the end of 2003, more than 23,000 sick nuclear weapons plant workers across the nation filed claims for compensation.
In 2004, DOE transferred the responsibility of EEOICPA to the Department of Labor (DOL). According to DOL, by July 21, 2008, the number of applications for compensation has swelled nationally to 165,382. Of the national total, 14,828 are from New Mexico, with 7,091 of them from workers (or their surviving spouses and dependent children) from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Broadly speaking, the Act offers compensation of $150,000 to employees of DOE, its contractors or subcontractors, and atomic weapons employers and payment of medical expenses from the date a claim is filed for radiation-induced cancers under Part B. Special Exposure Cohort Employees (SEC), a class of employees that includes those who were monitored, or should have been monitored, for radiological exposures while working in Technical Areas and whose dose reconstruction cannot be estimated accurately due to lack of records, are eligible, and so are workers with Chronic Beryllium Disease. The Act also offers, under Part E, limited compensation and payment of medical expenses to uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters, if their illness may be a result of toxic exposure other than radiation, that is, chemicals, solvents, acids and metals.
The variable $250,000 cap under Part E compensation is determined by wage loss, impairment and survivorship. Once the worker’s health impairment has stabilized and is unlikely to improve (called MMI or Maximum Medical Improvement), the compensation is calculated at $2,500 for each 1% of whole body impairment. In the face of such hair-splitting, one can understand the frustration experienced by claimants whom Jerry Leyba reports encountering.
Leyba is president of the Los Alamos Project on Worker’s Safety (LAPOWS), a grassroots advocacy organization that has been meeting regularly since 2002 on the last Wednesday of every other month in Española at the JCI Building behind Northern New Mexico College. The organization welcomes not only sick Taoseños who have worked at LANL and need help with their compensation applications but anyone interested in advocating for sick workers to attend the meetings (for information call 505-660-0632). For all the frustration applicants experience during the long and arduous claims process, they can find support and empathy in advocates like Leyba who are hanging in there to help them.
Paul Montoya worked at LANL in the weapons foundry in casting and metallurgy. He has been poisoned by both beryllium and plutonium. He has nodules in his lungs. There were two incidents, he says, when he had “1,000 counts in each nostril.” The plutonium gave him what is called a “body burden.” He is one of the lucky ones who obtained his records from his days at the Lab, but he says, “A lot of people are having a difficult time because the Lab is not helping people. DOL accepted me for medical benefits, but it’s difficult to get the money. I already have the card, but it doesn’t mean anything. It pays for respiratory and lung—like a car with a warranty that pays only for the transmission.”
EEOICPA’s list of facilities whose employees are eligible for compensation includes not only national nuclear weapons facilities such as Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California; and Los Alamos National Laboratory, but private contractors hired by the nuclear weapons industry as well. To get an idea of how the nuclear weapons industry permeates American society, the list of facilities and contractors approved by EEOICPA numbers over 350.
Many of the private companies employing nuclear weapons workers eligible for compensation have innocent-sounding names like Vulcan Tool Company, or American Chain and Cable Company, or Gruen Watch, and are spread over 42 states. The list also includes academic institutions like Princeton University, the University of Michigan, the University of Florida, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and New York University, to name a few.
Printed on paper, single-spaced, the list of chemicals, vapors, fumes and oils that Ben Ortiz was exposed to in the 20 years he worked at LANL as a welder runs the length of an 8 1/2 x 11” page. “In 1969 I hired on with the Lab, and by 1972, I was loaded with respiratory problems. They gave me a complete physical exam when I started,” he says. “I was healthy, healthy, healthy!” He worked in the facility where the accelerator was built. “Welding, soldering, handling radioactive oils with my bare hands, we were not issued any protection or told anything about the hazards of the chemicals. From 1972-89, I visited with about 25 doctors wanting to find out what was wrong with me. I had no idea it was my job.”
“My eyes give me so much problems,” Ortiz says. He has membranes growing from the corners of his eyes, which, if removed, would grow back. His eyes get inflamed “as red as a tomato,” he says, “and swell beyond the socket.” In 1983 he developed a chronic sleep disorder and still today, he cannot get to sleep. “If you read the occupational doctor’s report,” he says, “sleep [disorder] is one of the problems the list of organic solvents do to you. They attack your central nervous system. One of the doctors I was seeing said my whole body was damaged, even the brain cells—toxic encephalopathy. My train of thought is easily interrupted.”
One doctor told Ortiz his sleep problems were because he was too old. “I was 50 at the time,” the 71 year-old says. One psychologist to whom he was sent told him he was doing witchcraft and making himself sick. “They try to twist your mind, and if you are not strong, you could believe this stuff.” The Lab sent him to a psychiatrist. “I asked him if he knew about chemicals. He made a Spanish comment: ‘En boca cerrada no entran moscas,’ which means, ‘If your mouth is closed, a fly will not go in.’” In other words, shut up.
Just the carbon monoxide in traffic can close Ortiz’s airways, “and I can’t breathe. It affects my sinuses, I have headaches. I’ve lost my sense of smell and taste. My eyes, my head, I feel intoxicated—industrial intoxication. Whatever years I have left,” he says, “they are not good-feeling years—not a happy feeling.”
Last year, thanks to a bill sponsored by Speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives Ben Lujan, Governor Bill Richardson established an Office of Nuclear Worker’s Advocacy in Santa Fe under the directorship of Loretta Valerio. Valerio is a hands-on caseworker, getting involved personally in helping claimants document their compensation applications.
Ken Silver, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at East Tennessee State University, underscores the point that this technical assistance is not coming from the federal government or the Department of Labor, but from the State of New Mexico.
Silver, another sympathetic advocate of claimants, co-founded LAPOWS with Ortiz when Silver was a consultant to the University of New Mexico, while also completing his doctoral thesis at Boston University School of Public Health: “Public History and Public Health: A Community-Centered Approach to Environmental Health Concerns in Nuclear Weapons Communities.”
Silver believes “the key to success on worker issues is to keep the issues of stopping pit production and getting compensation for job-related illnesses separate. The objective is to do the work safely. But when the work has not been done safely, then you get people who feel they are deserving of compensation. What’s most unfair is that in most cases the burden of proof is on the claimant. The law does not provide the means to aggressively gather their work and medical records and to document them in order to demonstrate the exposure that caused their illness. The information is available to specialists. There are a few dozen specialists in the field of occupational medicine, but it’s very difficult to find the doctor who is not the ‘company doctor.’”
Silver has seen how hard it is for claimants to obtain documentation, even through avenues like the Freedom of Information Act. He asks, “Is that a fair burden to place on a claimant in his seventh, eighth, or ninth decade of his life? Now the government is asking them to research their documents and tell what went on at LANL, activities which in their day were kept secret.
“Some claimants are going to their graves uncompensated. The claims of beryllium and radiation workers go to their survivors. In the case of chemical exposures, if the workers die while the claim is pending, then the surviving spouse has to file all over again.”
Retired from clinical practice, Maureen Merritt, M.D. has become a consultant in occupational medicine. She founded her own advocacy group—New Mexico Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocates—and has had the satisfaction of helping several sick LANL workers turn the denial of their compensation around. “People just get tired and give up,” she explains. “I don’t like seeing the injustice.” Merritt is optimistic that the next presidential election will usher in a new administration that she hopes will be fairer to sick nuclear workers.
Attending LAPOWS monthly meetings when he can, Andrew Evaskovich is a security guard with Special Operations Consultants of Los Alamos, whose services are contracted by LANL. He also is on the side of sick workers at LANL. Believing that the records and air monitoring processes at LANL are inadequate, Evaskovich petitioned the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Office of Compensation Analysis and Support (OCAS), to expand Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) status to already granted claimants who worked at LANL between 1943 and 1975, thanks to a petition by Harriet Ruiz. He wants to add a class that covers contract security guards, laborers, and craft people—that is, electricians, sheet workers, plumbers and welders—who worked at LANL from January 1, 1976 to December 31, 2005. Because they move from job to job, they need to be exempt from having to reconstruct their doses of radiation or determining their probability of causation.
With his petition accepted for evaluation, the first step in the approval process, Evaskovich credits Congressman Tom Udall and his staff for helping him obtain reports he could not get on his own. “Udall’s office was instrumental in getting medical records preserved that DOE was going to allow to be destroyed, records important to anyone filing a claim,” he says. He is also grateful for the help of Ruiz and Valerio.
Having founded the advocacy group Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE), Marian Naranjo wants to improve the protocol in filing claims. “Most of the claimants from Santa Clara Pueblo have cancer,” she says, “but there are other problems—cirrhosis with people who never smoked or drank, tumors, melanomas, etc. They are elderly and ill, so that they are not really enjoying the benefits of their retirement.”
At the rally calling for EEOICPA reforms held in Española on June 25 outside the Energy Employee Compensation Resource Center offices, Naranjo brought drummers from the Santa Clara Pueblo to open the event by drumming, praying and singing. Leyba of LAPOWS hosted the rally at which Silver, Ortiz, and Merritt were among the speakers. According to Naranjo, the rally was attended by about 100 protestors. It was coordinated to be held simultaneously with other advocacy groups for sick nuclear weapons workers rallying in Cleveland, Ohio; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Denver, Colorado.
Of the thousands of sick LANL workers who have applied for compensation, how many have actually been compensated? According to DOL’s website, while EEOICPA has distributed almost $4 billion nationally to about a quarter of the claimants in the country, it paid $121,592,265 to 1,324 claimants from LANL. That means compensation has been paid to just 18.6%, one out of five of the 7,091 LANL workers who seek compensation.
“That’s over 80% denied,” Merritt points out. “Why isn’t it 70% compensated and 30% denied as it is with RECA, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act for uranium miners?” she asks. “One has to wonder why.”
By Suzy T. Kane
This month’s article about the struggle of the workers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to be compensated for their compromised safety on the job—“The Cost of Working at LANL”—concludes a three-part series that has also addressed the issue of pit production at LANL (“Bombs Away,” April 15, 2008) and the experience of the workers involved in the manufacture of nuclear weapons (“Voices of LANL,” June 15, 2008).In April 2000, then Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Bill Richardson admitted for the first time that workers at nuclear weapons plants had been harmed by radiation and toxic poisoning. In October 2000, he pushed for President Bill Clinton to sign into law, becoming effective in July 2001, the Energy Employee Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA, “ee-ok-pah,” or the Act,) calling on stage a cast of acronyms that make the diminutives in Russian novels look easy. By the end of 2003, more than 23,000 sick nuclear weapons plant workers across the nation filed claims for compensation.
In 2004, DOE transferred the responsibility of EEOICPA to the Department of Labor (DOL). According to DOL, by July 21, 2008, the number of applications for compensation has swelled nationally to 165,382. Of the national total, 14,828 are from New Mexico, with 7,091 of them from workers (or their surviving spouses and dependent children) from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Broadly speaking, the Act offers compensation of $150,000 to employees of DOE, its contractors or subcontractors, and atomic weapons employers and payment of medical expenses from the date a claim is filed for radiation-induced cancers under Part B. Special Exposure Cohort Employees (SEC), a class of employees that includes those who were monitored, or should have been monitored, for radiological exposures while working in Technical Areas and whose dose reconstruction cannot be estimated accurately due to lack of records, are eligible, and so are workers with Chronic Beryllium Disease. The Act also offers, under Part E, limited compensation and payment of medical expenses to uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters, if their illness may be a result of toxic exposure other than radiation, that is, chemicals, solvents, acids and metals.
The variable $250,000 cap under Part E compensation is determined by wage loss, impairment and survivorship. Once the worker’s health impairment has stabilized and is unlikely to improve (called MMI or Maximum Medical Improvement), the compensation is calculated at $2,500 for each 1% of whole body impairment. In the face of such hair-splitting, one can understand the frustration experienced by claimants whom Jerry Leyba reports encountering.
Leyba is president of the Los Alamos Project on Worker’s Safety (LAPOWS), a grassroots advocacy organization that has been meeting regularly since 2002 on the last Wednesday of every other month in Española at the JCI Building behind Northern New Mexico College. The organization welcomes not only sick Taoseños who have worked at LANL and need help with their compensation applications but anyone interested in advocating for sick workers to attend the meetings (for information call 505-660-0632). For all the frustration applicants experience during the long and arduous claims process, they can find support and empathy in advocates like Leyba who are hanging in there to help them.
Paul Montoya worked at LANL in the weapons foundry in casting and metallurgy. He has been poisoned by both beryllium and plutonium. He has nodules in his lungs. There were two incidents, he says, when he had “1,000 counts in each nostril.” The plutonium gave him what is called a “body burden.” He is one of the lucky ones who obtained his records from his days at the Lab, but he says, “A lot of people are having a difficult time because the Lab is not helping people. DOL accepted me for medical benefits, but it’s difficult to get the money. I already have the card, but it doesn’t mean anything. It pays for respiratory and lung—like a car with a warranty that pays only for the transmission.”
EEOICPA’s list of facilities whose employees are eligible for compensation includes not only national nuclear weapons facilities such as Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California; and Los Alamos National Laboratory, but private contractors hired by the nuclear weapons industry as well. To get an idea of how the nuclear weapons industry permeates American society, the list of facilities and contractors approved by EEOICPA numbers over 350.
Many of the private companies employing nuclear weapons workers eligible for compensation have innocent-sounding names like Vulcan Tool Company, or American Chain and Cable Company, or Gruen Watch, and are spread over 42 states. The list also includes academic institutions like Princeton University, the University of Michigan, the University of Florida, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and New York University, to name a few.
Printed on paper, single-spaced, the list of chemicals, vapors, fumes and oils that Ben Ortiz was exposed to in the 20 years he worked at LANL as a welder runs the length of an 8 1/2 x 11” page. “In 1969 I hired on with the Lab, and by 1972, I was loaded with respiratory problems. They gave me a complete physical exam when I started,” he says. “I was healthy, healthy, healthy!” He worked in the facility where the accelerator was built. “Welding, soldering, handling radioactive oils with my bare hands, we were not issued any protection or told anything about the hazards of the chemicals. From 1972-89, I visited with about 25 doctors wanting to find out what was wrong with me. I had no idea it was my job.”
“My eyes give me so much problems,” Ortiz says. He has membranes growing from the corners of his eyes, which, if removed, would grow back. His eyes get inflamed “as red as a tomato,” he says, “and swell beyond the socket.” In 1983 he developed a chronic sleep disorder and still today, he cannot get to sleep. “If you read the occupational doctor’s report,” he says, “sleep [disorder] is one of the problems the list of organic solvents do to you. They attack your central nervous system. One of the doctors I was seeing said my whole body was damaged, even the brain cells—toxic encephalopathy. My train of thought is easily interrupted.”
One doctor told Ortiz his sleep problems were because he was too old. “I was 50 at the time,” the 71 year-old says. One psychologist to whom he was sent told him he was doing witchcraft and making himself sick. “They try to twist your mind, and if you are not strong, you could believe this stuff.” The Lab sent him to a psychiatrist. “I asked him if he knew about chemicals. He made a Spanish comment: ‘En boca cerrada no entran moscas,’ which means, ‘If your mouth is closed, a fly will not go in.’” In other words, shut up.
Just the carbon monoxide in traffic can close Ortiz’s airways, “and I can’t breathe. It affects my sinuses, I have headaches. I’ve lost my sense of smell and taste. My eyes, my head, I feel intoxicated—industrial intoxication. Whatever years I have left,” he says, “they are not good-feeling years—not a happy feeling.”
Last year, thanks to a bill sponsored by Speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives Ben Lujan, Governor Bill Richardson established an Office of Nuclear Worker’s Advocacy in Santa Fe under the directorship of Loretta Valerio. Valerio is a hands-on caseworker, getting involved personally in helping claimants document their compensation applications.
Ken Silver, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at East Tennessee State University, underscores the point that this technical assistance is not coming from the federal government or the Department of Labor, but from the State of New Mexico.
Silver, another sympathetic advocate of claimants, co-founded LAPOWS with Ortiz when Silver was a consultant to the University of New Mexico, while also completing his doctoral thesis at Boston University School of Public Health: “Public History and Public Health: A Community-Centered Approach to Environmental Health Concerns in Nuclear Weapons Communities.”
Silver believes “the key to success on worker issues is to keep the issues of stopping pit production and getting compensation for job-related illnesses separate. The objective is to do the work safely. But when the work has not been done safely, then you get people who feel they are deserving of compensation. What’s most unfair is that in most cases the burden of proof is on the claimant. The law does not provide the means to aggressively gather their work and medical records and to document them in order to demonstrate the exposure that caused their illness. The information is available to specialists. There are a few dozen specialists in the field of occupational medicine, but it’s very difficult to find the doctor who is not the ‘company doctor.’”
Silver has seen how hard it is for claimants to obtain documentation, even through avenues like the Freedom of Information Act. He asks, “Is that a fair burden to place on a claimant in his seventh, eighth, or ninth decade of his life? Now the government is asking them to research their documents and tell what went on at LANL, activities which in their day were kept secret.
“Some claimants are going to their graves uncompensated. The claims of beryllium and radiation workers go to their survivors. In the case of chemical exposures, if the workers die while the claim is pending, then the surviving spouse has to file all over again.”
Retired from clinical practice, Maureen Merritt, M.D. has become a consultant in occupational medicine. She founded her own advocacy group—New Mexico Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocates—and has had the satisfaction of helping several sick LANL workers turn the denial of their compensation around. “People just get tired and give up,” she explains. “I don’t like seeing the injustice.” Merritt is optimistic that the next presidential election will usher in a new administration that she hopes will be fairer to sick nuclear workers.
Attending LAPOWS monthly meetings when he can, Andrew Evaskovich is a security guard with Special Operations Consultants of Los Alamos, whose services are contracted by LANL. He also is on the side of sick workers at LANL. Believing that the records and air monitoring processes at LANL are inadequate, Evaskovich petitioned the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Office of Compensation Analysis and Support (OCAS), to expand Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) status to already granted claimants who worked at LANL between 1943 and 1975, thanks to a petition by Harriet Ruiz. He wants to add a class that covers contract security guards, laborers, and craft people—that is, electricians, sheet workers, plumbers and welders—who worked at LANL from January 1, 1976 to December 31, 2005. Because they move from job to job, they need to be exempt from having to reconstruct their doses of radiation or determining their probability of causation.
With his petition accepted for evaluation, the first step in the approval process, Evaskovich credits Congressman Tom Udall and his staff for helping him obtain reports he could not get on his own. “Udall’s office was instrumental in getting medical records preserved that DOE was going to allow to be destroyed, records important to anyone filing a claim,” he says. He is also grateful for the help of Ruiz and Valerio.
Having founded the advocacy group Honor Our Pueblo Existence (HOPE), Marian Naranjo wants to improve the protocol in filing claims. “Most of the claimants from Santa Clara Pueblo have cancer,” she says, “but there are other problems—cirrhosis with people who never smoked or drank, tumors, melanomas, etc. They are elderly and ill, so that they are not really enjoying the benefits of their retirement.”
At the rally calling for EEOICPA reforms held in Española on June 25 outside the Energy Employee Compensation Resource Center offices, Naranjo brought drummers from the Santa Clara Pueblo to open the event by drumming, praying and singing. Leyba of LAPOWS hosted the rally at which Silver, Ortiz, and Merritt were among the speakers. According to Naranjo, the rally was attended by about 100 protestors. It was coordinated to be held simultaneously with other advocacy groups for sick nuclear weapons workers rallying in Cleveland, Ohio; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Denver, Colorado.
Of the thousands of sick LANL workers who have applied for compensation, how many have actually been compensated? According to DOL’s website, while EEOICPA has distributed almost $4 billion nationally to about a quarter of the claimants in the country, it paid $121,592,265 to 1,324 claimants from LANL. That means compensation has been paid to just 18.6%, one out of five of the 7,091 LANL workers who seek compensation.
“That’s over 80% denied,” Merritt points out. “Why isn’t it 70% compensated and 30% denied as it is with RECA, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act for uranium miners?” she asks. “One has to wonder why.”
Sunday, May 3
Sunday's Hale'iwa Farmer's Market
First time to the new Hale'iwa Farmers' Market, and it was great! You'll probably see friends of yours while you shop for local food, check out the Eco-Booths, eat, and enjoy the live music.
I discovered Sea Asparagus aka: halophyte salicornia. It's very tasty, nutritious, and of course ocean-fed-salty.
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Have you wondered how we here on an island could use sea water for growing crops?
Well, Wenhao H. Sun, can tell you about the Sea Asparagus he grows in Kahuku!
Sites to learn more about Seawater Farming
Seawater Farming: A Solution for Rishing Sea Levels, Food, Fuel Crises?
Microalgae's role in Restoring our Planet
Nature's Pharmacy
Laura Shiels, ethnobotanist, shares her thoughts, " . . . Plants provide all of our basic needs. They produce our air, clean our water and give us food, medicine and material and shelter," Shiels said. "I feel that if we lose our connection with the earth, we fall out of balance with the ecosystem and with our own humanity."
Check out her Class Schedule
Thursday, April 30
No Confidence in Flu Vaccine
Terence L. Kindlon, a lawyer for three nurses who sued the state, asserting that the order violated their civil rights, said the judge’s ruling was a victory. New York was the only state in the country to mandate vaccinations for health care workers, he said.
. . . . . . “They are health care professionals, and they think the vaccination is not going to be good for them. They have no confidence that either the seasonal flu vaccine or H1N1 vaccine is going to do any good for them.”
Justice McNamara consolidated the nurses’ suit with two other lawsuits, brought by the New York State Public Employees Federation and the New York State United Teachers Union, which also challenged the regulation.
Mr. Kindlon said of his clients: “They basically were being administratively ambushed. This regulation came out of the Health Department during the dog days of August. People weren’t aware of it until September. Then they were suddenly advised that the drop-dead rate for receiving the vaccination from the state was Nov. 30.”more
Saturday, April 25
The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
Following is a review of F. William Engdahl's new book
Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation
By Arun Shrivastava
The last three or four years have seen a number of books, documentaries and articles on the dangers of Genetically Modified (GM) seeds. Majority has focused on adverse health and environmental impact; almost none on the geo-politics of GM seeds, and particularly seeds as a weapon of mass destruction. Engdahl has addressed this issue but the crop seed is one of the many “Seeds of Destruction” in this book.
continued
Thursday, March 26
STOP Mandatory Vaccines - Boys Join the Target Market
Also Read: Death toll linked to Gardasil vaccine rises - Complications include shock, 'foaming at the mount.' convelsions, coma.
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff WriterBy Rob Stein
Thursday, March 26, 2009
When a Merck & Co. vaccine designed to protect girls against a sexually transmitted virus arrived three years ago, the debate centered on one question: Would the shots make young girls more likely to have sex?
That's the wrong question. First you ask IS IT SAFE?!?!?
Thursday, March 19
White House to break ground on 'kitchen garden'
Obamas to Plant White House Vegetable Garden
WASHINGTON — On Friday, Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of White House lawn to plant a vegetable garden, the first since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II. There will be no beets (the president doesn’t like them) but arugula will make the cut.
While the organic garden will provide food for the first family’s meals and formal dinners, its most important role, Mrs. Obama said, will be to educate children about healthful, locally grown fruit and vegetables at time when obesity has become a national concern.
In an interview in her office, Mrs. Obama said, “My hope is that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities.”the rest of the article
Tuesday, March 17
Wednesday, March 4
Edible Gardens & Mini-Farms
Edible Gardens & Mini-Farms
Many schools around the world have planted edible gardens that they use to grow vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers. The students plant the gardens and then raise, harvest, and eat the crops, improving their nutrition, their knowledge about plant growth, and their patience.
Some schools have created urban or suburban "mini-farms" that house farm animals such as goats, sheep, chickens, and rabbits on the school grounds. Students practice animal husbandry, collect eggs, make manure compost, and learn skills that are typically rural while living in non-rural settings.
Sunday, March 1
Allotments: a very British passion, Why not HERE!
Bloom and bust: tilling the soil is the perfect antidote to economic misery
Allotments were introduced by philanthropic Victorians to provide a healthy diet and lifestyle for factory workers – and today, when their appeal has crossed the class divide, they offer the same benefits. To nurture a tiny seed until it becomes a plump pumpkin or parsnip fulfils a basic human instinct; digging the first new potato is better for body and soul than turning into one on a couch in front of the TV or laptop.
From the UK - Grow Your Own Food
How to grow
If you start with four beds, each 3m x 1m, you can go a long way to producing a good range of fruit and vegetables. The late John Seymour (author of The Self Sufficient Gardener) worked out that nine square metres of deep bed could keep an adult in vegetables all year.
Deep beds encourage the roots to grow down, not sideways, resulting in bigger vegetables that you can grow closer together. Edging the beds with chunky timber to raise them 20cm or so above the ground, makes it easier to achieve a good two spades deep of workable topsoil (with homemade compost, manure or loam).The office vegetable patch should become part of the working environment as part of a National Trust drive to get more people growing their own fruit and vegetables.
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The Trust is calling for allotments to be set up by employers in a move which will also help workers 'reconnect' with the land and enhance food security.
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"In the past growing fruit and vegetables tended to be a hobby for the older generation who had had the time to practice and perfect their growing technique over a period of time whereas now we're seeing a swell of popularity for grow your own across the whole population and particularly with younger generations who haven't had the time to practice," he said.
* ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^ * ^
Food and Magic, Grow your own Food!
Food and Magic - appropriate even now, though made in 1943
Garden of Eatin'
Kitchen Garden Day 2006
Garden of Eatin'
Kitchen Garden Day 2006
The Gardasil Vaccine: Bad Medicine?
The Gardasil Vaccine: Bad Medicine?
Also READ: Death toll linked to Gardasil vaccine rises
Complications include shock, 'foaming at mouth,' convulsions, coma
Complications include shock, 'foaming at mouth,' convulsions, coma
Parents should think hard and do their research before submitting their young daughters as guinea pigs for the under-tested, possibly harmful human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.
By Anastacia Mott Austin
While making sandwiches for my children’s lunch, I glance at the calendar on the refrigerator. Tomorrow my 11-year-old daughter has an appointment with her doctor to update her vaccinations.
She's about to become a test subject for the American government's plan to inject all little girls her age with an inadequately tested, hormone-altering, and potentially carcinogenic vaccine.
The cancer that is caused by the disease she’ll be vaccinated for affects just one-hundredth of one percent of adult American women. The makers of this vaccine have made it clear that their product could not be tested for its ability to prevent this cancer.
Nobody in the study, control or placebo group, contracted the cancer. This is because its incubation period is 15-20 years; most women who have it (average age: 47) contracted the virus which caused it in their thirties. The longest test trial was less than four years. The vaccine’s makers state that the effectiveness of this vaccine is five years, maximum. This means my daughter will need at least four booster shots after the age of eleven.
What the drug makers do not mention is that this is the most expensive vaccine ever made, at $360 per three-shot series. They do not tell me about the vaccine's known carcinogenic and estrogenic compounds that will be injected into the body of my pre-pubescent little girl, or the fact that the shot has not been tested to find out if it can potentially cause more cases of cancer than it is supposed to prevent.
They do not tell me that twice as many children are having side effects such as "collapsing" as with the Tdap shot. For safety's sake, the National Vaccine Information Center advises that girls getting the vaccine should be lying down when receiving it, and should not walk or drive home after getting it.
They can't tell me what this vaccine will do to my daughter, because it hasn't even been tested on a large enough sample of children her age. They, of course, would not tell me that the makers of this vaccine have had thousands of lawsuits over previous medications they have put on the market prematurely that have caused injury and death.
Can I refuse this dangerous, experimental treatment if I do not want to have my child used in this way, so the pharmaceutical company (which will profit approximately 2 billion dollars a year on this vaccine) can find out exactly what it will do to little girls not even at puberty yet? Until recently, not if I live in Texas .
On February 2, 2007, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order mandating that all girls in the state entering sixth grade receive the new human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil. Made by the drug company Merck (the makers of Vioxx), Gardasil has been heavily promoted as an anti-cervical cancer vaccine. It claims to protect against four of the 100 strains of the human papillomavirus, which some studies have shown can cause cervical cancer.
By signing an executive order, Governor Perry bypassed the Texas Legislature completely, saving himself a possibly lengthy battle to make this vaccine mandatory. By mandating the vaccine, it comes under the federal vaccine protection laws, and Merck cannot be sued if the vaccine turns out to be harmful. Why would he do this? Could it be a coincidence that three days before this decision, Merck made a campaign contribution to Perry?
This decision caused a firestorm of protest on all sides. Conservatives took offense at the implication that their little girls would become sexually active, and possibly contract a sexually transmitted disease. Others resented state intrusion into parenting decisions, claiming that the government should not be mandating anything for schoolchildren involving STD prevention. Until now, almost all state-mandated vaccines were for diseases that could be transmitted by coughing or not washing hands at school.
Feminists demanded to know; why just the girls? Where did we think these girls were getting HPV? Just because HPV is asymptomatic in men (as it is in 99.99 percent of women) and there is less cancer risk, why only vaccinate half of the population that can transmit the disease?
Others found it difficult to understand how a vaccine that had not been effectively tested for toxic side effects could be steamrolled onto the public so quickly. The vaccine was only approved by the FDA in June of last year, and almost immediately added to the childhood vaccination schedule. Why the rush?
First of all, Merck is the same company responsible for Vioxx. Accused of failing to disclose that Vioxx raised heart attack risk significantly in cardiac patients, Merck is being sued by of thousands of plaintiffs. The Vioxx disaster could end up costing Merck billions of dollars. Some have called Gardasil the HPV—Help Pay for Vioxx—vaccine.
What else could explain this rush to market a vaccine that has largely not been tested on its targeted subjects (girls aged 11-19), has not been tested for cancer-causing effects, and has not been tested long-term at all?
Merck's case studies for the HPV vaccine (paid for by Merck) included only 1200 test subjects under the age of 16, and the drug was only tested for an average of 18 months. This is not nearly enough time to test for the long-term side effects of a vaccine that will be used on young girls just entering adolescence.
The Gardasil vaccine contains Polysorbate 80 (also known as Tween 80), a known carcinogen. In addition, this ingredient has been shown to have estrogenic alterative effects and cause reproductive disturbances in rats:
Previous studies…have shown that Polysorbate 80 administered by intraperitoneal injection to neonatal female rats on days 4-7 after birth produced estrogenic effects including earlier vaginal opening, prolongation of the estrus cycle and persistent vaginal estrus. Some of these effects were evident many weeks after cessation of administration of Polysorbate 80 [Gajdova et al. Food Chem Toxicol 31(3):183-90 (1993)].
We don't know what those estrogenic effects would be on the developing bodies of pre-adolescent girls. The statistics being reported to the Vaccine Adverse Effect Response System (VAEECS) are already troubling:
"Because Merck only studied Gardasil in fewer than 1200 girls under age 16 in prelicensure trials, it is critical that doctors and parents be made aware of the nature of the initial adverse event reports coming into VAERS and that they report serious health problems after vaccination when they occur," said NVIC President Barbara Loe Fisher. "There are twice as many children collapsing after getting a Gardasil vaccination compared to those getting a Tdap (tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis) vaccination. There have been reports of facial paralysis and Guillain-Barre Syndrome. And doctors who give Gardasil in combination with other vaccines are basically conducting an experiment on their young patients because Merck has not published any safety data for simultaneous vaccination with any vaccine except hepatitis B vaccine"
Despite serious concerns about this vaccine, more than 29 states are currently considering mandating it for middle-school aged girls. Texas Governor Perry is not the only one to have felt the pressure by Merck's heavy lobbying.
Fortunately, the Texas legislature did not appreciate being bypassed by Perry, and responded to overwhelming feedback from parents, doctors, and educators by overturning the order mandating the HPV vaccine in Texas. Several states considering the vaccine have responded similarly with differing requirements for the vaccine, though many are still in the process of deciding the issue.
Why not use the billions of dollars that will be going to Merck, and instead fund a campaign to make HPV screening and Pap smears (far cheaper and more effective tools for fighting cervical cancer) free and accessible to everyone?
Most American parents willingly take their children into the pediatrician's office to get regularly scheduled vaccinations. They believe their doctors that vaccines are safe and effective, and will not harm their children. They do not ask questions about the ingredients in the shots, or what effects they might have on young children.
I am not one of them. Luckily, I live in California, not Texas, and I can still say no to this vaccine.
I look again at the calendar on the fridge. Angrily, I open the drawer next to it and take out a big, black marker. I cross out the appointment time with a decisive black stripe.
We will never wait outside of a doctor's office for an experimental and dangerous treatment that has not been properly tested. Being an informed parent is part of my duty to my children, and I will never take on blind faith the recommendation of someone who profits from his or her own advice.
I do not trust the pharmaceutical industry to make decisions for me about my children's health, and I cannot honestly understand those who do.
Why? Because it's bad medicine.
By Buzzle Staff and Agencies
Published: 7/1/2007
Cash Crop - Legalizing Pot
Legalizing Pot: Saving California from Cash Crunch
by BUCE MIRKEN (ALTERNET)
The bill, the first of its kind ever introduced in California, would create a regulatory structure similar to that used for beer, wine, and liquor, permitting taxed sales to adults while barring sales to or possession by those under 21.
Estimates based on federal government statistics have shown marijuana to be California's top cash crop, valued at approximately $14 billion in 2006 -- nearly twice the combined value of the state's number two and three crops, vegetables ($5.7 billion) and grapes ($2.6 billion) -- in spite of massive "eradication" efforts that wipe out an average of nearly 36,000 cultivation sites per year without making a dent in this underground industry.
Ammiano introduced the measure at a San Francisco press conference this morning, saying, "With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move towards regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense.
Saturday, February 28
Tuesday, February 17
Counterthink Comics
What the Drug Companies Really Want (comic)
9/5/2008 - (NaturalNews) Ever wonder how the drug companies REALLY want to sell pharmaceuticals? Here's the answer: Through vending machines! Bypass the doctors, advertise drugs directly to consumers, and get them...
Health Choices Threatened
Did you know that your ability to choose natural health products or therapeutic foods is severely threatened through a global effort, masterminded by governments and transnational corporations?
Drug Co. Seeks to Oulaw B6 to protect Pharma Profits
Medicure Pharma’s attempt to ban the natural, bioactive form of vitamin B6"By all accounts, natural health products are the safest products we put in our mouths—being safer than foods, and much safer than licensed pharmaceutical drugs."
Sunday, February 15
Wednesday, January 28
Gardening Organically
Here in Hawaii, we're lucky to have fruit growing wild all around us, just walk down the street and you'll find
mmm, a Mango tree,
best taste in the world!
bananas, guava, papaya, avocado, mountain apples, oranges, grapefruit, lychee, and more!
I must admit, I get my produce at the neighborhood Farmer's Market,
but maybe one day, I'll at least grow some herbs and tomatoes - easy!
Backyard Farming is an idea many dream of, so let's do it this spring.
There's alot to learn, but learning is fun - mostly.
Then there's the noni tree -
worst taste, but 'good for you'.
Photos of food at Photos of Aloha
Here's another good site - with lots of gardeners from different locales.
mmm, a Mango tree,
best taste in the world!bananas, guava, papaya, avocado, mountain apples, oranges, grapefruit, lychee, and more!
I must admit, I get my produce at the neighborhood Farmer's Market,
but maybe one day, I'll at least grow some herbs and tomatoes - easy!
Backyard Farming is an idea many dream of, so let's do it this spring.
There's alot to learn, but learning is fun - mostly.
Then there's the noni tree -
worst taste, but 'good for you'.Photos of food at Photos of Aloha
Here's another good site - with lots of gardeners from different locales.
Saturday, January 24
Drug-Resistant Bacteria Attacking Injured US Soldiers In Iraq
Article Date: 22 May 2007 - 9:00 PDT
US soldiers in Iraq do not carry the bacteria responsible for difficult-to-treat wound infections found in military hospitals treating soldiers wounded in Iraq, according to an article published electronically, in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. The article will appear in the June issue of the journal.
Investigator Matthew E. Griffith, MD, (Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas) and colleagues found that drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-baumannii complex are not present on the skin of uninjured soldiers in Iraq, as had been expected.
A. calcoaceticus-baumannii complex is an important cause of trauma-associated and hospital-acquired infection throughout the world, and multidrug-resistant strains of the bacteria have been infecting injured soldiers treated in US military hospitals in Iraq.
"We need to know where these infections are coming from," explains Dr. Griffith. "One of the possibilities was that A. calcoaceticus-baumannii was on the soldiers' skin before injury and simply traveled to the wound site to cause the infection. However, our research shows that this is not the case."
Although the consequences of the outbreak A. calcoaceticus-baumannii infection in US military hospitals serving soldiers wounded in Iraq are well described, the source of the outbreak is unknown.
To determine whether A. calcoaceticus-baumannii complex is carried on the skin of healthy US Army soldiers, investigators cultured skin swab specimens from 102 active military soldiers stationed at a base in Iraq. The base is in an environment representative of all Iraqi environments with desert, irrigated farmland and an urban area nearby.
Several previous reports have described skin carriage of Acinetobacter species in healthy people. The carriage rates have been found to vary with climate and geography. These reports may not be generalizable to US Army soldiers in Iraq, which has an extremely dry climate.
"If skin carriage is not the source of A. calcoaceticus-baumannii complex infection, then the other possibility is that the bacteria contaminates the wounds after injury," explains Dr. Griffith. "This could happen while an injured soldier is awaiting treatment or in the hospital during or after receiving medical care."
"This observation refutes the concept that the bacterium is acquired prior to injury among soldiers deployed to Iraq," Dr. Griffith says. "In addition, this observation adds to the ever growing body of evidence implicating nosocomial transmission as the cause of the ongoing military outbreak."
Because of this and similar research, an increased emphasis on infection control has been put in place in the US military's combat hospitals.
Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology provides original, peer-reviewed scientific articles for anyone involved with an infection control or epidemiology program in a hospital or healthcare facility. Written by infection control practitioners and epidemiologists and guided by an editorial board composed of the nation's leaders in the field, ICHE provides a critical forum for this vital information.
Contact: Amy Jenkins
University of Chicago Press Journals
----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
----------------------------
See info that HELPS HEAL !
more info
US soldiers in Iraq do not carry the bacteria responsible for difficult-to-treat wound infections found in military hospitals treating soldiers wounded in Iraq, according to an article published electronically, in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology. The article will appear in the June issue of the journal.
Investigator Matthew E. Griffith, MD, (Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas) and colleagues found that drug-resistant strains of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-baumannii complex are not present on the skin of uninjured soldiers in Iraq, as had been expected.
A. calcoaceticus-baumannii complex is an important cause of trauma-associated and hospital-acquired infection throughout the world, and multidrug-resistant strains of the bacteria have been infecting injured soldiers treated in US military hospitals in Iraq.
"We need to know where these infections are coming from," explains Dr. Griffith. "One of the possibilities was that A. calcoaceticus-baumannii was on the soldiers' skin before injury and simply traveled to the wound site to cause the infection. However, our research shows that this is not the case."
Although the consequences of the outbreak A. calcoaceticus-baumannii infection in US military hospitals serving soldiers wounded in Iraq are well described, the source of the outbreak is unknown.
To determine whether A. calcoaceticus-baumannii complex is carried on the skin of healthy US Army soldiers, investigators cultured skin swab specimens from 102 active military soldiers stationed at a base in Iraq. The base is in an environment representative of all Iraqi environments with desert, irrigated farmland and an urban area nearby.
Several previous reports have described skin carriage of Acinetobacter species in healthy people. The carriage rates have been found to vary with climate and geography. These reports may not be generalizable to US Army soldiers in Iraq, which has an extremely dry climate.
"If skin carriage is not the source of A. calcoaceticus-baumannii complex infection, then the other possibility is that the bacteria contaminates the wounds after injury," explains Dr. Griffith. "This could happen while an injured soldier is awaiting treatment or in the hospital during or after receiving medical care."
"This observation refutes the concept that the bacterium is acquired prior to injury among soldiers deployed to Iraq," Dr. Griffith says. "In addition, this observation adds to the ever growing body of evidence implicating nosocomial transmission as the cause of the ongoing military outbreak."
Because of this and similar research, an increased emphasis on infection control has been put in place in the US military's combat hospitals.
Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology provides original, peer-reviewed scientific articles for anyone involved with an infection control or epidemiology program in a hospital or healthcare facility. Written by infection control practitioners and epidemiologists and guided by an editorial board composed of the nation's leaders in the field, ICHE provides a critical forum for this vital information.
Contact: Amy Jenkins
University of Chicago Press Journals
----------------------------
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
----------------------------
See info that HELPS HEAL !
more info
Saturday, December 27
Working together as Partners
Make Love Last
By Elizabeth Marglin
It’s hard to believe that after those lofty vows of marriage, a relationship could break up because of something as mundane as dishes left in the sink or the protocols of reading in bed. Yet even the most evolved relationships get snagged in the pettiest of disputes. And the current recession only makes things worse, warns Stephanie Coontz, marriage historian and author of Marriage, a History (Penguin Books, 2005). “During economic stress, we tend not to notice what’s going well and what our partner does that makes life easier. We only notice the irritations,” she says.
As the downbeat comments start to build up, you find yourselves going into negativity override, and the default mode of your interactions becomes the blame game. That’s when the fights start to escalate—within the situation-specific “you didn’t take out the trash” remark lurks the global “you never do your share” accusation. Harshness and contempt often incite regrettable words and actions. Each partner is then left alone to lick his or her wounds, no one dares revisit the turf voluntarily, and the feelings that had been ignited are left to smolder until the next blowout.
Monica and Ian Mathews of Madison, Wisconsin, who struggle frequently in their marriage and say they are on the verge of separating, are all too familiar with this scenario. “When we fight, we’re already stressed out, we are running out the door, and we haven’t been communicating for a while,” Monica says. “I’ll usually start with a not-so-skillful intro, and then Ian will get very quiet, which makes it worse.”
It’s a classic disaster pattern, the snowballing of defensiveness, criticism, and lack of communication, and it can suck the lifeblood out of a relationship. That’s the bad news. The good news is that unhappy couples can learn to emulate happy ones by adopting their simple strategies—praise, humor, and affection—even under duress.
John Gottman, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington who is renowned for his work on the “masters and disasters” of marriage, has developed a practical—in fact, quantifiable—approach to couples therapy. It applies pattern recognition to measuring and predicting marital stability or the likelihood of divorce. “What he found,” says Coontz, “is that it’s not the negative things that make or break a relationship. It’s the ratio of five positive acts of appreciation, love, and respect to every one negative occurrence.”
Doesn’t sound too hard, does it? But when was the last time you gave your significant other five compliments in a single day? You can probably remember effortlessly the last time you let rip at least one criticism (constructive, of course). It may sound a bit facile to believe that the secret to familial harmony is piling on the praise, but statistics are hard to dispute (see “The Numbers Game” on page 75). So we talked to a few experts and some of our own “master” and wannabe master couples (no disasters here) to come up with a simple game plan to help your relationship stay strong even when you feel like you’re losing your foundation.
Express your appreciation
Think of positive interactions with your partner—laughing together, holding hands, committing intentional acts of kindness—as small deposits made to your joint emotional bank account. You want to have a substantial amount of positives in reserve to buffer the withdrawals made by criticism and conflict. This is the single most important thing you can do to nurture any relationship (try it with your kids too). Consistent kindness, especially in the face of conflict, creates a currency of gratitude and goodwill. And you might be surprised how much you need appreciation. Adam Philips, a London-based psychoanalyst, suggests our wish for praise might be even stronger than our wish to be loved or understood.
Unfortunately, it seems like we grudgingly resist praising those we love. “Most people feel that criticism works, and they do it for their partner’s good,” says Kathlyn Hendricks, PhD, cofounder of The Hendricks Institute, a conscious-living learning center in Ojai, California. “In fact, it’s the No. 1 relationship killer.” She’s a strong believer in the five-to-one ratio—sharing five positives for every negative—but finds that very few couples really know how to achieve it. “We need to learn how to customize appreciation and find out how our partner likes to receive it: Some like public displays, others like written notes, others respond to gifts and gestures.” Sometimes the most powerful expression of appreciation highlights the habitually overlooked—the things your partner does but doesn’t draw attention to.
Do damage control
Gottman’s research shows that positivity, especially during fights, is one of the strongest predictors of a relationship’s longevity. Even though being affectionate during an argument sounds nearly impossible, therein lies the secret to connubial bliss. Women tend to initiate the exchange, says Gottman, but they do so harshly, launching in with a rebuke that is a general criticism, such as, “You’re so lazy—you never help with the chores.” Rather than attacking your partner’s character, try starting with a situation-specific comment, like, “I get really frustrated when you pile your dishes in the sink.” If and when tensions escalate, that is the time to turn toward your partner, both literally and figuratively, rather than away. Use humor, affection, interest, and empathy to help you connect with what your partner is feeling. Hendricks recommends trying to say something you genuinely appreciate about your partner in that moment, even if the only thing you can come up with is that the person is still with you.
Turn on the attunement
Real appreciation requires a fundamental cognitive shift to see and praise what is, rather than rue what is not. To make this shift, you have to clearly see the emotional backdrop—made up of learned reactions, fears, and inner struggles—against which you and your partner act out your relationship. “When we’re able to observe our reactions, we’re better able to modulate them,” says Timothy Stokes, a psychologist and marriage therapist in Boulder, Colorado, and author of What Freud Didn’t Know (Rutgers University Press, 2010). “If we can’t see these reactions, the fight-or-flight response usually takes over.” That’s what Gottman refers to as “flooding”—the amped-up feeling when your cortisol lets loose, blood pumps, and face flushes. It’s not a particularly receptive state. The brain, to conserve energy, shuts down, limiting perception and new information. What kicks in instead, says Stokes, is some version of an old, almost primal memory of feeling fundamentally threatened.
For Stokes, the flood of these old emotional memories acts like blinders, getting in the way of our ability to be present with our partner. But once we come to terms with our own hot spots, we also become more aware of when our partner’s reactions seem over the top, hinting at a deeper hurt. “Our assumptions about the situation change, and we can more compassionately tune in to how the other has been hurt.” We learn to sense just how far to dig down and when to move on, navigating the tricky terrain of the heart with heightened awareness and compassion.
Cultivate curiosity
One common denominator of couples headed for divorce is a lack of curiosity about each other’s inner lives, says Gottman. So try to build a map of your partner’s world—likes and dislikes, fears and dreams, quirks and peeves. By learning to see your spouse in all his fullness, completely autonomous from you, you slowly familiarize yourself with an equally valid reality that is not your own. You find something in his story that you can understand, even if you strongly disagree with it.
Joseph Prunty, of Philadelphia, attributes his marital success to the curiosity he and his wife share about what makes each other tick. “It gives us an entry point to each other’s motivations—intellectual, emotional, and to some degree spiritual,” he says. “I need that for camaraderie’s sake: the shared experiences, the pursuit of mutual goals, the feeling of teamwork.”
Accept influence
To have a true partnership, both parties must be open to accepting influence from the other, explains Gottman, and women tend to do this more naturally than men. Yes, it’s the “C” word—compromise—and for such a mild word, the experience can be shockingly torturous, as if ceding ground equals personal invalidation. “Choosing what’s good for the relationship over one’s own thoughts and feelings, doing what works instead of what you want, is the way to openness, growth, and positivity,” says Robyn Walser, PhD, coauthor of The Mindful Couple (New Harbinger, 2009). For Prunty, that means learning to live with the dishes his spouse leaves in the sink, while for Ian Mathews, it means listening to Monica process more than he feels the situation warrants.
When all else fails, humor can work miracles. So can being the first to say, “I’m sorry,” even if you feel your partner had been in the wrong. But as for the special sauce that makes a marriage juicy, vital, and satisfying, it seems praise and appreciation work any day. Counting the ways that you love someone isn’t just for maudlin Victorian poets; numbers and romance, it turns out, make passionate bedfellows.
Elizabeth Marglin would like to thank her husband for always cleaning the kitty litter.
The Numbers Game
96% The chance that, once an argument begins harshly, it will stay that way or just get worse.
50% The frequency with which people in unhappy relationships miss their partner’s positive attempts at connection.
80% How often the woman brings up issues in the relationship as opposed to the man.
69% Amount of fights that bring up old, unresolved issues.
25 The number of separate studies that confirm a drop, often quite steep, in marital satisfaction after the transition to parenthood.
4 Number of years children of divorced parents have their life expectancy shortened.
40% How much more money married men make compared to single guys.
62% The number of people who rank sharing household chores third in importance for what makes a marriage successful—just below good sex and faithfulness.
78% The number of unhappy marriages repaired within five years.
Sources: University of Washington; Gottman Institute; Stephanie Coontz; Child Development; The Case for Marriage by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher; Pew Research Institute; Psychology Today
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