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Becky daughter Li Ana birth grandmother EditorMom
Since 2003, nearly 15 per cent of Iraq's total population have fled their homes—50 per cent of them children. Out of an estimated 4 million displaced Iraqis, approximately 1.9 million have sought refuge inside Iraq (around 700,000 in 2006 alone) and 2.2 million have crossed the border into neighbouring countries according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Amongst those fleeing are doctors, nurses and teachers—a devastating brain-drain leaving many Iraqi schoolchildren without access to quality education and basic health care. More than 750,000 Iraqis have sought safety in Jordan and over 1.25 million in Syria where, despite support from government and local communities, they now face an uncertain future. Iraq's children, already casualties of a quarter of a century of conflict and deprivation, are being caught up in a rapidly worsening humanitarian tragedy.To make a donation specifically to help Iraqi children, go here.
Despite a strong response from the international community, the needs of Iraq's vulnerable young citizens are quickly outstripping available help. Regional resources to cope with the influx are being stretched to the limit. Inside Iraq and abroad, families are spending the last of their life savings to rent homes and to purchase basic supplies for survival. Many people are now reaching the very limit of their coping strategies. The need to act is urgent.
UNICEF is therefore requesting US$ 41,750,000 to step up its humanitarian relief effort for vulnerable Iraqi children and women in Iraq, Jordan and Syria over the next six months. ...
Dear Dr. Brothers: I heard an author talking on the radio about so-called adult ADD [actually called AD/HD, or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder]. He gave a list of symptoms that includes such stuff as being unable to concentrate, forgetting things, having moments of clarity mixed with fogginess, etc. I listened to all the symptoms, but they confused me more than ever. It could describe me—but on the other hand, I think it could describe just about anyone who has a busy life, not enough time and a fair amount of stress. Are we making everything into a disorder or condition, or should I go for testing and see if I have a problem? —D.D.I don't think that the good doctor has yet joined the twenty-first century; she is apparently still in the age when trepanation was done to release the evil spirits that mental disorders were thought to be. My husband and I have just fired off a letter to her expressing our dismay and disbelief at her mischaracterization of AD/HD and the harm that she may have done:
Dear D.D.: Adult attention-deficit disorder is one of those phenomena that are made for people who consider themselves to be a bit of a hypochondriac. It's not going to kill you, but the symptoms are so vague and widespread that just about anyone could decide that he or she is suffering from its effects. And since there is no real definitive test to tell you whether you have it or not, it can provide hours of speculation and worry.
When we were young, this was a condition that hadn't been defined. Instead, kids like this were called derogatory names in school—lazy, unfocused, distractible, hyper, forgetful, immature and so forth. But a parent with the same faults? Usually the parents "grew up," and whether they were problem kids in school or not, most everyone managed to further their education and get some kind of a job and settle down. They were functioning OK until today, when the medical profession told them otherwise and gave them a label. What if you do have adult ADD? Will you take medication? Or will you just decide to muddle through? You can consult your doctor, or just say the heck with it and keep muddling through. It's your choice.
As members of a family with three generations with diagnosed AD/HD treated with medication and therapy, we are appalled at the unprofessional advice about adult AD/HD in your column of April 17, 2007, which we found online. (We are members of CHADD, Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. We were alerted only recently to that particular column by E. Clarke Ross, CHADD’s CEO.)Want to help educate Dr. Brothers? Please write her:
We expected much better from you, a long-respected psychologist. You wrote that adult AD/HD is "one of those phenomena that are made for people who consider themselves to be a bit of a hypochondriac" and that adults should just "muddle through."
Hypochondriac? We wish that you could have spent a week with our family and observed our 12-year-old son’s struggles in school and socially; 45-year-old Edward’s struggles on the job, in our marriage, and as a parent; and the interpersonal struggles experienced in many life arenas by Edward’s father A.K., 71, all caused by their AD/HD before they began treatment for it. We ask that you read our story, written by Katharine and posted on her blog here. Then tell us, face-to-face, that we are all hypochondriacs. Tell us that we imagined the chaos, the hurt feelings and misunderstandings, the communication difficulties that we experienced daily before the guys began treatment. Even with treatment, there are still difficulties in these areas. Tell us that Edward and A.K. should just have “grown up” and “settled down,” that AD/HD is not a lifelong disability. Not that there haven’t been good days in our home over the years, but we didn’t imagine the bad ones. Therapy and medications have made huge changes for the better in all three guys’ lives, and thus in our family life.
Please, before you do more damage to the psyches of countless people with AD/HD, learn the facts. Read the latest research; CHADD can help you get started with that. Even Katharine, not a physician or mental health professional but a medical copyeditor, can provide you with plenty of online reading material on the subject. Out of self-defense from living in the "House of AD/HD," she’s amassed a great many links.
Data-mining companies and the pharmaceutical industry argue that the practice has value far beyond the corporate bottom line. The information helps companies, federal health agencies and others educate physicians about drugs, track whether prescribing habits change in response to continuing medical education programs, and promote higher-quality care, they say. They stress that patient names are encrypted early in the process and cannot be accessed, even by the data-mining companies.Do you believe that part about the inaccessibility of patients' names? I sure don't, knowing, as I do, about the federal database that monitors who gets what prescription drugs that are considered controlled substances (such as meds for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [AD/HD]).
"We don't like the practice, and we want it to stop," said Jean Silver-Isenstadt, executive director of the National Physicians Alliance, a two-year-old group with 10,000 members, most of them young doctors in training. ... "We think it's a contaminant to the doctor–patient relationship, and it's driving up costs."According to the NPA's web site, the organization is supporting anti–data-mining bills in various state legislatures. That's great, but this fight needs to get nationwide recognition. You need to get involved by writing your senators and representatives, at both the state level and the national level. Need more proof that this is a huge underground problem that leaves you with drugs you might not need, at a higher cost than they otherwise would be?
Currently, retail pharmacies sell de-identified patient prescription records with limited physician identifiers to data intermediaries known as health information organizations (HIOs). [Using the AMA's masterfile], HIOs can link individual physicians to prescription records by using identifiers common to the pharmacy databases and the AMA database, such as a physician's U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and medical license numbers. They also can track a physician's demographic and practice characteristics. The HIOs build prescribing profiles on the basis of these linked databases and sell them to pharmaceutical companies, which use the profiles to identify sales targets and plan detailing visits.All during the courting of physicians, pharmaceutical sales reps tell the docs that their patients really need the giant's meds instead of the meds they've been prescribing. They help change the docs' prescribing habits in the particular pharmaceutical's favor (favor here = $$$$), which may not necessarily be in your favor (favor here = health).
Four out of five doctors surveyed said they let drug and device makers buy them food and drinks despite recent efforts to tighten ethics rules and avoid conflicts of interest.
The national survey also found that family doctors were more likely to meet with industry sales representatives, and that cardiologists were more likely to pocket fees than other specialists. ...
The survey, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, was done by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Yale University and the University of Melbourne in Australia. ...
After [Kate has spent] nearly a month in and out of the hospital (mostly in) fighting an infection related to her polycystic kidney disease, we were informed by the medical staff today that there is nothing more they can do for her. In accordance with my mom's wishes, and in consultation with my dad, my mom was removed from life-supporting measures today and will transition to hospice care tomorrow. She is sleeping quietly now and will be surrounded by her family over the next week.
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Fun is much needed, so I say
When medical editing has come my way.
Spring has sprung so fair and so green
That if work I must, I'll need be o'erseen.
The flowers, so fragrant and so bright
Will soon daze you too, am I right?
I am not good at rhyming verse,
So please don't say my name and curse.