Recently in health Category

The Asylum story yesterday about drink spiking is perhaps one of the worst cases of irresponsible journalism I have seen in quite some time. This is probably because I don't often read the dregs of web media, but it's still pretty bad. Citing a study of Australian "drink spiking victims", Jeremy Taylor presents a "happy hour fact to amaze your drinking buddies with!" Out of women who claim their drinks were spiked, NONE of their claims were true. Nope, they just drank themselves into a stupor and made up a story about being drugged to absolve themselves of responsibility.

The report itself is offensive enough (I want to see some credentials and more information on that report's sources), but the article's tone is also dismissive to the point of causing harm. Taylor's use of quotation marks when using the word victim, rather than taking issue with the semantics, serves to dismiss the real trauma of countless women who have been drugged. It negates the plausibility of all such claims of abuse.

There's no use arguing how damaging such dismissive rhetoric is, especially in cases of violence against women. We have a few decades, at least, of wrongfully dismissed rape cases and countless women afraid to report real crimes for fear of being called a liar or worse for proof of damage. Also, I'd be preaching to the choir. But I think it's worth getting really riled up about. And I think it's worth pointing out the last line of the article, as well: "We tried to use the 'my drink must have been spiked' excuse with a girlfriend once. No, we are no longer dating".

Taylor's use of humor, from the epitaph of the article to its closing line, makes the issue of date rape and the spiking of drinks into a punchline. Not only is this offensive, it is completely inexcusable. While the author himself deserves to be punished, the media network who allowed the article to be written and then linked to more prominent news outlets (like AOL, where i found it) should also be held accountable. While citing a vague report, presenting unsubstantiated claims is reckless and irresponsible, it is important to realize that when the issue is as important and sensitive as this, the stakes are even higher. The standards of journalism should be too.

My daily perusals of the New York Times online today led me to this, a review of "My Little Red Book", by Rachel Kauder Nalebuff. I was attracted initially by the review's title: "In the Open at Last, a Secret All Women Share". I was sure I'd find something at least marginally offensive or just plain interesting. I was right on both counts. I am certainly interested in checking this book out. It is a collection of stories from women about the experience of their first period. It has oustanding potential.

On the other hand, reviewer Abigail Zuger, MD, rubs me the wrong way. In both title and her insistence that men should go outside and "toss a ball around for awhile" rather than read the book, Zuger seems stuck in the binary view of gender, deciding for others how their genders must present themselves. She further distances herself, as well as the book, from being overtly feminist. I can't speak for the book until I've actually read it, but Zuger assures us that the editors "manage to avoid both the chirpy 'You are a woman now' song of the Tampax box and the lugubrious musings on blood, moons and fertility of the feminist academic."

Still, I am very curious about the book. I am also curious about the subject. Take my first period for example. My mother had already been telling me for a few years that I would get my period "very soon". That never happened. I probably spent a few seconds every day for two years wondering if "this will be the day?" I was terrified it was going to happen in class, or without my realizing it until someone laughed and pointed to a bloodstain on my pants. I began asking my mother and sister how I would know? What does it feel like? I was never really satisfied with my sister's "like trickling blood" explanation, but what could I do? I started going to the bathroom a lot in 8th grade, when many of my other lady friends had already started. I had to check. I often convinced myself I could feel myself bleeding during class, so I'd run off to check.

The actual moment was more lackluster than most stories. I was at home. Going to the bathroom. For real, not in a paraniod "have I started my period yet?" way. As I was, for lack of a better way to put this, "cleaning up", the tissue came away bloody. I was terrified for a few seconds until I figured it out. I screamed "MOOOOOMMM!!!!" at the top of my lungs, she came, she gave me a tampon, which I refused to use because it terrified me, she came back with pad, and that was it.

Anyone else want to share their stories?

That's right, boys and girls, if you kiss too much, you can go deaf. A 20 year old woman in China serves as the cautionary tale de jour: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7772902.stm

Here's the rundown: woman and man kiss. They keep kissing. Pressure in the woman's mouth is reduced and the eardrum gets pulled out. Ear is deaf. Papers go crazy cautioning people about the various dangers of kissing, saying "doctors advise people to proceed with caution".

We've been getting the don't have sex, don't kiss, don't do anything of a sexual nature lecture for years, in schools, media, and at home. But what better headline than a documented case and headline of a kiss making you deaf?

Although insurance coverage in the workplace is regulated by national law to provide equal coverage at the same price for both women and men, recent studies have revealed a massive gender disparity in private insurance coverage, which is regulated by state law.

Rates and coverage vary from state to state, but women in their 30s are paying as much as 49% more in premiums for coverage than their male counterparts! Their deductibles are also as much as 32% higher. Insurance companies have rationalized this massive inequity by saying that women aged 19-55 simply cost more than men to insure. Women, supposedly, use more health care, especially during child-bearing years. Which leads to another major point of contention: maternity care. Insurance big-wigs keep coming back to the issue of maternity care, which is a gender-specific health issue and extremely costly, which drives up insurance rates for women. If this is insurance companies' primary argument for increased rates, however, then when doesn't that disparity disappear for plans that do not include maternity care?

Company execs also argue that "claims experience shows that women use more health care services" in general. "They are more likely to visit doctors, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses" (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/us/30insure.html?fta=y). My argument is this: doesn't preventative care, such as regular doctor's visits, actually end up saving insurance companies money in the long run? Isn't it better, both medically and economically, when precautions against major illnesses can be taken and early-detected illnesses are resolved with less intense, less expensive, and relatively short-term therapies?

As for the second part of that argument, that women are at a higher risk of developing certain chronic illnesses, that rhetoric doesn't work for racial health care discrimination and it shouldn't work for gender discrimination either. We do not tolerate (anymore) "rationale" that states that black people should pay more for insurance coverage because only they can have sickle cell anemia, a costly and chronic condition.

Perhaps more important is a discussion about what this says about the very basics of our nation's health care system. Why does health care always boil down to what is the cheapest? When discussing health insurance, the human factor seems to be all but absent. We no longer discuss good or effective health care. We do not talk about plans that work for individual needs or allow for high-quality medicine. We are reduced to talking about cost-effectiveness.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Capitalist economy means that everything boils down to money (insert Marxist analysis here), but rather than gripe about the theory of economics, of which the health care system is a part of, let's talk about people. Let's talk about our lives. Let's stop looking at people as series of numbers that identify their risk and cost analysis. Most importantly, gender is NOT a reason to provide sub-standard or more expensive health coverage.

So, this is really off-topic for what I want to be writing about here, but I think it is important. Very few people know about Celiacs disease, which is a genetic auto-immune disease and a severe form of gluten-intolerance. What is gluten? Yeah, I get that a lot. It is a type of elastic protein found in cereal grains. Why does it make my small intenstine crystallize and die? I have no idea. I've done some research, but most of the time it is really overwhelming and highly jargonated. I've done even more research the last couple of days because I've been really sick.

I found out that I have Celiacs last September. Now, I'm a long-term vegetarian who has a passion for bread and homemade pasta cultivated by years of indoctrination into Southern Italian culture and lifestyle. Gluten-free bread and rice pasta? Not so much with the tastiness. And thick, chewy, Tuscan style crust? Only in my dreams. I've gotten pretty used to looking at labels and being careful of contamination (even shared surfaces, LAME). I have also gotten used to the inevitable slip-ups that result in what feels like horrible indigestion, sometimes accompanied by sharp, stabbing gut pains. I am also used to sometimes getting a cold or flu after that (that's the auto-immune part). Now, I have heard about people getting really bad auto-immune reactions, where the body really starts going to town on itself, but have never really experienced it (since I was diagnosed and knew what was going on). Well, that happened this week.

Sometimes, if the reaction is bad enough and your body is just week enough, a tiny amount of gluten can set off a painful, painful illness. The body's attack on itself can result in swollen organs, serious infectious illness, and other various pleasantries (I recite these things to myself when I catch myself gazing at artisan breads, while inhaling very, very deeply).

So yeah, I figured that stuff out for myself. But so many others haven't, especially in America. The  diagnosis is so difficult to make, and something like 86% of people with Celiacs don't know it (how they come up with that statistic, I will never know). In other countries, it's a pretty common-knowledge thing. In Italy, for example, you go to a restaurant and say "Io sono celiaco" and they shrug like it's no big thing and bring you some gluten free bread or crackers and a separate menu (or just make suggestions). Same thing in France and Germany. In America, at least in my experience, you ask if something is gluten-free and people sort of stare for a couple of minutes and then go "huh?"

So here's my point: people don't know much about this stuff. It's sad. A lot of people need help and don't know where to go to get it. A lot of people are just constantly sick, some even die, and no one knows why. On the off-chance someone gets diagnosed (here, at least), it's hard to figure out where to go from there. So yeah, if anyone is interested, or more importantly, if anyone needs great recipes and a quasi-support group, check out the blogs on my blogroll. They took me way too long to find, but I'm glad I have them now. It's always good to know you're not a total freak. More importantly, it's great to know how to make a delicious gluten-free holiday meal (and look at pictures of it!).