CONTENTS
1) Editorial
2) Feature: Beyond Antidepressants to the Deeper Issue
3) Issues Updates
-- Seed Companies Want to Ban Farm-Saved Seed
-- Opposition to Expansion of Vancouver Port
-- Energy Supply and Demand 2005
4) Media Watch
-- Canada Says Move Towards Kyoto Target
-- Canada Govt Says Key Environment Bill in Trouble
-- Cut O2 or Pay, Canadian Liberals Demand of Industry
-- Canada’s PM Blocked by Greenpeace Activists
-- Top Green Car Pick 2007
-- Losing Forests, Not So Fast
-- Eating Better than Organic
-- Why Organic is Better for You Than Conventionally Grown Foods
-- Suppressed Report Shows Cancer Link to GM Potatoes
-- Genetically Modified Foods: Boon or Boondoggle?
-- Group Says Cloned Food Unsafe
-- Strange Times for Bees
-- 1.5 Billion Doesn’t Guarantee Good Cancer Science
-- Arsenic in my Fluoride? CDC Says Yes
-- FDA Considers Mislabeling Irradiated Food
-- Why You Should Cut Down on Plastic Bags
-- Nothing Green about Apple Computers
-- Court Ruling OKs Mercury Fillings
-- It Pays to Pray for Patients, Study Finds
-- Cancer Therapy, When All Else Fails
-- Biodiversity, Traditional Medicine and Public Health: Where Do They Meet?
-- Girl’s Overdose on Prescription Drug Raises Questions
-- How Fair Is Fair Trade Coffee?
5) Calendar of Events
-- Healing Yourself, April 16 and 23, Surrey
-- Earth Day with GE FreeBC, April 22, South Surrey
-- Stubborn Weight Loss Lecture, April 26, Vancouver
-- Lifetime Achievement Gala Dinner in tribute to Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD, April 29, Toronto
-- Riverview Preservation Society Public Meeting - Saving Riverview for the Mentally Ill, April 29, Burnaby
-- A Special Event with Dr Steven Aung, April 30, Vancouver
-- Building Blocks of Health - Naturopathic Medicine Week 2007, April 28 to May 6, across BC
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1) Editorial
Hello HANS Members and Friends;
Are you looking for a great place to advertise?! Health Action Magazine now has an increased circulation of 30,000. Existing advertising rates are based on 20,000 copies, though, and will be increased after the summer edition. So if you want to take advantage of these bargain rates, sign up for the next four issues by contacting lorill@hans.org for the rate sheet and information. Or call 604-435-0512.
The other thing I’d like to discuss is our ongoing HANS Conversation on Health campaign. If you were at our meeting on March 29th, you heard an impassioned Dr Don Nixdorf speak of the need to participate in the current BC Conversation on Health. Yes, this is critically important. Each of us British Columbians should carefully consider how provincial funds are being spent, and make positive recommendations for how the BC government could improve our health care system.
There are a number of organizations with recommendations posted on the BC Conversation on Health website at http://www.bcconversationonhealth.ca/. It’s our understanding that HANS’s suggestions will soon be joining this group. But don’t let this stop you making your own submission or joining the e-exchange.
In the meantime, I hope you’re enjoying the Spring 2007 Health Action Magazine!
Best,
Lorna J Hancock
Executive Director and Founding Member
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You may be able to write off your health-care costs. Check out the HANS ADVANTAGE at www.hans.org
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2) Beyond Antidepressants to the Deeper Issue
By Mark Linden O’Meara
There has been much news about the side effects of antidepressants, but I believe there is a deeper health issue that needs to be recognized.
I clearly remember the day my mother passed away. I was just starting university. A friend put their arm around me and comforted me. The tears were ready to flow, but at the time I feared that if I let go, I would fall apart. I made a conscious decision to numb out my feelings. Fast forward to 10 years later and I was a computer programmer, isolated, and experiencing chronic depression. I was easily upset, often near tears, and fearful of expressing myself.
Sometimes temporary support for challenging times is needed, just as one would use crutches and a cast to help mend a broken or injured leg. At various times in my life, I tried an antidepressant only to find that side effects were intolerable and when the medication was stopped, the troubling feelings returned. Metaphorically speaking, the leg hadn’t mended.
The turning point was falling in love – because when it ended, it triggered a cascading release of tears. This time, I made a decision to feel, let go and release what I had been holding onto for so long. What surprised me was that crying actually helped me get better! As I let go, I felt releases of energy, a lifting of the clouds, and clearer thinking. People commented that I was more present and more comfortable to be around.
My personal growth and journey of self discovery came from hard work and facing painful emotions that eventually gave way to mental health and joy. Through the natural wisdom of mind, body, and spirit, my body did what it does naturally – heal! Many people don’t realize that tears and laughter are a natural part of the body’s healing system. There are more than 70 chemicals in an emotional tear. They are not present when you cry when cutting or peeling an onion. When you cry, the body is physically cleansing itself.
So what is the deeper health issue that antidepressants do not address? I believe it is the numbing of the emotions that occurs. Life brings challenges that need to be worked through and healed, leading to lessons learned and life experience that we can pass on to friends, family and children. But what if the lessons are never learned - if the emotions are never healed? This is the undocumented side effect of antidepressants. Have antidepressants become the new medically sanctioned form of denial, numbing and avoidance?
Much of the current literature claims that depression is due to a “chemical imbalance.” By the same token, you can state that when driving, there is a process of explosions or combustion in the car engine. Yet you would not think of extinguishing the explosions, as it is the means for the automobile to process the incoming gasoline and convert it to useful energy. Yes, there are changes in chemicals balances during depression, but these likely temporary changes due to the processing of life events and the journey of life itself.
Depression is a challenging time that no one would wish upon anyone else, but the journey through a depression can be an important life process of self-examination, pulling ideas and beliefs apart, and re-assembling them in a new manner giving way to new meaning as well as self and global understanding. Through tears, laughter, friendship, and healing arts such as art, music, singing, writing, journaling, and tending our garden, we can open ourselves to new perception. These are the natural antidepressants of the body – the expression of emotional energy through creativity.
HANS Member Mark Linden O’Meara is the author of The Feeling Soul – A Roadmap to Healing and Living - available at Chapters and other fine bookstores. He lives in Vancouver where he loves to write, sing and teach.
For more information about The Feeling Soul visit Marks’ website at http://www.healingresources.org or Chapters at http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/item/books-97809.../
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3) ISSUE UPDATES
Seed Companies Want to Ban Farm-Saved Seed
A February 2007 report from GRAIN reveals the new lobbying offensive from the global seed industry to make it a crime for farmers to save seeds for the next year’s planting. This briefing traces the recent discussions within the seed industry and explores what will happen if a plant variety right becomes virtually indistinguishable from a patent.
Seed companies already have strong legal support from governments. In many countries, seed laws require farmers to use only certified seed of government-approved varieties. That seed is often available only from commercial seed companies.
Read more at http://www.grain.org/?nfg=470
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Opposition to Expansion of Vancouver Port
Not everyone is excited about the possible expansion of Vancouver Port. A group of Delta residents, including Delta Major Lois E. Jackson are opposed to a move that would increase pollution in that area. In a presentation to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications on March 14th, 2007, Mayor Jackson said:
“The Port, to date, has reduced our air quality, endangered the Pacific Flyway, befouled the waters surrounding the Port, and reduced the quality of life for our residents with noise, light and air pollution, traffic disruption and an endless stream of dangerous trucks driving through the heart of our communities.
“Now, with the expansion of the Port – first with the Third Berth already approved and under construction, then with the all-new Terminal 2 – all of those negative impacts will increase further, in the name of economic competitiveness.”
For more information or a full copy of this speech, contact Joan or Donna at the Mayor’s office at 604-946-3210 or e-mail mayor@corp.delta.bc.ca.
AND
Vancouver Port Ties Fees to Ship Emission Levels
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/4...
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Energy Supply and Demand 2005
Canada’s demand for energy fell for the first time in three years in 2005, as a result of declining consumption in the nation’s industrial and residential sectors.
Declines in those two key sectors offset an increase in consumption in the transportation sector, particularly fuel used to pipe natural gas, as well as a small increase in the commercial and public administration sector.
In 2005, Canada consumed 7,654 petajoules of energy, down 0.4 percent from 7,681 petajoules in 2004. One petajoule equals roughly the amount of energy required to operate the Montréal subway system for one year.
More at http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/070316/d070316b.....
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3) MEDIA WATCH
Canada Says Move Towards Kyoto Target
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/4...
Canada Govt Says Key Environment Bill in Trouble
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/4...
Cut O2 or Pay, Canadian Liberals Demand of Industry
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/4...
Canada’s PM Blocked by Greenpeace Activists
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/4...
Top Green Car Pick 2007
http://greenerchoices.org/products.cfm?product=topgr...
Losing Forests, Not So Fast
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3653
Eating Better than Organic
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,159...
Why Organic is Better for You Than Conventionally Grown Foods
http://v.mercola.com/blogs/public_blog/Why-Organic-i...
Suppressed Report Shows Cancer Link to GM Potatoes
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/arti...
Genetically Modified Foods: Boon or Boondoggle?
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout...
Group Says Cloned Food Unsafe
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,16016...
Strange Times for Bees
http://www.vancourier.com/issues07/033107/news/03310...
1.5 Billion Doesn’t Guarantee Good Cancer Science
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17662288/site/newsweek/
Arsenic in my Fluoride? CDC Says Yes
http://healthy.net/scr/news.asp?Id=9005
FDA Considers Mislabeling Irradiated Food
http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0403-09.htm
Why You Should Cut Down on Plastic Bags
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=429...
Nothing Green about Apple Computers
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3674
Court Ruling OKs Mercury Fillings
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070413/ap_on_he_me/dent...
It Pays to Pray for Patients, Study Finds
http://www.canada.com/topics/bodyandhealth/story.htm...
Cancer Therapy, When All Else Fails
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/cancer/mg...
Biodiversity, Traditional Medicine and Public Health: Where Do They Meet?
http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/3/1/14
Girl’s Overdose on Prescription Drug Raises Questions
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-03-23-drugg...
How Fair is Fair Trade Coffee?
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/2007/03...
For more current stories, check out “News” at www.hans.org.
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5) Calendar of Events
Healing Yourself
Who: Julieta Criollo, Clinical Herbalist, Wellness Trading Post
When: Mondays, April 16, 23; 6:30 – 9:30pm (2 sessions)
Where: Douglas College, 10060 King George Hwy, Surrey
Cost: $49
Contact: Douglas College at 604-588-7772
Holistic medicine recognizes that our own body performs healing, and the role of a health practitioner is to support the body while promoting its natural ability to heal itself. Join us on a journey exploring conscious creative visualization to promote inner harmony, well-being, and health. Learn the short term and long term effects that stress may have in physical, emotional, and mental health.
Discover simple techniques to help you recognized some of your mental or emotional road blocks and false beliefs that may be holding you back from improving your health and well-being... and ways that may help you overcome and heal them.
Learn about good nutrition, lifestyle, proper posture and the use of conscious-creative visualization to nurture and promote your inner joy, peace, harmony and health.
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Earth Day with GE FreeBC
When: Sunday, April 22nd, 10am - 4pm
Where: Surrey Choices Market, 3248 King George Highway, South Surrey
There will be an information table with a mandatory GE labeling petition, ‘Ban Terminator’ mail-in postcards, and lots of information on genetic engineering and gardening. Can you help? Please call Phil Harrison at 604-536-6706 nights and weekends.
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Stubborn Weight Loss Lecture
Who: Andre Noel Potvin, MSc, CES, CSCS
When: Thursday, April 26th, 6 – 7pm
Where: EnerChanges™ Clinic, M11 601 West Broadway
Cost: FREE
Contact: 604-68-8380 or office@enerchanges.com
Web: www.enerchanges.com
This one-hour seminar presents the facts and myths about weight gain. Learn about the relationship between weight gain and hormonal imbalances, hidden food allergies, thyroid function, insulin resistance, cortisol and stress levels. This seminar will also provide you with the keys to living at your healthy weight for a lifetime.
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Lifetime Achievement Gala Dinner in tribute to Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD
Who: International Schizophrenia Foundation
When: Thursday, April 29th
Where: Fairmont Royal York Hotel, Toronto
Cost: $250
Contact: 416-733-2117 or centre@orthomed.org
Featuring Master of Ceremonies Margot Kidder and World Renowned Pianist Anton Kuerti
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Riverview Preservation Society Public Meeting - Saving Riverview for the Mentally Ill
When: April 29th, 2:30 - 4:00pm
Where: Burnaby Public Library, 4595 Albert St, Burnaby
Contact: Bonnie at 604-817-4101
Everyone is welcome to attend. Bring your questions and comments. We look forward to meeting with you.
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A Special Event with Dr Steven Aung
Who: Dr Steven Aung, MD, OMD, PhD
When: April 30th, 5:00 - 8:30pm
Where: UBC Medical Student Alumni Centre - 2750 Heather Street, Vancouver
Cost: CRISH members $55; non-members $65
Contact: 604-288-0038 or info@crish.org
Web: www.crish.org
The Canadian Research Institute of Spirituality and Healing presents a talk on Integrative Compassionate Medicine for the 21st Century and Beyond; a demonstration of the Art of Chinese Calligraphy by Dr Steven Aung, MD, OMD, PhD.
UBC Professor Xiong Gu, renowned artist, will introduce Dr Aung’s presentation. Mr Tung Chan, CEO of SUCCESS, will assist with the auctioning of Chinese calligraphy created by Dr Aung at this event. Food and beverages will be served.
Tickets will be available for purchase on April 9th. Seating is limited. Please purchase early. Send your cheque and your e-mail address to the Canadian Research Institute of Spirituality and Healing (28-1863 Wesbrook Mall, Vancouver BC V6T 2J7) by April 27th.
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Building Blocks of Health - Naturopathic Medicine Week 2007
Who: Various licensed Naturopathic Doctors throughout BC
When: April 28th - May 6th
Where: Various locations throughout British Columbia
Cost: No fee
Contact: Visit www.cand.ca or www.bcna.bc.ca for information about an event in your area
Over the course of the week, licensed Naturopathic Doctors across Canada will be providing open house clinic tours as well as public workshops and lectures on topics such as healthy eating, proper sleep habits, and stress management. All this is to educate the public on the benefits of naturopathic treatment. To find information about an event in your area, visit the Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors website at www.cand.ca or the British Columbia Naturopathic Association website at www.bcna.bc.ca.
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Founded in 1984, Health Action Network Society is a membership-based, non-profit charitable organization dedicated to gathering and disseminating health promotion information.