A giving heart: Providing housing first helps homeless the most

by Lois Collins

Published: Saturday, Nov. 27, 2010 9:21 p.m. MST

Editor’s note: This is the first part of a Deseret News series that examines how Utahns are empowering our poor in three areas: homelessness, education and health care.

OGDEN — The kitchen of the triplex is a disaster at the moment as the Christiansen girls — Victoria 9, Evelyn, 7, Julia, 6, and even baby Hanna, 4 — stir up breakfast to “surprise” their mom and dad.

They are making waffles and their mom, Angie, is smiling as the sweet smell wafts through the three-bedroom apartment where they’ve just moved. She’s crying a little, too. But they are tears of joy. The family is cooking their own meal in their own space and they are together.

When they lived in St. Anne’s Center homeless shelter not far from here, Angie’s husband Victor had to leave them every night to sleep in the men’s unit, one floor below. They couldn’t cook meals, decide their own hours, or even enjoy the simple pleasure of making a breakfast mess and then cleaning it up.

As the girls cook, a puppy follows Angie from room to room. Avery is one-fourth collie, three-fourths lab and 100 percent symbolic. The little dog is Angie’s declaration that this family will become self-sufficient — whatever is asked, whatever will work, whatever it takes. Though the odds sometimes seem stacked against them, on this gray, snow-streaked November day, she believes it.

Most of us are oblivious to homelessness. We know it happens far too often, but we have become immune to it. We have basically decided that it will always be with us and that the problem needs to be solved by a combination of government and private charitable groups.

This series by the Deseret News should make us better aware of the situation and what we can do to help solve the problems.

They were homeless for months and it is too soon to declare their problems solved, though (more…)

By Judy Fahys

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: November 24, 2010 09:47AM

Federal environmental regulators are cracking down on the Utah air-quality rules that cover times when companies release unplanned pollution.

If the state Division of Air Quality cannot fix its regulation in a year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can restrict new building in high-pollution areas and even block federal highway funds statewide. But Utah officials and the EPA say they are trying to find a workable solution before it comes to that.

“It’s our expectation, we’ll have this resolved before those sanctions would be triggered,” said Carl Daly of EPA’s air office in Denver.

Jeremy Nichols, who works with the environmental group WildEarth Guardians, is applauding the crackdown. The group sued the EPA to force it to close what it calls a state loophole that gives Utah’s 1,200 air-pollution permit holders a “blanket exemption to clean-air limits” when their plants have “unintentional breakdowns.”

Utahns would rather have bad air and poor health than comply with federal agents telling them how to live. The problem with Utahns is they think that it’s Utah air and not federal air. Utahns don’t mind living in thick, unhealthy air (more…)

Staff and Wire Services

Published: November 24, 2010 11:12AM

Pleased that a pill may halt HIV infection, Utah activists and doctors are awaiting further information before changing their prevention or prescription tactics.

“It’s another tool. I don’t know how exciting it will be yet. That’s difficult to say,” said Claudia Goulston, a doctor who treats patients suffering from HIV at University Hospital.

But it doesn’t mean it’s time to abandon condoms and other proven prevention strategies, said Jennifer Brown, an epidemiologist at the Utah Department of Health.

In a global study, scientists found that the anti-retroviral pill Truvada, already used to treat HIV infection, turns out to be a powerful weapon in protecting healthy gay men from contracting the virus.

Daily doses cut the risk of infection by 44 percent when used with condoms, counseling and other preventative services. Men who took the pills most faithfully had even more protection — up to 73 percent.

Researchers had feared the pills might give a false sense of security and make men less likely to use condoms or to limit their partners, but the opposite occurred — risky sex declined.

“I am encouraged by this announcement of groundbreaking research on HIV prevention,” President Barack Obama said (more…)

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON

and NICOLE WINFIELD

The Associated Press

Published: November 23, 2010 04:10PM

Vatican City • In a seismic shift on one of the most profound — and profoundly contentious — Roman Catholic teachings, the Vatican said Tuesday that condoms are the lesser of two evils when used to curb the spread of AIDS, even if their use prevents a pregnancy.

The position was an acknowledgment that the church’s long-held anti-birth control stance against condoms doesn’t justify putting lives at risk.

“This is a game-changer,” declared the Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit writer and editor.

The new stance was staked out as the Vatican explained Pope Benedict XVI’s comments on condoms and HIV in a book that came out Tuesday based on his interview with a German journalist.

How to make sense out of religion? It is such a mystery that it survives.  The Catholic Church, like certain other dogmatic churches that claim to be God’s only true church, just can’t admit to being wrong.

They must think that their flocks will fly away if they actually speak the words that they already know and accept, “we were wrong.”

Now the Catholic Church has really split the baby in half. The church has in essence said that it is immoral to use condoms while having sexual intercourse, but if it will prevent AIDS then it is the moral thing to do, and oh, artificial birth control remains immoral. So now you can wear a condom to prevent AIDS, but not to prevent pregnancy. Divine that one!

There was also breaking news that a pill has been designed that will prevent HIV. Now the next step for science is to design a pill that will prevent HIV and prevent pregnancy at the same time. It will sell like hotcakes to Catholics the world over, because there is nothing better than having your morality and immorality come together at the same time.

The Vatican (more…)

Published on Monday, November 22, 2010 by PR Watch.org

My Apologies to Michael Moore and the Health Insurance Industry

by Wendell Potter

In advance of my appearance with Michael Moore [1] on Countdown with Keith Olbermann [2] tonight on MSNBC [3] (8 and 11 p.m. ET), I would like to offer an apology to both Moore and his arch enemy, the health insurance industry, which spent a lot of policyholder premiums in 2007 to attack his movie, Sicko.

America’s health insurance and pharmaceutical industries are indeed Sicko. This expose’ by a health insurance insider makes Moore’s Sicko movie even more credible.

Again, the only solution to the conniving corruption of these major industries is to adopt a single payer system like is prevalent in Canada and Europe. Their systems are far superior to the supposed ‘free enterprise’ system we try to protect in America.

The public is suffering severely for this protection of an ideology that doesn’t work in the health care industry.

Let’s face it. Free enterprise has its place, and government has its place, and the best solution is the combination of a single payer system.

I need to apologize to Moore for the role I played in the insurance industry’s public relations [4] attack campaign against him and Sicko, which was about the increasingly unfair and dysfunctional U.S. health care system. (I was head of corporate communications at one of the country’s biggest insurance companies when I left my job in May 2008.) And I need to apologize to health insurers for failing to note in my new book, Deadly Spin [5], that the front group they used to attack Moore and Sicko — Health Care America [6] — was originally a front group [7] for drug companies. APCO Worldwide [8], the PR firm that operated the front group for insurers during the summer of 2007, was outraged — outraged, I tell you — that I wrote (more…)

Published: November 19, 2010 05:40PM

“Don’t legalize dope” (Forum, Nov. 14) delivered a real shocker. The author, who owns a hammer (a drug treatment business), views all recreational use of mind-altering substances as nails (addiction). She seems truly shocked at the concept of addictive substances being legally available, but she makes no attempt to intellectually rationalize our treatment of the big three: alcohol, caffeine and tobacco.

Instead, she wants to talk about “drugs,” as though a plant that has a history of beneficial interaction with the human race for the entirety of our existence is in nowise different from something cooked up in the labs of Big Pharma at the cost of billions of dollars.

People, apples and cannabis have traveled the road of life forever, and the only reason we leave apples alone, legally, is because we don’t experience whatever good they deliver nearly instantly, as we do for marijuana. This fight against legalizing cannabis is completely about the right-wing nanny state: that people in a free country simply can’t be trusted to adopt all of the “right” values.

Darrell Prows

Murray

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published Nov 15, 2010 09:48AM
Updated 2 hours ago Updated Nov 15, 2010 09:48AM

The Medicare open enrollment period begins Monday, lasts for six weeks and normally would be fairly routine.

Not this year.

Across the nation and in Utah, numerous Medicare Advantage plans — the private health insurance alternative to original Medicare — are pulling out of the market.

About 8,000 Utahns will lose their Medicare Advantage plans in 2011, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners says. Rural areas are seeing the biggest losses: Carbon County residents now have no Medicare Advantage plans; in San Juan County, there’s just one.

Urban Utah is getting hit, too. Of the 38 Medicare Advantage plans offered in Salt Lake County this past year, only 14 will survive in 2011.

Insurers are alerting customers about these and other changes. But Peter Hebertson, outreach director and health care counselor for Salt Lake County Aging Services, worries the letters could get tossed instead of read.

That could prove disastrous, Hebertson says.

While seniors will automatically be enrolled in original Medicare for hospitalization and out-patient coverage, they wouldn’t have prescription coverage or Medigap supplemental insurance that picks up what Medicare doesn’t pay for.

“You’d be uncovered for a year,” Hebertson says, and placed at risk of medical costs that could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year.

—

Change is tough » “If you’ve been happy with the plan you’re on and you don’t realize your plan is being dropped,” warns Vicki Nelson, a Salt Lake County Aging Services volunteer Medicare counselor, “you could easily ignore the whole issue until you go to your doctor in January.”

Even when Medicare Advantage plans have survived, people need to (more…)

By Alison Young, USA TODAY

PONTIAC, Mich. — As health care costs soared nationally, a small Michigan firm gave Ford Motor Co. a proposal to cut its physical therapy costs. The automaker signed up for an in-state pilot program, which was so successful Ford expanded it last year to cover about 390,000 employees, retirees and their families nationwide.

Yet the cost-saving program created by Pontiac-based TheraMatrix has come under attack from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Court records allege Blue Cross used its position as the state’s dominant insurer to try to crush TheraMatrix as it worked to also sign up Chrysler and General Motors. A USA TODAY review of hundreds of pages of e-mails and internal documents that are part of a lawsuit TheraMatrix filed against Blue Cross indicates that TheraMatrix’s efforts to carve out a niche market in managing outpatient physical therapy costs was seen as a threat by officials at Blue Cross and by some Michigan hospitals.

“They tried to destroy us,” says Robert Whitton, a physical therapist who founded TheraMatrix in 1981. TheraMatrix has cut Ford’s physical therapy costs by about half, Whitton says, saving millions of dollars annually. Under Blue Cross, Ford’s costs averaged $745,000 a month just in Michigan, he says. “We shouldn’t have been in this position for creating a program that helped save health care costs.”

Blue Cross denies trying to hurt TheraMatrix’s business.

“The picture that they’re trying to paint is the big whatever giant with a chainsaw in his hand coming down on the little guy,” Jeffrey Rumley, Blue Cross’ general counsel, told USA TODAY. “I just don’t buy into that too easily.”

The government needs to take a serious look into so-called non-profits, especially non-profit health insurance companies like Blue Cross. Also, supposedly non-profit hospitals. Salary comparisons of officers and staffs with for-profits would be one place to start, and then a look at affiliated for-profit entities.

The dispute provides a window into some of the factors that make overhauling the nation’s health care system so difficult. The aggressive tactics employed against TheraMatrix raise questions (more…)

Published: October 29, 2010 12:00AM

Big cracks are forming in the floor of Cedar Valley. They’ve already undermined one unfinished subdivision north of Enoch, and they’re still growing. One is 2.4 miles long. If unchecked, they could threaten Enoch itself, not to mention local roads and buried utility lines.

This is not a Halloween story, or the movie “Tremors.” It’s scarier, in fact, because it’s real. Fortunately, the Utah Geological Survey knows what the cause is, and if the people who pump water from the many wells in the area can cooperate, the problem is fixable. But a solution will require both community spirit and self-sacrifice, because people will have to use less water.

Here is another example of how intertwined we are. The actions of one affect the actions of all. We must have cooperation with and respect for one another to avoid calamity.

Since 1939, according to the UGS report, more water has been taken from the aquifer below Cedar Valley than Mother Nature has funneled back in. The water table has dropped by as much as 114 feet. This has caused the underground sediments in the aquifer to compact. The fissures and sinkholes visible on the surface of the ground are evidence of subsidence, that is, ground settling. The ground has sunk by as much as four feet over a broad area of Cedar Valley.

This settling has caused about 4 miles of cracks or fissures in the ground, particularly in the area of Enoch (north of Cedar City) and around Quichapa Lake. There may be other fissures (more…)

By Matthew Perrone

Associated Press

Published: Thursday, Oct. 14, 2010 1:10 p.m. MDT

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration warned eight companies on Thursday to stop marketing miracle cures that claim to treat everything from autism to Parkinson’s disease by flushing toxic metals from the body.

Regulators said the products, sold over the Internet, can cause dehydration, kidney failure and death. Known as chelation therapies, the products have been used for decades, although medical societies and government experts say there is no evidence they cure diseases.

The only FDA-approved chelation therapies are used to treat lead and mercury poisoning.

“These products are dangerously misleading because they are targeted to patients with serious conditions and limited treatment options,” said FDA’s Deborah Autor, director of compliance. “The FDA must take a firm stand against companies who prey on the vulnerability of patients seeking hope and relief.”

The FDA said it has seen an uptick in the number of chelation products sold over the Internet. The companies cited by the agency include World Health Products of Draper, Utah, Cardio Renew of Apple Valley, Minn., and Hormonal Health of San Bernardino, Calif.

Government regulations once again protecting the consumer from the profiteer. Tea partiers would rather protect the businesses than the consumers. Laizze faire is king. Buyer beware.

The warning letters (more…)

In vitro U.K. pioneer Robert Edwards wins medicine Nobel

By Malin Rising

Associated Press

Published: Monday, Oct. 4, 2010 7:08 a.m. MDT

STOCKHOLM — Robert Edwards of Britain won the 2010 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for developing in vitro fertilization, a breakthrough that has helped millions of infertile couples have children but also ignited an enduring controversy with religious groups.

Edwards, an 85-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Cambridge, started working on IVF as early as the 1950s. He developed the technique — in which eggs are removed from a woman, fertilized outside her body and then implanted into the womb — together with British gynecologist surgeon Patrick Steptoe, who died in 1988.

On July 25, 1978, Louise Brown in Britain became the first baby born through the groundbreaking procedure, marking a revolution in fertility treatment.

Another in a long string of triumphs of science over religion. Our congratulations to Dr. Robert Edwards and the Nobel Prize committee and to all people living thanks to in vitro fertilization.

Since then, some 4 million people have been born using the technique, the Nobel medicine prize committee said — a rate that is up to about 300,000 babies worldwide a year, according to the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.

Today, the probability that an infertile couple will take home a baby after a cycle of IVF is 1 in 5, about the same odds that healthy couples have of conceiving naturally.

“His achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion (more…)

Stoned on Righteousness

by Robert C. Koehler

It’s not just about us. If Californians legalize marijuana on Nov. 2, maybe Mexico will end its horrific drug war.

The “war on drugs,” like the war on terror, is a simplistic and brutally stupid solution imposed on a complex, multifaceted human problem, born out of the notion that you can take evil out of context and eradicate it with the firepower of righteousness. Science and the arts

Proposition 19 in California hasn’t been getting much press yet, but the campaign is just heating up. No politicians are supporting it, but it will be interesting if Californians decide to give it a try! And why not? Certainly the drug war is failed policy! Why continue to do the same thing?

have long ago moved on to new realms of awareness, but we’re still playing politics the way we did in the 19th century — or the 12th or 1st — with the primary difference being that we have the capacity to do far more harm these days.

And righteousness, indeed, all too often becomes a far greater cause of harm than the original problem; in tandem, problem and solution may combine to turn chronic trouble into unfathomable disaster, especially for innocent bystanders.

Mexico’s drug war, for instance, which began in late 2006, has so far resulted in the deaths of 28,000 people and consumed billions of dollars in military expenditures. Meanwhile, government human rights violations are rampant, crime in general is on the rise — and most Mexicans (more…)

By Robert Gehrke and Lisa Schencker

The Salt Lake Tribune

August 18, 2010 06:07AM

An offer of $140 million in federal money for education and health care is not being met with gratitude by Utah legislative leaders.

Far from it.

Instead, Utah’s Republican leaders are apoplectic that Congress provided the money — aimed at keeping teachers in the classroom and helping with the health care burden of low-income residents — and frustrated that any attempt to reject it may be fruitless.

“I’m truly astonished,” House Speaker David Clark, R-Santa Clara, said Tuesday. “Congress has unequivocally carried out the constitutional responsibilities of this state and this Legislature. … [Congress said] ‘The Utah Constitution doesn’t matter. We’re doing an end-run around this, and we’re going to decide how the money is going to be spent.’ ”

Astonishment! The Republicans are wailing at Obama for not fixing quickly enough the economy they ruined. When he takes action, they cry ‘No.” They block the very solutions necessary because they would rather have the country fail than Obama succeed. We are in a mess, a diabolical mess.

No decision has been made on whether Utah will seek the funds. Legislative leaders are meeting (more…)

By JUDY FAHYS

The Salt Lake Tribune

August 18, 2010 10:41AM

Federal regulators may well have the authority after all to decide how a Utah magnesium plant manages its hazardous waste, under a Denver appeals court’s ruling released Tuesday.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out an Oct. 17, 2007, decision by U.S. District Judge Dee Benson that US Magnesium in Tooele County is exempted from the nation’s cradle-to-grave hazardous waste law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

In short, the appeals court said the Environmental Protection Agency can update its “tentative” interpretation of a regulation into a final one without additional public input. It ordered Benson to reconsider the case.

Is it any wonder we are in an environmental quagmire. Action began on this issue in 2001. The  case was eventually decided by Judge Benson in 2007. Three years later the Appeals Court overturns the decision and orders Benson to reconsider the case, thus it is still unresolved. This is a near total failure of the court system. All this delay has been worth millions to Mag Corp and to New York businessman Ira Rennert, and the public be damned.The corporate polluters are benefited by the slow moving court system and the earth and its inhabitants suffer irreparable damage.

The delay in this decision is far more devastating than the long and tedious process of the death penalty. This needs fixed, and who will fix it? Nobody. This is a horrible condemnation of our justice system.

“Even under the case law US Magnesium asks us to follow, the agency is at liberty to adopt without notice and comment a reasonable interpretation of that ambiguous regulation,” said the opinion written by Judge Neil M. Gorsuch and joined by the two other judges on the appeals panel.

Although neither side has said what it will do next, it is possible the ruling will finally settle the two-decade-old (more…)

By Rosemary Winters

The Salt Lake Tribune

August 18, 2010 06:07AM

As a new school year begins, health experts at the University of Utah warned parents Tuesday to keep energy drinks out of their kids’ backpacks.

“How much should the pediatric population drink? None,” said Howard Kadish, chief of pediatric emergency medicine at the U.

Caffeine-charged drinks such as Red Bull, Rockstar, Full Throttle and Who’s Your Daddy have flooded convenience and grocery stores in recent years. The beverages may contain the equivalent of two or three cups of coffee. Among teenagers, they’ve become go-to drinks for parties and late-night studying.

Young people are especially vulnerable to the harmful side effects of caffeine, said Barbara Crouch, a pharmacologist and director of the Utah Poison Control Center. Those who guzzle energy drinks can experience anxiety, heart palpitations, restlessness, sleeplessness, nausea, vomiting and — in extreme cases — heart arrhythmias and seizures.

It’s not a new issue. In 2009, researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine published a paper in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence that called for more accurate labeling of energy (more…)

What consumers should know about buying olive oil

By Kathy Stephenson

The Salt Lake Tribune

August 17, 2010 07:05PM

Two decades ago, the only place to buy a bottle of olive oil was a Greek or Italian specialty market.

Today, bottles of this healthy oil are sold everywhere, from local grocery stores to big-box warehouses. Each year, U.S. consumers spend $700 million on olive oil.

But with more choices has come an array of marketing terms such as “extra-virgin,” “cold-pressed,” “light” and “unfiltered.” Taken together, these labels can seem confusing and inconsistent, as in the past the product hasn’t been regulated by the federal government.

Why would we post an article on olive oil? This article is not only about olive oil, but also about the important role that government plays in labeling of food products. It is a prime example of what happens without government supervision.

Currently none of us know the true quality of olive oil. For years I’ve been buying ‘extra virgin’ because the nutritionists have indicated there is an important difference. Now I discover that ‘extra virgin’ may not be what it claims to be, and one thing is for sure, we cannot depend on the integrity of free enterprise corporations. That is the Law of the Jungle that so around here pray to every day.

From now we will all know to look for the USDA rating label before buying an olive oil.

For the average consumer, it can be difficult to figure out what these terms actually mean, as well as why one bottle of 100 percent extra-virgin olive costs $6, while another costs $20 or more.

The confusion could be ending soon, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently adopted a new set of standards. Companies are encouraged to adopt the USDA’s definitions to help consumers differentiate the best oils from the cheap imposters. The federal agency adopted the new regulations in April, and plans to start enforcing (more…)

By Mark Stibich, Ph.D., About.com Guide

Updated April 26, 2009

About.com Health’s Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board

Why is Dark Chocolate Healthy?:

Chocolate is made from plants, which means it contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids¹, which act as antioxidants². Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals³, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure⁴ through the production of nitric oxide⁵, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Note: Stay up-to-date on longevity and anti-aging with my weekly newsletter⁶.

Heart Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Dark chocolate is good for your heart. A small bar of it everyday can help keep your heart⁷ and cardiovascular system running well. Two heart health benefits of dark chocolate are:

• Lower Blood Pressure:⁸ Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure.
• Lower Cholesterol:⁹ Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent.

Other Benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Chocolate also holds benefits apart from protecting your heart:

• it tastes good
• it stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure
• it contains serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant
• it contains theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

Doesn’t Chocolate Have a lot of Fat?:

Here is some more good news — some of the fats in chocolate do not impact your cholesterol. The fats in chocolate are 1/3 oleic acid, 1/3 stearic acid and 1/3 palmitic acid:

• Oleic Acid is a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.
• Stearic Acid is a saturated fat but one which research is shows has a neutral effect on cholesterol.
• Palmitic Acid is also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.

That means only 1/3 of the fat in dark chocolate is bad for you.

Chocolate Tip 1 – Balance the Calories:

This information doesn’t mean that you should eat a pound of chocolate a day. Chocolate is still a high-calorie, high-fat food. Most of the studies done used no more than 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate a day to get the benefits.

One bar of dark chocolate has around (more…)

by Justin Pritchard

Associated Press

Los Angeles » The federal agency responsible for ensuring that the Deepwater Horizon was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that the rig be inspected at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.

In fact, the agency’s inspection frequency on the Deepwater Horizon fell dramatically over the past five years, according to federal Minerals Management Service records. The rig blew up April 20, killing 11 people before sinking and triggering a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since January 2005, inspectors issued just one minor infraction for the rig. That strong track record led the agency last year to herald the Deepwater Horizon as an industry model for safety.

The inspection gaps are the latest in a series of questions raised about the agency’s oversight of the oil drilling industry. Members of Congress and President Barack Obama have criticized what they call the cozy relationship between regulators and oil companies and vowed to reform MMS, which both regulates the industry and collects billions in royalties from it.

We arrive once again at the core of most of our current problems—the federal government has failed to do its job of regulating the various industries that must be closely supervised for the benefit of all Americans.

The Bush Administration and the anti-government Republican Party are responsible for most of this failure of regulation. They simply don’t believe (more…)

By Gail Collins

The New York Times

This is a very interesting article, worthy of your time. That we can’t teach about birth control in the school system in 2010 is a decimating condemnation of the unrelenting influence of religious dogma.

A thousand years ago, popular birth control methods in the Western world included spitting into the mouth of a frog, eating bees and wearing the testicles of a weasel. In Cordoba, Spain, which was supposed to be on the scientific cutting edge, women were told to leap up and down vigorously after sex, and then jump backward nine times.

This is by way of saying that Sunday we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill. We live in troubled times. But let’s give thanks that we avoided the era of the weasel testicles.

This is a story about science, and obviously sex. But it’s also a saga about getting information.

American women had been limiting the size of their families long before the pill came along. In the 19th century, the fertility rate was plummeting, and ads for everything from condoms to douching (more…)

Rep. Jim Matheson’s self-justifying rationale for voting against health care reform fails before this question: What would have happened had his view prevailed? (“Health reform needs more work,” Opinion, April 4.) There is no evidence that a better bill could have emerged at any time in the next several years. Republicans have stood silent for decades in face of the need for health care reform. They did nothing but obscure and obstruct during the entire past year. Democrats were exhausted by this fight. Had they lost, they would have had neither the energy nor the influence for another try.

Hence, Matheson’s vote essentially said that he preferred to settle for nothing — to return to the status quo for an indeterminate time, each year adding to the disintegration of our health care system and to the burden on American families. He preferred guaranteed increases in insurance costs and family misery to the likelihood that this bill will start us in a more positive direction. No bill of this size and complexity could be perfect, but this one can be adjusted and improved with experience, and it will be far less costly than the do-nothing alternative Matheson evidently preferred.

Douglas Johnstone

Sandy