Putting children on drugs does nothing to change the conditions that derail their development in the first place. Yet those conditions are receiving scant attention. Policy makers are so convinced that children with attention deficits have an organic disease that they have all but called off the search for a comprehensive understanding of the condition. The National Institute of Mental Health finances research aimed largely at physiological and brain components of A.D.D. While there is some research on other treatment approaches, very little is studied regarding the role of experience. Scientists, aware of this orientation, tend to submit only grants aimed at elucidating the biochemistry.

Thus, only one question is asked: are there aspects of brain functioning associated with childhood attention problems? The answer is always yes. Overlooked is the very real possibility that both the brain anomalies and the A.D.D. result from experience.

Our present course poses numerous risks. First, there will never be a single solution for all children with learning and behavior problems. While some smaller number may benefit from short-term drug treatment, large-scale, long-term treatment for millions of children is not the answer.

Second, the large-scale medication of children feeds into a societal view that all of life’s problems can be solved with a pill and gives millions of children the impression that there is something inherently defective in them.

Finally, the illusion that children’s behavior problems can be cured with drugs prevents us as a society from seeking the more complex solutions that will be necessary. Drugs get everyone — politicians, scientists, teachers and parents — off the hook. Everyone except the children, that is.

ADD etc for me represent the heart of the paradigm that is in our way. In our way for a healthier life.

As medicine is practised today, we all ignore why we get ill. Instead we call symptoms a disease and look for a pill.

Perversely we can accept that if we drank water contaminated with sewage that we woud get ill - but we cannot make the link to the reality that if we eat bad food, give up control of our lives, become isolated, and never use our bodies or go outside - that we will also get ill.

The next revolution in health is this. The simple fact is that we are designed to be healthy - so long as we live according to our design. We accept this in the physical realm of clean water but not the rest of how we live. If we stop eating processed food and in particular the all the sugar and grains - if we made our social world important and if we were more active we would be well.

All the vast costs and burdens of our health system woud fade away. But of course THEY don't want that and this is why THE constantly reinforce the myth.

I think all the time of the Church back in 1450 - THEY said that the only way to go to heaven was through the Church. Luther made the mad counter offer - that we could find God all by ourselves.

Today in 2012, we are faced with the same choice and the same pressures.

Statistics from the Office of National Statistics this morning showed that the UK went into reverse in the last quarter of 2011, when the economy shrank by 0.2% – but as the Baltic Dry Index shows, the global economy is looking even more worrying.

Chart of the Day: Shipping rates fall off a cliff

The index – often used as a proxy for the health of the global economy as it reflects the prices charged for shipping commodities such as metals, coal or grain around the world – has fallen by 61% since October.

The index was at 842 at yesterday’s close – down from its 12-month high of 2173 last October.

Nick Bullman, managing partner at risk consultant Check Risks, said the index is a good way of looking at the risks to the global economy, “as it tends to be where they hit first”.

2012 - a hard year ahead

A senior couple living in Charlottetown is wondering where they will get the money to pay a property tax increase this year.

Homeowners across the Island are facing increased costs for municipal services in May, both on the tax bill — up 2.9 per cent — and in the charge for garbage collection from Island Waste Management — up 2.5 per cent.

"It makes me feel really disgusted," 64-year-old Donna DesRoches told CBC News Tuesday.

She and her 75-year-old husband Bob DesRoches live on seniors' pensions. The couple lives in their own home on a combined income of about $21,000 a year.

Charges on a $150,000 Charlottetown home

	2011	2012
Taxes	$2,704.85	$2,784.32
Waste Watch	$205	$210
Total	$2,909.85	$2,994.32

Bob DesRoches doesn't know where he'll find the extra cash.

"I'm not getting enough money to keep things going," he said.

"After I pay oil and food and lights and all the stuff like that there's not enough money coming in from the pension that I'm getting."

The DesRoches want the province to freeze taxes for seniors, rather than tie it to the consumer price index as the province does now, but Finance Minister Wes Sheridan said that is not possible.

"It makes no sense with regard to the market value versus the taxable value," said Sheridan.

Sheridan noted if a senior were to stay in their home for 20 years, the difference between the market value and the taxable value would become too great.

Sheridan said if seniors find it hard to pay their taxes they have the option of deferring payment until they sell their home.

I think that this is the thin end of the edge. In 10 years about half of Islanders will be over 60. Property tax is one of the greatest risks we face. If it is not thought through, it will mean that Islanders will be pushed out of their homes.

Where will they go? Into Manors? That costs today about $35,000 a year. Impossible.

We aslo know that the best way to keep seniors active and healthy is for them to stay in their homes.

So time to to sit down and think our way through this. It is surely possible to think our way into a better solution

Getty Images

Exciting times, friends. While we’ve been cleaning up the proverbial ticker tape left behind by jubilant celebration over the recently-stalled antipiracy bills, the Pirate Bay – arguably the premier resource for pirating digital content – has already moved on to the next big thing.

The site has announced a new category called “Physibles” that houses digital files that can be downloaded and used in conjunction with 3D printers to print out actual, physical objects:

We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare parts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years.

As of right now, the Physibles section of the Pirate Bay has only a few odds and ends – a 3D model of a camera lens, a model 1970 Chevelle hot rod and a whistle, to name a few – but as the prices of 3D printers continue to fall and people one day get used to the idea of, say, purchasing an otherwise tangible product from Amazon and then printing that object out themselves, you can see where a site like the Pirate Bay could really start to ruffle some retail feathers.

(MORE: What ‘Ownership’ Means for Digital Media)

The site spins the announcement with a more humanitarian outlook, however:

The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amounts of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We’ll be able to print food for hungry people. We’ll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal.

Such a future is still several, if not tens, of years off, but the ability to print relatively simple objects (even food) is already here and will continue to get more refined over time. Even questions about intellectual property as it pertains to 3D printing have already been raised.

You may recall last year that Shapeways.com, a site that lets users share 3D printer files with one another, found itself associated with a legal scuffle between one of its users and Paramount Pictures. The user had apparently recreated a prop from Paramount’s movie Super 8 and, according to Paramount, was offering to sell 3D printouts of it.

Now imagine a day when everyone has a 3D printer at home. We’ll surely be able to purchase 3D printer files from people and companies far more adept at creating models of printable objects than we are, and assuming these files will be relatively easy to duplicate due to their digital nature, we’re bound to witness plenty of litigation over what’s legal to copy and what’s not.

As Shapeways points out when commenting on the Pirate Bay news, “Being able to download product files is not new, Shapeways has had downloadable models for years, as has Thingiverse and Google Warehouse, but let’s see how this affects the 3D printing IP debate. “

(MORE: Roll Over, Movie Bootleggers: It’s All About 3D Prop Printing Now)

I don't buy CD's anymore - I download digital from Netflix or the cloud. I don't buy books much either. I use my Kindle.

Many objects will be in digital form. THIS will be the real revolution.

Imagine the fuss too. SOPA will be nothing on this

If you hear "maker culture" and instantly think of grease-stained weirdos who drone on about steampunk and "screws not glue"... well, you wouldn't be wrong. But when a giant software company like Autodesk throws its weight behind "makers," you know it's much more than a subculture. "There was this huge digital content generation that emerged, but now that 'Generation C' is turning into 'M,' the Make generation," Tatjana Dzambazova, Senior Product Manager at Autodesk, tells Co.Design. "They want to start physically fabricating the things that they create digitally." And now Autodesk is providing that power, in a free application called 123D that will let any maker, professional or amateur, design and 3D-print anything on demand from toys to turbines.

The Maker World is upon us - an even bigger breakthrough than the PC I think. Soon anyone will be able to make anything - mass production will go away - mass customization on is way.

The parent who simply can't find time to cook a family dinner can, always, find time to take a kid to the ER or endocrinologist. People who can't afford mixed greens can afford diabetes test strips.

People who carefully and responsibly invest in the financial security of their retirement (although we know that's no guarantee of a good outcome!) routinely neglect altogether any investment in their health. If money can be put aside for future benefit, why can't time be "put aside" -- invested in physical activity, eating well, getting enough sleep? It can be, of course -- but our social norms don't encourage it, and it doesn't happen. A standard-issue, responsible modern adult -- carefully tends their money, and neglects their health. It's normal, and almost expected. But bizarre -- and often calamitously costly.

Many people reach retirement with the money they need, lacking the health they need to use that money for anything enjoyable. As a physician, it is excruciatingly painful to look into the imploring eyes of a retiree who has long anticipated their golden years -- and has cultivated the bank account to underwrite it -- now disabled by progressive diabetes, lung disease, brain disease or heart disease that need not have occurred.

And it is all too common. I have seen, and continue to see, many such patients. Patients who reach retirement age with robust good health and too few dollars come along, too, of course -- but far less often. And here's the news flash: Those with health but not much money are clearly a happier group than those with money but not much health. I have met them on the intimate turf of clinical care, and they have told me so.

This is the backstory for a careful consideration of the Alzheimer's disease crisis we now face.

There has been enormous attention of late to the grim and genuinely frightening problem of Alzheimer's disease. The problem is grim by its very nature -- there is little we contemplate with greater dread than the loss of our minds, our very selves. The problem is frightening at the personal level because we feel vulnerable to this increasingly common condition we don't know how to cure, and at the collective level, where estimates suggest it could cost the nation a trillion dollars annually by 2050. There is also the terrible burden on family members, who must face the high demands of care, compounded by the heart-wrenching loss of a loved one who is still there, yet already gone.

It is in this context that President Obama has declared a war of sorts on this scourge, calling for means of both prevention and treatment by 2025, or even 2020. There is lively debate about how realistic the goal is -- although on that issue, I note that the best way to predict the future is to create it. You don't get to the moon without committing to the trip.

To create the president's future, it will be important to develop new treatments, as it is for obesity and diabetes. But as with obesity and diabetes, it will be important not to let the hunt for breakthrough treatments become the tail that wags the dog.

Alzheimer's is overwhelmingly a vascular disease, and thus overwhelmingly preventable. Estimates are less well established than for other chronic diseases, but it seems likely the risk can be trimmed by nearly 80 percent -- and perhaps eliminated entirely but for the extremely genetically vulnerable -- by minding our general health.

It is only fair and honest to concede that we do not have perfect defenses against Alzheimer's. And, to some extent, we are hoisted on our own petard -- vulnerable to this condition of advancing age because we are better at living longer than ever before.

But the evidence is strong, if not incontrovertible, that whatever the genetic underpinnings, the epigenetics of Alzheimer's -- the exposures that influence how genes behave -- are of profound importance. By and large, Alzheimer's is a vascular disease. By and large, the practices that prevent cardiovascular disease -- eating well, being active, avoiding tobacco -- slash the risk of Alzheimer's.

Study after study after study after study that has shown an elimination of up to 80 percent of all chronic disease with the application of lifestyle as medicine has NOT carved out an exception for Alzheimer's. The evidence that we can alter gene expression with the power of lifestyle almost certainly pertains to Alzheimer's as it does to cancer. By minding our bodies, we can mind our minds, too. We can best mind both, by minding the short list of what matters most to health.

Available evidence suggests that controlling cardiac risk factors can lower dementia risk specifically by 50 percent or more.

via huffingtonpost.com

Each of us can make the choice to be well or not.

Why is this so hard? Why is it easier to get ill and then get treatment than to take charge up front.

I really don't get it - do you?

As we all worry about the current fiscal situation – this is the time bomb. As so many of us age AND as so many of us who are not that old, get sick from the diseases of Modern Civilization, the costs of healthcare rise beyond the capacity of any nation to fund.

When the Boomers at in their 80′s, Medicare will cost the entire tax capacity of the US.  Of course it won’t, for we will be bust before then.

Many will demand that we get more efficient.

But this trend is unstoppable. And of course it’s not just aging.

42% of us are likely to get cancer. With 30% with Type 2 Diabetes, what will this be like in 20 years time. There are problems at the other end of the the population too. 20 years ago the Autism rate was 1 in 10,000. Now it is 1 in 160. Nearly one percent of the American Population will be unable to cope. And there is no reason to think that this trend will slow down.

So what to do? I think that our first step is to do all that we can to take care of our own health. Reduce the risk of illness and bankruptcy from our own lives. I am finding that my own example, is helping some of my friends take the same action. I have not been able to argue a single person into this. You my dear readers are the choir – it is our friends and family and colleagues that will not act if all we do is make the case.

I am finding that being the change is the best way. Once enough of us exist, then I think we will have enough power to persuade. What about at work. Health costs are killing your employer as well. What about at the state level? If some key workplaces, move then the power will build further. Then some states can move.

Then we will change the system. Then we will have the power to defend ourselves from those who make billions from making us ill and by treating our illness.

So this is very personal. By saving yourself and those that you love, you set in motion the forces that might make this apocalyptic future a lot better.

Good luck

 

Deep behind the costs of the healthcare system is this - no matter how many efficiencies we will make to the healthcare system, in places such as PEI that will have the majority of its people over 60 soon, if most of us are chronically ill, we cannot be served. It will all cost too much no matter what.

Our only chance is to start to look at what each of can do to not get ill or to get well.

So - if you had cancer, would you have chemo? If you had a heart attack would you have a stent put in?

So why not do what you have to do to avoid getting cancer or heart disease? You can and it is easier than the alternative.

Embracing the Future

Those who are not trapped in the old model are embracing the evolving world that is fuelled by the digital revolution. They are accepting the dispersed, decentralized, and peer-to-peer future.  The old intermediaries are dying (or are in their death throes), and in their place new ones are arising.

The future is about human beings  connecting with each other. It is about collaboration and cooperation. It is about sustainable growth. And it is about making space for people to create new possibilities unconstrained by the behemoths of centralized command and control.

Author Paulo Coelho summed it up nicely on his blog recently:

“As an author, I should be defending ‘intellectual property’, but I’m not.

Pirates of the world, unite and pirate everything I’ve ever written!

The good old days, when each idea had an owner, are gone forever.

First, because all anyone ever does is recycle the same four themes: a love story between two people, a love triangle, the struggle for power, and the story of a journey.

Second, because all writers want what they write to be read, whether in a newspaper, blog, pamphlet, or on a wall.

The more often we hear a song on the radio, the keener we are to buy the CD. It’s the same with literature.

The more people ‘pirate’ a book, the better. If they like the beginning, they’ll buy the whole book the next day, because there’s nothing more tiring than reading long screeds of text on a computer screen.”

Source: My thoughts on S.O.P.A. by Paulo Coelho on January 20, 2012

SOPA - Keystone Pipeline etc are surely signs of the pushback of the Industrial World. A world that is dying. In a special piece today the NYT talks about why Apple cannot bring the jobs home in the industrial context. They jobs as they were cannot come back. So what then?

We have to emigrate to the new "New World".

If we stay committed to the old, we have to shrivel and die. To go to the new world is hard and uncertain - but it is the only chance we have.

I have been exploring touch over the last few days. One of my aha's is that while we think we are so modern, we are primates. We may have been homo sapiens for 40,000 years and we may have been "civilized" for 4,000 years but we have been primates for 4 million years. How important is touch to primates? Harlow's famous experiment some monkeys were given a wire mummy. The others a cloth fuzzy mummy. The wire monkey had food the cloth fuzzy monkey did not. The babies huddled with the cloth monkey. Grooming is at the heart of the social welfare of primates. Robin Dunbar's thesis is that language itself arose from grooming. Gossip is in effect long distance grooming.

Yet we are so frightened of creating dependency and maybe also of the sexual aspects of touch that most of us hardly touch our babies much when compared to primates and to most traditional human societies. Car seats, strollers, cribs and playpens are now the essential kit that we have as parents.

Our babies are in effect born six months premature. Our brain is so big that if we went to term, women would have such wide hips that they could not walk. Only marsupials, who have nice pouches, have more helpless infants than humans. I was brought up the traditional way and we brought our kids up the same. We were taken at the moment of birth and "cleaned up" by the doctors and nurses. Then whisked away to the nursery. We were presented to our mothers on schedule for feeding. At home the separation continued. I still recall biting my hand as we heard Hope cry for us from her room.

What I have been reading recently, The Continuum Concept, The Vital Touch and What's Going On In There -  is quite clear. Babies need as much touch as possible in the first 6 months of life. 

Bottom line if we fill the touch need of an infant, she will be quite independent. It's a paradox that I see so clearly in our two dogs. Jay was abandoned as a puppy and spent 4 months in the pound. He is by my feet as I type this. He cannot stay away. Mildred was raised with her mummy and then moved off with her litter mates and then into our bed and into the bed of her foster mum Ann while we away. She is the most independent dog out. Always on her own and not "needing"

I posted this back in October 2003. I repost it today because of my growing understanding of the causes of our malaise. Why are so messed up because we have all but broken the thread between us as humans and our nature.

The modern world has separated us from nature and our own nature. All that makes us human has bene banished. Is this why we are so ill, confused, depressed and lost? I think so.

I see that all that made us human is almost gone. We are designed to grow up and work in a tribal setting. What is the family today?

We are designed to eat real food in a highly social setting. What is food and what are meals like today?

We are designed to depend on each other for all our most important needs - That gave us power and a place. Who do we depend on now? The state? Soulless corporations? Is this why we have no power of self respect?

We are designed to use our bodies all day and to be outside a lot. How do we use them now and what is our relationship with the natural world?

The good news is that I am seeing people step away from the brink. My dear son has done this and several good work pals have just done this. They cannot reconcile the needs of their kids for a human upbringing and the modern workplace.

So they are making the choice to be poor freelancers. They are giving up the bondage of the job - now that is love!

But my hope is that more and more are waking up. At the centre of Euan Semple's new book is the idea that we might be "Growing Up". For is there not something childish and immature about modern society?