Outpost of Health

Today, I was fortunate to be able to give a talk about acupuncture at the Wellness Center of Port Morris. The center does a lot that St. Ann's does, but they also have a focus on hepatitis, and give interferon treatments for people who couldn't otherwise afford or get them.
Harm reduction has always been about getting addicts access to clean needles, and the Wellness Center exemplifies exactly why that is: the diseases that can come along with I.V. drug abuse can be devastating. Normally (and for good reason), people talk about HIV. However, viral hepatitis is another consequence of prolonged drug abuse without access to safe kits. A great many of the people that I see at St. Ann's have had hepatitis (A, B, C, or combinations thereof) at some point.
A conservative pundit might say, well, those are the consequences of their actions, and why should my tax dollars go to help any of those scum? The truth is that these people are going to be a burden on the taxpayer at some point anyway; either incarcerated, or in hospital emergency rooms. That being the case, we might as well try and deal with it as cheaply as possible, and syringe exchange is easily much less money than the previous two options. An ounce of prevention.
While there, I talked at length about Chinese medicine and the Liver as it's seen from the TCM viewpoint. Dubbed, "The indomitable zang," a healthy Liver is essential for life. Interestingly, the Liver is one area where TCM and Western medicine come close. Not precisely the same, but close. A workhorse organ, and a master of multitasking (with a little Mad Scientist thrown in), the Liver aids in digestion by secreting bile, has roles in regulating blood sugar (by either glycogenolysis or gluconeogenesis), protein metabolism, cholesterol formation, and even coagulation (by producing coagulation factors I and II).
Chinese medicine, of course, never talks about any of these chemical factors, but it does recognize that the Liver is responsible for smoothly spreading energy throughout the body. Look at all the sayings wherein the Liver is likened to a "general," sending Blood to wherever it's needed for energy whenever the body is at work, and storing the Blood whenever the body is at rest. The Nei Jing says, "When the Liver Blood is full, the feet can walk, the hands can grasp, and the eye can see."
One interesting convergence between East and West. The Nei Jing says that the emotion of the Liver is anger, and that its associated sound is shouting. During my presentation, Irene Soloway, a physicians assistant and one of the Wellness Center's incredible workers, noted about one participant that when he began interferon treatment for his hep C, he was incredibly angry. With his treatments near finished, and presumably with his Liver somewhat ameliorated, he's a pussycat.
In this conservative era, when every government from the Fed down to the municipality seems to be screaming that they're broke, programs like the Wellness Center's are easy targets, especially for conservative pundits. However, the work that these places do is vitally important. Aside from the public health costs, it's also the ameliorating of suffering. And that you can't put a price on.

Harm Reduction in the Heights

This last Tuesday, I worked for the first time at the Washington Heights Corner Project. A syringe exchange/harm reduction center much like St. Ann's, WHCP is small but is doing crucial work in my neck of the woods. I'll be working there two Tuesdays per month. The best part is that I can walk there. Take that, MTA!
The initial day there was slow, with only eight people total receiving NADA protocol. Still, the eight seemed to get benefit from it, and from slow starts come good finishes. Here's hoping I can continue to help save all sentient beings from suffering in the Heights.

Stupid Technology!

So, I was all proud of myself this morning, because I got up early and on time to get to a faculty meeting at Pacific College or Oriental Medicine. My iCal application had chimed the day before, reminding me that the meeting was scheduled for Super Bowl Sunday, from 10am to 1pm. Naturally, when I got there, I found that there was no meeting. I'm going on the assumption that I might have stepped into an alternate reality. It sounds better than my having scheduled a phantom appointment that I didn't have to rush down for.