World TB Day and the Moxafrica Answer

World TB Day and the Moxafica Answer

The world needs more solutions, more individual and communal healing, more healing modalities that are both cost-effective and easy to use.

 In light of Dr. Margaret Chan's recent speech about the waning efficacy of antibiotics, anitbiotic resistance and evolutionary developments that threaten the world's population, simple, traditional solutions have, perhaps never been more necessary. For those with lesser access to the medication they need due to shortages, lack of access and/or other factors, traditional medicine has offered significant advantages.

Documented throughout several milennia, moxabustion is one of the most important modalities within Classical Chinese Medicine, Japanese medicine and others. For TB it has proven effective, delimited the development of anitbiotic resistant strains and proven itself cost-effective. In the hands of community healers and other professionals, moxabustion can be utilized within the community, exactly when and where it is needed. Drawing upon community values and the community healers prevalaent in Africa and most nations throughout the world, moxabustion could prove to be an invaluable treasure in TB treatment, even in the cases of HIV/AIDS comorbidity.

Answering the call for more flexible, low-tech solutions, Moxafrica.org is engaged in moxabustion research in Uganda. Funding the research of the charitable insitution, Moxafrica and those sickened with TB in Uganda and throughout the world stand to benefit. If you wonder how many might be affected by your effots consider these facts.

According to Merlin Young of Moxafrica (2012 based upon WHO figures):

• 32% of mankind is latently infected with TB; this percentage is higher in Africa (80%...).
• Normally 1 in 10 go on to develop infectious disease;
•  this is higher in Africa because of HIV/AIDS (no-one has a figure);
•  An estimated 35% of those who develop infectious disease die never having been diagnosed or treated (again this is higher in Africa, but who knows....?).
•  98% of deaths from TB occur in the developing world.

Innovative treatments are needed now as the scourge of drug resistant disease grows, and treatment becomes unaffordable for more and more vulnerable people.

If you'd like to be a part of the solution, part of the research to help Moxafrica demonstrate how this simple low-tech treatment (moxa) might well be part of the larger solution , please consider offering your contribution to Moxafrica.org's first properly controlled trial is starting in Uganda. They really need your help!

Please share this Moxafrica.org World TB Day video today and whenever possible. So many resource poor populations and people throughout the world may well depend on it. Together we can make a difference in so many lives! Thanks in advance for being part of something much larger than yourself.  Namaste~

My Sister's Keeper- Ethical and Legal Landscapes and Questions of Healing

Within the last few months, I have been incredibly busy......

• Synthesizing field research and practice
• Exploring the chasm between health and healing
• The 'unknowns' patients and their families face in the wake of illness especially chronic and difficult ones

and exploring the inevitable questions that arise regarding choices,

• midst unprecedented levels of medical tourism
• the era of the WHO 2008 Beijing Declaration contending that traditional medicine should be primary care in every nation
• and the consequent backlash of medical information imperialism.

Yet, nothing touched me more deeply or inspired more thought than Jodi Picoult's 2004 My Sister's Keeper. If you haven't read the book, I'd highly encourage you to do so. It's beautifully, eloquently written and emotionally driven! Utilizing pivotal vantage points, Picoult almost instantaneously initiates her readers into the Fitzgerald family, revealing each member's vantage point, affectations and realizations.

Synopsis

The Fitzgeralds, a white, upper middle class family with two children faces seemingly insurmountable challenges when their daughter, Sara, is diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia and none of them are donor compatible. Because of this, the Fitzgeralds choose to genetically engineer a child serve as spare parts for their daughter. More than a decade later, after numerous donations, operations, and procedures, their youngest daughter sues them for medical emancipation.

Obviously, this dilemma, the subsequent choices made and the consequences thereof elucidate several ethical, medical and legal questions. For this reason, I will pose them in parts.

Scenario

The most fundamental premises rest within the following scenario:

When Sara is diagnosed, her mother, father and her four-year-old brother are tested for donor compatibility. Devoid of a match, the Fitzgeralds' family doctor, Dr. Chance tells them a story about a family with a parallel circumstance. Notably, that family's later offspring matched the older sibling affected. While that family's child was naturally conceived for no particular purpose, that child 'solved' their donor problem.

The Fitzgeralds, on the other hand, took Dr. Chance's story one step further and genetically engineered Anna for the sole purpose of sustaining their other daughter's life. Accordingly, she was predefined and existed as 'an extra' or supplementary extension of Sara. While the initial donation merely entailed the cord blood cells, the probability existed for many more invasive donations. Therefore, it begs several questions from different intersecting arenas.

Questions

Unescapably, the society in which this scenario occurs dramatically alters its effects. Nevertheless, I listed a few select thoughts to consider.......

• Does this reason for Anna's existence violate the most fundamental rights for life and/or ethical principles?


• What should be considered? All vantage points welcome--Family nursing, social work, ethics review boards, legal representation, etc.


• What are the possible consequences of the Fitzgeralds' choice, even unintended ones?


• Should Dr. Chance have offered additional options, even if he were not qualified to deliver that modality of care?