Jerome’s mines produced over $1 billion dollars in copper, gold and silver. Like many mining towns, Jerome had a reputation for drinking, gambling and prostitution. In 1903, a New York newspaper called Jerome "the wickedest town in the West". Photo by Wendy Rose Gould

I grew up in country-land Indiana, a place ridden with cornfields, horse manure and clip-clopping buggies that held up traffic on just about every single road in town. To make a long story short, after college I did what many other freshly graduated kids did: I moved to Asia to teach English to children. This post-undergrad rite of passage helped satiate my desire for world travel, but it also taught me that there’s a lot of ground to cover in the United States besides row after row of veggie-filled fields.

I moved to Phoenix, Arizona in August of 2010 not because a new job required me to or because relocation was necessary. My move across the country was purely motivated by my wanderlust tendencies and a realization that the United States is an amazing country to explore. Naturally, I created a list of must-visit places in the Southwest and promptly began crossing items off my list. One of my first places to visit (mostly because it was highly recommended by just about everyone I ran into) was Jerome, Arizona.

In short, Jerome is a quirky town that’s nestled on the side of a mountain 5,000 feet up in the air. It’s located a roughly two-hour drive north of Phoenix and has a reputation of being one of your quintessential “Wild Wild West” towns. Think moonshine, guns, cowboys, ghosts, gambling and mining.

On my visit, I parked low and then hiked back and forth — and upward, naturally — stopping in many of the street-lined shops along the way. From tiny, independently owned candy stores to wineries, bars, boutiques and art galleries, there’s certainly no shortage of places to discover in Jerome. Of course, there are quite a few restaurants to choose from and, if you’re so inclined, a hotel at the tippy top of the town called Jerome’s Grand Hotel. Staying there requires a certain amount of courage, though, as it has a reputation for being haunted.

If I were to recommend a single solitary restaurant, it’d have to be the Haunted Hamburger.  I highly advise sitting outside on the deck, or at least near the windows in the back. There you’ll find a fantastic view of all that’s down below in Jerome. The Haunted Hamburger serves up lots of pub food and burgers. Read: comfort food. I ordered the Portobello burger, a tasty treat that comes with equally delicious thick fries. Expect to pay about $15 a person for a meal, drink and shared appetizer.

Photo by Wendy Rose Gould

Afterward, treat yourself to some mouth-watering fudge, ice cream or shaved shaved ice from Copper Country Fudge. If you’re trying to remain loyal to your diet, you may want to avoid walking by this place, as the smells wafting out will certainly tempt you. Note that they do offer sugar free fudge.

Another must-visit while touring Jerome is Caduceus Winery, founded and run by American rock singer Maynard James Keenan. For those who don’t know (my husband did have to inform me), Keenan’s associated with bands such as Tool, A Perfect Circle and Alice in Chains. Even if your musical preferences do not include the aforementioned entities, you’ll find Keenan’s award winning wine worth stopping by. Opt for a wine tasting to find a wine that pleases your taste buds.

Photo by Wendy Rose Gould

In addition to the establishments I’ve mentioned here, you’ll find a healthy variety of other shops to visit while discovering Jerome. I was to the town’s eccentric art galleries and vintage shops. Even just walking around is a great way to spend an entire day in Jerome. From breathtaking views to quirky architecture to little bits of nostalgia all around (such as the retro gas pump pictured here), Jerome will satisfy all ages and personalities.

Photo by Wendy Rose Gould

Parents who suffer from migraine headaches are more than twice as likely to have babies with colic than parents who don’t have a history of migraines, according to a new study at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). More than 29 million Americans suffer chronic pain from migraines.

Colic, or excessive crying, has long been associated with gastrointestinal problems in babies. But after more than 50 years of research, no definitive link has been proven between infant colic and gastrointestinal illness.

“We’ve known about colic for a really long time, but despite this fact, no one really knows why these babies are crying,” said Amy Gelfand, MD, a child neurologist with UCSF’s Headache Center.

Gelfand and her colleagues surveyed 154 new mothers with two month old infants, the age when colicky crying usually reaches its peak. The mothers were asked about their babies’ crying patterns and their own history of migraine. Mothers who suffered migraines were two-and-a-half times more likely to have colicky babies. In all, 29 percent of the infants whose mothers had migraines had colic, compared to 11 percent of the babies whose mothers did not have migraines.

About 22 percent of colicky babies had a father with migraine, compared to 10 percent of the babies who did not, suggesting a genetic link.

The UCSF researchers believe colic may be an early sign of a set of conditions known as childhood periodic syndromes, believed to be precursors to migraine headaches later in life. Babies with colic may have difficulty coping with new stimuli once they are outside the womb and, like migraine sufferers, may be more sensitive to light and sound. Reducing stimulation may help alleviate some of the crying. That is significant because excessive crying is one of the most common triggers for shaken baby syndrome, which can cause death, brain damage and disability.

“If we can understand what is making the babies cry, we may be able to protect them from this very dangerous outcome,” said Gelfand. She will present her findings at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting in New Orleans in April.

Researchers say an online interactive program can help people overcome chronic pain from migraine headaches.

A total of 185 participants completed a study which tested a free online program available at painACTION.com, a website designed to help people learn how to manage their pain. Compared to people in a control group, participants who used the website were more confident in their ability to manage headache pain and disability, and reported more use of coping strategies, including relaxation techniques and seeking social support. They also reported less migraine-related stress, depression and anxiety.

“A critical component of comprehensive migraine treatment is engaging the patient in self-management,” says lead researcher Jonas Bromberg, PsyD, Director of Health Communications at Inflexxion, the company that created painACTION.com with grants from the National Institutes of Health. “Self-management training should help patients learn how to identify, avoid, and manage headache triggers, and learn to perform other essential prevention, management, and coping behaviors.”

Migraine is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by moderate to severe headaches and nausea. Migraines are three times more common in women than in men. The exact cause is unknown. About a third of the people who suffer from migraines report an “aura” – a sensitivity to light and sound that often precedes a headache.

“PainACTION.com can be an important element of a comprehensive disease management approach,” says Kevin Zacharoff, MD, Vice President of Medical Affairs for Inflexxion. “Many people with migraine may have limited access to expert behavioral and lifestyle-change support, or are reluctant to seek mental health services. Health care providers who refer their patients to painACTION.com can help meet a critical public health need by making behavioral support available in a more timely way for larger numbers of migraine patients.”

The study is being published in Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain, the official publication of the American Headache Society.

Max Rosland, a 7-year-old elementary school student from Carter Lake, Iowa, was placed on a heart-lung bypass machine last month because of a severe allergic reaction to a peanut he ate at school. He survived. Ammaria Johnson, a first-grader from Richmond, Virginia went into anaphylactic shock and tragically died January 2 after eating a peanut her classmate gave her during recess.

The frequent and harrowing stories of food allergies have prompted a national outcry for schools to carry epinephrine (an emergency medicine that combats allergic reaction) and for parents to have their children tested for food allergies.

“This type of tragedy happens more often than you think,” said Darshana Alle, MD, an immunologist certified with the American Board of Allergy and Immunology, and practicing physician with the Allergy and Asthma Care Centers in Arlington, Virginia. “It’s something that parents and schools must be prepared to address.”

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) reports that food allergies alone cause 30,000 anaphylactic shock episodes and 140 deaths each year.

Those are too many Max’s and Ammaria’s.

Dr. Alle strongly recommends equipping homes and schools with epinephrine, and teaching both parents and school faculty the appropriate use of this potentially life-saving medication. She stressed that, “In emergency situations, epinephrine can neutralize anaphylactic shock, and that can mean the difference between life and death.”

Dr. Alle’s opinions are being echoed in federal and state legislatures around the country. Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) recently introduced the School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act (S. 1884) to provide incentives to require schools to maintain and permit school personnel to administer epinephrine.

In Virginia, Delegate Peter Farrell (R-56th) introduced HB 1156 which would allow school officials to administer epinephrine to students believed to be in anaphylactic shock.

“This bill is in direct response to the Chesterfield (county) situation,” Virginia Delegate Riley Ingram (R-62nd) told Capital News Service when referring to Ammaria Johnson’s tragic death.

Six other states have similar legislation underway. But, parents cannot afford to wait for legislation to address the hidden, and sometimes deadly, dangers of food allergy.

Anaphylaxis: The Potentially Deadly Allergic Reaction

The most dreaded manifestation of food allergy is anaphylaxis, a rapid-onset allergic reaction that can cause death. It most commonly presents with skin, respiratory, cardiac or gastrointestinal symptoms, where at least two organ systems are affected. If the cardiovascular system is affected, it can lead to potential shock and death. Anaphylaxis is always a medical emergency.

The primary treatment for anaphylaxis is epinephrine, which is the hormone adrenaline. Epinephrine is available only through a prescription and is administered through an auto-injector, or spring-loaded needle called an EpiPen.

It is this treatment that legislators want to make available in schools, and physicians want parents and school officials to learn how and when to use it.

Steps Parents Can Take to Avoid Tragedy

1. Be diligent about the signs of food allergy

Dr. Alle recommends parents be diligent about the signs of food allergy, and ask these important questions:

• Does one kind of food seem to cause problems?
• Is there an immediate reaction in the hour or so after the food is ingested?
• What type of reaction does it cause (hives, tongue swelling, wheezing, vomiting, eczema, etc.)?

She further stresses that “Children who have food challenges should be seen by an allergist for a complete diagnostic assessment, and at least once a year, thereafter.”

2. Consult an immunologist / allergist

An immunologist, or allergist, is a physician trained in diagnosing, treating and managing allergies, asthma and immunologic disorders.

“As allergists we often are playing the role of detective to investigate what might be causing the symptoms,” Dr. Alle stated. “Whether the patient is an adult or a child, we need to define the problem through a detailed history, thorough exam, and if indicated, a skin test, blood test or ‘food challenge’. Then, we determine how to best approach and manage the problem.”

3. Be prepared at home and school

If an adult or child has been diagnosed with a food allergy, or is predisposed to food allergies, an allergist may prescribe epinephrine. The allergist or another healthcare provider provides training on how to administer the medicine in an emergency.

“Being prepared and trained on how to use an EpiPen, or other epinephrine auto-injector, is a necessity for parents and school personnel who care for children with food allergies,” Dr. Alle stressed.

About Food Allergy

A food allergy is an abnormal immune response to a certain food that the body reacts to as harmful. A reaction to food that may suggest possible allergy consists of immediate-onset (within one hour) of symptoms such as:

• Hives
• Tingling in the mouth
• Swelling in the tongue and throat
• Difficulty breathing
• Abdominal cramps
• Vomiting or diarrhea
• Eczema or rash
• Coughing or wheezing
• Loss of consciousness
• Dizziness

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes the following specific risk factors associated with food allergy:

• Family history of allergy or asthma
• Genetic predisposition to allergic disease
• Being under the age of 3
• Elevated allergen-specific serum immunoglobulin levels

Foods that are commonly implicated with allergy include:

• Peanuts and tree nuts
• Wheat
• Eggs
• Milk
• Soy
• Shellfish

Even with improved diagnostic tools, treatment and management, the number of children with allergies in general has increased 18% from 1997 to 2007, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

“There’s no cure for food allergies,” summarized Dr. Alle. “Obviously, as physicians, we want to help recognize early which foods are a problem, make sure the patient avoids them, and be vigilant in monitoring the health of the patient regularly with visits to the doctor. Food allergies are just too important to ignore.”

Thankfully, physicians and legislators alike are taking steps to minimize the chance of another tragic food allergy death, like Ammaria Johnson’s.

RESOURCES:

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/organization/dait/documents/june30_2003.pdf

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/foodallergies/

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db10.htm

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/020800s020lbl.pdf

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s1884/show

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?121+ful+HB1156

Canadian police, public health officials and native Indian tribes are bracing for potential problems next month when the powerful painkiller OxyContin is withdrawn from the market. Purdue Pharma Canada will stop manufacturing the drug in Canada and will replace it with a new “safer” formulation called OxyNEO on March 1st.

OxyContin was developed to treat acute and chronic pain, but has become one of the most widely abused drugs on the planet. It is known as “hillbilly heroin” because of its popularity in remote rural areas, such as Canada’s far north. Addiction to OxyContin and other opioid painkillers is blamed for hundreds of deaths annually in Canada, where there is a widespread black market for OxyContin and abuse of the drug is common among native Indians. As many as half the adults and youths in Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) communities in northern Ontario are addicted to OxyContin, according to Benedikt Fischer of Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Addictions and Mental Health.

“Without OxyContin available, individuals will experience withdrawal,” Fischer warned in a statement for NAN. “A public health catastrophe is imminent, as there are thousands of addicted individuals with rapidly shrinking supplies – likely leading to massive increases in black market prices, use of other drugs, needle use and sharing, and crime.”

OxyContin tablets crushed into powder for snorting.

When addicts crush Oxycontin, then inject or inhale it, the painkiller produces a “heroin-like euphoria.” Once it is replaced by OxyNEO, Fischer is worried addicts will turn to more dangerous drugs like cocaine or heroin. OxyNEO is harder to crush for snorting or injecting.

Health care services in Canada were already taking steps to limit the use of OxyContin. Access to the painkiller is restricted in Manitoba and Newfoundland, and Ontario has dropped funding for OxyContin prescriptions from its Drug Benefit Program.

Last week the country’s national health service, Health Canada, said it would remove OxyContin from the list of drugs available through its Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) program, which provides health care to people without private insurance. Only those currently prescribed OxyContin will be switched to OxyNEO. A Health Canada advisory committee has concluded there is no evidence OxyContin is more effective than other opioids and that it may be more dangerous.

Dame Judi Dench has revealed that she has macular degeneration and is battling to save her eyesight.

In an interview with the Daily Mirror, the British actress said her vision is so poor she can barely see faces in front of her. But she vowed to continue acting and hopes recent treatment can halt the progressive decline of the disease, which often leads to blindness.

“I can’t read scripts any more because of the trouble with my eyes,” Dench told the Mirror. “And so somebody comes in and reads them to me, like telling me a story. It’s usually my daughter or my agent or a friend and actually I like that, because I sit there and imagine the story in my mind.”

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) occurs when the central portion of the retina that is important for reading and color vision becomes damaged. AMD can take two different forms: dry and wet.

Wet AMD is the more serious with 200,000 persons diagnosed in the U.S. every year. Without treatment, patients can lose their central vision over time, leaving only peripheral or side vision. The symptoms can occur suddenly or gradually over time. By the time a person is 75, there is a 30% chance that he or she will develop AMD according to the National Eye Institute.

Dench, who is 77, says she has both forms of AMD. “I had wet in one eye and dry in the other and they had to do these injections and I think it’s arrested it. I hope so.” she said.

“I can’t see your face at all now, but I can see your outline,” Dench told the Mirror reporter. “The most distressing thing is in a restaurant in the evening I can’t see the person I’m having dinner with.”

“You get used to it. I’ve got lenses and glasses and things and very bright light helps,” she added.

Dame Judi won an Oscar for her role as Queen Elizabeth in “Shakespeare in Love.” Her latest film is about a group of British pensioners who spend their retirement in India. “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” will be released February 24.

Profits, not patient care, may be a driving force behind the soaring number of drug tests given to people with chronic pain, according to a pain sufferer and patient advocate. In an article published in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, author Mark Collen claims that widespread drug testing may be partially motivated by money.

“The paper takes a retrospective look at drug testing and presents Medicare data which shows a meteoric climb in drug screens,” said Collen, who cites evidence that doctors and drug laboratories could make as much as $200 by ordering a single drug test. “I was very surprised when I saw the numbers, which show that between 2000 and 2009 the number of all Medicare laboratory services increased by about 48%, while the number of drug tests conducted in physicians’ offices increased over 3,000,000 percent.”

The number of drug tests billed to Medicare by family practice doctors soared from a few dozen in 2000 to over a quarter of a million tests in 2009. Doctors of anesthesiology, internal medicine and neurology had similar increases in their use of drug screens.

An estimated 116 million Americans suffer from acute and chronic pain. Many doctors who treat chronic pain patients require them to submit to random drug screens as a condition for receiving prescription pain medications. The stated rationale is to prevent misuse and possible addiction, but Collen claims there is little evidence to support the value of drug tests on people with chronic pain.

“It would be naive to say that money has not played a role in the dramatic increase in drug testing as noted in the paper,” Collen wrote in an email to American News Report. “I believe profits drove drug testing behavior and behavior drove acceptance of the procedure before there was sufficient evidence of efficacy. Now physicians may be drug testing patients because others are doing it.”

Until recently doctors could charge Medicare and private insurers up to $225 for a urine drug test that cost them a little over $20. Medicare changed its reimbursement rules after the government found evidence that some laboratories and doctors were using questionable billing practices.

Ameritox, a national laboratory that provides drug testing, agreed to pay $16.3 million in fines in 2010 to settle claims that it gave kickbacks to doctors for using its labs. A lawsuit filed by a whistleblower claims that Ameritox employees handled urine collection in doctors’ offices and automatically sent samples to their labs without waiting for a physician’s request. Another testing company, Calloway Laboratories, was indicted by a Massachusetts grand jury for an “extensive” kickback scheme for doctors. Calloway has denied the charges.

Concern about a “lack of boundaries” in drug test billing led the American Academy of Pain Medicine (AAPM) to warn its members about increased government oversight. “The use of clinical drug tests in pain management has become an area ripe for the submission of fraudulent and abusive claims for reimbursement and rampant ‘overutilization’ of laboratory services,” warned Jennifer Bolden, a former federal prosecutor who is a special counsel to the AAPM.

Mark Collen became an advocate for chronic pain sufferers after years of living with neuropathic pain caused by a herniated disc in his lower back. He runs the Pain Exhibit, a website that displays the art work of chronic pain sufferers.

“My pain was under treated for many years and I don’t want others to suffer unnecessarily as I did,” Collen wrote. “There may be an appropriate use for drug screens for individuals with chronic pain but that has yet to be determined. They need to do the research first before it is utilized.”

Romney? Santorum? Gingrich? Republicans may be deeply divided over who should be their party’s presidential nominee, but there is little doubt who they rate as the best president since World War II.

One quarter of Americans (25%) rate Ronald Reagan as the best president in a new Harris Poll, with over half the Republicans surveyed (55%) also picking Reagan. George W. Bush was rated as the worst president by 27 percent, while 22 percent say Barack Obama is the worst.

Harris surveyed 2,106 adults online about their presidential preferences as the nation prepares to celebrate President’s Day.

Who was the best president since World War Two?

25% Ronald Reagan
19% Franklin Roosevelt
15% John Kennedy
12% Bill Clinton
4% Dwight Eisenhower

Who was the worst president since World War Two?

27% George W. Bush
22% Barack Obama
12% Richard Nixon
5% Bill Clinton
5% Jimmy Carter

Americans remain divided over the presidency of Bill Clinton, who made the top 5 in both the best and worst. But Clinton can take comfort in the fact that his reputation is improving. In 2008, 17 percent of Americans rated Clinton as the worst president. Only 5% feel that way now. Clinton also made the top 5 in the list of best presidents of all time.

Who was the best president in our history?

32% Abraham Lincoln
26% Ronald Reagan
21% George Washington
21% John Kennedy
19% Bill Clinton

Historians often say a president is best judged in the years after he has left office. Decisions made while sitting in the Oval Office may be popular or unpopular at the time; but as time passes, the wisdom of those choices become clearer.

Chronic pain sufferers have long bemoaned the fact that people often tell them the pain is “all in your head.” New research indicates that is partially true and it may be possible to ease chronic pain by erasing memories in the brain.

A team of researchers at McGill University in Montreal has found the key to understanding how memories of pain are stored in the brain. A protein called PKMzeta plays a critical role in building and maintaining memory by strengthening the connections between neurons. Researchers found that by blocking PKMzeta activity, they could reverse the hypersensitivity to pain that neurons develop. Erasing these painful memories reduces both persistent pain and heightened sensitivity to touch.

It’s long been known that the brain “remembers” painful experiences. Acute pain of even just a few minutes will leave a memory trace in the central nervous system. When there is new sensory input or feeling in the same area, the brain recalls the pain memory and magnifies the feeling, so that even a gentle touch can be agonizing. That is how normally protective acute pain turns into chronic pain.

“Perhaps the best example of a pain memory trace is found with phantom limb pain,” said McGill neuroscientist Terence Coderre. “Patients may have a limb amputated because of gangrene, and because the limb was painful before it was amputated, even though the limb is gone, the patients continue to feel they are suffering from pain in the absent limb. That’s because the brain remembers the pain. In fact, there’s evidence that any pain that lasts more than a few minutes will leave a trace in the nervous system.”

It’s this memory of pain that is critical to the development of chronic pain. Until now, it was not known how pain memories were stored at the neuron level in the brain.

Coderre and his colleagues believe that further research on PKMzeta could lead to new methods to target the protein in pain pathways.

“Many pain medications target pain at the peripheral level, by reducing inflammation, or by activating analgesia systems in the brain to reduce the feeling of pain,” says Coderre. “This is the first time that we can foresee medications that will target an established pain memory trace as a way of reducing pain hypersensitivity. We believe it’s an avenue that may offer new hope to those suffering from chronic pain.”

The McGill research is being published in the journal Molecular Pain

Chronic pain should be recognized as a disease, not a symptom, according to a panel of experts that testified before a U.S. Senate committee Tuesday. It was the first congressional hearing ever held on chronic pain and pain management, a public health issue that’s drawing increasing attention in the medical community.

An estimated 116 million Americans suffer from acute or chronic pain, at an annual cost of $635 billion in medical treatment and lost productivity, according to a landmark study in 2011 by the Institute of Medicine.

“From the moment I open my eyes every morning, the first thing I feel is pain. And it stays with me throughout the day,” testified Christin Veasley, who suffers from back pain, facial pain and migraines caused by a near fatal accident 20 years ago.

Like many chronic pain sufferers, Veasley is frustrated with how the medical and health insurance industries deal with pain. In the last few years, Veasley said she has visited doctors in four different states and tried 15 different treatments, many paid for out of her own pocket. Yet she still lives in pain.

“As patients we are completely disillusioned, forced to navigate the health care system on our own and implement a trial and error process that can easily take months to years to find a treatment to lessen the pain that we experience,” said Veasley, who is a pain management advocate and executive director of the National Vulvodynia Association.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) chaired the meeting of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions to draw attention to what he called an “epidemic” of chronic pain.

“Chronic pain is a significant public health challenge that has yet to receive adequate attention given the tremendous impact it has on people all across our nation,” Harkin said. “Chronic pain remains one of the most challenging conditions to assess and effectively treat even though its one of the top reasons for doctors visits.”

Harkin said there was a lack of coordination in federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in addressing chronic pain. He also believes the nation’s doctors are being poorly prepared to deal with the challenges of treating chronic pain.

“We need to do a better a job of educating in medical schools and in our residencies about the different forms of pain and how they should be treated,” Harkin urged. “How do we educate our doctors to understand this and make the right kind of diagnosis?”

One solution is to start treating chronic pain as a disease, testified Lawrence Tabak, DDS, PhD, the principal deputy director of the NIH. Tabak and other pain experts called for a “cultural transformation” in how the nation understands and approaches pain management.

“Perhaps the most important modern insight about chronic pain is that chronic pain, no matter how it begins, can become a disease in and of itself,” said Tabak. “Changes in the brain and elsewhere in the nervous system can cause pain to persist long after it has any adaptive value. This recognition of chronic pain as a disease has important implications for how we study pain, treat pain and structure our health care to provide care to patients suffering from pain.”

Tamak said the number of people suffering from chronic pain is likely to grow because the U.S. population is getting older, which results in more people suffering from age-related diseases such as arthritis. Improving survival rates from heart disease, cancer, stroke and HIV/AIDS also contributes to the number of chronic pain sufferers.

There are not enough trained doctors to treat chronic pain, according to Philip Pizzo, MD, dean of Stanford University’s School of Medicine and co-author of the Institute of Medicine’s report on pain. Pizzo said the current number of 4,000 pain specialists in the U.S. was “not nearly enough.”

“The scope of the problem in pain management is truly daunting. And the limitation and knowledge of pain health care professionals is glaring,” Pizzo testified. “The medical community must actively engage in the necessary cultural transformation to reduce pain suffering of Americans.”

Graduation is still months away, but senior economics major Celina Adame is already worried about finding a job.

“The type of work I want to do – the finance sector — isn’t doing so well,” she says. “My parents helped pay for my education and I don’t want to become a financial burden for them.”

Adame is not alone. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center  found that the unemployment rate for 18-to-24 year olds was 16.3 percent. The rate of employment for college-aged Americans is the lowest since the government started keeping track in 1948.

Much like the economy of the last four years, the idea that new college graduates should be financially independent may also be coming to a slow, grinding halt. The Pew survey found that two-thirds of parents believe children should be financially independent by age 22. That may seem like a solid majority, but it’s a significant drop from the 80% that felt that way in 1993.

The same poll found that a majority of Americans believe young adults are suffering the most due to the economy, and that today’s generation of young adults has a harder time paying for college, finding jobs, buying homes or saving for the future than their parents’ generation.

Adame, who attends Whittier College, a small liberal arts school in Whittier, California, agrees with the Pew survey’s findings that it’s young adults that are having the hardest time in this economy.

“Definitely, because first of all, we probably don’t have any experience or training that’s required for jobs that are out there,” Adame told American News Report. “Also, companies are trimming the fat as it is. They’re not going to hire these new people and spend the time and money that it takes to give these youngsters the experience that they need. No one is willing to give these kids experience, and everyone wants experience.”

“I think the economic downturn is really discouraging for a lot of young people, especially people who just graduated,” says 20-year-old Poonam Narewatt, a junior studying English and political science. “We’re taught that if we work hard and do well in college and whatnot, we’ll succeed and get a job, but that’s no longer the case.”

Narewatt believes the problem goes beyond students holding out for the best job possible. “It’s not even like ‘oh, I can’t get my dream job,’ it’s ‘oh, I can’t even get a job at my local department store.’”

With the rising number of recent college graduates that are out of work, talk has turned to whether the economy is even capable of supporting thousands of new graduates each year. Narewatt disagrees. “I don’t think our college graduates are limited to America,” she said. “I think the world’s economy can support graduates. I think our generation just needs to get creative. Capitalize on the things we’re good at. Our government needs to just try and get along enough to get something done… anything.”

Rather than enter into a depleted job market, some graduates are continuing their education. “The graduates that I know that are not attending graduate school are having a tough time finding jobs,” says 23-year-old Taylor Chin, who graduated last year with a degree in chemistry and is in his first year at Optometry school. “I knew that graduate school would be financially possible because I conducted enough research to know that I would be able to take out loans to invest in my future.”

But while there’s no debate that young adults are entering a less than ideal economic climate, the same Pew survey found that nearly nine-in-ten of today’s 18-to-34 year-olds feel they earn enough money or expect to earn enough lead the kind of life they want.

Narewatt believes this optimism is due to a “culture of winners” today’s young adults have been raised in. “I attribute the optimism to Mr. Rogers,” she said. “He told us we were special. We got trophies in little league even if we were the losing team. I don’t think it’s bad that we are positive, it sure wouldn’t help to be negative.”

Adame is suspicious that young adults know what it takes to be financially independent. “I want to say that these kids don’t know what they’re talking about,” she said. “Do they really know how much it takes for bills and stuff? Their phone bill, electric, water, car insurance, gas… it makes me think, do they really know all the costs that they have to take into account for their everyday lives?”

Managing chronic pain has gotten less painful – or at least easier to keep track of. Born out Damon Lynn’s own painful experience, “My Pain Diary” is an iphone app designed specifically to help people track their pain. It’s one of several apps on the market that help chronic pain sufferers document their symptoms and treatment; not only for themselves but for health care providers who get detailed reports about their condition.

“The My Pain Diary app is easy to use and can be customized for whatever medical condition a user is experiencing,” says Lynn, who knows what he’s talking about. Lynn’s personal journey with chronic pain began in 2008, when he fell off of his snow-covered roof in Galena, Ohio and fractured his leg in two places. The injury led to Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), a nervous system disorder that has no known cure and usually gets worse with time. To help treat patients, doctors usually tell them to track their pain.

That is what lead Lynn to create My Pain Diary. After recovering from surgery, Lynn returned to work as a multimedia developer, but found that the need to constantly elevate his leg and take pain medications made it difficult to manage his job. “I figured my best shot was to fire up my computer and work on my own,” Lynn told American News Report.

Two months later, he launched My Pain Diary. Unfortunately, the app didn’t make enough money for Lynn to pay his bills. When offered a lucrative job with a pharmaceutical advertising agency, Lynn took it, but continued to develop his app in his spare time. Chronic pain continued for him as well.

It wasn’t long before he realized that the app was where he wanted to spend all of his time. He took out a loan, and focused on marketing and developing My Pain Diary.

Ease of use is Lynn’s biggest concern. He designed My Pain Diary specifically for people who are struggling with pain and on medications. “It’s hard for them to think clearly,” he explains. Once customized by the user, the app asks people to simply type in a few words. The app does the rest. “It aggregates data and graphs it out,” Lynn says. That allows patients and medical health professionals to see patterns of chronic pain, and helps users manage their conditions.

One of the most significant aspects of the app is that it changes communication between patients and their health care providers. “My Pain Diary can improve the quality of care,” Lynn says, “because it allows better communication between patients and doctors. It validates what patients tell their doctors.”

Doctors often tell chronic pain sufferers to track their pain, but that requires a pen and paper available at all times; along with an ability to write down when and where it hurts, what day and time it is, the weather, the level of pain, and what the patient is doing. Even if a patient is capable of doing all of that, the end result is a journal full of data that a doctor must read through and evaluate.

Lynn says the My Pain Diary is easy and fun to use if you have an iphone, “It’s always with you,” Lynn says. “It’s got a camera if you need it, and a location-awareness feature. It takes only seconds to record your data.”

Lynn claims the app can literally change people’s lives. One woman purchased My Pain Diary because of constant pain in her hip. Although she told her doctor about it for years, he was unresponsive. She purchased My Pain Diary, recorded her pain, printed a report and gave it to her doctor. The doctor then saw the reality of the woman’s pain, approved hip surgery and the woman got a new hip.

With both technology and the health care industry in strong growth patterns, Lynn sees a new type of patient emerging, called the “epatient.” A growing number of people will take control of their medical conditions and use technology to manage them. “We’re on the cusp of a health of a health care revolution,” says Lynn. “With the technology available it will change the paradigm and put more control in patient’s hands.”

The My Pain Diary app is available on the iphone, soon on the ipad, and in the future on Android. It costs $1.99, but a free version is available, which allows people to download and evaluate the app. Lynn says My Pain Diary currently has about 400 users daily and about 5,000 people use it monthly. The numbers change all the time, but Lynn expects another 2,000 this month. “It’s growing at a good clip now,” he says.

Similar apps for chronic pain include Chronic Pain Tracker, Pain Care and Chronica Pain Management. Each app offers its own version of how users input data and track it. Some apps are more visual and others offer a “journal like” method to enter and record data. The cost of each varies as well, and most offer a free version to evaluate them.

Chronic Pain Tracker, at $14.99 the most expensive of the pain apps, offers the ability to “paint in” your pain, something like a “paint by number” painting. Chronica is an app developed by someone who suffers from chronic pain. It gives you an image of a human body to pinpoint where pain occurs and then rate its intensity on a scale from one to 10. Pain Care is a free app that recently won the “Project Health Design” challenge by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the California HealthCare Foundation.

Lynn sees major health companies entering the marketplace with their own pain apps, but he isn’t afraid of them. “They’d hire someone like me to develop a pain app,” he explains. “They’ll come in, make their money and leave. I have a progressive, chronic condition that’s only going to get to get worse. I’m here for the long run.”

While “break a leg” is a theater term used for good luck, in Damon Lynn’s case, his broken leg actually led to a new career — even if it means a lifetime of chronic pain.

Two national surveys of doctors in the U.S. have uncovered shocking admissions that many physicians lie to their patients, withhold information about their medical mistakes, fail to disclose their financial relationships with medical companies, and routinely order unnecessary medical procedures to avoid being sued.

“There’s an expectation that our doctors will be truthful, and most are but some are not,” said Eric Campbell, the director of research at Massachusetts General Hospital, who co-authored one study of doctors that is being published in the journal Health Affairs.

Campbell and his colleagues surveyed nearly 1,900 doctors in 2009 and found that 11 percent had told their patients something untrue in the previous year. Over a third of the doctors believed it was not always necessary to disclose a serious medical error to a patient.

Other survey results:

• 55% of doctors gave a positive prognosis to a patient that was not warranted.
• 20% did not fully disclose a mistake because they were afraid of a lawsuit.
• 28% revealed to an unauthorized person private health information about a patient.
• 35% did not feel they should always disclose financial relationships with medical companies

The researchers didn’t ask whether any patients were harmed because of a physician’s dishonesty.

Medical companies will soon be required by law to disclose whether they gave doctors gifts, speaking fees or other financial compensation. Under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act of 2009, all drug and device companies will be required to report payments in excess of $10 by March, 2013. A searchable database will also be available showing everything from consulting fees to vacations and meals that physicians accept from medical companies.

Another national survey released this week found that nearly all orthopedic surgeons admitted practicing “defensive” medicine – the ordering of unnecessary tests, procedures and referrals — to avoid future liability. The study, which was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), estimated the annual cost of defensive medicine at $2 billion.

In the survey of over 1,200 orthopaedic surgeons, 96 percent admitted ordering tests, procedures or hospital admissions primarily to avoid possible malpractice lawsuits. Researchers estimated the cost of defensive medicine at $8,500 per month or $100,000 per year for each doctor.

The study also found that up to 84 percent of orthopedic surgeons avoided high-risk patients or procedures to limit their liability. Other types of defensive medicine include closing a practice to become a consultant, not seeing patients in an emergency room and not operating on patients with diabetes or heart problems.

The study shows that physicians “are clearly concerned about malpractice issues and they’re adjusting their practice procedures based on that fear,” said Manish K. Sethi, MD, lead author of the study, and co-director of the Vanderbilt Orthopaedic Institute Center for Health Policy.

“Defensive medicine drives up the cost of patient care and limits patient access to specialty care, neither of which are in the interest of our patients,” said Douglas Lundy, MD, chairman of the AAOS Medical Liability Committee. “Unfortunately, the current legal climate forces good doctors to order these tests and practice defensive medicine.”

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic say obese people are at greater risk for fibromyalgia and are more likely to suffer from severe symptoms. Fibromyalgia is a complex disorder characterized by chronic pain, muscle soreness, fatigue, moodiness and sleep disorders.

“We see an association between body mass index with symptom severity and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia,” says study author Terry Oh, MD, of the Mayo Clinic’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. “This was the first study to look at distinct groups of obese patients and determine how weight correlates with levels of symptoms and quality of life.”

Researchers studied the body mass index (BMI) of 888 fibromyalgia patients at the Mayo Clinic’s Fibromyalgia Treatment Program in Rochester,Minnesota. Obesity (a BMI greater than 29) was common in about half of the patients and one-fourth were severely obese (a BMI greater than 35). The severity of fibromyalgia symptoms was more pronounced in overweight patients and they also reported a poorer quality of life. Severely obese patients had significantly higher pain scores than non-obese and overweight patients.

About 5 percent of Americans suffer from fibromyalgia. Ninety percent of those with the condition are women. There is no cure for fibromyalgia, but symptoms can be eased through medication, exercise and relaxation techniques.

Although a cause and effect relationship has not been established between obesity and fibromyalgia, a higher rate of obesity in those who have fibromyalgia may be caused by increased disability and a lack of physical inactivity.

“BMI has already been singled out as an independent risk factor for fibromyalgia,” said Dr. Oh. “Our results underscore the importance of incorporating weight management strategies in treatment programs for fibromyalgia patients.”

Two other recent studies have linked obesity to lower back pain and to higher rates of pain among obese individuals. The Mayo Clinic study was published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.

Marijuana advocates – who use marijuana for both recreational and medicinal purposes – have a mixed reaction to a marijuana based painkiller being marketed by a British pharmaceutical company. Sativex, a mouth spray containing cannabinoids, is already being used as a prescription painkiller in Canada, New Zealand and eight European countries. GW Pharmaceuticals has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve Sativex for use in the United States to relieve cancer pain.

How useful would a spray version of marijuana be to a marijuana smoker? American News Report asked a group of college students in California.

“I would probably use the spray, but I enjoy smoking things,” 21-year-old Drue said. “I’d have to use it to know what it’s like, but you can put pot in almost all food and that hasn’t replaced smoking.” Drue, who’s smoked recreationally for four years, doubts a spray version of marijuana on the market would make much of a difference. “I don’t think it will change anything. They have pot chapstick already – I mean, they’ve explored so many different mediums of ingesting THC, I’m surprised that a spray doesn’t already exist,” he said.

19-year-old Shelby, who smokes marijuana to alleviate her irritable bowel syndrome and anxiety, does see some benefit to a spray version of marijuana. “I started smoking weed because of my health problems, so I definitely would look into using it,” she said. “If you’re smoking for health benefits, then you’re probably going to go towards the spray. But if you’re smoking to be a stoner, I don’t see any reason why that would be desirable.” Shelby also doubts that a spray option would be affordable. “They would probably jack up the price on it,” she said.

Harrison, a 20-year-old who has smoked on and off for four years, doesn’t see a spray as something that would catch on in the recreational marijuana smoking community. “The majority of smokers probably wouldn’t switch,” he said. “It’s different. It’s not natural, man. It doesn’t grow from the Earth, bro. Also, it’s a lot more cool to have a Jamaican flag with a vaporizer bottle in the middle of it for style purposes.” Despite his reservations over whether other smokers would take to a spray, he remains open minded. “If it was all the same, in every aspect; feeling, mind and body, then yeah, I’d make it my prime method of getting high,” Harrison said. “It’s probably better for your lungs too, as well as your teeth.”

The social element of smoking marijuana would be eliminated with a spray, says 21-year-old Ryan, who recently quit smoking. “A spray would require no company, and it would be over in a second,” he said. “It was fun going out with friends and having it be a social event, and I think a spray would be good for patients, but for smokers I don’t see it as an effective alternative.”

GW Pharmaceuticals claims its marijuana-based mouth spray Sativex will not get users “high” although they may feel dizzy or fatigued. Photo courtesy of GW.

But whether these smokers will have the opportunity to use Sativex all comes down to the FDA, and in a world where the Drug Enforcement Agency still considers marijuana to be a dangerous drug with no medicinal value, that remains very much up in the air. Regardless of how the FDA rules, it’s a step in the opposite direction of outright legalization, according to Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Although the organization is not against marijuana being used as a prescription drug, St. Pierre says NORML does disagree with the way pharmaceutical companies go about it. “Where NORML takes umbrage with many of the modern pharmaceutical companies seeking to grab market share from the existing botanical cannabis market is in their claims of their drug analogs working better than the organic material,” St. Pierre said.

NORML also accuses pharmaceutical companies of opposing access to actual marijuana by promoting extreme regulation of the actual plant, as well as the fact that “pharmaceutical versions of cannabis trying to get approved claim to cause no psychoactivity at all.”

True to St. Pierre’s accusations, GW Pharmaceuticals’ website does say that there is no evidence of Sativex producing a “high” comparable to recreational marijuana. “The simple analogy is to that of Vitamin C versus oranges,” St. Pierre said. “Many, if not most consumers, may prefer a simple pill with the base ingredients, [but] others may want a whole plant product solution.”

Doctors may also be slow to prescribe Sativex, even if it does win FDA approval. Dr. Stuart Gitlow, the acting president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, says he would wait up to a year before prescribing Sativex to a patient because he wants to know how safe it is or if it can lead to addiction.

“There is no medical indication at this point for use of marijuana other than the fact that state legislatures have been lobbied like crazy by both individuals who would like to use marijuana on a casual basis and by individuals who would like to make money by selling marijuana or producing it,” Gitlow told American News Report. “At the moment marijuana has far more risks than potential advantages, especially when compared against all other medications in use. But this new medication may well get around the risks while offering some benefit.”

Laurie Kerkinni is a busy mother of four boys in Lakeville, Minnesota. Like many parents, she strives to bring healthy food home to her family. But Kerkinni’s concern about health goes beyond just food – she worries about cleansers, detergents, even shower curtains — common household chemicals and plastics that are an everyday part of modern life.

“I buy glass, American-made, as much as possible. I do not purchase or allow my food to go home in Styrofoam ever,” Kerkinni says.

Kerkinni’s concern about chemicals and plastics may be justified, according to two recent studies. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found that some household chemicals may be weakening children’s immunity to disease. Another study at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York found a connection between exposure to chemical phthalates and obesity in young children.

Phthalates are colorless and odorless chemicals used to make a myriad of products including lotion, hair spray, deodorant, shampoo and soap. Phthalates are also found in flooring products, plastic bags, garden hoses and toys. The list goes on with fast food packaging and almost any food item that comes in a plastic container.

Phthalates are found in almost everyone’s systems. They can be ingested, inhaled or brought into the body through contact with skin. Known endocrine-disruptors, phthalates can masquerade as human hormones.

Nearly 400 black and Hispanic children in New York City were enrolled in the Mount Sinai Medical Center study, which was published in the journal Environmental Research. Researchers took urine samples from the children to test for phthalates, and measured their height and body mass index (BMI).

The researchers discovered that more than 97% of the children had been exposed to phthalates commonly found in cosmetics, varnishes, perfume, lotions, medication or nutritional supplements. The phthalates included monoethyl phthalate (MEP). The researchers found a link between MEP and overweight children. Overweight girls in the study with the highest exposure to MEP had a BMI 10% higher than girls with the lowest exposure to MEP.

“Research has shown that exposure to these everyday chemicals may impair childhood neurodevelopment, but this is the first evidence demonstrating that they may contribute to childhood obesity,” said Susan Teitelbaum, PhD, the study’s lead author and associate professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “This study also further emphasizes the importance of reducing exposure to these chemicals where possible.”

Phthalates aren’t the only chemicals causing concern about children’s health. Fluorocarbons, or PFC’s, are another group of man-made chemicals used to make products smoother and more flexible. They’re used in everything from shower curtains to microwave popcorn bags.

The Harvard study suggests that PFC’s lower immunity and weaken the effectiveness of vaccines in children. Researchers followed nearly 600 children born in the Faroe Islands in the North Sea. Children who had been vaccinated for tetanus and diphtheria were tested for their immune responses. The results linked PFC exposure to significantly lower immune responses. The children had twice the concentration of PFC’s in their systems, and a 49 percent lower level of antibodies.

The study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concludes that “PFC exposure was associated with lower antibody responses to immunizations and an increased risk of antibody levels in children lower than those needed to provide long-term protection.”

“The negative impact on childhood vaccinations from PFC’s should be viewed as a potential threat to public health,” said lead author of the study Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Studies like these make Laurie Kerkinni think twice about the chemicals and plastic products she brings home to her family..

“I am concerned about phthalates and perfluorinated compounds, and make a conscientious effort to avoid them,” Kerkinni told American News Report. “I am aware of the types of plastic available and purchase accordingly. For instance, when I purchased my shower curtain in the kids bath I made sure to purchase one without those chemicals.”

Pawleys Island is one of the oldest summer resorts on the east coast. Early settlers in the 1700’s used it as a refuge from mosquitoes in the summer months.

If your idea of a great vacation is exploring the beach, frolicking in the surf and getting away from the busy-ness and routine of everyday life, consider a trip to Pawleys Island. Nestled between the bustling Grand Strand and historic Georgetown, Pawleys Island is one of the only pristine barrier islands off of the South Carolina coast. Just a few miles long and only two streets wide in most places, the island retains much of its original eclectic charm, with windblown beach houses and few commercial buildings.

You won’t find a busy boardwalk, crowded parking lots or beach vendors hawking souvenirs and sun block here. The only non-residential spots on the island are a tiny post office/police station combo and a single room church. Pawleys Island is connected to the mainland by two narrow causeways, and there are plenty of places to go and things to do on the mainland, on the off chance you get tired of the beach.

The main draw for most people is the beach itself. With acres of shimmering, smooth sand (you can ride a bike on the beach) and no beach tags, paid parking or flashy tourists, Pawleys is one of the few beach destinations that allows visitors to spread out and relax. Surf fishing, sunbathing and sandcastle building provide plenty of entertainment for the whole family. You can even bring your dog, as long as he minds his manners.

I lived in Pawleys Island as a year-round resident for a decade and it is still my favorite place to visit. I try to return every year to relax and enjoy everything the area has to offer.

The Pros: If you are looking for a quirky, quiet getaway without a lot of scheduling and running from one activity to another, Pawleys Island is an ideal spot to relax. There are no hotels on the island, just one small B&B and a host of vacation homes in a variety of sizes. You’ll be able to select just the property you need — with homes ranging in size from one bedroom cottages to sprawling 9 bedroom homes.

Homes rent by the week, and prices vary from about $1,200 to $10,000+ per week, depending on when you visit and the home you choose. Homes on Pawleys Island take pride in celebrating the island’s motto: “Arrogantly Shabby.” Expect quirky architecture, eclectic furnishings and funky garden displays no matter where you stay.

All of the homes on Pawleys Island are either ocean front or a very short walk away. You won’t need a car to slip your toes into the surf; just step outside your door and walk to the beach. If you are staying elsewhere and visiting the island, there are free public parking lots scattered around the island.

Don’t be surprised by the abundance of local wildlife. From the alligators in the marsh to the great blue herons and pelicans that skim the ocean’s surface, you’ll spot plenty of local fauna. If you enjoy collecting shells, visit the beach in the morning, just after high tide, and you’ll have your pick of whelks, sand dollars, starfish and dozens of other varieties.

The Cons: Pawley’s Island is an extremely laid back place, so expect things to move at a leisurely place, whether you’re waiting in line at a mainland grocery store or simply taking a drive to enjoy the island. No one here is in a rush, and most people abandon their watches and schedules entirely.

Pawleys Island is known for its beaches and leisurely lifestyle.

When we lived here, it was not usual for construction work and mail delivery to be interrupted by good weather – and everyone headed to the beach instead of work. If you need a lot of structure, and expect the services of a hotel or concierge, Pawleys may not be the right place for you. There is no boardwalk, so if you are used to carnival style attractions and lots of rides and flashing lights, you won’t find them on Pawleys. The island is almost totally dark by 10pm each night.

Staying here can be costly; prices peak in the summer months, so a home that rents for $2,000 a week in March may be $8,000 a week in July. Schedule your trip for just before or just after the summer, and you’ll save about 75% on your lodging – and still enjoy the great weather and warm ocean temperatures.

Outdoor activities: Shrimping, crabbing and fishing are a way of life at Pawleys. You’ll spot local residents and tourists catching supper off of both of the causeways that lead to the island. Many homes come equipped with bikes if you want to ride or you can rent a bike off island. The hardware store on the mainland rents bicycles of all types. You can also rent kayaks and canoes on the mainland; use these in the calm waters of the marsh, or brave the ocean waves, depending on your skills and comfort level.

Brookgreen Gardens is a National Historic Landmark and one of the nation’s oldest museums featuring outdoor sculptures.

Art and Culture: Brookgreen Gardens, one of the nation’s only outdoor sculpture museums is on the mainland, a short drive from Pawleys Island. Brookgreen offers plenty to see and do, with an interactive children’s garden, plenty of manicured walking paths, a zoo, pontoon boat tours, historic buildings, dining facilities and live performance events. Brookgreen celebrates the cultural and natural history of the area, offering everything from the history of the local rice fields to encounters with some of the low country’s most interesting animals.

Dining: You’ll find plenty of dining options on the mainland. From the classic fish fry offered at Shabby’s to the fine dining at Frank’s, there’s a restaurant for every appetite and budget. Don’t miss the local’s favorite bakery and deli: Landolfi’s, located on Route 17 near the South Causeway. You’ll find the area’s best pastries, coffee, panini and more at this popular eatery.

Golf: While there are no golf courses on the actual island, the mainland and surrounding areas offer a huge assortment of golfing destinations. Choose your favorite course designer and head out to the greens; there are more than a dozen public and private courses in the area to choose from.

Do you have a Favorite Place? A vacation spot, weekend getaway or a day trip you keep going back to? Share it with us at American News Report. If we publish your article about your Favorite Place, we’ll pay you $25. Articles should be at least 300 words long and include pictures. Send your stories to news@americannewsreport.com.

A Commentary published by American News Report

Editor’s Note: Linda Cheek is a family practice and alternative medicine physician in southwest Virginia. Cheek’s practice has been raided twice by federal and state agents. She has pleaded guilty to one count of insurance fraud, a charge she believes was linked to her treatment of patients for chronic pain. Her license to practice medicine is currently suspended. American News Report welcomes all points of view about pain management.

Throughout the United States there is a furor being raised about the prescription drug abuse problem. The cause of the problem has been overwhelmingly focused at doctor’s offices, pointing the finger at “bad” doctors that prescribe opiates, even though they are legitimately treating patients with pain. Another guilty party in this scenario is the medicine itself, the opiate. This is like blaming the banker and the gold back in 1870 for Jesse James’s robberies. Let me explain.

The current model for blame is based on the medical model of addiction which states that:

•   Most people who use opiates become addicted.
•   The addiction is caused by exposure to the drug.

This puts the blame on the opiate, and therefore doctors, even good ones, become targets in the “War on Drugs” spearheaded by President Nixon in 1971. However, the facts should prove otherwise. With the dearth of appropriate pain management training in medical schools and the knowledge that if they prescribe, the government will come after them, fewer doctors are prescribing opiates today. One-third of the American population has pain, either acute or chronic. Half of those are untreated because of the inability to find a physician willing to prescribe. And yet prescription drug abuse has tripled.

History has shown that opiates do not cause addiction. In the 1800′s, opium and morphine were legal medicines, used more frequently than they are now. But by the end of the century, addiction had declined to less than 1% of the population. Even then, doctors were able to distinguish between medical use and a harmful addiction.

I am a Felon for Treating Pain

Today, however, anyone who uses pain medicine is considered to be a “drug seeker” or “addict.” We have undeservedly labeled pain patients and the doctors that treat them. As an alternative medicine specialist and family practitioner, I could justify patient’s pain, and I could help the patient fix the cause. I became the only physician in the area willing to treat pain. Southwest Virginia is a targeted area by the government for drug abuse, which led to a raid on my office. I accepted a plea agreement of one count of Medicare/Medicaid fraud. I am a felon for being overpaid $65 and helping my patients heal from disease through alternatives, which saved the government millions of dollars.

The fact that I didn’t charge insurance for acupuncture or prolotherapy, knowing they weren’t covered, wasn’t considered. The government, unable to find anything medically wrong with my pain management, stated that my nutritional recommendations and counseling sessions were “not medically necessary” and therefore fraud. Does that justify a two-year investigation, four years probation and making me a felon? Spend a million dollars over $65 and ruin a person’s life? That just shows the extent the government is willing to go to in their war against doctors, even good ones.

I am currently without a license because of collusion between the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Virginia Board of Medicine in a second investigation. In 2009, while waiting for my DEA certificate, a retired physician helped me by treating the pain patients. The DEA should have reinstated my certificate in 6 weeks. Three months later, no word. So I wrote the DEA telling them our arrangement and asked them for guidance if it wasn’t okay. I did the same thing with the Board of Medicine. Neither replied to my letter, but 18 months later, my office was raided again. At the Board of Medicine inquiry, the doctor actually writing the prescriptions was excused. I had my license suspended for a year. The only law they could come up with that we broke was that we were engaged in a “deceitful practice.”

Even though I did everything right in pain management, the DEA refused to give me a DEA certificate because it was “against public interest”. Because of their action, several patients have died, and many have turned to disability. I kept people alive and working. Now patients have to go to emergency rooms or the street for treatment. How can that be in the public interest?

The Real Cause of Drug Addiction

In June 2011, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a critical report declaring “the global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” And yet our government sends more money to the Justice Department to attack more doctors, missing the real cause of drug addiction, and actually adding to it.

The real cause of drug addiction is anxiety, toxicity and despair. The drugs create a feeling of well-being, thereby relieving the anxiety and despair, even for a short while. Homeopathy, a form of alternative medicine, can explain why people become addicted and can even predict who is at risk. People with degenerating diseases or chronic pain disorders are potential drug addicts. But that shouldn’t mean that they can’t get treatment for their pain. I demonstrated that cleansing, in conjunction with treatment, helped prevent drug addiction. Lack of pain relief causes more anxiety, more toxicity and more despair, leading to addiction. So the attacks on doctors and pain patients is creating more addiction than it is preventing.

Another effect of the Justice Department’s war on appropriate pain management is that you now have criminal elements running the medical clinics and pharmacies. Obviously, where there is a demand, someone will fill the void. And since legitimate doctors are being prevented from doing their job, the door is open for the drug pushers to take over.

Linda Cheek is a family practice and alternative medicine doctor in Virginia. She believes she is being targeted by federal and state investigators for her treatment of pain patients.

Editor’s Note: While she is currently not allowed to practice medicine, Linda Cheek spends her time as a lecturer and advocate for pain management. She has also written a novel, “Target: Pain Doc” — the story of a small town doctor attacked by the government for pain management. Her book is available through amazon.com and at lindacheekmd.com.

The views, opinions and positions expressed in the commentary by Linda Cheek are hers alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of American News Report, Microcast Media Group or any of its employees, directors, owners, contractors or affiliate organizations. American News Report makes no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information in this commentary, and is not responsible or liable for any errors, omissions, or delays (intentional or not) in this information; or any losses, injuries, and or damages arising from its display, publication, dissemination, interpretation or use.

Opposing views, opinions and positions about this commentary are welcomed and may be submitted to American News Report for consideration for publication by American News Report and or Microcast Media Group. Publication or lack of publication of opposing views, opinions and/or positions does not imply, suggest or expressly reflect an endorsement or disapproval of the originating commentary on the part of American News Report or Microcast Media Group.

Massage has been practiced for thousands of years, but there has been little medical research on its biological benefits.

Scientists have finally proven what fans of massage have long known: a good rub down not only feels good — it can help ease muscle pain.

Researchers in Canada and California collaborated on a study which proved that massage reduces inflammation and helps muscle cells recover from strenuous exercise. Eleven healthy young men had biopsies performed on their leg muscles before an intense workout on a stationary bike. After peddling to exhaustion, each participant had one of his legs massaged for ten minutes. Researchers then did another round of biopsies on the men’s quadriceps, and compared muscle tissue from the massaged and un-massaged legs.

“Our research showed that massage dampened the expression of inflammatory cytokines in the muscle cells and promoted biogenesis of mitochondria, which are the energy-producing units in the cells,” said Simon Melov, PhD, a study co-author at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California. “There’s general agreement that massage feels good, now we have a scientific basis for the experience.”

Melov believes the reduction in pain that comes from massage is similar to the pain relief that comes from taking anti-inflammatory medicine.

”What happens when you exercise is that you’re really damaging your muscles. You’re doing these micro tears and little pieces of damage throughout your muscle. Usually what happens as a consequence of that is inflammation,” Melov says. “So when you get a massage after you’ve exercised and you’ve caused that damage, you’re damping down that inflammation which is the basis for the soreness you feel.”

Co-author Mark Tarnopolsky, MD, PhD, from the Department of Pediatrics and Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario said the findings show “much needed validation” for massage therapy.

“The potential benefits of massage could be useful to a broad spectrum of individuals including the elderly, those suffering from musculoskeletal injuries and patients with chronic inflammatory disease,” said Tarnoplosky. “This study provides evidence that manipulative therapies, such as massage, may be justifiable in medical practice.”

Previous studies have found that massage can reduce chronic pain and improve range of motion, but until now the biological benefits of massage were unclear. The study was published online in Science Translational Medicine

Researchers say being overweight increases the risk of degenerative disc disease, a leading cause of lower back pain.

Americans who overeat are not only raising the risk of heart disease and diabetes, they could also be causing long term damage to their backs. A new study has found that adults who are obese or overweight are significantly more likely to have lumbar disc degeneration, a leading cause of lower back pain.

Researchers at the University of Hong Kong studied nearly 2600 Chinese men and women and found that 73 percent had lumbar spine degeneration. The condition was more common in men than women and more prevalent among older people. People with a higher body mass index (BMI) were also more likely to have the disease and to suffer from more advanced degeneration.

“Our research confirms that with elevated BMI there is a significant increase in the extent and global severity of disc degeneration. In fact, end-stage disc degeneration with narrowing of the disc space was more pronounced in obese individuals,” said Dr. Dino Samartzis, the lead researcher at the University of Hong Kong. .

Seven percent of the study participants were underweight, 48 percent were in the normal weight range and 45 percent were either overweight or obese.

Degenerative disc disease is primarily an age related disability. As a person ages their spinal discs begin to wear down, resulting in a loss of spinal fluids or tearing in the outer layers of the discs. Researchers say being overweight or obese contributes to the process because extra weight is loaded on the discs. Fat cells may also play a role by causing chronic inflammation. Earlier research found a link between high BMI levels and lower back pain, which is often caused by degenerative disc disease.

“Since overweight and obesity are worldwide concerns whose prevalence continues to rise, our study’s findings have considerable public health implications,” said Samartzis. “If these issues continue to plague society, they can further affect spine health leading to low back pain and its consequences.”

The study was recently published in the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism.