Stand In The Place Where You Work

The New York Times says sitting for too long can be deadly, even for people who exercise regularly:

[Researchers] found that the more hours the men and women sat every day, the greater their chance of dying prematurely. Those people who sat more than eight hours a day — which other studies have found is about the amount that a typical American sits — had a 15 percent greater risk of dying during the study’s three-year follow-up period than people who sat for fewer than four hours a day.

That's former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld at his famous standing desk.

Sanity As A Political Virtue: Pro And Con

As Rick Santorum campaigns against women's reproductive rights in the wake of last week's health insurance imbroglio, Andrew Sullivan credits Barack Obama without another successful jujitsu move:

Santorum could win the primary on an issue that guarantees him a landslide loss in the fall. The Christianists and theocons have over-reached - and the far right in the Congress is playing along too, further entrenching the view that the GOP is anti-contraception. Obama meanwhile seems like the sane compromiser who cares about women voters.

If sanity also prevailed in GOP politics, Santorum's desire to bring about pre-1920 conditions in the realm of gender equity could be easily blunted by Mitt Romney. As Sullivan points out, Romney's health plan in Massachusetts also required Roman Catholic institutions to provide free contraception to employees who wanted it. Santorum, of course, can use that against Romney in the upcoming GOP primaries. By the same token, you might think that for once Romney would consider making a virtue of his record by saying that it's antithetical to conservatism for Santorum to say that as president he'd want to put an end to the use of birth control. As a matter of fact, Romney might say that Santorum is evincing tendencies that are borderline despotic. That would be the kind of bold move David Brooks called for on Feb. 10. If Romney is too scared of the right to take advantage of his opportunity (one might also say responsibility) on an issue of such profound concern to millions of Americans, you have to wonder about the efficacy of a system in which one party rewards sanity and the other relentlessly punishes it.

Nestle's Quick

Nutrition scholar Marion Nestle, noting that celebrity cook Paula Dean's recent announcement of her diabetes diagnosis said nothing about the salutary effects of weight loss, wonders why (and on the same day I sheepishly announced my one-man health care reform -- thanks, Dr. Nestle!):

Being overweight is the key factor in type 2. Most people can prevent it by not gaining weight. And most people with the type 2 disease can eliminate symptoms by losing some weight. Genetics is certainly a factor -- many overweight people never develop the disease -- but 85 percent or more of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese.

Since 95% of diabetes is type 2, one begins to discern the vast health- and cost-saving implications of putting down the Fritos.

Just A Little Nuance, Please, Gov. Romney

Did Mitt Romney even consider staking out a thoughtful position on this issue, decrying abortion, as he now does, but acknowledging PP's work in providing care to women who wouldn't get it otherwise? Here's just one example from this morning's Orange County Register, about an unemployed woman with no health insurance who learned that she could get a free breast screening at PP:

[Monique's] Benoit's mammogram led to an ultrasound and then more tests that found a benign cyst in her breast. That was followed by an operation to remove the mass. Her total bill for the entire process? A $30 lab fee. The rest was covered by Planned Parenthood with funds from the Orange County Komen affiliate.

Just a little nuance, Gov. Romney. A grownup's acknowledgment of the complexity of issues in a vast, diverse country. Or is that just too risky in this era of lock-step absolutism masquerading as conservatism?

The Romneys' past support for PP is detailed here.

Chickens On The Board, Egg On The Ribbon

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure board is responsible for ensuring that the organization's non-profit purposes are being fulfilled. When the Komen staff decided to go after Planned Parenthood, I wonder what board members said and when they said it.

According to the New York Times, Komen had been dealing for years with opposition to its PP grants, though it doesn't appear that it had been more than a minor irritant. But then, the reporters continue, Komen went and hired itself a politician:

The discussion within Komen about addressing the objections of anti-abortion advocates intensified last year after Karen Handel was hired as senior vice president for public policy, several former Komen employees said. Ms. Handel, a Republican, had been secretary of state in Georgia and had run unsuccessfully for governor in 2010. During that campaign, she had spoken about ending financing for Planned Parenthood and said, “Since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”

Komen decided to suspend PP funding on the flimsy pretext that it was compromised by a House investigation spearheaded by an anti-abortion member. When the move became public this week, PP's advocates pressured Komen to restore the funding. One Komen board member, lobbyist John D. Raffaelli, waxed philosophical:

Is it possible for a woman’s health organization to stay out of the abortion issue and help all women? I don’t know the answer to that yet. What we were doing before was angering the right-to-life crowd. Then, with our decision in December, we upset the pro-choice crowd. And now we’re going to make the right-to-life crowd mad all over again. How do we stop doing that?

Raffaelli is lamenting that Komen had a chicken and egg dilemma, well-known to Episcopalians and students of the Middle East. Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians have been serving chicken and eggs to one another all the way back to Abram and the Canaanites. Did church progressives leave conservatives by supporting full sacramental membership for gays and lesbians despite some conservatives' scriptural and intestinal objections, or did conservatives leave progressives by trying to take their congregations and dioceses out of The Episcopal Church in response to the progressives' moves? And did Komen inject itself into the abortion debate by funding an organization that performed abortions as well as breast screenings or by changing course and trying to end the funding?

Your answer may depend on whether you're a chicken or an egg. On this issue as on most, I'm a Denny's meat-lovers scramble. You can theoretically say that Komen took a stand on abortion (about which Americans remain profoundly divided) by funding PP breast cancer programs. But that would be political Donatism -- saying that all PP's good work for women is moot because a small percentage of its funds is used for abortions. Thanks to Komen, its work includes potentially life-saving clinical breast exams and mammogram referrals in poor neighbors where PP is the only organization available to provide the services.

If anti-abortion folks at Komen had had the courage of their convictions, only women's health organizations passing the pro-life litmus test would've been eligible for grants. But how many such organizations are there, do you imagine? Instead, they came up with the under-investigation dodge, a clever politician's maneuver that was their undoing.

I'd like to know what Raffealli and his fellow board members said to staffers who broached the policy change that would plunge Komen into chaos. It would have been one thing if anti-abortion protests were seriously interfering with Komen's events and fundraising, but there's no sign that they were. Even in that case, Komen would have had the opportunity to reassert its core mission -- saving women from breast cancer -- and promise protestors and the public that it would not be intimidated by anyone trying to pick a fight over abortion. But Komen wasn't facing a crisis. It wasn't drawn into the abortion debate. It drove in. On Friday, Komen founder and CEO Nancy Brinker said:

We do not want our mission marred or affected by politics – anyone’s politics.

Politics is what you get when you hire politicians. At least according to the Times report, Handel played a key role in developing the anti-PP policy. The board got chicken. And now Komen has egg on its ribbon.

Seeing Pink Over Abortion

Todd Kelly says that as a 501(c)(3) with a mission of breast cancer awareness, prevention, and treatment, Susan G. Komen for the Cure went way off message:

I don’t have their financial records, but I’m betting that – to use a round number – no one donated money to them to help out either the Pro-Life or the Pro-Choice cause. I’m pretty sure they donated to fund breast cancer research. Large donors may file suit against Komen for the return of some or all of their historical donations, and Komen might actually lose such a suit.

By putting themselves in the position they have, the Board of Komen has ensured that their name is no longer synonymous with breast cancer research. Instead, it’s deeply entangled with the vitriolic debate on abortion. And...that’s going to be a pretty deep pit of quicksand from which to pull themselves out. Personally, I don’t know that they ever fully can. They are certainly going to take it in the shorts over time, even if they do survive. And the reason for that won’t be because they were the champion of the life of a fetus, and it won’t be because they were the champion of a women’s right to choose.

It’s because by trying to be either one, you can’t be the champion of fighting breast cancer.

Fair enough. I know lots of breast cancer contributors and activists. Their views on abortion probably run the gamut. But Kelly doesn't say how Komen could have avoided becoming entangled in the issue as soon as it decided to fund anything at Planned Parenthood, which has a broader portfolio, unless his argument is that it's a matter of mindset and how one communicates the single-minded passion of purpose. "Listen," Komen might say. "Our goal is to save women from breast cancer. If Planned Parenthood helps with that, we are going fund them. If BP wants to open cancer screening centers instead of car washes at your neighborhood AM/PM, we'll fund that. Others can worry about abortion, pro-lifers, and the Gulf of Mexico."

Andrew Sullivan addresses some of the ambiguities of the issue, including generational ones, here.

Photo by Reuters

In The Natural Disorder Of Things

Is grief a "disorder"? Experts disagree:

Jerome C. Wakefield of New York University and Dr. Michael First of Columbia concluded that the evidence was not strong enough to support the change. “An estimated 8 to 10 million people lose a loved one every year, and something like a third to a half of them suffer depressive symptoms for up to month afterward,” said Dr. Wakefield, author of “The Loss of Sadness.” “This would pathologize them for behavior previously thought to be normal.”

But Dr. David J. Kupfer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the chairman of the task force making revisions, disagreed, saying, “If someone is suffering from severe depression symptoms one or two months after a loss or a death, and I can’t make a diagnosis of depression — well, that is not being clinically proactive. That person may then not get the treatment they need.”

Jesus Didn't Say, "Two Will Become Three Flesh"

Married people aren't as physically fit as single people.

Who's Eating Who?

In the U.S., turkeys and consumers are bulking up simultaneously. Read the details in the "Economist," then skip that turkey sandwich (or at least hold the mayo).

No "Covert Coping"

Quietly absorbing workplace injustices is bad for your health.

In Sickness And In Health? Well, Sometimes

A "Newsweek" article makes discouraging reading. A new study, seconded by doctors' experience, shows that when a man gets a disease such as cancer or MS, his wife tends to slip naturally into the role of caregiver:

But husbands were more likely to take off, even if that meant the wife suffered more. And the study found that the medical consequences were considerable. Abandoned spouses, the researchers found, were more likely to be depressed and less likely to complete prescribed treatment or enroll in new therapies. They also spent more time in the hospital and were less likely to enroll in hospice care, probably because that's a service that generally takes place at home, Chamberlain says.

One answer, according to experts, is for doctors and other medical professionals to make sure couples get early access to counseling and other forms of support.