Friday, April 18, 2003

What is a GIFTegrity? Timothy Wilken, MD writes: Tensegrity is the pattern that results when push and pull have a win-win relationship with each other. The pull is continuous and the push is discontinuous. The continuous pull is balanced by the discontinuous push producing an integrity of tension and compression. This creates a powerful self-stabilizing system. The term tensegrity comes from synergic science. The gifting tensegrity is a newly invented mechanism for the exchange of human help. Let us begin by describing how a GIFTegrity might be structured and how it could work. Every member of a synergic help tensegrity would participate in two roles. That as a giftor and that as a giftee. The continuous pull of the giftees' needs are balanced by the discontinuous push from the giftors' offers  of help. Again we see as an INTERdependent life form, there will be times when we will help others and times when others will help us. The GIFTegrity works on trust. I give help to those in need and trust that when I am in need there will be those who will give me help. (04/18/03) HIV Testing to become Routine in U.S. ? CNN Health -- An HIV test should be part of routine medical checkups, federal health officials recommended Thursday in reaction to estimates that 200,000 Americans are infected with HIV and don't know it. "We are not recommending mandatory testing in any group of people under any circumstance," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We're simply treating an HIV test like any other medical test that would be part of good quality medical care." The push is especially strong for pregnant women because there are highly effective treatments to keep an HIV-positive pregnant woman from passing the virus to her child. (04/18/03) China Hid SARS Patients from WHO! CNN Health -- Beijing authorities have gone to staggering lengths to hide SARS patients from visiting World Health Organization (WHO) inspectors, according to TIME magazine. At one of the most reputable of the city's hospitals, 31 patients suffering the potentially lethal disease were driven around in ambulances for the duration of the WHO visit, said TIME. And at a military hospital, 40 SARS patients were said to have been moved to a hotel for the duration of the WHO tour, in an apparent attempt to deceive inspectors about the true extent of the outbreak. (04/18/03) Ford Motors Backs Away from Efficiency New York Times: Environment -- Executives of the Ford Motor Company yesterday backed away from a pledge to increase the fuel economy of its sport utility vehicles by 25 percent by 2005. Ford made that pledge three years ago, and General Motors and the Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler subsequently said they would at least match Ford's improvements. At the time, environmentalists hailed the plan as offering hope that the nation's swelling appetite for gasoline could be curbed. ... Speculation about Ford's going back on its pledge began to swirl yesterday after Philip R. Martens, the vice president for product creation, told some reporters that the company was scrapping the objective and would instead aim for fuel economy improvements of 20 percent to 30 percent across its entire vehicle fleet by the end of the decade, according to reports by Reuters and Bloomberg News. (04/18/03) Making a Difference by Helping Others New York Times: Health -- For the last 30 years, Mr. DeFranco, armed with a pair of bifocals and a pocket protector, has fought asthma's stranglehold over neighborhoods afflicted with some of its highest rates nationally. His outpost is a small Randall Avenue pharmacy in the Soundview section. Inside, outdated display cases hold beauty products and school supplies. A modest staff sells lottery tickets and copier services. But the shop's specialty is asthma prescriptions. More than 100 asthma prescriptions are filled a day, and the store has 1,000 to 2,000 customers who have asthma prescriptions filled. In poor, minority communities plagued with asthma, the neighborhood pharmacist is often the one dispensing pragmatic wisdom. "Many sufferers up here fall through the cracks," Mr. DeFranco said. "A lot of people have Medicaid or no insurance at all, and can't manage their asthma with regular doctor visits. Some have problems making appointments. Some see a different doctor each time they go to the clinic and don't follow with their medical treatment." He added: "People come away confused about asthma equipment, and often the emergency room winds up becoming people's primary practitioner. This is where the small pharmacist can step in. They may never see the same doctor twice, but they can always come to one pharmacy. So we become the missing link." Next to him, his daughter, Kathleen Carroll, entered patient information into a computer program created by Mr. DeFranco to monitor customers' medical histories, complaints and symptoms. When a patient uses up his refills, it alerts Mr. DeFranco, and he alerts both the patient and doctor. Mr. DeFranco, 65, runs the shop with his wife, Elaine, and their two children, Ms. Carroll and Anthony DeFranco. (04/18/03) 8:46:56 AM

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