Eugene Weekly

One saying goes like this, “When you have your health, you have everything!” That is a wonderful sentiment, but I think I could add that having a loving family, a challenging job and enough money to live comfortably — all of those things are part of my idea of “everything.” That said, you should wash your hands and quit smoking. These two things could make a huge impact in our community’s public health. Beyond that, public health could be enhanced by thinking of transportation as a part of public health policy solution. Continue reading →

Forty-eight years ago this month, Lyndon Johnson overcame years of resistance by the medical establishment and signed Medicare into law. It’s as close as this country has ever come to establishing the kind of universal, publicly funded, “single-payer” health care system that prevails in most other industrialized countries. Continue reading →

In a Viewpoint on Aug. 1, 2012, Roy Keene described how Timber Town Eugene buzzes along nearly oblivious to the forest destruction and herbicide poisoning around it. Much like a frog in a pot of water brought to a slow boil, the timber industry relies on what geographer and author Jared Diamond has referred to as “landscape amnesia” — slow environmental degradation that would be offensive if only at a faster pace. The scenario with the Seneca biomass power facility is disturbingly similar. Continue reading →

Millions of Americans have been educated to believe that their psychiatric drugs correct a known “biochemical imbalance,” but they might be surprised to find that this belief is not actually supported by science. In fact, the evidence that psych drugs correct “biochemical imbalances” is so weak that an editorial in Psychiatric Times recently claimed that it is only within “urban legend” that well-informed psychiatrists have ever believed such theories.  Continue reading →

I know you’re slammed with work, debt and episodes of Downton Abbey to catch up on. And I know you feel like an eco-hypocrite jetting to see Grandma and coral reefs before they disappear. Me, too. But if your political inaction on climate change stems mostly from not knowing how to make a difference, Bill McKibben just issued his Tarzan call for your help.  Continue reading →