colorectal cancer

This is very difficult for me to deal with, both because I'm not ready to come to terms with it and because I know so little.

My father was recently diagnosed with advanced rectal cancer, a form of colon cancer that (obviously) spreads to the rectum. What this means is over the next ten months, he will undergo a series of radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and surgery, which will leave him weakened and unable to work, due to his physical state, his lack of technical skills, and his age (53). My grandmother and great-grandfather both died of colon cancer, at increasingly younger ages -- my great-grandfather in his 70s, my grandmother in his 60s, and now I'm facing the very real possibility that my father might not even live that long. What this means, since the risk of colon cancer is strongly influenced by family history, is that I need to be extremely careful about my diet and health, which is easier said than done: I've been consciously trying to cut down on red meat but haven't managed to consume more fiber yet, and I want to quit smoking but always tell myself one more pack.

I want to look at this at another angle, though, which is the ways in which family health issues have been retold and reinvented. I only found out a month ago that my grandmother died of colon cancer; I vividly remember my mother telling me that she had died from a heart attack, a memory that has fueled much of my reflection on my relationship with my grandmother. In retrospect, I think she died because her heart was weakened by chemotherapy, a fact I must have forgotten. How much easier and less complicated to disregard those complications when I reimagine my grandmother's death. Having grown up on the other side of the world, I never had a chance to really know my grandmother. Of course I'd heard some things about her and I'd visited her once in Beijing, and she stayed with my family in America for a while, but that was all when I was very young, not quite old enough to understand that many of my friends visited their grandparents every year, every month, every week. So when my mother told me about my grandmother's death--I think a few days before Halloween--how could I understand the significance of that, of a death in the family, when I had only been with her for maybe six months of my entire life?

My father left my family when I was around 8 or 9. In the early years I visited him every summer, but as time went on and he remarried, I began to speak to him less and less frequently. The last time I talked to him, he called me to ask why my mother wasn't answering the phone. That must be when he told her about his diagnosis. She kept it a secret from me, too; I had to learn from my brother, and even then he didn't know what was wrong, just that something was bad. When she finally told me, two or three weeks after the diagnosis, and explained the plan for treatment, I was obviously upset, but also angry that she wouldn't tell me straight up, but instead said, "Don't you want to know what's wrong," as if I had to ask to find out; angry that she didn't think it was her responsibility to tell me but rather that she needed to wait for me to ask her first, even though I had no idea how serious it was or even how to ask. I was angry that she wouldn't tell me anything the first time, and didn't want to tell me this time.

But mostly, I'm angry that I still don't have the courage to call my dad.

Hope Initiative Scholarship

HOPE INITIATIVE, INC.

presents

2009 SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

Since its inception, the Hope Initiative Scholarship Program has upheld the aspiration to promote academic excellence and to provide an opportunity for outstanding students with significant financial need to reach their highest potential. Year after year, Hope Initiative awards $1,000 scholarships to qualified, full-time attending high school, college, or graduate students in the United States. As a charitable organization, we wish to recognize students with a demonstrated commitment to leadership and assist them in continuing their education. The recipients must be upstanding citizens, role-models for other students, and active members or leaders within their community.

This year, we are proud to announce that Hope Initiative, Inc. will award ten scholarships, $1000 each, to ten high school or college students. We hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to apply. Please visit our website at http://www.hionline.org/scholarship.aspx for more information regarding instructions for the application process.

Instructions:

1. Download all documents from our website: http://www.hionline.org/scholarship.aspx

2. Read all instructions and requirements on our website carefully

3. Fill out the application forms and submit them online

4. Have letter of recommendation emailed directly by your recommender.

5. Make sure HI will receive all the application materials by May 31^st, 2009.

A Brain Tumor

Yesterday, I met someone at a volunteer get-together. She wasn't a volunteer, but the older sister of someone there. She was a club promoter, and it made sense to me by her social nature and outgoing attitude. But people aren't always (or never) as simple as they seem.

She talked to me about her father had passed away a few years back from a brain tumor. It sucked because they didn't even know what was going on at the time. He was getting migraines, headaches, and then losing his memory. They did go to the doctors and they got regular tests, but they didn't see anything and by the time they finally tested carefully enough to find the tumor, it was too late. They cut off the surface part but it had spread to another part of his brain as well. Eventually, he couldn't remember his family members and was crawling around on the floor like a baby eating plants in the house. He didn't know any better. He couldn't remember what he had learned for 52 years of his life. The family had to give up the family restaurant so that someone could always watch him. He eventually passed away from the brain tumor.

Diseases are a scary thing. Get tested. However, we only know what tests tell us and we have to take the right tests to tell us the right things, but doctors are just humans after all...humans who are relying on what they learned to guess more accurately than we (non-health care providers) can.

This also taught me a lesson of not judging people by their cover. People are so much more complicated than we often give them credit for. I read in a Postsecrets book that "Every single person has at least one secret that would break your heart. If we could just remember this, I think there would be a lot more compassion and tolerance in the world."

Scholarship Opportunity

APIQWTC SCHOLARSHIP

DEADLINE: MAY 30, 2009

APIQWTC (Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Community) is a non-profit consortium of more than fifteen organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area providing support and community for nearly 500 queer Asian and Pacific Islander individuals. The APIQWTC Scholarship supports queer API women and transgender people in their pursuit of technical/professional training or higher education. The scholarship hopes to recognize those who are active in the community and encourage future leaders.

APIQWTC will be awarding scholarships of $400 to two Asian/Pacific Islander lesbian, bisexual, or queer women or transgender individuals pursuing technical/professional training or an undergraduate/ graduate degree. High school seniors pursuing further education or training in fall 2009 are also eligible to apply.

Applicants should demonstrate academic commitment as well as community involvement. Please submit a cover letter, resume or c.v., a two-page, double-spaced personal statement, an official transcript, and two letters of recommendation. The personal statement should address community involvement and future goals. How has your cultural heritage, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity influenced your life and any activities in which you have been involved? Discuss any relevant experiences up to the present and how you see yourself involved in the community in the future, either through your career or otherwise. Letters of reference should come from an instructor, employer, academic counselor, coach, community leader, or any other individual not related to you who is familiar with your personal, academic, or leadership qualities.

Please submit statements and resumes/c.v.’ s electronically nolater than 7pm May 30, 2009. Letters and transcripts must be postmarked by May 30, 2009.

Send statement and resume/CV as electronic attachments to: amysueyoshi@yahoo.com

Send letters and transcripts to:

Amy Sueyoshi

1879 41st Avenue

San Francisco , CA 94122

Feel free to direct any questions to Amy Sueyoshi at amysueyoshi@yahoo.com

The selection committee reserves the right to not award the scholarships if an appropriate applicant can not be identified.

asian american communities and health book release

FYI anyone in the New York City area:

Edit: Sorry, that image/flyer got messed up with the layout. Here's a transcription:

The
NYU Institute of Community Health and Research
and the
Center for the Study of Asian American Health

Invite you to celebrate the release of a groundbreaking
book on Asian American Health:

Asian American Communities
and Health:
Context, Research, Policy and Action
Chau Trinh-Shevrin, Nadia Shilpi Islam, Mariano Jose Rey (Editors)

Thursday, April 9th, 2009
2 pm to 4 pm
Smilow Lobby & Alumni Plaza
NYU Langone Medical Center

Endorsement of Asian American Communities and Health

"This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the contextual
factors that shape the health outcomes of Asian Americans in
the United States. Unlike other books on the health of
immigrant and minority populations, this textbook illustrates
the critical role of factors ranging from social capital,
migration patterns, culture and acculturation, racism and
discrimination, and policies on health and health disparities."

Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, Professor of Social Epidemiology and
Chair - Department of Society, Human Development, and
Health, Harvard School of Public Health

For more information, please call 212-263-0985

Furthermore, the 3rd Annual NYC Asian American Students Conference will be held Saturday, Apr 18. Although none of the panels are specifically about health, a few may be related to health issues in Asian American communities (one that I want to attend is entitled "Decolonize Your Jack Off Session"), and my friend Emerald will be leading a panel called "From In Da Club to On the Streets: Reclaiming Hip Hop as a Space of Empowerment." To register and for more information, check out the website.

Agent Orange (dioxin)

For me, the topic of Agent Orange is hard to talk about. Being Vietnamese, I want to say that Agent Orange is outrageous and how dare the US just release gases on soil that is not theres. They wanted to destroy crops and fields but how many lives have they destroyed? It's disgusting for a country to claim it wants to fight for freedom, democracy, and the improvement of people's lives when it's simultaneously hiding bombs and releasing gases to physically and mentally injure soldiers and civilians alike over the short-term and the long-term. Although I never researched the topic, I also never questioned it. Agent Orange is bad, and there are victims with chronic cancers and birth defects out there because of the US's careless actions. Then I learned that it wasn't that simple.

When I was studying abroad in Vietnam, one of my study abroad classmates visited Friendship Village, which is a place that takes care of victims of Agent Orange. There, she saw mentally and physically disabled adults as well as the affected children and grandchildren of Agent Orange victims. However, she found it hard to believe that all the people there are Agent Orange victims. She knew that chemicals can affect one's children if their parents are infected, but she couldn't believe that the chemicals' effects can be passed to grandchildren as well. Her opinion was that some of the children there were just naturally disabled and housed there to increase funding. That was the first time I questioned my biases and whether Agent Orange actually had the effects that I assumed it had. Was that really the chemical that created all those cancers or birth defects? Was it a coincidence? How many people were really affected and what are those effects?

Then last semester, I took microbiology, and my professor said that the effects of dioxin on humans are very uncertain. We know for sure it can cause chloracne (hardcore blemishes on the face), and then the other effects like spina bifida (birth defect) and cancers have mixed study results, so no one is really sure.

But so many people claim they have been affected, and it's so hard to ignore anecdotes when they were there and I was not. Who am I to say anything? I have no idea! I know long-term exposure to gaseous chemicals can affect people, and signs may not show today, but someday they might. In my epidemiology class, long-term exposures and their health effects (chronic diseases) are hardest to link together because it doesn't happen over night. It's hard to identify. It's not like an allergy where you eat something, and then within a few hours you're completely red and itchy.

Science can't back up that dioxin has caused all those mental and physical disabilities that sprang up afterwards, but honestly, it's nearly impossible to MEASURE this unless you have tons of funding for years and years of research and/or expose people to a large dosage like in the war again and wait years? It's so hard to know and study. Research has its limitations. Not everything can be researched with accuracy. Even if it could be, people are so different. Some people with the same level of exposure won't develop symptoms while some will and they won't all develop the same symptoms. Furthermore, these people might not even be in the same areas anymore. This includes American war veterans, Vietnamese war veterans, civilians that lived near affected areas. BUT, just because it's hard to research and prove DOES NOT mean it didn't create physical and mental long-term effects, birth defects, and genetic mutations (which might be able to affect grandchildren). And disabilities are not just diabilities on their own. In the context of a family or in the perspective of a caregiver, it becomes even harder.

Dioxin is totally controversial.

I once read something that people who don't read the news are not informed, and people who read the news are misinformed...haha. It's so hard to know anything when there is so much mixed information out there.


I was sent this speech about Agent Orange from my Vietnamese teacher in Vietnam. I thought I'd share:

District of Columbia Vietnamese Students Association

Panel Discussion

A Growing Vietnam: The Economy and Civil Society

American University, Washington, DC

March 4, 2009

Charles R. Bailey, Director

Ford Foundation Special Initiative on Agent Orange/Dioxin

Good evening.

We are talking about the overlap of Vietnam’s economy and civil society this evening. During the ten years I lived in Hanoi I was responsible for some 95 million dollars in grants to Vietnamese organizations in areas like development finance, sexuality and reproductive health, social sciences, media, arts and culture, and international relations. So I look forward to contributing from this experience in the Q&A afterwards. But underlying all of this—the economy, the society, the government—is some unfinished business from a long ago war. That unfinished business is the current health crisis in Vietnam which stems from the US use of military herbicides in that war. I am referring to the Agent Orange legacy of the Vietnam War.

During the 1960s, the US used Agent Orange and other military herbicides to destroy the forests and crops over about ten percent of the area of central and southern Vietnam. This is the same size as New Jersey. Agent Orange carried with it dioxin, a persistent chemical poisonous to creatures like us in very small amounts. So while this dioxin has historical origins in the US conduct of the war, it is still a problem today—exposure to dioxin is strongly associated with chronic ill health and even more notably, with increased numbers of children born with severe and often multiple disabilities.

Two groups of Vietnamese are at risk because of exposure to dioxin: First, soldiers on both sides and civilians, people who were in the sprayed areas during the 1960s and their children and grandchildren. And second, people who today live in communities close to several former US military airports which are contaminated with dioxin. People in these communities continue to be exposed, primarily through the food chain.

I became involved with the Agent Orange legacy shortly after I arrived in Vietnam in 1997. However, Agent Orange proved to be so sensitive that it was hard to find people willing to accept grants to work on it. This was highly unusual to me in my experience as a grant maker! A kind of breakthrough occurred in 2003 when we were asked to support SAIS here in Washington and the Institute of International Relations in Hanoi for a conference on the future of the US-Vietnam relationship.

The conference leaders decided to organize the discussion starting with easy things and then moving on to the more difficult. So we first talked about trade and economic growth, then we moved to regional security —the relationships among Vietnam, China and the US. By the second day of the conference it was time to move to the most difficult subjects— the legacies of the war: the overseas Vietnamese and their relationship to their country of origin, unexploded ordnance and Agent Orange. Agent Orange was way out on the end of this spectrum, sensitive, unattended to, but clearly important.

It turns out that Agent Orange is not only a sensitive subject but it’s also very controversial. The controversy is of two sorts. At the abstract, scientific level—just how is it that dioxin in the body leads to early death in those exposed and congenital disabilities in their children? The controversy is also at the practical level—the diseases and disabilities linked to dioxin also can have other causes. So how do you identify specific Agent Orange survivors? And should you single them out?

The government of Vietnam estimates some three million Vietnamese, the majority children and young adults, are Agent Orange victims.

The US government claims there is no causal linkage and these victims’ health problems must have other causes. At the same time, thanks to a law passed in 1991, the US government provides compensation and healthcare to some half million Vietnam War veterans for more than a dozen cancers and birth defects associated with Agent Orange exposure during their wartime service in Vietnam. For children of veterans, spina bifida is recognized as linked to their parents’ exposure to herbicides. For the children of female veterans only, an additional 18 birth defects and childhood disabilities, including cleft palate, congenital heart disease and club foot are recognized as service-related.

So in fact, this legacy, the Agent Orange legacy, is both the dioxin itself and the fact that Vietnam and the United States were not able to reach common ground on this issue for many decades.

Two approaches have emerged over the last few years—legal and political/technical.

The legal approach is a class action suit which the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange filed in US federal court in New York in 2004. Plaintiffs claim damages against 37 US chemical companies which manufactured dioxin-contaminated Agent Orange in the 60s. However the district and appellate courts ruled that the Association’s legal arguments did not merit a trial and last Monday the Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal.

The political/technical approach only began to unfold in November 2006 when President Bush, in Hanoi on an official visit, committed the US to help Vietnam clean up dioxin contaminated soil at former US military airports. However the Bush administration did not provide the funds to do this. Subsequent progress in the bilateral dialogue has been led by the US Environmental Protection Agency and its counterpart in Vietnam, Committee 33 of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.

The Ford Foundation role in all this has been that of a neutral party working with both sides—the government of Vietnam and the government of the US. We bring people together who might not otherwise talk, we fund confidence building projects for which there is no other donor, and we seek to mainstream this issue in the US. We also support the US-Vietnam Dialogue Group on Agent Orange/Dioxin, a bi-national committee of prominent citizens working together on solutions.

We have mobilized $17 million so far for such solutions. This is $9 million in direct Ford Foundation grant making and $8 million contributed by the Government of Vietnam, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies and the US Fund for UNICEF. Two thirds of our grants fund direct services to Vietnamese families struggling to cope with a disabled child or young adult.

I’m also pleased to say that last October 29^th the US government announced its first grants in this area-- $1 million to three US NGOs for social services for people with disabilities in the city of Danang. These are the first disbursements out of a $3 million allocation for dioxin clean-up and health programs in Vietnam which the Senate inserted in the 2007 Appropriations Act. The Senate has placed a second $3 million in the 2009 appropriations bill.

As I mentioned, the precise link between exposure to dioxin and disability is disputed. So we have taken an inclusive approach—aiming to assist all who are disabled. There are 85 million people in Vietnam and about 13 million of them are living with disabilities. Of these 13 million, the disabilities of some three million are linked to exposure to dioxin.

One should never underestimate the destructive power of physical and mental disability not only on the individual but on her or his family. When a family member becomes chronically ill or disabled or is born with disabilities, the family expenses go up, family income drops and the family finds itself on the fast elevator to the bottom of the society where they join families still stuck below the poverty line. Disability leaves people more vulnerable, especially women and children. So, the challenge of the Agent Orange legacy of the Vietnam War is to focus resources—funds and expertise—to ensure healthy families, and more particularly, to ensure opportunities for people with disabilities in Vietnam to maximize their capabilities and live with self-confidence and self-respect.

I have to say though, despite this progress, it’s still a fragile situation and continues to depend utterly on the actions and commitment of a pretty small number of people, most of them in this town. We need more people to join us, people like you.

The people and government of Vietnam think a solution to the Agent Orange/dioxin issue is important and certainly long overdue. They are looking for a solution which directly benefits the affected people, their families and their communities. They also feel that this issue is the last remaining barrier to fully normal relations between the US and Vietnam.

For these reasons, we Americans need to get reacquainted with Vietnam, to pay attention to Vietnam.

Thank you.

Filipinos affected by Cancer and the underlining Stigma

I went to lunch today with my cousin and she told me that our Auntie Rita passed away a couple months ago from ovarian cancer. My cousin told me that Auntie Rita didn't feel the need to see a Doctor regularly because she felt fine. Until she started having pains near her pelvis. She went to go see the doctor to find out what those pains were and it was too late. The cancer already spread.

When I heard this story it made me think about my work at the health forum. I am currently writing a health brief on Filipinos and Cancer and found cancer facts about Filipino women having low rates of mammograms and pap smears. As a result of low screening rates, there are high incidence levels of breast cancer and cervical cancer in Filipinas. These screenings are so important because it helps to detect cancer before it progresses, but mammograms and pap smears are tests that women find to be uncomfortable. Filipinas especially don't feel the need to be screened because don't see the importance of getting a mammogram and pap smear. And to add to that, they are modest people that are also modest about their bodies. They also believe that if there are no symptoms of illness it means everything is fine with their health.
Education I feel is key to addressing this health problem and lifting the stimga. Educating the Filipino community will not only help them become more knowledgeable about cancer, but will also encourage them to take control of their health.

It is upsetting to hear stories like the one of my Aunt and know that if she saw a Doctor regularly that this disease could have been prevented.

2009 Tylenol Scholarships

Deadline: May 15, 2009

The Tylenol scholarship program helps students who are pursuing careers in the healthcare, life sciences, or related fields, manage the rising costs of education.

The program will award $250,000 in scholarships based on leadership qualities and academic performance, including ten $10,000 and thirty $5,000 grants.

Qualifications:

• Must be a resident of the 50 United States, Puerto Rico, or the District of Columbia
• Must have completed at least one year of undergraduate or graduate course of study in the Spring of 2009 at an accredited two or four year college, university or vocational - technical school
• Must provide proof of enrollment to a public health/health education, medical school, nursing and/or pharmacy degree program
• Must have one or more years of school remaining
• Past winners are not eligible to apply or win for the 2009/2010 year
**Employees of McNeil Consumer and Specialty Pharmaceuticals, ISTS, Inc., their affiliates, subsidiaries, advertising and promotion agencies and the families of each are not eligible.

For more information: http://www.tylenol.com/scholarship

newslinks

Pacific Islanders, Hawaiians, Other Minority Groups Have Increased Risk for Drug-Resistant Staph Infections, Experts Say [Kaiser]

UnitedHealth Opens Center That Aims To Improve Access to Care for Elderly Chinese-Americans in California [Kaiser]

Preliminary Health Insurer Survey Results Indicate Some Patients Want To Know Physician's Race When Selecting Provider [Kaiser]

Drinkers’ Red Face May Signal Cancer Risk. Yay Asian glow. [NYTimes]

Note: Kaiser has a pretty addictive health disparities feed...

some thoughts on food

I grew up amidst several conflicting approaches to food. My family, having survived decades of war, poverty and hunger in China, practically shoved food down my throat. Food was sacred. At the dinner table, I'd better be quiet, feel appreciative, and eat, or else. We planned our meals around seasonal fruits and vegetables, holiday food rituals, and moderation in the usage of salt/oil/sugar.

On the other extreme, there was the food industry. One of the most disconcerting moments of my life was when I was 8 and attempted to decipher the ingredients on my Hi-C juice box. It was horrifying to find out that what I previously had thought of as “strawberry” juice was really red food coloring and high fructose corn syrup. I couldn't believe that I was sucking up corn through my bendy straw. But that was that – as long as the product in question tasted “good”, was priced low enough, and was served quickly, it didn't matter what it actually was.

It wasn't until high school when I was researching vegetarianism that I felt empowered to take charge of my own health, and also began to understand how food affected the world beyond just myself. Since becoming vegetarian, I explain that my dietary choices are more for the conservation of natural resources (eg land and water) as well as my opposition to the poor conditions that most slaughterhouse employees work under. In the past few years, with books like The Omnivore's Dilemma, the Slow Food Movement and farmer's markets quickly becoming mainstreamed, these ideas aren't so uncommon. Now, a good number of consumers can probably list off environmental reasons to buy organic or explain how our food system contributes to the obesity epidemic. People are also caring more about their bodies, which may explain the recent spate of commercials promoting high fructose corn syrup by the Corn Refiners' Association.

In this environment, it's not surprising that the Obamas decided to plant a garden on the White House's South Lawn. This garden has immense symbolic value, in exploring how we eat and community involvement in health and wellbeing. However, not everyone has the resources to eat fresh, local food; how we eat is not merely a product of our individual choices, but also of what's available and ACCESSIBLE. Additionally, food doesn't just appear at the supermarket, ready to be purchased. There are several steps involved in getting food to the average consumer, and each of these steps involves a PERSON. It isn't enough just to promote and protect the health of consumers, or else we'd essentially be asking the workers that produce food to give up their health and bodies for ours.

For more information on farm workers, including action alerts, check out the United Farm Workers.