Change We Can Be Livin' In: Health Democracy in America
by Karen Kisslinger, L.Ac.
I have been privileged to practice traditional Oriental Medicine for many years. This is a practice rooted in prevention and an integrated approach to health. It is an elegant and effective form of medicine. Yet its very roots and basic philosophy are overwhelmed and challenged by the sheer toxicity, high stress and lack of balance in much of modern life. Our commitment to health democracy can include a commitment to reversing these trends through our personal decisions.
In the Oriental medical tradition, meditation, relaxation and contemplative practices have always been part of the medicine. Chinese Medicine has always been about the whole person, and everything about the person has always been meaningful in the diagnosis. The seasons you like and dislike, the time of day you have good energy and energy slumps, the sound of your voice, the color tone of the skin around your eyes, your emotional state, your odor, the quality of the pulses on your wrist, the color, coating, cracks and other properties of your tongue ... all of these and many more are important in the diagnosis.
In Chinese Medicine we integrate the traditional aspects of healing: “Way of life” or life style medicine is patient education. This especially concerns contemplative practices, exercise and dietary practices which have always been indistinguishable from “medicine” in all natural healing traditions. There is herbal medicine gleaned from the plants growing around the region of both patient and doctor. Herbal medicine has probably treated more human beings than any other system of medicine on earth. Then there is the acupuncture, the acupressure, and the moxabustion (burning of mugwort on acupuncture points); all or most of these are involved with every patient. This is the ancient and original integrative medicine.
Health Care Reform and Health Democracy
The health care system of today is very different and it needs to be reformed. Yet, there is no use talking about health care reform unless we are willing to acknowledge that the system we currently have is dis-integrated and cannot be usefully reformed. It must be transformed into a system and a way of life, which truly encourages, sustains and promotes health, respects traditional healing practices and prevents dis-ease.
Integrative medicine can only be about promoting lives of INTEGRITY which allow access to health as opposed to access to health care. Though I myself healed from locally metastasized breast cancer 14 years ago without resorting to conventional oncology, I question whether I would have been able to do so if I weren't in the position of practicing what I preach and living in a more balanced, healing and healthy way. Maybe those practices helped me to overcome the overpowering effects of childhood exposure to nuclear fall-out, DDT and other cancer promoting forces outside my personal control. Ultimately it's living healthfully that should be considered an even more important right than the right to have access to the current system of disease care.
Getting insurance available for those who can't afford it, though a noble and important goal, will not necessarily do much to improve health. Considering the reality of how people are actually living, we can all sign on to health democracy by becoming empowered participants in our own health and believing that we can heal and be healthy, still recognizing that some sickness and disease will always be a part of life.
How Would I Prioritize Developing Health Democracy?
- Food democracy with priority to local, fresh, whole, clean-grown foods available to all. Packaged, refined convenience foods cannot provide the nutrition needed to maintain health.
- Adequate parental leave for growing families to give nurture to newborns and young children. Priority given to human milk being available to all babies for at least the minimum of 6 months currently recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. (The World Health Organization suggests 2 years!)
- Adequate vacation, personal and flexible work time to allow lower stress levels, relaxation and renewal.
- Universally available preventative primary healthy care with emphasis on non toxic life style and the promotion of healing. Early screening is not prevention; removing endocrine disrupting petrochemicals from the human environment is prevention.
- Electronic and media free zones for families and especially for small children to allow relationships with family, friends, self and nature to grow. Take the TV's out of the kids rooms. The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that children under 2 years of age be exposed to NO television....that's ZERO television.
- More time outside, particularly in sunshine so that Vitamin D levels are adequate in warm weather.
- Priority to physical work and exercise to balance current sedentary life style. Being outside isn't ''therapy”...it's Life!
If we argue that access to health care is a right, how much more important is it in the long run to argue that access to healthy living is a right. This ties in directly to numerous regulatory policies such as power plant mercury emissions.
Yes, we need our society to provide paid parental leave so we can provide early care and breastfeeding for our babies. Yes, we need a USDA that makes non toxic farming a national priority. In the end we need citizens who wake up and democratically demand these things because such priorities, not access to disease care insurance, as important as it is, is the fundamental root of a healthy and secure population.
About the Author
Karen Kisslinger, L.Ac., has been practicing Classical Chinese 
Acupuncture and related healing arts for over 30 years. Coming from a tradition which emphasizes preventive medicine and “Way of Life, her teaching has come to encompass health promotion through meditation, chi-kung, gardening, yoga, singing, relaxation and general stress reduction. She has guided thousands of students through their first relaxation and meditation experience.