Category Archives: Health
Food Day: Growing a movement around what we eat
Can Food Day, which is on October 24th, do for the growing food movement what Earth Day did for the nascent environmental movement back in 1970?
The organizers, the Center for Science in the Public Interest in D.C., certainly hope so. A national, grassroots campaign, Food Day is designed to celebrate what we eat while drawing our attention to the need to overhaul this country’s food system from farm to fork. In this way it is similar to Earth Day which sparked widespread interest in the fragile nature of our planet.
Events planned for Monday, including in Berkeley and around the Bay Area, will highlight the good, bad, and ugly of the way we consume food in this country.
Simply put, how we grow, transport, process, market, and eat is not sustainable for the environment or our health, said Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of CSPI and the creator of Food Day in a recent piece for The Atlantic. Dietary diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart attacks are rising at alarming rates. Industrially raised meat sucks up energy, pollutes the land and water, and is cruel to beast and worker alike.
Even in places like Berkeley where local, seasonal, organic, sustainable, and fresh food is available in abundance, too many people lack access to good grub and/or go hungry or malnourished. … Continue reading »
CANFIT wants to improve the health of all America’s youth
Arnell Hinkle, the founding executive director of CANFIT (which stands for Communities, Adolescents, Nutrition, and Fitness) may be based in downtown Berkeley, but her work to improve the lives of low-income youth of color takes her across the country and around the globe.
She has been involved in development projects in India, Ecuador and Scotland, and spent last year on a Fullbright public policy fellowship in Wellington, New Zealand working with Maori and Pacific Island groups.
A kind of community food coach for young folk, the registered dietician who holds a masters in public health has worked as a restaurant chef, organic farmer, and as a project coordinator of the Hunger and Chronic Disease Prevention Program at the Contra Costa County Health Services Department. … Continue reading »
Mumps outbreak on campus prompts vaccination clinics
UC Berkeley students are being encouraged to get a booster shot after an outbreak of mumps afflicted 20 students.
The Tang Center at Cal will be offering free MMR vaccines from noon to 6 pm on October 6, and from noon to 6 pm on October 14th.
“The UC Berkeley campus community is experiencing an outbreak of mumps,” university health officials said in a campus-wide email sent out on Tuesday. “University Health Services and the City of Berkeley’s Public Health Division are working closely with the California Department of Public Health to limit spread of the disease.”
Students who came down with the mumps were clustered on the Clark-Kerr campus, about a half-mile south of campus, and in the Cloyne student housing north of campus, according to the Bay Citizen.
Before this recent outbreak, Berkeley had only had six reported cases of mumps since 1990, according to city officials.
Because a significant number of people in the Berkeley community has not been immunized for mumps, there is a higher likelihood that an outbreak can propagate and infect more people. … Continue reading »
Rapid growth of cannabis collective raises concern
In the 21 months since it opened, the 40 Acres Medical Marijuana Growers Collective has seen its membership jump to more than 7,000 people, making it one of the fastest growing and largest cannabis businesses in Berkeley.
From a set of rooms located above the Albatross pub on San Pablo Avenue, 40 Acres has become more than just a place where people can obtain and consume medical cannabis. Started by African-Americans, run by African-Americans, 40 Acres aims to bring diversity to the medical cannabis movement and use the rapidly growing industry as a way to open up opportunities for the poor and disenfranchised.
The leaders of the collective actively reach out to marginalized young adults and encourage them to enter the group’s training program, where they can learn the nuts and bolts of bud tending, cultivation, patient intake methods, and how to assess product.
“There is a population of kids, high school dropouts, who are coming to us to learn,” said Toya Groves, a director and one of the four co-founders of the group. “This is a way the unemployable become employable.” … Continue reading »
Farm-to-fork tours spotlight local green businesses
Three years ago, Marissa LaMagna started Bay Area Green Tours, a nonprofit, shoestring operation now headquartered in the David Brower Center (and largely staffed by eager, eco-conscious, unpaid interns) because she wanted to showcase the best sustainable farms and food, buildings and businesses, energy practices and employment opportunities in Berkeley and beyond.
The green tour business with a biodiesel bus takes people from near and far to see for themselves and hear the stories behind successful sustainable enterprises … Continue reading »
Nurses’ strike draws cheers and honking horns
A raucous, good-humored crowd of hundreds of nurses gathered this morning in front of the Alta Bates Summit campus on Ashby Avenue to rally for the one-day California Nurses Association strike against “sweeping demands for concessions” from Sutter Health, the hospital’s owner. The nurses listened to music, chanted slogans and cheered the many passing cars and trucks that honked horns in support.
“Too big to fail applies to more than banks,” Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, told Berkeleyside. … Continue reading »
Alta Bates nurses to go on one-day strike tomorrow
Nurses at the two Alta Bates Summit hospital campuses in Berkeley will hold a one-day strike tomorrow to protest what they term “sweeping demands for concessions” on contract terms by Sutter Health, which owns Alta Bates Summit. Alta Bates Summit is bringing in contract nurses to cover for the strikers, and says patient care will not be affected.
“The strike is because of Sutter’s scorched-earth policy against patients, the community and nurses,” said Charles Idelson, spokesperson for the California Nurses … Continue reading »
Swimmers cross Bay to raise funds for cancer research
About a year and a half ago, Steve Barbour, the CFO of Nestlé Dreyer’s Ice Cream, decided to take up swimming to get back in shape. While he had loved the water while growing up in southern California, he had stopped exercising regularly and his inactivity was beginning to show on his 52-year-old frame.
Barbour started swimming every day at 6:00 am at the pool at the Claremont Hotel. He got to know Susan Helmrich, a three-time cancer survivor and … Continue reading »
Laid-off Bayer workers still fighting for their jobs
When 414 workers at Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals vote on a new contract on today, Anita Holloway won’t be among them.
Holloway worked in janitorial services at Bayer Healthcare on Dwight Way for three years, earning $22.65 an hour. Then in August 2010, she and 28 other union members were laid off, with the faint promise of being rehired when times got better.
Many of those workers decided to take severance and separate themselves from the company. But Holloway didn’t … Continue reading »
Students need a booster shot to attend school
As students in Berkeley prepare to return to school by buying binder paper and pencils, they need something else on their back-to-school shopping list: a booster shot.
A new California law requires all students entering grades 7 through 12 to provide proof they have had a Tdap shot, which provides protection against whooping cough, a bacterial disease that can be deadly.
The Legislature originally passed a law requiring students to get the booster shot by the first day … Continue reading »
