Tooting From Seattle: Conclusion

Six AM, Sunday Morning: Surprisingly, I’m awake. I wound up in the hotel bar last night with some fellow health journalists. I was the quiet one in the crowd. What is wrong with this picture? (That was a trick question, by the way.) Anyway, more “toots” from the Association of Health Care Journalists conference:

Early Sat Morning: A session on autism. The reason this illness is on the agenda has to do with the considerable media coverage over the years regarding whether vaccinations cause autism in kids. The expert panel informs us this is not the case. The jury is in, the panel informs us, in the form of at least six studies. No causation has been found. Paul Offit MD of the University of Pennsylvania, vaccine expert and author of “Autism’s False Prophets,” reminds us that with scientists in virtual unanimity, the issue can hardly be written up as a “controversy.”

I experience a flashback to the less-than-stellar reporting in the NY Times two years ago in a series of articles similarly describing early-onset bipolar as “controversial” (as if it could be argued that these kids’ behavior were normal, that they were the victims of bad parenting, and that certain researchers in cahoots with Pharma were disease-mongering). Don’t get me started ...

Ignore that last sentence. At lunch, the AHCJ awards Mary Carmichael of Newsweek first prize in the large magazines category for her terrific story, “Growing Up Bipolar.” Had she been in attendance I would have given her a hug. But I’m getting ahead, and I’ll save this for another blog piece. Back to autism ...

Parent advocate Alison Singer informs us that the media has been pitting parents against science, which is “not so.” The studies have been done, she lets us know. “The questions have been asked and answered.” Scarce research money, she concludes, needs to be applied to searching for the underlying mechanism of action for autism and its treatment, not in yet more vaccine investigations.

Late morning: I wander into a sparsely-attended session on “healthy environment,” expecting something along the lines of clean air and clean water. But what the panel means by environment is exactly what the brain science researchers mean by environment - namely, anything out there that impacts health.

Stephen Bezrucha MD of the University of Washington lets us know that mortality rates in the general population actually go down during economic hard times. One reason, he said, may have to do with people having more time to connect with their friends and families.

Naturally, this raises the whole stress-mental illness issue, together with whether work is “tonic or toxic.” Well, actually, I’m the one who raises the issue at question time.

Brief sidebar: In two sessions from Friday, at question time, I mention in passing my diagnosis (as it happened to be germane to the discussion). So for two days fellow journalists are coming up to me and congratulating me on my courage in disclosing.

I feel a bit awkward about this. I’ve been “out there” for 10 years. It’s not like I had been agonizing over the last few days on whether or not to come out. But the conversation serves as a forceful reality check. Our population has good reasons for not disclosing. The stigma out there is fierce. I’ve created a comfortable world for myself as a bipolar “expert patient” journalist. But the world that my fellow patients deal with tends to be a lot harsher. I’m supposed to know that, but how easy it is to forget.

Back to “tonic vs toxic.” Michael Hayes PhD of Simon Fraser University reminds us of the famous “Whitehall Study” that investigated British civil servants, which found that those high up the managerial food chain - in “high control/low demand” - positions fared a lot better on just about all health measures than the worker bees in “low control/high demand" positions.

Lunch: Oxymoron time. I’m rolling in the aisles listening to a “funny economist.” Uwe Reinhardt PhD of Princeton flashes a slide of a confused Alan Greenspan juxtaposed with “Atlas Shrugged,” and I’m experiencing a Seinfeld moment (think Kramer’s famous one-liner in “The Contest”).

As a financial journalist, I used to write that economists were full of crap (but was never smart enough to prove it), so it’s reassuring to hear one of the world’s leading economists enthusiastically own up to the fact that “my profession has been a complete and total failure,” that “what we say adds up to zilch,” and that economists “build models that only make sense on the planet Vulcan.”

A very sizable percentage of my fellow health journalists have either been business/finance journalists or currently are, so the aisles are clogged with rolling brethren. Health care is as much a business and economics story as it is a medical and health story. Virtually all of us are straddling two fields.

As if to reinforce the point, one of the afternoon sessions involves statistics.

Late afternoon: A panel of AHCJ award winners share with us how they researched and wrote their prize-winning stories. Their presentations amount to mini-masters classes in rooting out hidden information and activity and exposing it to broad daylight. These are extremely hard times for the journalism profession. Even in the best of times, you have to be crazy to enter the field. But listening to the presentations, I am experiencing an outbreak of “rational.”

Yes, I reflect. Now I recall why I became a journalist. I’ll leave out the preaching. You fill in the blanks.

Sunday Morning: Plane to catch. I’m outta here ...

Tooting From Seattle: The Sequel

Friday evening, 9:15 PM: I’m back in my hotel room after placing my aching lower back directly in front of a blasting hot tub jet. It’s been another long day at the Association of Health Care Journalists conference. I’ll wind down for about an hour, and then, to bed ...

But first more “toots” from Tooter:

Thursday Evening: I wrap up yesterday’s blog piece and head down to a conference buffet social. There must be 300 journalists in the room, which is a scary thought only if you don’t know that at least half must be “a little bit” bipolar. Crazy goes with the territory. Seriously, no sane person would ever choose to be a journalist. I grab some food and in nothing flat I’m right at home.

Friday Morning: I head for a session on reporting about disasters. A spokesperson from the Dept of Homeland Security and the local port security director are on the panel. I’ve never been an “on the spot” reporter, but with mental illness location and time are no restrictions. A disaster in Florida, for instance, may cause extreme distress to someone watching it on TV in Kansas, who may not realize something is wrong for another six months.

Later Morning: My second session is on mental health. About 50 other journalists are in attendance. I say hi to Randy Revelle as I walk in. We’ve run into each other at two DBSA conferences. Randy is a prominent area politician, openly bipolar, and was the driving force behind mental health parity in the state of Washington. State parity laws, he said, can only apply to about a third of the people who need coverage. You need a federal law for the other two-thirds. Problem is, he says, the legislation that became law last year is riddled with exemptions and loopholes.

Elizabeth McCauley PhD of the University of Washington talks about adolescent mental health. We used to think that the brain was set for life at ages 3,4,5, she relates. Now we know that “everything changes” beginning in early adolescence. This is the time expectations ratchet up, along with increased risk-taking behavior, plus depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia start rearing their ugly heads.

Meanwhile, the brain is laying the foundation for more sophisticated executive function and problem-solving skills. This includes the completion of brain cell genesis, newer myelination, and dendritic pruning.

Jennifer Stuber PhD of the University of Washington talks about stigma, and how the media can report stories that do not play into the public’s fears and misconceptions. I’m heartened by the high level of questioning from the audience. All the reporters here want to do their job better.

Lunch: Sen Ron Wyden (D Ore) is the speaker. He has 14 senators from both sides of the aisle signed on to a bill that would combine private and universal healthcare into a multi-payer system. It you take the $2.5 trillion US taxpayers currently spend on medical treatment, he said, and divide it by the US population, you would be able to hire a doctor for every seven families.

The biggest challenge for reform, he said, is to unpack that 2.5 trillion and redeploy it.

Sen Wyden is addressing a very tough audience, hard-boiled health journalists who have heard it all, but I see lots of pens scratching across lots of notebooks. Lots of nodding heads and knowing smiles. The Senator is clearly making a very good impression.

Late afternoon: A nice long walk along Seattle’s harbor front, a cheeseburger in a local dive, and back to the hotel for a soak in the hot tub. To bed ...

Tooting to Seattle

Think of today’s blog piece as Tooter and these are my “toots.”

Today, Wed, 11:50: I’m 30,000 feet over Reno, midway between San Diego and Seattle, en route to a conference put on by the Association of Health Care Journalists. I’m used to attending conferences where I’m the journalist among patients or psychiatrists or researchers. This time, I will be an attendee amongst journalists. I have no idea what I’m in for.

Yesterday, Tues Morning: I wake up with every muscle in my lower back fused together. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, I feel my pain. I’m booked for a flight to Seattle tomorrow to attend a conference and this does not bode well.

Later, Tues Morning: Last week, my friend in LA Louise ordered me to plant tomatoes. Five days later, my tomato paraphernalia is still sitting in the spot where I left them. It’s now or never. Despite my back, I get the seedlings into four large pots, along with potting soil, which I am told is vital to the endeavor. It is my intention to nurse the things to their inevitable death, then proclaim with a clear conscience my best intentions to Louise. (“See, Louise. I tried. I really did, but plants hate me. Even basil hates me.”)

Tues Afternoon: Packing decisions. If I don’t pack any underwear, I can get everything into one bag. Just kidding. Every trip I always leave one thing behind. What will it be this time?

Tues 5:30 PM: I’m checked into a Quality Inn near the airport. This is a strategic decision My intention is to wake up rested for tomorrow’s flight. The potential for messing up my sleep and not being able to recover on the road poses serious risks with my illness. With my back acting up, I’m starting to look prescient. Unfortunately, it looks like someone filled the hotel’s hot tub with Metamucil, so I give a warm soak a miss and take a short nap instead.

Tues Evening: I’m in the lobby of UCSD Hospital, ten minutes from my hotel. The previous day, someone I know a little bit - a loved one of one of my water volleyball mates - was admitted to intensive care following a motor vehicle accident. I’ve already been up to the ICU. Now I’m waiting with some of the water volleyball crew and other friends from the resort where we play for our mate to show up. Last week, I did a blog piece on water volleyball and the benefits of play and acting like we’re five years old. Suddenly, in the same company, life is very serious.

Early Wed morning: I’m up at 6:30. My back is still killing me, but not nearly as bad as the day before. I’m reasonably well rested. I can leave my car at the hotel. The hotel will drive me to the airport, ten minutes away. I’m relaxed, ready to go.

10 AM: I’ve survived the ordeal of airport security and am boarding my flight for 10:30 take-off.

10:50 AM: I’m nodding off.

11: 50 AM, the present: I wake up and rifle through my bag for my iPod. No earphones! So that’s the thing I must have decided to leave behind when I packed.

This is John McManamy for Tooter. Keep posted for more “toots.”