Blogging with Lee

Health Care Reform, Personal Responsibility & Preventive Care

Our friends at TotalHealth Magazine and iHealthTube.com recently completed a series of interviews with Dr. Michael Roizen at Cleveland Clinic, a world-renowned medical center that has been highlighted in the recent health care reform debates as a model for future health systems.

Dr. Roizen is an internist and anesthesiologist who now serves as Chief Wellness Officer and Chairman of the Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic. He is also one of the cofounders of RealAge.com and author of the New York Times bestseller RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be? Along with his co-author and fellow RealAge colleague Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Roizen has become one of the most recognized doctors in America working to develop new ways of addressing our health care challenges.

In this video interview with TotalHealth Editor Lyle Hurd, Dr. Roizen explains how shifting the focus of health care from chronic care to preventive care can save billions of dollars, reduce the incidence of disease and improve quality of life for all Americans. His model calls for personal responsibility on the part of every individual to take an active roll in maintaining wellness as well as institutional responsibility for supporting the lifestyle recommendations and providing the preventive care measures that help individuals lead healthy, active lives.

This is just one of ten fascinating videos with Dr. Roizen available now on iHealthTube.com. Watch them all and share them with your friends and family. You'll be surprised at how these brief conversations can change the way you think about your health and health care as we know it.

Historic Fargo Flood

It's Monday morning, March 30th, and I'm sure you're all aware of what we've been through here in Fargo over the past week. Record floods have besieged our city and the surrounding areas, exiling many people from their homes and shutting down schools, businesses and even medical clinics throughout the area.

A neighborhood in south Fargo is overcome by the raging Red River.

We fought the battle against the water until Thursday night, but at that time even Swanson Health Products was forced to shut down operations. My heartfelt thanks to you, our friends and customers throughout the country, for your patience, understanding and support throughout this challenging time.

I've lived in Fargo all my life and I have never seen anything that even comes close to the situation we've been faced with for the past week. It is the first time we have ever been forced to shut down operations at Swanson for an extended period of time and I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you suffered during this interruption in service.

This street sign gives you an idea how deep the water is in many areas around town.

Luckily, we were able to keep the waters around our operations center at bay and we're resuming operations today. We'll be running at limited capacity for a brief time, but as always we'll do our best to meet your needs in the most efficient manner possible. Again, I thank you for your patience and understanding as we overcome the challenge of this truly amazing natural event.

Complicating things further is the weather forecast for the coming week, which calls for up to 12 inches of new snow to fall between today and Wednesday. This snow, coupled with the high winds we are famous for here on the plains, could complicate our flood situation, limit travel and otherwise interfere with our ability to resume business as usual.

A home on the south side of town is surrounded. Just one of many.

I had hoped to get this blog entry out earlier, but every able-bodied person available has been serving the community this week, me included. From filling sandbags to placing them, organizing shelters and caring for those displaced, our friends and neighbors have demonstrated the utmost in compassion and perseverance. I'm troubled by our interruption of service here at Swanson, but I couldn't be more proud of our employees and my fellow citizens who literally stood shoulder to shoulder to save our city and protect the many businesses like ours that serve valuable customers like you throughout the world.

Volunteers worked around the clock for days filling millions of sandbags to hold back the river.

We're working diligently to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible even as we face new challenges in the coming week. Thanks again for all the messages of support and for bearing with us as we work to resume the timely service you've come to expect from Swanson Health Products.

Fringe Elements Create Controversy over Diet Supplements

Earlier this week I received an email from a colleague alerting me to a new report on the front page of the New York Times business section. FDA Finds ‘Natural’ Diet Pills Laced with Drugs, the headline proclaimed. “Here we go again,” I thought, knowing exactly what to expect from the article.