Mississippi in US calls on Iran for help with primary health care system

Deep South calls in Iran to cure its health blues
In ground-breaking project, one of America’s poorest communities is turning to the Middle East to try to resolve its crisis

By Christina Lamb
December 20 2009

As Marie Pryor shuffles along a Mississippi roadside collecting discarded drink cans to sell for a few cents, her breath comes in short puffs caused by a congenital heart defect. The same condition caused her granddaughter’s death earlier this year.

The last place on earth she would look for help is Iran, a country widely regarded in America as the enemy. The US and Iran have not had diplomatic relations for 30 years and the two governments trade daily insults over Iran’s nuclear programme. Last week Tehran charged three American hikers with espionage after they apparently strayed across the border.

But with Congress acrimoniously debating the reform of health care, it is to Iran that one of America’s poorest communities is turning to try to resolve its own health crisis.

A US doctor and a development consultant visited Iran in May to study a primary health care system that has cut infant mortality by more than two-thirds since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

Then, in October, five top Iranian doctors, including a senior official at the health ministry in Tehran, were quietly brought to Mississippi to advise on how the system could be implemented there.

The Mississippi Delta has some of the worst health statistics in the country, including infant mortality rates for non-whites at Third World levels.

“It’s time to look for a new model,” said Dr Aaron Shirley, one of the state’s leading health campaigners.

“Forty years ago, when I was a resident at Jackson hospital, I was in charge of admitting sick babies and was astonished at all the children coming in from the delta with diarrhea, meningitis, pneumonia.

“After years of health research and expenditure of millions of dollars, nothing much has changed.”

As the House of Representatives and Senate weigh the cost of President Barack Obama’s health reforms, Shirley points out that good primary care prevents people from ending up in hospital in the first place.

Besides, nowhere is the need for reform more acute than in Mississippi. The southern state has the highest levels of child obesity, hypertension and teenage pregnancy in the US. More than 20% of its people have no health insurance.

Baptist Town, where Pryor lives, is typical. A rundown suburb of Greenwood, the collapse of the cotton industry has led to massive unemployment. The local stores are a pawn shop, Juanita’s Beauty Salon and Bail Bonding, and an office offering “payday and title loans”.

Pryor’s son Kenneth and daughter-in-law Lizzie, who live with her, are both out of work and their only daughter died from her heart condition at the age of 26. With no local clinics or transport, they go to the hospital’s accident and emergency department if they need a doctor.

The idea of looking for solutions in Iran emerged when James Miller, a consultant based in Mississippi, was called in to advise a rural hospital in financial difficulty. He was shocked to find that the state had the third highest medical expenditure per capita, but came last in terms of outcome.

Miller, managing director of Oxford International Development Group, remembered a conference in Europe where Iranian officials had explained how their country had revolutionized its health care system.

Facing shortages of money and trained doctors at the start of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, the new government launched a system based on community “health houses”, each serving about 1,500 people.

Locals were trained as health workers known as behvarz, who would travel their area, dispensing advice about healthy eating, sanitation and contraception as well as monitoring blood pressure and conditions such as diabetes.

It was a stunning success, reducing child mortality rates by 69% and maternal mortality in rural areas from 300 per 100,000 births to 30. There are now 17,000 health houses in Iran, covering more than 90% of its rural population of 23m.

Miller contacted Shirley, who is seen as a community health pioneer in Mississippi and had recently converted a deserted shopping centre in Jackson into a “medical mall” for the poor.

“I thought if the Iranians could do it with a fraction of resources we have, then why shouldn’t we?” said Shirley.

An Iranian doctor helped them make contact with Shiraz University, which manages more than 1,000 health houses and trains health care workers.

Shirley and Miller visited Iran in May and were astonished to be welcomed with open arms. When they went to remote villages to see the health houses, the Iranians were equally amazed.

“They told us this is a miracle,” said Miller. “Not only were Americans coming here, but also they were learning from us rather than telling us what to do.”

One villager exclaimed: “We always knew rain fell down but never knew it could fall up.”

They signed an agreement with Shiraz University to form the Mississippi/Islamic Republic of Iran rural health project and applied to the US Treasury for a special licence for “Iranian transactions”.

The next step was to win over communities in Mississippi. They started with Greenwood, where Shirley had already been in talks about setting up a local clinic.

Community leaders were shocked when he advised using Iran as a model. “To be honest, I wasn’t overwhelmed with the idea of copying Iran,” said Larry Griggs, the local fire chief. “It’s not exactly one of the most favourable countries to the US.”

They also had to overcome the legacy of distrust between blacks in the American south and public health officials after a series of scandals over medical experiments. The most notorious was the Tuskegee experiment between 1932 and 1972, in which 399 impoverished, black, illiterate farmers were left to suffer from syphilis even though penicillin was available. More than 100 died.

To sell the Iranian idea, Miller promoted it as “a health care model just like the Beetle”, pointing out that the popular Volkswagen Beetle had been conceived by the Nazi regime to show “good things can come out of somewhere not very popular in the world right now”.

The Iranian experts who came to Mississippi included two of the programme’s architects, Dr Hossein Malekafzali, a former minister who is professor of public health at Tehran University, and Dr Kamal Shadpour, the initiative’s co-ordinator in the health ministry.

The Greenwood community was convinced and leased a defunct car showroom for $1 a month for the first Mississippi health house, which is due to open next month. Fifteen Delta communities have expressed interest and Harvard’s School of Public Health will monitor the project.

Paula Gutlove, deputy director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies, a US think tank, said there was a positive shock value to using an Iranian model. “The exotic nature of working with Iran makes it intriguing to potential funders and sponsors,” she said.

The first candidates from the Mississippi Delta are expected to be trained as health assistants in Iran this spring. If it works, Shirley hopes to extend the programme to the rest of the US. “Just as Mississippi was ground zero in the civil rights movement, so it can be for health,” he said.

Nonetheless, the Iranian connection poses a problem. Knowing that many Americans might be outraged, they have not spoken about the project. Even the governor of Mississippi is unaware of it. “We’ve been deliberately working under the radar,” said Shirley.

The programme chimes with Obama’s policy of engagement and his support of so-called “smart diplomacy”, using links between scientists as a way of breaking down barriers between countries. Following his speech in Cairo last June, aimed at reaching out to the Islamic world, the president has appointed three science envoys who will head to the Middle East next month.

“The Iranians are a proud people with 5,000 years of history and huge contributions to science and medicine,” said a State Department official.

“A project like the Mississippi one is incredibly powerful as it appeals to that Iranian concept of history. It’s a great way to keep the door open between the two countries.”

Gutlove points out that similar meetings between American and Soviet scientists in the 1980s helped pave the way for the end of the cold war. “What we did in the 1980s created lasting relationships which cut across the divide,” she said.

“It’s a win-win project,” said Shirley. “Not only do we finally have a way of addressing disparities in Mississippi, but also building relations between peoples.”

Source

Added This site on October 25 2011

Iran is a beautiful Country. Take the tour and decide for yourself.

The Iran you will never see on American Television

All I can say is “way cool”.

Iran has a lot to share with the rest of the world.

Such a pity they are always demonized.

If you know of anyone who wants to help please forward below information.

Gaza Freedom Marchers need your help to get into Gaza, Who is up to sending a few E-mails http://wp.me/p4271-1EJ

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Gov’t Study Concludes “Gulf War Syndrome” is Legitimate Condition, Affects 1 in 4 Vets

December 4 2008

Seventeen years after the Gulf war, a congressionally mandated committee has concluded that “Gulf war syndrome” is a legitimate condition that continues to affect one quarter of the nearly 700,000 US soldiers deployed in that war. In a report presented last month to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses said, “Scientific evidence leaves no question that Gulf War illness is a real condition with real causes and serious consequences for affected veterans.” We speak with a Gulf War vet who was a part of the committee and who himself is sick.

Guest:

Anthony Hardie, Member of Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses and National Secretary and Legislative Chair of Veterans of Modern Warfare.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Seventeen years after the Gulf War, a congressionally mandated committee has concluded that Gulf War syndrome is a legitimate condition that continues to affect one quarter of the nearly 700,000 US soldiers deployed in that war. In a report presented last month to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses said, “Scientific evidence leaves no question that Gulf War illness is a real condition with real causes and serious consequences for affected veterans.”

The 450-page report details the serious longstanding and sometimes permanent neurotoxic damage seen in veterans of the 1991 war with Iraq. It concludes that the condition was primarily caused by overexposure to pesticides and a drug given to troops to protect against nerve gas.

The US government has long denied the existence of Gulf War syndrome, despite growing evidence and claims by veterans. Gulf War veterans were often told they were suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, and their symptoms were trivialized. The report says that no effective treatment has been found so far and emphasizes the need for further research.

AMY GOODMAN: Anthony Hardie is a veteran of the Gulf War, member of the Research Advisory Committee that authored the report. He is national secretary and legislative chair of Veterans of Modern Warfare and a former officer with the National Gulf War Resource Center, joining us from Madison, Wisconsin.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Anthony. You’re sick, as well?

ANTHONY HARDIE: Yes, that’s right. I’ve had health issues ever since—

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what you suffer from?

ANTHONY HARDIE: Absolutely. I’ve had health issues ever since being in the Gulf. First, about two-thirds of the group that I was with began to be ill from the pyridostigmine bromide, or the nerve agent protective pills that we took, and then, once in Kuwait, began having severe respiratory and sinus issues. Those have continued and have progressed into the kinds of chronic multi-symptom illness that I’m certainly far from unique. Between 175,000 and 210,000 of my fellow Gulf War veterans are suffering from the same kinds of symptoms and illness that I’m suffering from and many far worse than my situation.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, could you tell us a little bit about what the report concluded, because obviously there’s been a lot of debate over the years about the many possible causes of what came to be called as Gulf War syndrome?

ANTHONY HARDIE: Well, that’s right. Well, it was an exhaustive study of about—a survey of about 1,800 scientific studies. And I want to clarify, the report was written by the scientists on the committee, and there are five of us Gulf War veterans on the committee, and we assisted in reviewing the report, but it was a scientific report. And the study concluded that pyridostigmine bromide, or the nerve agent protective pills, and pesticides were the two, could be linked causally to the health effects of Gulf War veterans and a majority who are suffering from chronic multi-symptom illness.

It also determined that we could not rule out a number of other potential causes, including low-level nerve agent and chemical warfare agent exposure throughout the Gulf War and a number of other causes. It suggested that things like depleted uranium, while there are known health effects including cancers, was probably not the cause of the chronic multi-symptom illness affecting most Gulf War veterans, but it certainly didn’t rule out that depleted uranium has health effects of its own.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you surprised by any of the findings, Anthony Hardie? And talk about the significance of this being well over a dozen years since you were serving in the Gulf.

ANTHONY HARDIE: Well, seventeen years after the war, the report says what we Gulf War veterans have been saying all along. And that’s that we have health issues, that those health issues began during the Gulf, that they have progressed since then, that they have been largely unabated and that they’re continuing. So the report says in scientific terms what we’ve been saying all along.

The most disappointing thing is that current VA secretary, Dr. James Peake, said during his presentation that we neither deny nor trivialize the health issues of Gulf War veterans. Yet just a few days later, Secretary Peake and the federal VA referred the report, rather than jumping on its conclusions and making benefits and healthcare changes for Gulf War veterans, referred it to yet another committee, the Institute of Medicine, deciding that they needed further evidence.

And it’s awfully disappointing that still, seventeen years after the war, nearly 200,000 Gulf War veterans still remain ill and are not getting adequate healthcare from the federal VA. And as I testified before Congress last year, being seen is not the same thing as being treated, and to add further to that, treating symptoms is not the same thing as treating the disease.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And this pill that many of the soldiers took, were they forced to take this pill? Could they refuse it? And what were you told at the time when the military administered it?

ANTHONY HARDIE: That the pill was the pyridostigmine bromide pill, also known as the nerve agent protective pill, and it was to help us survive a nerve agent attack, helping to make sure that the atropine injectors that we had would be more successful in saving our lives if we were exposed to nerve agents.

I understand that throughout the Gulf War theater of operations, that it varied on how Gulf War veterans—excuse me – Gulf War troops were taking the pills. In my group, I think we were more of the typical type, in that we were mandated to take the pills. In fact, as a supervisor, I was required to physically watch my soldiers put the pill into their mouth, swallow it and make sure that they had taken it, again because there were—these measures were taken because there were significant side effects for so many of us. Again in my group, about two-thirds of us had pretty significant side effects at the time of taking the pill.

AMY GOODMAN: Anthony, did people resist?

ANTHONY HARDIE: Some were concerned about it, but it was—again, it was mandated, and it’s the military, and we do what we were told.

AMY GOODMAN: Were they approved by the FDA?

ANTHONY HARDIE: My understanding at the time was that there was a waiver given by the FDA to the US Department of Defense that waived informed consent, and we were told that at the time, told that it was an experimental drug, but that we were still required to take it. And experimental in the sense of—

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the immediate effects that you had at the time?

ANTHONY HARDIE: Like we were told we would have the symptoms of low-level nerve agent exposure, so watery eyes, respiratory issues, runny nose, diarrhea, upset stomach, tremors, fatigue, all those sorts of things, and feeling very—just simply feeling very ill.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what the Kuwaiti cough is, Anthony Hardie?

ANTHONY HARDIE: Sure, that’s a nickname that some of us Gulf War veterans gave our cough that we developed while over in the Gulf and then came back with. I coughed up black sputum for the last two months that I was there. I was excited when the war was over. I could start running again, began running and breathing in that black oil well fire smoke that colored my sputum black, by coughing up significant chunks of—large chunks about the size of a large gumball from my lungs. I believe now that those are probably pieces of lung tissue from exposure to chemical warfare agents and then colored black from the oil well fire smoke as well. But many of us came back, and we had this cough continued thereafter. And while running, then we would use our asthma inhalers—determined later that we didn’t have—we did not have asthma, but joked that that was our—you know, sort of our medal, as well, for the Kuwait battle.

AMY GOODMAN: Anthony, we just have twenty seconds, and I wanted to know, with the report out, what do you want to see happen right now?

ANTHONY HARDIE: We need to see, most of all, treatment, effective treatment for Gulf War veterans. It’s been seventeen years, and that’s an awful long time to wait for effective treatment. For those who are not getting compensation, of course they need to be compensated. But most importantly, treating those who are ill.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you for being with us. Anthony Hardie, joining us from Madison, Wisconsin—

ANTHONY HARDIE: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: —member of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, just came out with its report, and national secretary and legislative chair of Veterans of Modern Warfare.

Source

Gulf War illness is real
WASHINGTON

November 18 2008

A congressionally-mandated panel has concluded that “Gulf War syndrome” is real and that more than a quarter of the 700,000 US veterans of the 1991 conflict suffer from the illness.

The most extensive-ever report on the debilitating, multi-symptom illness released Monday concluded that it is caused by exposure to toxic chemicals including pesticides, used against sand flies and other pests, and a drug administered to protect soldiers against nerve gas.

“The extensive body of scientific research now available consistently indicates that Gulf War illness is real, that it is the result of neurotoxic exposures during Gulf War deployment, and that few veterans have recovered or substantially improved with time,” said the 450-page report, presented to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake.

“Veterans of the 1990-1991 Gulf War had the distinction of serving their country in a military operation that was a tremendous success, achieved in short order. But many had the misfortune of developing lasting health consequences that were poorly understood and, for too long, denied or trivialized,” the report said.

The report’s producer, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses comprised of scientists and veterans, was chartered by Congress in part because of many complaints that veterans were not receiving adequate care.

The committee’s scientific director, Boston University school of public health dean Roberta White, said the findings “clearly substantiate veterans’ beliefs that their health problems are related to exposures experienced in the Gulf theatre.”

She said veterans “have been plagued by ill health since their return 17 years ago. Although evidence for this health phenomenon is overwhelming, veterans repeatedly find that their complaints are met with cynicism and a ‘blame the victim’ mentality that attributes their health problems to mental illness or non-physical factors.”

The report said Gulf War illness is typically characterized by memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue and widespread pain, and may also include respiratory symptoms, digestive problems and skin rashes.

The panel cited two exposures causally associated with Gulf War illness: the drug pyridostigmine bromide, or PB, given to soldiers to protect against nerve gas; and pesticides widely used during the war.

The panel noted that federal funding for Gulf War research had dropped dramatically in recent years and urged 60 million dollars in annual funding.

Gulf War syndrome is the popular name for a chronic multisymptom illness complex first identified by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1994 after thousands of returning troops complained of numerous unexplained symptoms.

Several earlier reports pointed to the stress of combat as a likely explanation for the illness.

Source

Zimbabwe: Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières

Zimbabwe: Cholera Hits Beitbridge, Exposes Major Health Risks

December 1 2008

Zimbabwe 2008 © Joanna Stavropoulou / MSF

An MSF aid worker treats a cholera patient in Beitbridge, on the border with South Africa.

“I am feeling a little uncomfortable,” Henry, a middle-aged gentleman, says quietly as he looks up at Clara from where he is lying on the dirty floor. Henry is so dehydrated his cheeks are completely sunken and his eyes stand out from his closely cropped skull. Clara Chamizo, a nurse on her first MSF assignment in Beitbridge, Zimbabwe, sees the extreme absurdity of this statement. She is standing in the middle of dozens of cholera patients lying on the dirt in the backyard of Beitbridge’s main hospital. Cholera has overwhelmed this border town of about 40,000 like contaminated wildfire.

“Normally, cholera starts with a few cases and then we have the peak after a few weeks,” says Luis María Tello, the MSF Emergency Coordinator who arrived a few days after the first cases were reported and is surprised to see such high numbers now. Though research still needs to be done, Luis’s theory right now is that “a lot of people got cholera from the same source at the same time.”

On Friday, November 14, when the Zimbabwean Health Authorities in Beitbridge first reported cholera to MSF, there were five cases. Two days later, there were already more than 500; by the end of the week, there were more than 1,500.
Overwhelmed, Undersupplied Hospital Cannot Fight Cholera Outbreak

Zimbabwe 2008 © Joanna Stavropoulou / MSF

Cholera patients are treated on the ground at the main hospital in Beitbridge, which was overwhelmed with patients.

Patients were first placed inside Beitbridge’s main hospital, most lying on the cement floors, in very poor hygienic conditions. There is a lack of cleaning personnel as well as proper gear, chemicals, and water, not to mention all the hospital toilets have been blocked up for a long time.

On Sunday morning, the hospital had to make the decision to put all the patients out behind the buildings, on the dirt, so that body excretions could be absorbed into the ground. The sight was appalling: patients lying in the dust in the scorching heat; all asking for the life-saving drip (Ringer lactate IV fluid). There wasn’t even any water to give them, since the hospital, as everywhere in town, has its water supply cut on most days.

Clara and Veronica Nicola, the MSF doctor who is also the project coordinator at the Beitbridge project, were the only MSF expatriates in town when the emergency hit. Veronica, an Argentinean pediatrician who has been on several MSF missions, says she never has had to insert so many catheters in one day in her life.

“For me, the hardest thing was to be able to concentrate on one person,” said Veronica. “There was a man lying next to one of the trolleys under the sun. By the time I got to him, he was in shock. We tried to get a vein, like, ten times, but then he started gasping and he died right there in front of our eyes.” She pauses for a minute and then adds, “If I had seen him half an hour before, we might have been able to do something about it, but there were so many people lying there, people calling you. But still,” she adds thoughtfully, “we could have done something.” In her calm manner she summarizes, “It was very bad.”

In one week, 54 people died.

At the beginning of the crisis, the Beitbridge hospital did not have any IV fluid or oral rehydration salts (ORS) tablets in stock. MSF shipped over 800 liters of the Ringer’s fluid the first day of the intervention and since then there has been a continuous supply. Shipments of medical and logistical supplies arrived over ten days. A team of 16 expatriates, comprised of doctors, nurses, logisticians, and administrators were sent to Beitbridge. And more than 100 additional health workers, cleaners, and day workers have been hired locally.

In three days, a cholera treatment center (CTC) with 130 cholera beds—those with a hole in the middle under which a bucket is placed so that the diarrhea is released directly in the container—was set up.

Once the cholera bacteria enters the body, it releases a toxin which causes part of the intestines to suck all the water from the body. The intestines, unable to handle so much water, rejects it. The only thing that can be done is to give the body enough fluids to survive until the bacteria’s own life cycle expires, usually in about five days. If a person does not receive enough fluids, he or she can die within hours of contagion.

The only real way to prevent cholera is to have good hygiene and clean water. From the second day of the outbreak, an MSF car with two officers from the Zimbabwean Environmental Health Office (HEO) was dedicated to going around town, giving out information to the public on how to avoid getting cholera.
Town’s Problems Are Long-Term

Zimbabwe 2008 © Joanna Stavropoulou / MSF

The poor water and sanitation conditions in Beitbridge make it easier for the cholera bacteria to spread.

The town of Beitbridge is a shifting tide of migrants, truckers, sex workers, unaccompanied children, and desperate people trying to find a better life – mostly by attempting to cross the border into South Africa. With the current economic crises in Zimbabwe, basic services are lacking and especially so in a town with such uncontrolled growth. There is trash everywhere, and open sewage runs through most of Beitbridge’s streets. Almost everyday there are cuts in the water and power supplies.

As the MSF car moved slowly through the neighborhoods and the Zimbabwean EHOs tried to give their speeches through a loudspeaker, angry crowds would gather to shout, “How do you expect us to control cholera when there is no water!” and “Look at this sewage running here right next to us,” “Why don’t you clean up the garbage in the streets?”

On the main highway, which transverses Beitbridge, there is an area where all the truckers stop on their way to cross over the border. Sometimes it can take days to clear the paperwork to cross, so they camp here, together with passengers or relatives. When the MSF car stopped there, the truckers gathered around and were just as angry as local residents. They showed some cesspools where they come to wash their hands and pointed out a dusty field next to them, covered in human excrement. “Where are we supposed to go?” pleaded one man.

These problems are long-term. The water station doesn’t have the parts to properly repair its pumps. Even if it did, it depends on electricity to be able to pump water from the water tower to the city. Electricity depends on a coal mine that hasn’t been paid in over a year and can no longer supply coal. Then, there is no fuel to run the garbage trucks and there is no money to pay salaries for people to collect the garbage. There are no equipment or supplies to fix the sewage system, and no money to pay personnel to do it. MSF is working on meeting the emergency needs in the short-term, but real solutions are needed to prevent future outbreaks.

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières

Save the Children Donates To Zimbabwe Crisis

Obama asked to save prisoners from soy ‘torture’

November 18 2008
By Bob Unruh

President-elect Barack Obama is being asked to intervene in the state he represented in the U.S. Senate to halt a prison “feeding program” that is causing health problems for inmates, according to a nutrition organization.

In an open letter to Obama, Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, said the existing procedures are “poisoning” inmates.

Obama, Morell wrote, should “focus on a grave injustice taking place in the prisons of your home state, namely, a prison diet that is slowly killing the inmates assigned to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

“This is a diet based largely on soy protein powder and soy flour. As you stated on last night’s 60 Minutes Program, America does not condone torture. I think you would agree that what is happening in the Illinois prisons is a form of torture,” Fallon wrote.

Soy products have been in the news in recent months after a new study from Harvard indicated that consumption of soy lowers sperm count.

The study suggested confirmation of a series of reports documented by WND columnist Jim Rutz, who described soy’s “feminizing” effect on men.

According to a report from Reuters, the study was done by Jorge Chavarro of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, whose work appeared in the journal Human Reproduction.

It reportedly is the largest study of humans to look at the relationship between semen quality and a plant form of the female sex hormone estrogen known as phytoestrogen, which is plentiful in soy-rich foods.

Now comes the Price Foundation letter to Obama, which states that soy protein and soy flour are toxic, “especially in large amounts.”

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration lists 288 studies on its database showing the toxicity of soy. Numerous studies show that soy consumption leads to nutrient deficiencies, digestive disorders, endocrine disruption and thyroid problems,” the letter said.

WND contacted officials with the Illinois Department of Corrections, but officials could not comment on the claims immediately.

The Price Foundation letter said “even the most ardent supporters of soy, such as Dr. Mark Messina, warn against consuming more than about 20 grams of soy protein per day.”

However, the inmates in Illinois are fed up to 100 grams per day – beef and chicken by-product mixtures containing 60-70 percent soy, fake soy meats and cheese, “even soy added to baked goods,” the letter said.

The soy products are produced by Archer Daniel Midlands, according to the Price Foundation, but ADM officials did not return a WND call requesting comment.

The Price Foundation said ADM “contributed heavily to the campaign of [Illinois Gov.] Rod Blagojevich. The change from a diet based largely on beef to one based on soy happened in 2003, when Mr. Blagojevich began his first term as governor.”

Morell said her office has heard from “dozens” of Illinois inmates pleading for help.

“Almost all suffer from serious digestive disorders, such as diarrhea or painful constipation, vomiting, irritable bowel syndrome and sharp pains,” she said. “… One reason for these problems is the high oxalic acid content of soy – no food is higher in oxalic acid than soy protein isolate, which can contain … at least six times higher than the amount found in typical diets.”

Oxacil acid, the letter said, is associated with kidney stones, can disrupt heart functions, replace bone marrow cells and impair nerve functions.

“When the prisoners seek medical treatment, they are told that soy does not cause the problems they are experiencing. Even those who vomit or pass out immediately after eating soy cannot get an order for a soy-free diet. They are told: ‘If the soy disagrees with you, don’t eat it. Buy food from the commissary,'” Morell told Obama.

“It is said that a nation is judged on the way it treats its prisoners,” Morell wrote in her letter. “The American prison system is predicated on the premise that criminals can be rehabilitated. To feed prisoners a diet that can permanently ruin their health robs them of any opportunity for rehabilitation, renders them unfit for normal life when they are released, and will impose an unnecessary burden on the state’s medical services.

“It constitutes a medical experiment and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment and must be stopped,” she wrote.

Rutz’s original reports, starting in 2006 with one titled ‘Soy is making kids ‘gay,” cited a number of studies and described soy as a “slow poison.”

“Now, I’m a health-food guy, a fanatic who seldom allows anything into his kitchen unless it’s organic. I state my bias here just so you’ll know I’m not anti-health food,” Rutz wrote.

“The dangerous food I’m speaking of is soy. Soybean products are feminizing, and they’re all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.

“I have nothing against an occasional soy snack. Soy is nutritious and contains lots of good things. Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you’re also getting substantial quantities of estrogens,” he continued.

“Estrogens are female hormones. If you’re a woman, you’re flooding your system with a substance it can’t handle in surplus. If you’re a man, you’re suppressing your masculinity and stimulating your ‘female side,’ physically and mentally,” he wrote. “In fetal development, the default is being female. All humans (even in old age) tend toward femininity. The main thing that keeps men from diverging into the female pattern is testosterone, and testosterone is suppressed by an excess of estrogen.

“If you’re a grownup, you’re already developed, and you’re able to fight off some of the damaging effects of soy. Babies aren’t so fortunate. Research is now showing that when you feed your baby soy formula, you’re giving him or her the equivalent of five birth control pills a day. A baby’s endocrine system just can’t cope with that kind of massive assault, so some damage is inevitable. At the extreme, the damage can be fatal.”

He concluded that soy is “feminizing, and commonly leads to … homosexuality,” prompting hundreds, if not thousands, of e-mails of outrage.

Many who wrote reflected the same concerns included in a PRNewswire statement from the Soyfoods Association of North America.

The organization called Chavarro’s work a “small scale, preliminary study.”

“This study is confounded by many issues, thus I feel the results should be viewed with a great deal of caution,” warned Dr. Tammy Hedlund, a researcher in prostate cancer prevention from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in the Soyfoods Association statement.

“Chavarro’s study conflicts with the large body of U.S. government and National Institute of Health-sponsored human and primate research, in which controlled amounts of isoflavones from soy were fed and no effect on quantity, quality or motility of sperm were observed,” the trade group said.

Read all of Rutz’s columns on soy for the whole story:

Soy is making kids ‘gay’
The trouble with soy – part 2
The trouble with soy – part 3
The trouble with soy – part 4
The trouble with soy – part 5
The trouble with soy – part 6

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