February 2014 John Weeks Integrator Round-Up: Public Health

John Weeks

February 11, 2014

by John Weeks, Publisher Editor of The Integrator Blog News & Reports Credit CVS Caremark APHA calls on all drug stores to end cigarette sales "We've come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no place in a setting where health care is

by John Weeks, Publisher/Editor of The Integrator Blog News & Reports

Credit CVS Caremark: APHA calls on all drug stores to end cigarette sales

"We've come to the conclusion that cigarettes have no place in a setting where health care is being delivered." So explains pharmacy chain CVS Caremark's president Larry Merlo regarding his firm's decision to remove cigarettes from its stores. The decision will reduce the firm's sales by over $2-billion. The American Public Health Association has initiated a campaign for other pharmacies to follow suit in "breaking the co-dependence" businesses have with the tobacco industry.

Comment: Huge deal for this for-profit firm to act on principle and leave money on the table. In retrospect, the norm of drugstores selling cigarettes evokes images of doctors examining patients with ashes falling off the end of their Marlboros. This is exceptional leadership in shifting the "perverse incentives" in the industry.

Sommers reports on CAM/IM at the APHA meeting

Beth Sommers, PhD, LAc has written an excellent report and review of the activities of the Complementary and Alternative Health Care Practices Special Interest Group at the recent American Public Health Association conference. The title of the  acupuncture Today article, Think Global, Act Local: CAM's Role in the Public Health, echoes the theme of the meeting. Sommers, a principal with Pathways to Wellness, serves as co-chair of the special interest group that developed the program. She notes that "although APHA meetings have included studies on acupuncture for over a dozen years, this year's gathering specifically addressed the integration of acupuncture into conventional healthcare."

Comment: Sommers provided the Integrator a brief summary of the developments of the special interest group in the December 2013 Round-up. This Acupuncture Today piece, though acupuncture-centric, is a good companion piece on the fine work going on under Sommers’ term in leadership.
About the Author:

John Weeks

John Weeks

John Weeks is a writer, speaker, chronicler and organizer with 32 years of experience in the movement for integrative health and medicine. the long-time founder/editor of The Integrator Blog News & Reports, a primary connective terrain for the diverse stakeholders and professions in the field and was invited in May 2016 to serve as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Besides his Integrative Practitioner column, he presently writes for Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal, the Huffington Post and elsewhere.

He increasingly enjoys teaching and mentoring. He has keynoted, led plenary sessions, breakouts, and offered guest lectures for dozens of organizations ranging from the Bastyr University to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the UCLA School of Medicine to the Institute for Health and Productivity Management, the AANP and AIHM to the American Hospital Association. He has consulted with insurers, employers, professional organizations, universities and government agencies at all levels.

As an organizer, Weeks convened the Integrative Medicine Industry Leadership Summits (2000-2002), directed the National Education Dialogue to Advance Integrated Care (2004-2006), fund-raised the start-up of the Integrated Healthcare Policy Consortium (2002), and co-founded the Academic Collaborative for Integrative Health, which he directed 2007-2015. In 2014, three consortia and others combined to grant him a Lifetime Achievement Living Tribute Award. Four academic institutions have granted Weeks honorary doctorates for his work. Seattle-based, he considers himself a particularly lucky soul to have worked remotely while living with his spouse Jeana Kimball, ND, MPH, and their children in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Puerto Rico for 6 of the last 15 years.

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