If ever there were a misunderstood and highly overlooked medical condition in modern times, it is celiac disease. Celiac disease affects an estimated 3 million individuals, many of them children. Left untreated, this disease can damage the quality of life in so many ways — from neurologically-based depression and anxiety to skin problems to digestion […]
My Interview with @Yo_RandyJackson
It’s amazing the amount of information you can pass along in a tweet (which is limited to 140 characters, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Twitter). So in this day and age, where attention spans are short and the craving for information is large, I opted for a brief interview with American Idol’s […]
Cindy Crawford Partners With St. Jude’s to Give Away 28 Brand New Dream Homes
Cindy Crawford is partnering with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to give away 28 “dream homes” around the nation through the St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway. The homes are valued between $300,000 and $700,000. Tickets for a chance to win sell for $100 each; the proceeds will go to St. Jude to provide medical care to […]
Jewel Inspires Hope
Last week I interviewed platinum recording artist Jewel about her life, her love of the arts, her music, and her love of learning. Here’s my interview with Jewel. Note: The podcast has some unclear audio, but it is worth listening to Jewel! Music by DanoSongs.com
Baring It All – Glee’s Charlotte Ross Tells How Investing Small Can Have Big Payoffs
Charlotte Ross, who plays Judy Fabray, the uptight mother of Quinn Fabray on the hit TV series “Glee,” is now playing another role. She is the new spokesperson for Operation Blankets of Love, which is based in Granada Hills, Calif. The grassroots group started out by bringing blankets to animal shelters, which often have cold […]
Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy’s Plea: Help Our Soldiers Who Have Invisible Wounds
Patrick Kennedy has been a relentless fighter for the rights of people with brain disorders to have their diagnoses covered by insurance like any other medical condition. His focus has now become understanding the etiology of brain disorders and changing the way Americans view them by looking at them through the eyes of our soldiers. […]
Actress Patty Duke’s Fantasy: A March on Washington
Several years ago, Emmy-award winning actress Patty Duke shared a story with me. Back in 1970, at age 24, she’d walked off the set of a show on which she was guest starring. The actors had been told to take lunch and leave a tired crew behind to fix technical problems. She didn’t like the […]
A Conversation With Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter About Stigma, Discrimination, and Brain Disorders
Credit: The Carter Center/P. Rohe Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has been an unrelenting crusader for people suffering from mental illness (which I refer to here as brain disorders). For more than 40 years she’s been working on promoting awareness of the issues, public policy, making health care insurance coverage for these brain disorders […]
The Politics, Stigma and Experience of Brain Disorders: A Blog Series
Image: Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net The holiday season is a good time to talk about brain disorders. The kind I’m talking about are more commonly referred to as mental illness, but I think that term detracts from the fact that depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia and other such conditions arise in the brain. […]
Jillian Rose Reed: Why Awkward’s Sassy “Tamara” Is Sweet On Curing Diabetes
Jillian Rose Reed stars on MTV’s offbeat comedy Awkward (which has been picked up for a second season) as the sassy and fun-loving best friend Tamara. Now 19, Jillian was only 9 years old when her older brother developed diabetes. He was away at college, which she notes made it especially frightening for him and […]
