The Center for Sustainable Medicine

By Ted Schettler, MD MPH

Medical advances have resulted in substantial decreases in morbidity and mortality in many parts of the world. Some of these advances come at considerable economic as well as environmental costs, and benefits are not equally distributed. Now medicine and public health struggle to address the changing patterns of disease resulting both from a rapidly (more…)

In this interview, Didi Pershouse of the Center for Sustainable Medicine talks with Dan Bednarz of Health After Oil about the Cuban health care system, peak oil, free medical schools, community acupuncture, cholesterol myths, and how working-class values and owning-class values play out in different models of health care. The interview first appeared at (more…)

Dan Bednarz, PhD, left his position as Associate Director of the Center for Public Health Practice at the University of Pittsburgh in 2005 to devote himself full-time to speaking and writing on the topic of peak oil and how it affects health care. His website is www.healthafteroil.wordpress.com

He is interviewed here by Didi Pershouse, CCH, LAc, founder of the Center for Sustainable Medicine, and author of the Sustainable Medicine Manifesto. Her (more…)

I first wrote my manifesto while preparing a vendor’s table for my clinic at the first Sunfest–a fair in New Hampshire that celebrates sustainable living and alternative healthcare.

I was thinking about the correlation between the two, and was inspired to write down some ideas that had been in my head for some time. I came up with a simple document I called the “Ecological Medicine Manifesto” with twenty defining points. Right after I wrote it, I (more…)

I have a friend who brings me raw, unpasteurized milk, homemade yogurt, butter, and sour cream—all from cows feeding exclusively on grass, summer and winter. It all tastes incredible, and even better knowing that it comes directly from someone I know and like.

He is in excellent health, only needing a tune-up when he falls off a tractor or works a little too hard. At those times, I give him acupuncture, or a homeopathic remedy, a little hands on healing, and a bowl of soup, when we have time. During his visits to my clinic, he can lie down, go to a deep place of relaxation, and feel (more…)

Well, I’ve gone and done it, something I’ve been considering for years. I have rented out my house in the woods to the new teacher at the high school, and moved into the old house that holds the Two Rivers Clinic and Center for Sustainable Medicine. One of my colleagues had moved out and another was looking for a shared space with his sweetie, so I said “This is it: an opportunity to try truly sustainable living as a health (more…)

I have just returned from a workshop on Community Acupuncture put on by a group called “Working Class Acupuncture” in Portland, Oregon.

I have been toying with the idea of low-cost group treatments for some time now, and this workshop has convinced me that Community Acupuncture is the way to go. In August I will start offering group treatments at the Two Rivers Clinic in Thetford Center, Vermont for a sliding scale of $20-45 per treatment (you decide (more…)

Julian Winston, (1941-2005) was one of our best scholars and historians of Homeopathy. His article about homeopathy in the treatment of epidemics has been widely republished. I include it here as it is becoming more relevant each year as global warming and antibiotic-resistant bacteria create new generations of epidemic illness that standard pharmaceutical medicine is unprepared for.

Homeopathy, on the other hand, is far more flexible than pharmaceutical medicine, and is routinely used to treat epidemics in India and other countries.

Some History of the Treatment of Epidemics with Homeopathy
by Julian Winston

From its earliest days, homeopathy has been able to treat epidemic diseases with a substantial rate of success, when compared to conventional treatments. It was these successes that placed the practice of homeopathy so firmly in the consciousness of people world-wide. (more…)

This very important collaborative statement was written in February 2002 by the Science and Environmental Health Network. I first found it soon after writing the Sustainable Medicine Manifesto, and was amazed and delighted to find that I was in such good company.

Ecological Medicine: A Call for Inquiry and Action

Ecological Medicine is a new field of inquiry and action to reconcile the care and health of ecosystems, populations, communities, and individuals.

The health of Earth’s ecosystem is the foundation of all health. Human impact in the form of population pressure, resource abuse, economic self-interest, and inappropriate technologies is rapidly degrading the environment. This impact, in turn, is creating new patterns of human and ecosystem poverty and disease. The tension among ecosystem health, public health, and individual health is reaching a breaking point at the beginning of the Twenty-First Century.

Public health measures, education, and medical advances have significantly reduced death and disease in many parts of the world, but some advances come at considerable cost, and the benefits are not equally distributed. (more…)

By Ted Schettler, MD MPH

Medical advances have resulted in substantial decreases in morbidity and mortality in many parts of the world. Some of these advances come at considerable economic as well as environmental costs, and benefits are not equally distributed. Now medicine and public health struggle to address the changing patterns of disease resulting both from a rapidly changing and degraded earth and from the ways people live on it. (more…)