Devastating – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

Global wellness expert Deepak Chopra told CNBC that he was “devastated” and “broken” over the Covid-19 crisis that is currently gripping India and said the country could have dealt with the situation much better.

Chopra, who was born and raised in New Delhi before continuing his medical education in the United States, hopes lessons will be learned from this.

“I think India could have done better. I think, as usual, political ideologies and conflicts, as well as interest groups, have exacerbated the crisis,” he said.

“India could have done this much better and I hope you learned, we all learned a lesson from it because you know there is no way to stop Indians from going into the world and what is going on in India That’s going to happen elsewhere if you’re not careful, ”he added.

“A very big mistake”

Chopra told CNBC that he feels responsible “ultimately falling to influencers and politicians and leaders for making the rules. And it was a very big mistake, in my opinion, to keep the Kumbh Mela and all these religious gatherings for political ones only.” Purposes. “

India has seen a deadly second wave of the Covid-19 virus in the past few weeks. According to the Johns Hopkins University, the country has reported over 27.5 million Covid cases and nearly 326,000 deaths.

Deepak Chopra, co-founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing and founder of the Chopra Foundation.

Adam Jeffery | CNBC

Chopra is not alone and many have criticized lawmakers and vaccine suppliers in the country. Prime Minister Modi defended the government’s vaccination strategy, telling ministers in April that “those who are in the habit of politics (playing) allow it … I have received various allegations. We cannot stop those who do this to do.” We really want to serve humanity, which we will continue to do, “he said, the Times of India reported.

He also noted that an earlier peak of infections had been controlled this past September at a time when vaccines were not available and cases and mass tests were being tracked and followed.

Pandemic “worsened our mental well-being”

Chopra, a global leader in integrative medicine and meditation, spoke about the release of a new free 21-day meditation experience with multi-award-winning singer-songwriter, activist, and entrepreneur Alicia Keys.

The meditation “Activation of the Divine Feminine: The Path to Wholeness” published on ChopraMeditation.com during Mental Health Awareness Month aims to “restore wholeness and bring peace and healing”.

Chopra and Keys believe that in today’s world of male and female energy there is an imbalance, regardless of gender, that needs to be addressed.

“Healing is ultimately the return of the memory of wholeness, and when we are not balanced with both masculine and feminine energies within ourselves, that imbalance is reflected in what we see in the world,” said Chopra.

The wellness icon, who is also the founder of the Chopra Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the study of wellbeing and humanity, told CNBC that he believes mental stress is “the number one pandemic in the world” stay.

“There is something wrong with our humanity right now as we are not concerned with mental well-being and sanity,” he said.

“Everything from climate change to pandemics, mass migrations, environmental destruction, weapons kills to wars and terrorism is a result of psychological distress, stress, anger, hostility and fear. So we have to deal with it. This is an emergency.” he went on.

He said the global pandemic only “worsened” the situation.

“The global pandemic has worsened our spiritual well-being, deteriorated our economic well-being, and spawned some ugliness such as racism and bigotry and hatred and prejudice and conflict,” he said.

“All over the world it’s not just Republicans and Democrats, but Protestants and Catholics, Muslims and Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Indians and Pakistanis. I mean, if you don’t believe this crazy, you are explaining your own madness,” he added added.

When asked what individuals can do to make a difference and what he thinks is the solution to all these global problems, Chopra said, “If you want to change the world, start with yourself.”

“”Perform an act of kindness today … When we perform all acts of love in action and reach critical mass, the world will be a different place, “he told CNBC.

– CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this article.

Dr. Julie Kanter, a hematologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and director of the university’s adult sickle cell clinic, reviewed the medical records of 5,347 children in 28 medical centers, large and small, including academic and minor medical centers. Depending on the center, only 30 to 75 percent of the children had received the recommended screening. On average, only 48.4 percent received the ultrasound. The prices were independent of the size of the medical center or the academic affiliation.

“The rate is terrible, actually worse than we thought,” said Dr. Canter.

The researchers interviewed parents and caregivers and found that some doctors did not inform parents about the checkups. Some parents, even when told, did not understand its critical meaning. (Dr. Kanter would like to rename the Stroke Screen test to Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound to make its purpose clearer.) Some medical centers with special sickle cell clinics have not been able to consistently track families who missed appointments.

There were also logistical obstacles. Sometimes medical centers that offered the test were far from the homes of children with the disease. Some parents struggled to take time off work to take their children to test. And the centers that ran the tests were sometimes not part of a family’s insurance network.

Ultrasound screens aren’t the only medical care that children with sickle cells receive inconsistently. Hydroxyurea, a low-cost generic drug that has been around since the 1980s, may reduce the risk of irreversible damage to organs and the brain. But unfortunately it is not being used enough. The National Institutes of Health guidelines published in 2014 state that all children and adolescents should attend, as well as adults with three or more pain crises per year or other serious complications.

A recent survey of 2,200 sickle cell patients in eight locations, funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that only 48 percent of patients were taking hydroxyurea regularly. Interviews with doctors who had not prescribed the drug revealed that many were unfamiliar with the drug, while others feared that hydroxyurea, which is also a cancer treatment in much higher doses, could cause cancer, although at the lower level of sickle cell disease it could cause cancer. Dose is not the case.

Another recent study of Medicaid patients in North Carolina found that only 32 percent of the 2,790 Medicaid patients with sickle cells even had a prescription for hydroxyurea, and only 31 percent of those patients were taking the drug regularly.