I just got back from a two-week clown trip to Peru with my “holy brother” Patch Adams who, since the movie bearing his name, may be the world’s most recognized humanitarian clown. He is a physician by training, whose specialty I call public health epidemiology. Patch travels to the world’s most troubled spots where war, famine, extreme poverty, and disease etch away at the human spirit. Along with his clowns from the Gesundheit! Institute he provides a moment’s respite from the omnipresence of despair, and develops partnerships with local community action health programs.

We have been close friends for 20 years and I love his prophetic soul, but I have never accompanied him on an international clown trip. This year I decided to go with him to Iquitos, Peru at the headwaters of the Amazon. Exploring this jungle and its indigenous people has been on my “bucket list” for years. Iquitos is the world’s largest city (pop. 325,000) accessible only by air or by river. At the edge of town is the Belen slum which lies in the floodplain, so from February through July every year, it is under water when the Amazon floods during the spring runoff. The ramshackle wooden shacks are built to float or sit on 10’ stilts. 65,000 people live here in extreme poverty, without electricity or clean water. Sanitation consists of open trenches carrying sewage and human waste. The population suffers from all of the attendant diseases of malnutrition, waterborne illnesses, respiratory diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV, and a host of social problems.

For the last four years, Patch and Gesundheit!, along with Bola Roja (a Peruvian hospital clowning and child advocacy organization), the Municipalidad Belen, and the Pan American Health Organization, have worked together to bring color, joy, laughter, arts, music and healthcare to the community. This year it was done at a level of historic magnitude with over 90 clowns, from 12 countries, aged 16-69 (my granddaughter and I representing both extremes).

We were artists, teachers, actors, students, physicians, dentists, social workers, psychotherapists, filmmakers, and a business executive, all of whom came at our own expense. We conducted workshops on health prevention, art, music, dance, percussion, theater, puppetry and juggling. We also sponsored clinics, painted houses and clowned.

I participated in it all, worked and played 14 hours a day, and wasn’t tired at day’s end. Being surrounded by such loving energy filled me with participatory joy. I clowned in AIDS shelters, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the developmentally disabled, crowded marketplaces, and paraded through the streets. Dressed as a ridiculous giant ballerina (in pink tights, tutu, and a Flamingo headpiece), I held castanets in my hand and danced Flamenco, waltzed with the elderly, and laid balloon eggs for the kids.

I received much more than I gave. Reminded of the healing power of love, I was rejuvenated by the energy of young people who want to make a difference. It gave me renewed hope for the world.

To see the video, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?video/video.php&v=21333137269

The prevalence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in North America, the main forms of which are Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis, has increased markedly over the last half-century. Two generations ago the incidence of IBD was 1 in 10,000, and now it’s 1 in 250. Nobody is quite sure what causes IBD; it seems to fall into that diffuse category of autoimmune disorders which are characterized by the body’s defenses attacking some aspect of itself. Researchers suggest environment, diet and genetics may all be involved.

Joel V. Weinstock M.D., a Professor of Medicine at Tufts, is a gastroenterologist whose special expertise is in parasitic worm infestations. Dr Weinstock looked at the epidemic and thought it unlikely that genetics were the reason for the enormous increase, because it occurred so quickly. He also knew that over the last 50 years, big changes have occurred in the environment of the bowel. We have virtually eliminated parasitic worms from the GI tract through improved hygiene, de-worming efforts, and lots of new drugs that sterilize the bowel.

Parasitic intestinal worms do not induce bowel inflammation (which is the typical response to any invasion); instead, they seem to bolster the host’s anti-inflammatory response and create a peaceful environment that doesn’t reject them. Dr. Weinstock theorized that when the worms were evicted from our bodies the immune system went out of kilter. Hygiene may have made our lives better; however, in the process of eliminating exposure to the things that can make us sick, we’ve also eliminated exposure to things that keep us well. If, after long co-evolution, the human immune system came to depend on the worms for proper functioning, then perhaps reintroducing benign worms to patients with IBD might bolster their immune response.

Pig farmers are chronically exposed to Tricuris suis, the pig whip worm which causes no problems in humans. So Dr. Weinstock gave T. suis eggs to 29 patients with Crohn’s disease at three-week intervals for 24 weeks; 23 of them went into complete remission. He repeated the study with chronic ulcerative colitis patients, and half of them improved significantly.

Now researchers all over the world are using T. suis eggs on patients with a host of autoimmune diseases including Multiple Sclerosis, hay fever, asthma, and food allergies, all of which have also exploded over the last 50 years.

This is a metaphor for life: we are part of our environment and not separate from it. We participate in an interactive community that includes bacteria, fungi, viruses, and even a few parasites — all important participants in keeping us healthy. When we change our ecosystem and disturb any of its key players our systems can get out of whack. The relentless pursuit of hygiene and drugs for every symptom are actually weakening us.

I’m going to eat some worms.