Pangea Conference

Keynote Speakers

		Michael Balick, Ph.D. Vice President for Botanical Science & Director, Institute of Economic Botany, The New York Botanical Garden and Roberta Lee, M.D. Medical Director, Continuum Center for Health and Healing Michael Balick, Ph.D. Indigenous Practices in the Context of Integrative Care Dr. Balick and Dr. Lee will share an understanding of the nature and importance of traditional medical systems around the world. They will illustrate the application of some of the traditional ethnomedical modalities in modern integrative practice, and will highlight botanicals of value in pediatric care. Dr. Balick and Dr. Lee will also share some of the scientific studies that have been carried out on these botanical species. Dr. Michael Balick is Vice President for Botanical Science and Director, Institute of Economic Botany, the New York Botanical Garden. For nearly three decades, Dr. Balick has studied the relationship between plants and people, working with traditional cultures in tropical, subtropical and desert environments, and has conducted numerous international expeditions to carry out fieldwork. Dr. Balick also conducts research in New York City, studying traditional healing practices in ethnic communities of the urban environment. In 1981 Dr. Balick co-founded The New York Botanical Garden's Institute of Economic Botany, which has become the largest and most active program of its kind in the nation. He is the author of more than 17 scientific and general interest books and monographs, with titles ranging from Useful Palms of the World, to Rainforest Remedies, to Plants, People, and Culture.
		Roberta Lee, M.D. Dr. Roberta Lee is Medical Director of the Continuum Center for Health and Healing (CCHH), Director of Continuing Medical Education, and Co-Director of the Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. In addition, she conducts a clinical practice in Internal and Integrative medicine at CCHH. Dr. Lee is an Honorary Research Associate at The New York Botantical Garden in the Institute of Economic Botany. For the last several years, she has traveled back to Micronesia as the ethnomedical specialist in an interdisciplinary team of biologists, ethnobotanists, ecologists and conservationists from The New York Botanical Garden, National Tropical Garden, Nature Conservancy and College of Micronesia. Her research interests include studying a cross section of cultural and botanical influences on health, healing and promotion of wellness in chronic disease.
Megapix Photography		Martha Herbert, M.D. Autism: Brain, Body and Planet Systems in Common Crisis Dr. Herbert will present the systemic nature of brain processing and brain tissue abnormalities in autism spectrum disorders. She will describe the range of medical illnesses that commonly accompany autism, their systemic features, and how they may be related to brain features. A range of environmental factors may lead to brain and body features identified in autism spectrum, and Dr. Herbert will speak about the potential for medical intervention. In light of recent findings on autism, personal, social and planetary responsibilities are required to address this crisis situation. Dr. Martha Herbert is Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Pediatric Neurologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr. Herbert is a member of the MGH Center for Morphometric Analysis, and an affiliate of the Harvard-MIT-MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. She is director of the TRANSCEND Research Program (Treatment Research and Neuroscience Evaluation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders). Dr. Herbert is the Co-Chair of the Environmental Health Advisory Board of the Autism Society of America and directs their treatment-guided research initiative. She is also a member of the scientific advisory committee of Autism Speaks. Her TRANSCEND research program is based on a whole-body systems approach to autism, and includes studying what makes some autistic brains unusually large, how the parts of the brain are connected and coordinated with each other, how to integrate brain and systemic biomarkers in clinical research, and how we can develop measure sensitive to changes in brain function that could result from treatment interventions.
		Scott Shannon, M.D. Child Psychiatrist The Ecology of the Child: A Post-Modern View of Pediatric Mental Health In this wide-ranging examination of modern pediatric mental health, Dr. Shannon challenges most of the fundamental assumptions of our current system and offers a new vision. After a quick recap of the neuroscience of the child’s brain, Dr. Shannon will highlight the concerns with both the reliability and the validity of our diagnostic system. The rapidly escalating use of psychiatric medications is contrasted with the current level of evidence for efficacy and safety for these tools. Dr. Shannon sees many facets of the child’s environment (i.e. reduced sleep, pressured school, disconnected family life, escalating obesity, depressed mothers, intrusive media, poor nutrition, etc.) as triggers for rising psychiatric symptoms. He explains why we must embrace an ecological view of children’s mental health. From this ecological foundation, clear directives for helping our children flow. Dr. Scott Shannon is a child psychiatrist based in Fort Collins, Colorado. He is Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of Colorado, Children's Hospital in Denver and Director of the first university based Integrative Child Psychiatry Clinic in the U.S. While a medical student at the University of Arizona, Dr. Shannon met Andrew Weil, M.D. and became a founding member of the American Holistic Medical Association in 1978. From 1994 to 1996 and from 2004 to 2005, Dr. Shannon worked as Medical Director of PsychCare, a psychiatric hospital. From 2000 to 2005, he served as Medical Director of the McKee Center of Holistic Medicine, a hospital based clinic. Since 1991 he has maintained a private practice for the ongoing care and support of his patients. Dr. Shannon is the author of Please Don't Label My Child on the natural treatment of children's mental health issues (Rodale Press, 2007).
		Tieraona Low Dog, M.D. Herbalist & T & J Integrative Health Consulting, LLC The Greening of Medicine There is a renewed “green” consciousness within medicine, especially in pediatrics, as children suffer the highest impact from unhealthy environments. While herbal medicine certainly plays a role in pediatrics medicine, Dr. Low Dog will address the inter-connectedness of human beings with each other and the natural world, and how illness occurs when this harmony is disrupted. Dr. Tieraona Low Dog, an internationally known herbalist, is Director of Education for the Program in Integrative Medicine and Clinical Assistant at the Department of Medicine at the University of Arizona. Dr. Low Dog has been involved in national health policy and regulatory issues for more than a decade and in 2000, was appointed by President Bill Clinton to serve on the White House Commission of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. She just recently completed her three-year term in February 2007 as a member of the Advisory Council for the National Institutes of Health National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Dr. Low Dog has served as the elected Chair of the United States Pharmacopeia Dietary Supplements and Botanicals Expert Committee since 2000. Dr. Low Dog is the author of Complementary and Integrative Approaches to Women's Health (Elsevier) and has written numerous chapters for medical textbooks on integrative treatment approaches to endocrine disorders, diabetes, women's health, cardiovascular health, pain and the use of herbs in children.