The health plan which passed the Senate on Christmas Eve provides for substantial fines for individuals who do not purchase health insurance. A recent Daily Item article examines how the Amish, who do not use insurance outside of some forms of church coverage, may negotiate an eventual purchase requirement. A religious exemption exists, and Donald Kraybill explains that a probable requirement for opting out will be…
The qualities of being a closed population, as well as good genealogical records, make the Amish an attractive group for genetic and health-related studies. In a recently-reported Ohio State study, researchers theorized about higher rates of cancer, but found the opposite. They discovered that Amish in Holmes County, Ohio exhibit cancer rates only 56% of the national average. The researchers explain that low cancer rates…
Today’s a good day to unload a bunch of odds and ends and maybe throw in a couple of photos for a little color. Has been a busy couple weeks as time in Lancaster winds down. In the Fun-stuff-I’ve-done-on-a-farm-lately category, last week there was a newborn baby calf that just didn’t feel like coming out of the meadow over at the Lapp farm.  So Elmer…
Today was the annual auction in Lancaster County benefiting The Clinic for Special Children. The clinic, founded by Dr. Holmes Morton and located in Strasburg, PA, serves Amish and Mennonite children with rare genetic ailments (and others from outside the Amish and Mennonite community as well). There was a large turnout today at the auction house at Leola, and much to keep one busy, including…
They only go to school for eight grades. But that seems to make for enough ‘smarts’–or at least enough to outsmart one pesky gene. We used to chalk it up to plain hard work. But now it seems the Amish have been pulling a fast one all along–on the pesky ‘fat gene’. According to a recent study of Lancaster Amish, moderate physical activity each day…
Amish people tend not to be too comfortable in the big institutional medical setting (come to think of it, who ever really is comfortable in a hospital? Shots, flourescent lighting, strange smelling hallways, poking and prodding doctors, ugh). This has influenced the Amish approach to obtaining medical services. Midwifery centers and home births are popular among the Amish, as are the services of country doctors…
Kevin at the Amish Cook blog has already posted on this issue but I found it so compelling I wanted to pass it along. This Wall Street Journal article examines the situation of a Pennsylvania Old Order Mennonite father of 11 children, 9 of whom suffer from rare, genetically-inherited medical ailments. The father, who in keeping with Old Order belief is uninsured, has paid around…
I may have missed this before, but this is the first year I’ve seen the Calender printed in an English version as well as in the usual high German. The bulk of the 88-page pamphlet, produced by an Ohio Amish printer, is a more-or-less comprehensive listing of Old Order Amish church districts along with their respective ministers. The Calender/Almanac also contains a curious mixture of…
People often assume that the Amish, whom we think of as a people ‘in tune with nature’ and ‘close to the earth’ (which to some degree may be true, whatever those phrases actually mean) are strictly all-natural when it comes to the food they raise. In fact, on most Amish farms pesticides are put to use. Organic farming is something that is catching on in…
I quite liked this story on a Sugarcreek, Ohio man who was raised Amish and is now planning to attend medical school at Ohio State (no longer online). Obviously, it’s not typical for someone who only went through eight grades to have such high educational goals. In fact, Andy Yoder completed his GED and is now finishing his final semester at Goshen College in Indiana….