Polio Problems

After a 25 year long global effort to eliminate polio, it is still hanging on in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan  and Nigeria. Nigeria saw an increase in this virus's activity in the population from 2011-2012. Nigeria does not have a public health system, which makes eliminating this disease difficult. This article continues to say that the biggest road blocks in solving this polio problem are nomads and remote populations. These people receive no education or health care which means that they aren't getting treatment for disease and viruses like polio. Many people don't even want the vaccination because they have several other health issues that they want taken care of. However, nomads to not refuse the treatment for polio. If these unreached people receive the vaccination, progress  in eliminating this virus can be made.

This article was not very direct, meaning that it contained a lot of information or wording that was not needed. The author seemed to circle around a lot in this article. The main social problem is that there is no public health system in Nigeria. Yes, the nomads and remote populations are also a problem, but if there were a proper public health system, these places and people could be reached more easily. Another social problem is that people are refusing the vaccination because they aren't getting treated for other viruses and illnesses that they have. This could also go back to the fact that there is no public health system. If there were a system like this, people could possibly be treated for their illnesses and would gladly accept a polio vaccination as well.

http://www.nature.com/news/public-health-polio-s-moving-target-1.12817

Emma Starnes 8:48 am 4/20.2013

Mali Conditions Worsen

According to a CNN article, the 70,000 refugees in Mali are still living in appalling conditions in the Mauritanian desert. Situations have gotten worse since 15,000 more refugees have entered the camp. The people who have arrived healthy have become sick and malnourished. The number of children to enter hospitals has doubled. Henry Gray from Doctors Without Borders says that there has been little preparation for this new flock of refugees.This is obvious by the lack of toilet facilitates and the delays in food supplies. Another problem with having so many unexpected refugees is the lack of water in the desert. Doctors Without borders is doing what they can to provide for these refugees but they were struggling even before the 15,000.

This article is helpful in providing information to make it clear that these refugees are in desperate times. There are a number of social problems here. The main one is rooted in violence. It is because of the fear of violence that the refugees are fleeing. In turn, this is causing obvious health problems as they are all crammed together with little food and resources.The article did a great job of bringing the root of the problem back to the violence, and not just leaving it as a public health issue, because it is way more than that. This health issue cannot be solved until the terror is over.

 http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/12/world/africa/mauritania-mali-refugees-report/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

Emma Starnes 12:51pm 4/12/2013

Blog 8, H7N9 in China

On Thursday, April 4th, it was confirmed that there are 14 cases of the H7N9 flu in China. Six of these cases were fatal. This is weird because federal health officials have been making a vaccine for it, but were really only working on it as a precaution. People are still trying to see if the flu is transmitted through people, or birds, since wild birds previously carried it. 

The vaccine is being rushed, even though it takes a month to make. But even after the vaccine is made, it still has to be tested on ferrets. It will still take a few more days after that to see if the ferrets get sick.

It is hard to see how dangerous this flu is, because even through their have been reported and fatal cases, these could be the only ones that are serious enough to be taken to a hospital.

This article repeats itself a lot. The question that I have about this topic is, if the virus came from animals, is it still a social problem? I ask this because in that case, the problem would not have started between people, it would have started in animals! Another social problem in this article is the fact that it is going to take the vaccine over a month to be made! This could cause several deaths in China due to the flu! The final problem here is that there could be a great number of people not reporting they have the flu because their can't or don't feel the need to go to the doctor. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/world/asia/cdc-has-begun-work-on-vaccine-for-new-china-flu.html?ref=health&_r=0

Emma Starnes
9:25am, 4/5/2013

Placebo's in the UK

A recent survey has shown that doctors all over the United Kingdom have given a placebo to patients. In fact, 97 percent of these doctors have recommended the use of a placebo. One in one hundred doctor's said they gave out a placebo at least once a week. This may seem like pure evil, but this article says that they aren't trying to deceive patients, but help them. This usually happens in cases where a patient insists on treatment hat is not need.
It is a popular belief that the intensity of some of illnesses or health issues aren't anything more than a figment of imagination. Once a person believes they have been treated, they will believe they are cured. So, it would make sense that doctors would prescribe sugar pills or salt water injections, but this is the start of a social problem. If doctors are likely to lie about what they are prescribing, how are the people of the UK supposed to trust anything that doctors say? It would be more helpful to understand the reliability of UK doctors if the article included more examples of why doctors prescribed placebos. Its could be hard to believe that enough people suffer from hypochondria for doctors to be handing out fake prescriptions once a week. And if there are that many people suffering forms of hypochondria, it would be helpful in the article included some information about that.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/130321/many-uk-doctors-have-given-patient-placebo-drug

Emma Starnes, 2:22, 3/22/2013,

Not Preventing AIDS in Africa

On Monday, it was revealed that a trials to protect African women against AIDS was a flop. This article says that these results were not because of the products, but because the women were not using the products. The women were either given pills or vaginal gel, both were to be used daily. When the girls came to the doctors for their monthly visits, they would claim to be using the product as instructed, but blood tests revealed that 70 percent of them were lying. The same test was given to homosexual men in the United States, and it was reported that the majority of this group were not taking the products daily either. The article exclaims that young people think they aren't vulnerable with "that-will-never-happen-to-me" mentality. Experts urge researchers to conduct another study. The products are now being tested on animals.

This article would be more helpful if it included what the end results were for the majority of the participant. Saying that the products failed leads readers to think that each participant contracted AIDS. And if this were the case, the article should include that. It would also be helpful to know why 70 percent of these women wouldn't take their prescribed product. These people could be resisting the product simply because they are uneducated and don't believe that they are at risk of getting AIDS. This would be the social issue of lack of public health education all around the word. If a person knows what they are up against, they would fight it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/health/african-trial-of-hiv-drugs-fails.html?ref=africa&_r=0

Emma Starnes, 3/6/2013 at 5:53 pm

Possible Increase of Cancer in Japan: True or False?

This past Thursday the World Health Organization (WHO)  let out a report that said that people who experienced "Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in 2011 may have a slightly higher risk of cancer but one so small it probably won't be detectable." The article says that after the disaster, the chance of cancer for people most effected by Fukushima, would only increase by 1 percent. These risks aren't much of a threat to the Japanese population but, originally, WHO had made the claim that women exposed as infants to the accident would have a 70 percent chance of getting thyroid cancer. Seeing as thyroid cancer is extremely rare, the lifetime risk of of getting this cancer would only increase by .5 percent for women who were the most exposed to this radiation. Several other people have done the math on this topic and have made claims that people are more at risk by crossing the street than they are at risk for their chances of cancer to increase. The article says that WHO was originally hyping up the risk of cancer in Japan because they didn't take into account how quickly Japan evacuated people from Fukushima.

This article seemed to make the same point repeatedly and which was unnecessary because it was a very simple point: WHO made the risk of the increase of cancer a lot bigger than it was. But, they also let out a report that correctly their wrong statement. The social problem here is miss-communication by the media. Our class has covered that people believe stereotypes because of the media, and people will believe false claims because of the media. For people were to believe WHO's first report, and worry about their risk of cancer increasing due to the disaster, it would hurt more than help. The good news is that WHO undone their damage and corrected the situation.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/28/slightly-higher-cancer-risk-for-those-most-hit-by-fukushima-disaster-but-risk/#ixzz2MFvnyA4e

Emma Starnes 2:39pm 3/1/2013

Overwhelming Russian Death Increase

The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin signed a decree demanding that the countries life expectancy increase to 74 by 2018. It seems that the Russian population is starting to make a decrease. More people are dying than being born which is due to a number to risk factors. According to this article, half of the population is overweight,  more than half of the men smoke, and citizens drink up to four gallons of alcohol a year! Putin is afraid that the population will decline down to 107 million by 2050, when just twenty years ago the country was at a population of 148 million. 

Russian is taking as many steps possible aid in stopping this population dilemma.  A law just passed in January that no longer labeled beer as a food, but an alcoholic beverage and can no longer be sold on the street. The house of parliament is trying to pass a law that would ban smoking in public. The chairmen of congress wants to raise the price of cigarettes because 20 million packs of cigarettes are bought each year in Russia, which has lead to 400 thousand tobacco related deaths! The country also trying to enforce the use of seat belts because alcohol contributes to a huge number of car accidents. Some people are protesting these healthy changes that Russia is trying to make. Their argument is that people will have health problems regardless of weather or not they smoke or drink.

This article makes it seem like the Russians are sloppy people who care more about the comforts of smoking and drinking than their own lives. In the beginning of the article, the writer states that obesity is also a big threat to Russian health, but it is not mentioned again in the article. This could bring the readers to question if the decrease in Russian population could possibly be causes by other factors not mentioned in the article as well. 

It seems that Russia could actually benefit from globalization in public health. If countries with better health habits aided in the countries quest to stop this epidemic, the country could grow in population and in knowledge.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-tries-to-improve-life-expectancy-with-laws-curbing-drinking-smoking/2013/02/20/7ad5c290-77ab-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html

Emma Starnes, 8:44 am, 2/22/2013

This article explains that after high blood pressure, indoor air pollution, smoking, and poor nutrition, outdoor air pollution is number five on the list of India's largest life threats. This health hazard has killed over 620,000 Indian people! These deaths are not just caused by dirty air alone. The health problems case by the particles in the air is what is so detrimental to health.  But outdoor pollution isn't just a threat to India, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study says that outdoor air pollution has killed over 3 million people world-wide.
The pollution is accredited to factors such as vehicle exhaust, emissions from factories, and burning of biomass. The country of India is currently weighing its options on ways to prevent air pollution from increasing. This includes ideas such as low-sulfur diesel, tax on diesel-powered cars, and higher parking fees but according to the article, "enforcement is notoriously weak in India."

 As it states in the article, air pollution is a threat to the lives of people all around the world. Pollution is not cause by natural forces, it is created by man-made technologies (cars, factories, etc.). It is safe to assume that the increase of deaths by pollution must be related to the increase in the use of technologies. This relates to how our class has been discussing globalization. With our world growing in technology, and a need for easier, if not instant gratification, the more we rely and depend on it. This becomes a problem because if people stop depending on the factories that cause the pollution, then the world will experience better health, but how much more would our fast pace society be thrown off without depending on these factories?

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/the-air-that-kills-in-india/

Emma Starnes 9:26, 2/15/2013

Blog 2: Cancer is Killing Africa!

As most people know, diseases such as HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis have been pushing up the death rate in African countries for years. But according to this article by  Dr. Kingsley Ikenna Ndoh, recent studies have shown that cancer is actually killing more African people than these three other three diseases combined?! In fact, a few of Africa's leaders have died from cancer in recent years which has brought a new awareness to the disease.
Since cancer is not a communicable disease, it does not effect just one area of the world. But unlike a lot of the world, Africa is lacking in cancer specialists. People is countries such as Nigeria, are seeking medical care India. But, not everyone can afford to go over seas for medical treatment. Medical assistance is growing in Uganda, slowly but surely as their Cancer institute has gained ten oncologists in the past few years.

Obviously, since cancer is a biological problem, it is not the social problem in this article. The real social problem in this article is that there isn't enough medical assistance to tend to the needs of the African people with cancer. I think this correlates with social problem of poverty that lies in the majority of African countries. Without money for education, doctors and cancer specialists won't be made to serve the African people. A lot of the medical attention that these countries will receive will be from doctors or missionaries from other countries. This means that the majority of people in Africa have no choice but to let their cancer run it coarse without a fight.
Towards the end of this article, the author says "(Africa) should start with a strong political will by its leaders to budget more funds to non communicable diseases, train health workers in field of oncology (cancer), develop national policies/guidelines on cancer prevention and treatments, and fund national cancer registries and cancer research and ultimately invest in specialized cancer centers." Although I know that it is not that easy, I couldn't agree more with this statement. African countries are already at risks for so many avoidable causes of death, I would hate for cancer to continue to be the leading disease in this continent when treatment exists.

http://www.thenewsnest.com/cancer-africas-ticking-time-bomb/

Emma Starnes, 7:48 2/7/2013

War Causes Hunger in Mali

As the fight for control over north Mali continues, not only are civilians being afflicted by rebels, but the shortage of food supply is causing health concerns to the people of the area. Luckily, the UN WFP (World Food Programme) has come to the rescue with emergency feedings to the 564,000 people affected by the crisis. We know that the situation is serious when the WFP is providing "Plupy'Sup" which is typically given to young children who are at risk of dying from malnourishment. This article also says that the WFP is also trying bring this food operation to those who have fled Mali, but is in "desperate need of funding."
The WFP are not the only ones tending to this hunger crisis, the Catholic Relief Services and the McGovern-Dole programme is also sending meals to the children of Mali.

 I think that this issue in Mali relates to what we discussed in class about poverty vs. wealth. Even though different services have come to aid this crisis, these people are still receiving only about one meal a day, which is way less than other people receive without aid. Obviously, these people are in a crisis situation caused by war, so this problem with malnourishment isn't just caused by poverty. But regardless of the reasoning,  these people aren't going to stay well-nourished on just one meal a day. I don't mean to diminish the work that WFP, and other organizations are doing, I am very encouraged by the the impact they have had on Mali. I think that their compassion to the situation just shows that giving to others goes a long way.   But, I do think that there are enough people in the world who know about this crisis and who have wealth that they can share with organizations like the WFP to feed these people.

http://thinkafricapress.com/mali/war-drought-and-hunger-mali
11:19 pm
1/30/13

Health/Disease

I chose health and disease because I feel like this topic is something that everyone can relate to. Even though not everyone has struggled with having a disease, I would say that most people would want to have a healthy body and a healthy life. I think it will be cool to see how health and disease are being handled in other parts of the world. I would also like to see how other countries differ in their struggles with health/disease.