I use Bloglines to aggregate my news and blog feeds, which is great for one-stop reading, but also allows me to build up massive numbers of saved articles. I’m currently at 101 saved articles, all of which I could probably write about individually, if only I had the time. But, alas! So, instead, here’s a round-up of interesting, (relatively) recent news on health and social justice:
no universal health care? blame everyone! As much as I’d like to blame insurance companies solely for the inability for true universal health care system reform, Ezra Klein at The American Prospect points out that there’s more than enough blame to go around. The short version? The failure of the Clintons’ 1994 health care reform was most everyone’s fault, including the Clintons.
rory freedman & kim barnouin are bad for your health. and your self-esteem. Salon breaks down what the best-selling Skinny Bitch series really amounts to: vegan propaganda clothed in sexist, cult-like bullying by authors Freedman and Barnouin, who admit that they don’t give a crap about your self-image so long as you stop eating animal products. Here’s the article’s money quote:
It was a formerly anorexic friend of mine who nailed it when she read excerpts from the book. "When you have an eating disorder," she told me, "that's the voice you hear in your head all the time."
It actually turns out that veganism is bad for you (duh), but I’ll get to that when I review Real Food: What to Eat and Why, an interesting nutrition-centric, pro-natural foods book by Nina Palanck.
mccain (not your friend) joins the anti-vaccine movement. Republican Sen. John McCain (not your friend) has thrown in his lot with the anti-vaccine movement. There has always been an anti-vaccine movement in this country, from conspiracy theorists to parents who are against the essential public health strategy for religious reasons. And, to be fair, some vaccines were historically dangerous, but opposing vaccines altogether is not a viable solution; establishing a robust safety review process is. By simply categorically opposing vaccines due to unproven links between vaccines and complex diseases such as autism that no one (not even the doctors treating them) completely understand the causes of yet, McCain is being hugely irresponsible with his bully pulpit. As one commentator notes:
As ABC points out, the American Academy of Pediatrics has rejected the connection, and worries that when how-profile people like McCain, or network TV shows, encourage the connection they discourage vaccinations, and that could lead to a big-time public health problem. A series of research studies have also offered proof that vaccines are not a primary trigger for autism.
no cancer treatment for you, but look at my beautiful new nose! In spite of the core American value of equality, disparities in the quality of health care received depending on race and ethnicity continues to plague the country. For example, recent studies show that people of color receive inferior cancer treatments than white folks; in one example, African Americans with rectal cancer were 27% less likely than whites to get additional chemotherapy to get rid of remaining cancer cells after surgical removal of the tumor; similarly, black Americans with colon cancer were 24% less likely than their white counterparts to receive additional chemotherapy. In another example, the black-white infant mortality rate has actually been widening recently, despite overall decreases in infant deaths. This may be related to the fact that very-low birth weight babies (most at risk for health complications) of black mothers are more likely to be born in hospitals with high neonatal death rates. So when people of color report that they have poorer health than whites, it’s probably because it’s true.
But it’s not a matter of insufficient health care resources, as demonstrated by the massive and expanding cosmetic surgery industry. In 2007, there were 11.7 million cosmetic procedures (including 2.8 million Botox injections) at a cost of $13.2 billion. That’s right, billion, with a ‘b.’
nice try, but you still f’d it up. Some have said that the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is the only good thing Pres. Bush has done in office. But HIV/AIDS activists argue now that even PEPFAR isn’t actually a completely beneficial program, given that “it does not provide HIV prevention to women through expanded access to reproductive health and family planning programs.”
one in four, one in four. Disturbing news in women’s health on two fronts. First, one in four teenaged girls have a sexually transmitted infection. But many teens do not know that they have an STI, due to reluctance by doctors to screen their young patients due to confidentiality concerns, or a mistaken belief that their pure and innocent patients don’t have these diseases. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends confidential teen screening and the HPV vaccine, which helps to prevent cervical cancer, for all girls 11-12, with “catch-up shots” (a.k.a. booster shots) between the ages of 13 and 26. Missouri is the latest state to take a step in the right direction, as the state senate has approved a bill to pay for the expensive HPV vaccine Gardasil for all sixth graders.
The second piece of news, one in four U.S. women suffer from domestic violence. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that 1200 women are killed and 2 million injured in domestic violence annually, but beyond that, all victims of domestic violence suffer other long-term health risks and problems. These women are 80 percent more likely to have a stroke, 70 percent more likely to have heart disease or arthritis and 60 percent more likely to have asthma, 70% more likely to drink heavily and twice as likely to report mental or emotional problems. As one advocate described the impact of domestic violence on overall health, “It's like living in a war zone.”
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