Response to "Female Genital Cutting (mutilation)" Post

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I appreciate your efforts to be neutral on this topic from the understanding of your Western bias. However I feel as though certain things are right and wrong in this world and female genital mutilation is one.

Female Genital Cutting: Human Rights & Multiculturalism

Female genital mutilation, female circumcision, female cutting: these are the various terms used when discussing the topic of removing the clitoris and/or other various parts of the vulva (Shell-Duncan, 2008).  When I think of each of these terms I have different reactions. As a public health major with strong values that stem from the culture that I live in (here in the U.S.), I see "mutilation" as abominable and I think women and young girls are being hurt (or mutilated) because of the practice. I see "circumcision" as less so, because even here in the U.S. it is a cultural norm for males to be circumcised, and is done through safe practices. The terms themselves emerge from different media outlets and view points, making the topic just that much more controversial and difficult to maneuver.

Report on the state of the world's mothers

I hope you find this short video helpful. It shows the gap between conditions for mothers in different countries and how it impacts maternal mortality rates, and also touches on poverty, lack of health care coverage and mothers' education level. The Education Director of Save the Children (a nongovernmental organization that was discussed in Chapter 15) is featured.

Sub-Saharan Africa: Worst Place to be a Mother

Enjoy

Brenda

Susan Reverby on the History of Medical Experimentation

Hello Class!

I was doing a little research on my own Monday after class to find out more about the cases that were brought up (Tuskegee, Nuremburg Trials, etc.). I do not know about the rest of you but I am not a Health major and this is the first Public Health course I have taken, so some of the things that maybe the health minded people know, I am in the dark about! 

Anyways, I stumbled across this video that directly relates to what we touched on in class and I found it to be extremely helpful and interesting. Susan Reverby is being interviewed about several of the medical experimentation's, but she goes into depth about the Tuskegee trials. They discuss in great lengths about human rights and the ethics of these experiments.  Enjoy everyone!

Anna Ketchum

The Dark History of Medical Experimentation 

Two recent reports that are pretty darn important

A recent report released by Oxfam recently stated that the world's 100 richest countries have the economic power to end poverty overnight, if they wanted to. The report goes in depth to show how global inequality and inequity has been hurting everyone, in a variety of ways, not just the countries' poorest of the poor.

This should be a particular interest to us as Americans, where in 2011 50% of the country qualified as poor, according to US Census data. Even in one of the richest parts of America, like Washington DC, 1 in 10 families could make this claim, the article points out.

In considering health equity, poverty, and a human rights approach, even in global health it's important to make sure we know what's going on in our own backyard.

US Syphilis Experiments in Guatemala

Today we talked about the Nuremburg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, & the Belmont Report as key documents guiding the ethics of research with human subjects. We also learned how specific, egregious violations of human rights - Nazi Medical experiments, the Tuskegee Study, the short-course AZT trials - led directly to the development of these guidelines. During this discussion someone mentioned a recent incident related to the Tuskegee study, and I'd like to share an article from the New York Times with you ("US Apologizes for Syphilis Tests in Guatemala") to give you more details.

In 2011, thanks to the laudable and diligent efforts by Wellesley College professor Susan Reverby, the world became aware of a syphilis study conducted by American public health doctors in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. It sounds like a familiar story, but there's one detail that's different: unlike Tuskegee, the Guatemalan research subjects were deliberately infected with the disease.

Dr. Mark Siegler (University of Chicago) is quoted for the article, stating: "It’s ironic — no, it’s worse than that, it’s appalling — that, at the same time as the United States was prosecuting Nazi doctors for crimes against humanity, the U.S. government was supporting research that placed human subjects at enormous risk.”

I couldn't agree with him more. 

How Economic Inequality Harms Societies

This Ted Talk from Richard Wilkinson would be fantastic to watch on the heels of our discussion last week about the social gradient and the importance of the income gap for population health.

News from the field: India and global health technology

Hello Global Health Class!

My name is Caricia Catalani.  I am a teacher, advocate, and researcher and I currently working in global health, looking for ways to use innovations in technology to address the HIV pandemic.  I work for an organization called InSTEDD (Innovative Support and Technology for Emergencies, Disaster, and Disease) and for the University of California, Berkeley as a researcher and technology implementer.  Currently, my projects are based in India, Cambodia, Kenya, Rwanda, and the USA.

I thought that I'd share a little about my work through this video, about my recent trip to Northern India.

India VLog Final from Caricia Catalani on Vimeo.

Sightsavers

Through the British Charity, Comic Relief website I found an interesting article written by Scottish actor David Tennant and his partnership with an organization called Sightsavers. Sightsavers is an global organization that works to combat blindness in developing countries, I found this article and website to be very interesting.
Enjoy!

David Tennant Article
http://www.sightsavers.org/[comic_relief]/15068.html

Sightsavers Website
http://www.sightsavers.org

When hope & history rhyme

 "Of all the forms of inequality, 

injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

As public health professionals, how often have we seen this quote, attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? I have referenced it (and heard it referenced) in lectures and writings more times than I can count, and like so many others I hold it as a call to action. In preparing a post today in honor of Dr. King's commitment to the pursuit of social justice, I sought to find the specific source material for these words. And that is how I found this excellent contribution from Amanda Moore.

While reading Moore's piece I'm struck by two things. First, Dr. King's words, spoken at the 1966 convention for the Medical Committee for Human Rights, hold just as much power, relevance, and urgency as they did half a century ago. Second, Moore refers to a recent article by Gordon Bonnyman ("Helping Hope and History Rhyme: Why and How Every Advocate Can Help Realize Health Care Reform"), which was the catalyst for her own source material search. I haven't yet read Bonnyman's article, but the title clearly references Seamus Heaney's poem The Cure at Troy. I love this reference and think it's so appropriate in the context of health care reform and the pursuit of health care justice. Because while progress has been made, both here in the US and around the globe, we are far from achieving health equity. And as we continue to push forward, I will keep Heaney's words in mind, alongside those of Dr. King.
 
History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.  

(Excerpt from The Cure at Troy, Seamus Heaney)

Jim Yong Kim World Bank Group

We have been reading and learning about the economies of  low income and high income countries. Jim Yong Kim the president of the World bank has a short video clip about how  low income countries can not wait for help from high countries.

Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/user/worldbank

Enjoy

Understanding Health Systems; Healthcare Reform

Last term I took a class called "Health Systems and Organizations," and although we are not studying the US healthcare reform laws in our class, I thought some people might find this video from the Kaiser Family Foundation to be helpful. It is an eight minute animated short that explains whats going on really well. If you have time- I really recommend watching it!

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/Health-Reform-Explained-Video.cfm

Great opportunity to get involved in global health!

Hi All,
Two years ago I read a book called Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Cheryl WuDunn. It primarily focuses on the education and empowerment of women around the world. Much of the material Kristof and Wudunn present directly addresses the issue of sex trafficking. After reading the introduction, I had to take a full week break from reading and employ all my de-stressing techniques: cup of tea, chat with a friend, etc. Chapter One was easier and as I continued reading- though the situations are grim and the stories can be so discouraging- I noticed a thread of hope and empowerment connecting all of the stories together. In May of 2011, I got the hear Kristof speak in McMinnville (he is from Oregon, folks! So there is a chance you could catch him speaking sometime). Since reading Half the Sky, I have become a huge fan of Kristof and WuDunn and learned about a contest that Kristof offers every year. He selects one winning essay and takes the winner with him on one of his trips to some of the most remote, impoverished corners of our world. There he takes pictures, interviews people, and uses his column to shine a spotlight on these important issues and provide a platform for the poorest of the poor to speak and have their voices heard. It looks like we just barely missed the deadline for his most recent contest, but he offers it every year. And if you follow this link, you can learn a little more about it. Kristof and WuDunn are so encouraging. They model and suggest a host of ways that we can get involved even if we don't win a trip with one of the authors.

The readings this week really spent some time exploring the challenges in global health. I am always left with an antsy feeling from material like this. I want to know what I can do about it. As we learned, sometimes setting out to do something results in unanticipated inefficiencies, mistakes, misunderstanding of the problem, etc. To that end, I know there is a lot to be said for learning about these problems and trying our best to understand them well before attempting to implement change. In the meantime, however, there are some amazing organizations and individuals willing to take us under their wings and show us some of the strategies they have found to be useful.

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/05/win-a-trip-in-2013/

The 11th Hour

If anyone is interested and hasn't seen it, this documentary is very moving.

Here's the link.

Shocking study findings on health of people under 50 in the U.S.

I happened to find this article yesterday thanks to a friend. While part of me is not surprised to hear about this news, the other part of me still is. Through the topics we are learning in class I ask myself why our nation, the wealthiest part of the region (North America) is turning out this way. The fact is that we have the resources to educate ourselves, but through other mediums or reasons the U.S is not excelling where we believe we should, statistically or culturally. This reminds me of the days I read Adbusters magazines and a compelling issue that really spoke to me was titled "The culture of death" and "The culture of life" from 2006, I believe.

Here is the article on the study, which explains more in detail.

UN's plan to rid cholera in Haiti

Hey all!

This is another NPR article/talk that directly pertains to our class that I heard this morning. 

It is about the outbreak of cholera in Haiti recently following the 2010 earthquake and the UN's plan to get rid of it.

Here is a link to the NPR story.


Have a great weekend!

Margaret

U.S. Ranks Below 16 Other Rich Countries in Health

Not news to global/public health folks, but I get such a kick out of hearing it reported on while listening to NPR, and not just reading it in an academic journal.

A new report from the National Academy of Sciences finds that, in terms of health, "even Americans who are white, insured, college-educated and upper-income are worse off than their counterparts around the world." And yet, the US spends far more on health care than any nation in the world. Given the investment into health in this country, why would the US have lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality rates than other high-income countries? Dr. David Kindig (University of Wisconsin), interviewed for this story, points to state-by-state analysis for answers: "Some of the healthiest states, like Minnesota, actually spend less on health care, and presumably that allows them to spend more on some of the other determinants of health..." Like education. Hmmm...Social determinants of health, anyone?

Thanks for this contribution, NPR & Richard Knox! Listen to the story here.
And here is a great (short!) report on this from the Institute of Medicine. Enjoy!

This is a great write-up about the recently published Global Burden of Disease 2010 Project!