A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Charles Ornstein at ProPublica: Cardiac Society Draws Bulk of Funding from Stent Makers Deborah Blum at Speakeasy Science: A Chemical (Battle) Cry Tara C. Smith at Aetiology: Ebola in Uganda: current and past outbreaks Tim Lougheed in Environmental Health Perspectives: Phosphorus Paradox: Scarcity and Overabundance of a […]
Last week in Moscow, the World Health Organization and Russian Federation held the First Global Ministerial Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and Noncommunicable Disease Control, which addressed the “slow-motion catastrophe” of rising rates of non-communicable illnesses like heart disease and diabetes. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan warned that diabetes rates have skyrocketed in both rich and poor […]
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Ken Ward Jr. at Sustained Outrage: Protecting workers: Progress under Obama? (Also see his related Coal Tattoo piece on mine safety in the Obama administration) Maryn McKenna at Superbug: What vaccine refusal really costs: Measles in Arizona Body Horrors: Blood Money: Hookworm Economics in the Postbellum South […]
Today is World Malaria Day, and the World Health Organization reminds us that each year the world sees approximately 250 million malaria cases and nearly 800,000 deaths from the disease. In 2009, half of the world’s population were at risk of malaria. The disease is present in 106 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and […]
By Kim Krisberg I’ve had this conversation more times than I can count. You’re a reporter? What do you write about? Public health. (Blank stare.) Oh. What’s public health? Is that like universal health care or something? How do you describe public health? It’s a tricky question. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines public health as the […]
At her Washington Post blog 2chambers, Felicia Sonmez reports that the House has passed legislation repealing the section of the Affordable Care Act that created the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which gives the Department of Health and Human Services $15 billion over the next 10 years to fund prevention and public health. The Republican […]
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Maryn McKenna at Superbug: Superbugs Found in New Delhi’s Water and Sewage Kim Barker at ProPublica: ‘Spillionaires’: Profiteering and Mismanagement in the Wake of the BP Oil Spill Darryl Fears in the Washington Post: Goldman Environmental Prize goes to Texas man who took on refineries over pollution […]
It’s National Public Health Week, and this year’s theme is “Safety is No Accident: Live Injury Free.” The American Public Health Association notes that in the US each year, nearly 150,000 people die from injuries, and almost 30 million people visit emergency rooms for injuries. They offer safety tips for home, work, play, transportation, and […]
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: T. Christian Miller of ProPublica and Daniel Zwerdling of NPR: Aftershock: The Blast That Shook Psycho Platoon Susan Milius in Science News: Backup Bees Deborah Blum at Speakeasy Science: The Radium Girls (Part II, Part III) Frank N. Von Hippel on the New York Times Opinion Page: […]
In the early hours of March 11th, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck northern Japan, and a massive tsunami followed. More than 5,000 people are dead and almost 10,000 are missing. Hundreds of thousands are homeless, and those living near the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station have been told to evacuate – while a small crew of […]