Hui Min Neo reports for AFP that 10 million people in the Horn of Africa are affected by the region’s worst drought in 60 years. Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda are suffering severe food shortages, and malnutrition rates are rising.
Deborah Sontag’s New York Times story about the murder of 25-year-old mental health worker Stephanie Moulton, allegedly at the hands of schizophrenic patient DeShawn Chappell, is a moving exploration of two grieving families and the many challenges facing the mental health care system. Deborah Sontag’s New York Times story about the murder of 25-year-old mental […]
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Julie Appleby and Jordan Rau at Kaiser Health News: ‘Double’ Chest Scans Increase Costs and Exposure to Radiation Evan Bush in iWatch News: Obama administration signals higher gas royalties on public lands — and anticipated industry resistance Alix Spiegel for NPR: Why Seeing (The Unexpected) Is Often […]
It’s wonderful to hear what substantial progress US Representative Gabrielle Giffords has made in recovering from the traumatic brain injury she sustained from being shot in the head in January. As the Associated Press reported this morning, Giffords has spent the past five months in a rehabilitation facility and has regained some of her speaking […]
Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine was, as an independent investigation team documented in the report released last month, a dangerous place to work. In the immediate aftermath of the massive explosion on April 5, 2010, which killed 29 miners, it was also a dangerous place for rescue operations. A scathing editorial in the Charleston […]
After blaming cucumbers, backpedaling on the cucumbers and blaming bean sprouts, then backpedaling on the sprouts, German authorities have now concluded that bean sprouts are, in fact, to blame for the spread of E. coli O104:H4, which has sickened more than 3,000 people and killed 31. Patients with the most severe cases have suffered kidney […]
A few of the recent pieces I’ve liked: Jamie Holmes in The New Republic: Why Can’t More Poor People Escape Poverty? Maryn McKenna at Superbug: 30 Years of AIDS, and How it Began (also Part II and Part III) Jesse Green in New York: “A Textbook of Trauma” (“The crash of the Chinatown charter was […]
I thought I was pretty well aware of the occupational hazards faced by hotel housekeepers: repetitive motions that can cause musculoskeletal disorders, exposures to chemicals and pathogens, and grueling work schedules contributing to stress and exhaustion. But the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case has made me aware of another hazard: what the New York Times’ Steven Greenhouse […]
Public Health Practice
June 5, 1981: CDC reports “the possibility of a cellular-immune dysfunction related to a common exposure”
Thirty years ago today, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published a report of five young men with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia who were treated at three different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. The authors observed that all five patients had no known common contacts, but had in common the fact that they “reported having […]
In Germany, 17 people have died and more than 1,500 sickened by a particularly virulent strain of E. coli. Der Spiegel explains that this rare E. coli serotype, O104:H4, is especially virulent; after infection by as few as 100 bacteria, many patients develop hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can result in kidney failure and even death. […]