If it is right for the government to distribute flu vaccine, and try to stop smallpox, malaria, other epidemics, then it is right for the government to institute a national health care plan – “Single Payer” or “Medicare for All,” or “The Public Option
Category Archives: Public Health
Brilliant public-health graphic – by Matt Daigle
We’re going to take liberties here and tell you that the following graphic could easily have turned into a very problematic assignment. However many ways there might have been to do it right, we suspect that there were many more ways it could have gone wrong. Here’s the graphic, by Matt Daigle – you can also see his cartoon work here.
Here’s the graphic – explanation after the jump.
Of course – if I’m right about this, the answer will come as no surprise.
What's happening at The Pump Handle
Liz Borkowski : Occupational Health News Roundup at, of course, The Pump Handle
NB: The name is a reference to John Snow and the Broad Street pump handle, not as some have surmised, “the pump [which] don’t work ’cause the vandals stole the handle,” in the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues.
Nanotube SNURs: Nano step forward, nano step back
“Yes Sir, she got her safety training” Mark Catlin (SEIU and APHA OHS Section) finds another amazing collection of historical films with worker safety themes.
FDA to Finally Reconsider Safety of BPA (Liz Borkowski)
Celeste Monforton on Learning OHS from Sir Thomas Legge, a review of
the collection assembled by John W. Ward and Christian Warren entitled “Silent Victories : The History and Practice of Public Health in 20th Century America” (Oxford, 2007.) Our colleagues Tony Robbins and Phil Landrigan wrote a chapter on occupational disease and injury prevention, and in it, introduce me to Sir Thomas Legge.
He was the UK’s first medical Inspector of Factories (appointed in 1897) and he capitalized on his title and training to expose occupational hazards, propose interventions and demonstrate their effectiveness at reducing harm. Robbins and Landrigan offer one little gem from Legge that is too good to keep to myself. Legge proposed several axioms to reduce workers’ risk of lead poisoning, but with just a little tweaking, they seem quite appropriate for other workplace hazards:
Read Monforton’s complete piece at Learning OHS from Sir Thomas Legge.
Health Care: Medicare or Insurance Care
Here’s the choice, as I see it: The “Public Option”
versus The Status Quo.
Medicare for All versus Health Insurance for Most – affordable to the healthy and employed, but rationed to five (5) out of six (6) Americans. As Will Rodgers might have said, “Five out of six ain’t bad; Unless you’re number 6, and excepting that the five get exposed to whatever it is that number 6 has got.“
Health Care for all, versus Rationed Private Insurance Care that doesn’t cover 47 Million Americans that are over 18 and under 65, who’s taxes pay for Medicare for their parents and grandparents, their children covered by SCHIP, and for procedures given to charity care patients in hospitals.
In other words, “Health care By the People, Of the People and For the People,”
versus “Health care run By the Bean Counters Of the Insurance Companies For the Stockholders!”
Violence against ER nurses
at The Pump Handle posts on evidence of violence against ER nurses:
n a national survey by the Emergency Nurses Association, more than half of emergency-department nurses reported that they’ve been physically assaulted on the job. For many nurses, being assaulted is a recurring problem: Approximately one-fourth of the 3,465 respondents reported experiencing physical violence more than 20 times in the past three years. While all hospital staff are at risk of both physical assault and verbal abuse, the problem is particularly severe in EDs, and against ED nurses in particular.
Violence Against ER Nurses
Bottled Water is Safe Yet Bottled Tap Water is Unsafe?
The idea that bottled water is safe but that bottled tap water is unsafe doesn’t hold water. The basic fear of refilling bottles with tap water is that molecules of plastic from the bottle, which is no longer “brand new” can leach into the water. While it may be true that molecules of the plastic can dissolve into the water, if I fill a bottle at 8:00 AM, take it with me to drink that morning, and drink the water by 10:00 AM, the water has only been in the bottle for two hours. If I buy a case of bottled of water on a Monday at 8:00 PM, put it in my refrigerator at 8:30 PM, grab a bottle on Tuesday morning at 8:00 AM, then the water has been in the bottle in my possession for 12 hours. It probably was in the store for at least since Monday morning. If it’s the store’s house brand then it was bottled at the latest Friday, so the water was in the bottle for at least 72 hours. If molecules of the plastic dissolve into the water at a steady rate over time there will be SIX times the amount of plastic in the store bought bottled water.
In Rethink What You Drink, on Readers’ Digest Online, Janet Majeski Jemmott gives an overview of the regulations, or lack thereof that govern bottled water, and what can go into the bottles with the water. The National Resources Defense Council, NRDC, put a comprehensive discussion. on their Environmental Health and Safety Online pages.
The thing is, many brands of bottled water – Dasani for example – contain bottled TAP water. This is actually good news, because while the purity of bottled water is regulated by the FDA, the purity of tap water is regulated by the EPA, and the EPA rules are much stricter for tap water in big cities – disinfecting, testing for bacteria, including E. coli and fecal coliform. So if the water going into the bottle comes from a big municipal tap, then you know it’s pure.
There is no question that disposable water bottles are bad for the environment (NY Times, Pocono Record , Tappening). Of all the “disposable” bottles sold, 85% become litter or are stored in landfills. Only 15% are recycled. Vive le tap!
More evidence of the salutary mental/cognitive effects of exercise
In her ongoing “Well” series,” the Times’ Tara Parker-Pope has published An A.D.H.D. Student Finds Confidence on the Track
– by Michael Edwards. Tis should
be well-established, based on the evidence – but since it isn’t, we think it’s a point that bears repeating. SeeJohn Ratey
‘s most recent book, Spark.
Frances Perkins, The Woman Behind The New Deal
There’s a new biography of Frances Perkins, U. S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. The book is The Woman Behind the New Deal, by Kristen Downey, (amazon.com). It was discussed last night on NPR. Perkins was largely responsible for the U.S. adoption of social security, unemployment insurance, federal laws regulating child labor, and adoption of the federal minimum wage. One of the items on her agenda that she did not accomplish was universal health care.
FDA threatens Red Cross with criminal charges over blood supply
Stephanie Strom of the Times reports on persistent – over 15 years – difficulties with the Red Cross blood supply operation, which provides two-thirds of the organization’s revenue.
For 15 years, the American Red Cross has been under a federal court order to improve the way it collects and processes blood. Yet, despite $21 million in fines since 2003 and repeated promises to follow procedures intended to ensure the safety of the nation’s blood supply, it continues to fall short.
The situation has proved so frustrating that in January the commissioner of food and drugs attended a Red Cross board meeting – a first for a commissioner – and warned members that they could face criminal charges for their continued failure to bring about compliance, according to three Red Cross officials who attended the meeting and requested anonymity because Red Cross policy prohibits public discussion of its meetings with regulators.
If fear is a motivator, we’re happy to help out in that way,” said Eric M. Blumberg, deputy general counsel at the Food and Drug Administration, though he declined to confirm what the commissioner, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, said at the meeting.
Some critics, including former Red Cross executives, have even suggested breaking off the blood services operations from the rest of the organization, as the Canadian Red Cross did a decade ago.
The problems, described in more than a dozen publicly available F.D.A. reports – some of which cite hundreds of lapses – include shortcomings in screening donors for possible exposure to diseases; failures to spend enough time swabbing arms before inserting needles; failures to test for syphilis; and failures to discard deficient blood.
In some cases, the lapses have put the recipients of blood at risk for diseases like hepatitis, malaria and syphilis. But according to the food and drug agency, the Red Cross has repeatedly failed to investigate the results of its mistakes, meaning there is no reliable record of whether recipients were harmed by the blood it collected.
The Red Cross, which controls 43 percent of the nation’s blood supply, agrees that it has had quality-control problems and is working to fix them. Both its officials and the drug agency point out that none of the identified problems involve the most serious category of infractions. For instance, the Red Cross does a good job of testing for H.I.V. and hepatitis B, officials on all sides agree. And in general, Red Cross blood is regarded as some of the safest in the world.
Still, the drug agency says, the problems that remain in screening donors and following protocols for collection add unnecessary risk to blood transfusions, almost five million of which were done in 2007, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
“This is a critical piece of the public health infrastructure,” Mary A. Malarkey, director of the Office of Compliance and Biologics Quality at the drug agency, said in an interview. “I know it’s difficult to get so many people trained and properly supervised, but it has to be done.”
This week, the agency sent the Red Cross the results of yet another recent investigation that makes Ms. Malarkey’s point: From December 2006 to April 2008, the Red Cross distributed more than 200 blood products that it had already identified as problematic, according to the investigation report.
Fifteen years under court supervision without progress. Doesn’t this suggest some change in approach?