Money Talks

Taxes and tax credits are a powerful tool/weapon to wield in the global health arena. Taxes can deter smoking, while tax credits can uphold a one-child policy. While it requires a very intricate fine tuned and balanced approach to optimize results, it can be implemented across an entire gamut of global health to promote alternative fuel and energy usage, deter overutilization of non-renewable resources, and promote healthy behavior and corporate responsibility. Here's to many paradigm shifts to come.

Supreme Court...and other possibilities

I am by far one of the more extreme agnostics to have entered this world by no miracle; sperm meets egg and 9 months later, a young couple wishes they had used prophylactics. Just kidding. But yes, I do still have faith...of sorts. As much as Fush may have bucked things up, we have a brilliant system which has vested power in the Supreme Court to rule that the EPA does indeed have the authority to regulate emissions. I have faith that if the EPA demanded that cinnamon rolls and french fries pop out of exhaust pipes by tomorrow, that it could happen. I have faith that if the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of philanthropic billionaires in the world - and the Waltons - united, that we could solve some of our greatest dilemmas by tomorrow morning, all in good time to have afternoon tea with the Brits. The X Prize Foundation - a brilliant partnership - has just as much faith, as they offer millions in prizes to those who innovate innovation itself. Responsible for encouraging the creation of a vehicle short of a personal space ship, the foundation has just created a new prize to encourage the development of a practical car with a new feat of 100 mpg. However, we need more cooperation and involvement from national governments. Amidst corruption and conflicts of interest, we create solutions and attempt to eke out results.

Future of Health Care

Flying cars, skyscrapers through the clouds, meals-in-a-pill...but what of our precarious health care situation? We need universalized health insurance on a well-regulated privatized health care backbone. Smart cards seem like a great way to store information and track patients. Due to security flaws, it may be even better to combine this with biometric technology. Along the lines of telehealth medicine, there should be massive call centers with trained operators receiving calls 24/7. These calls should then be forwarded accordingly. For example, a patient complaining of mild symptoms should be forwarded to speak with a nurse. Furthermore, this private call center could contract out advanced care phone calls (i.e. nurses, dentists, PAs, doctors, etc.) so each time they receive a call, they would receive a consultation fee.

Lawrence for dictator of California (every state shall secede). 2008 - (until N. Korea sends assassins to restore democracy). Peace.

Emergence of and Innovations in Disease Management

Forty-something odd hours, two all-nighters, a parking ticket, and a case of hemorrhoids later (jk), here we are:

Part 1:


Part 2:

Thomas L. Friedman

Thanks to my wonderful colleague, Wilson Ong, I had the once in a lifetime - ok, maybe twice, but no more - opportunity to attend a lecture by Thomas Friedman. My intellect, or lack thereof, is still so overwhelmed that I am unsure of where to begin. But for now, enough kowtow and sycophancy. However, due to the immense compulsion that a man of his stature should have an honorific, let's just call him Dr. Friedman for the sake of me completing this post within the next year.

The eminent journalist has authored "The World is Flat," from whence he drew the framework for his lecture. To provide a quick synopsis relevant to the title, the flatness of the world refers to the ubiquity of communication, information, and technology brought upon by globalization. For example, a hospital in Kansas can be neighbors with an outsourced radiology facility in Bangalore, India, but this can only happen metaphorically as nobody wants to be in or near Kansas. By the same token, although Dr. Friedman is in Maryland, and I, in California, this blog entry is technically in his digital backyard, possibly even within equal reach of his toilet paper.

Moving onward, I feel that it would be more informative to say "The Developed World is Flat." Dr. Friedman mentioned that globalization took place in three chronologically distinct stages; the first in which nations globalized, then corporations, and now, individuals. So where can we find a global steamroller to even out the disparities and rifts in globalization? What do the nations who missed the globalization train do? For one, the last post links to a video that sheds light on the fact that millions worldwide still do not have access to water. How do we connect the flat world to the allegedly developing world? If these countries are in fact developing and possibly globalizing, why the lack of investment? Aren't even the most basic forms of infrastructure investments bound to pay off in the long run?

Also, in applying some of his views to some of the recent seminar topics such as sustainability, to quote Dr. Friedman, "the stone age didn't end because cavemen ran out of stones." They most definitely moved onto bigger and better things. But do homo sapiens have the same acuity, or will we wait until all the oil wells, domestic and foreign, are pillaged dry? Dr. Friedman suggests disincentivizing oil consumption through taxes at the pump. Can we really push individuals to develop alternative energy as a result or should the government subsidize such resources and incentivize them through lower prices? The former would cause the government to assume less debt while utilizing market forces. Nonetheless, depeletable resources are priceless.

Before I run amuck with questions, when the disparities in global standards really flattens, what do we do to save costs. Where do we outsource to?

To philosophically recount the experience, my entire life has changed as a result of a simple 2 hours during which our paths had crossed.

Global Water Crisis

My brief comment on this topic is attached to the video.

Rhetoric

We [politicians] need to stop throwing suggestions about freely like feces, but assert them backed with the guarantee of action. It's unsettling watching these videos and flipping through these images of haunting sunken eyes and swollen bellies. We read literature after literature on the issues and solutions, but I really am clueless on where to start. How can I make a difference? How do we teach these people to fish? How do we eliminate these disparities? How do we face opposition? What rights do these people have? Is there a hierarchy to these issues; a pressure point? Where does the causal chain start? What changes will produce what effects? I just purchased Jeffrey Sachs' "The End of Poverty" for enrichment and will hopefully find better insight and solace for my frustrations of my incapacity. Every second of hesitation and procrastination results in an unbelievable number of deaths. We are all victims of the bystander effect, standing by, watching souls dissolve. We need to stop sticking bandaids on all these problems and attack the underlying issues. HOW ABOUT SOME INITIATIVE?

Catharsis

At the end of a long day, everybody needs to wind down - especially after poring over copious amounts of global health readings. While some people may make their sojourn to various establishments of ill repute, we in the public health field know better. So here's a chance to get your jollies off in the realm of the interweb. Christmas came early this year as this game came my way from a colleague; and now, I share it with you. Indulge yourself in virtual subversiveness wreaking global havoc in the form of a virus built to your very own specifications. Face your fears of the next pandemic by becoming one with it! "If you know both yourself and your enemy, you will come out of one hundred battles with one hundred victories." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Hint: You must be surreptitious while maintaining infectivity to ensure that public transit will remain on, improving transmission.

Global Warming & Public Health

Recently in the media, there's been a bit of a hullabaloo regarding global warming. The world has suddenly turned to pessimism or has had an epiphany of sorts regarding our doom. It's even possible that the government is diverting our attention away from more pressing and sensitive issues, but let's ingore that to entertain the possibilities of the repercussions of global warming. Time magazine claims that "a blue-ribbon panel of scientists say it's [the presence of fecal matter on the fan is] official" (1/19/07). Regardless, global warming is more or less a contribution of globalization as a result of the rampant construction of factories, excessive urbanization, and immense combustion of fossil fuels in every crevice of this forsaken planet. And as with many aspects of globalization that we have studied, global warming must have its own set of repercussions on public health. Recently, we've had terrible heat waves, but how will this affect us in the future? Will asthma, COPD, emphysema, and lung cancer be the top global terrorists? So to add to the hullabaloo and drain the half empty glass, what are other implications of globalization induced global warming?

Of course, eventually, the earth may just become a giant sauna and obesity will melt itself to butter, then oblivion; but for now, let's play it safe and worry like hell.

It's a bird, it's a plane...it's H5N1!

I dragged myself to Blockbuster with the aspiration of fulfilling my weekend career as an overachieving couch potato by vegetating in front of Saw III or Employee of the Month, but that goal slowly dissipated when I laid my eyes on "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America." It definitely wasn't love at first sight, but Peter Parker's uncle's voice echoed through my head: With great power, comes great responsibility. And by some convoluted transitive property, this meant that as a peon - I mean, apprentice - of the public health trade, it would be my responsibility to tape my eyelids open and force the pleasures of this film upon myself. It was neither quite as original nor as terrifying as its predecessors such as 28 Days Later, Dawn of the Dead, and many more portraying the communicable nature of Zombie zombicus. Nevertheless, it was quite an insightful film that shed light on the reality of the magnitude of impact, lack of global preparation, speed of transmission, economic impacts, political tension, mayhem/anarchy, and various other complications and issues that come into play with the emergence of a pandemic.

In addition to some of the points we've already covered, other considerations we should take in to account and guidelines we should establish when planning for epidemics and pandemics should include:
- creating sanitation guidelines easy to implement (i.e. N95 masks, washing hands, etc.)
- preserving economies as well as national security
- ensuring communications (ARPANET part 2?)
- designating sites for the deceased and establish proper steps for transportation and burial
- ensuring sustenance and survival
- media control
- collaborating with other nations to establish realistic plans that will be executable under the most draconian conditions
- dividing communities/regions into small cells and establishing disaster leaders
- knowing available resources
- establishing emergency sites and command centers
- improving instant diagnostics and establishing barriers/quarantines
- constant reassessment!

In summary, what we have here is the need for a macrocosmic synergistic effort combining something along the lines of political game theory and global logistics that will be able to effectively go into action in every community around the globe. Thus, preparing for a pandemic requires a very open-minded, diplomatic, intersectional approach. In closing, I highly recommend this film - at the least for the insight into the logistical aspect of approaching a pandemic - and I would be more than happy to lend you my more than legitimate copy of this movie. *drivel over and out*

Preparing for the Avian Flu Pandemic

Globalization and Religion: The Implications for Health

My thoughts took a ride on the attention deficit line and I found myself pondering about this one, but couldn't find anything on it. Any thoughts?

International Disease Control

Time's Global Health Blog

Time has a wicked global health blog, reporting/commenting on the latest international health issues, progresses, challenges, policies, and so on. Enjoy!

Globalization is Good

Johan Norberg's take on globalization was absolutely an eye opening experience, and as a women's studies minor, I feel a wee bit qualified to comment on eye openers. Up to this point, I can probably safely say that I had been brainwashed regarding globalization and sweat shops. Of course I can't sit here, watch a few videos, and claim that globalization is perfect, but it definitely does have its benefits. While providing seemingly meager wages, sweatshops provide competitive market wages with regards to local and regional standards. Through the competition, globalization in this aspect promotes market efficiency. The video clip has also shed light on the various governments imposing restrictions on the growth of globalization and the consequent effects on the economies. By juxtaposing current prosperous nations to poor nations, at which level the prosperous nations were once at, Norberg demonstrates the potential for economic expansion in the poor nations avoiding globalization. Thus, we can see that it is in fact the governments that are responsible for the lack of economic growth by oppressing globalization which would result in competition, resulting in labor and wage growth. In the long run, such infusion would dramatically improve the economies of such countries.