Ronald J. Glasser, M.D. on the Collapse of Public Health
From “We are not immune: Influenza, SARS, and the collapse of public health” in the July 2004 Harper’s
A public-health system is only as strong as its weakest link; an epidemic enforces, in the most rigorous fashion, the American credo that all men are created equal. If we allow one segment of our society to suffer and perish from preventable disease, little stands in the way of collective doom. Yet today, 44 million people in the United States are without health insurance; those who can afford to pay for it generally receive inferior treatment, despite the fact that Americans spend $1.4 trillion annually for their health care. Public-health departments across the country have never recovered from decades of cutbacks, despite injections of funding in response to specific emergencies such as AIDS or the threat of bioterrorism. Purchases of newer and more reliable diagnostic-testing equipment have been deferred; technical staff and other employees needed to support epidemiologic and testing programs have been downsized; vital on-site bacteriological and viral laboratories have been closed and the testing outsourced to the lowest bidder or simply abandoned. State and local early-childhood services, prenatal care, immunization campaigns for the poor, alcohol-abuse and smoking-awareness campaigns, monitoring programs for lead and arsenic levels, as well as HIV/AIDS treatment programs, have been curtailed as health departments shift around available monies and reassign what few permanent staff members they have left in an attempt to keep the most critical programs in operation. Prevention becomes secondary to simply keeping people alive. Nor must we concern ourselves simply with the state of American public health; as distances collapse and human populations grow ever more mobile, so also new and deadly diseases (among them Ebola and the Marburg virus) find their way across deserts and oceans. AIDS took decades to escape its origins in central Africa; we should not expect the next simian retrovirus to take so long. SARS made its way from Asia to Toronto in a matter of weeks. [Read the rest of this article for free…]
“For several years, rights activists have recognised that closing Guantánamo is only half the battle. The next question is: where will the 241 remaining detainees go? One option is to send them home. However, more than 40% of the detainees are Yemeni, and negotiations between the US and Yemen to repatriate those prisoners have reached a ‘complete impasse.’ Yemen is combating an extremist insurgency already, and it is not keen to accept dozens more men who have been described as ‘jihadist foot soldiers.’ Moreover, approximately 60 detainees from various nations have said that they fear torture or abuse if sent home. In short, repatriation is no panacea.”
Shin Lim Kim alleges the leader of a church service on Aug. 11, 2008 asked her to catch another congregant ‘who was going to be “blessed” or who would be “slain in the spirit.”’ The leader then laid hands on Hyun Joo Yoon, who ‘fell backwards and began flailing, falling on and injuring plaintiff.’ The church was negligent, the complaint says, in not providing multiple catchers; failing to discuss ‘safe catching strategy’ with congregants; selecting Kim– ‘a small and not particularly strong person’– as a catcher; and failing to instruct congregants on ‘the correct procedures to fall, so that they would not injure themselves and injure the person assisting and/or catching them.’”
“Most centenarians attribute their great age to some magic elixir or other. The longevity of Dr Levi-Montalcini, the Italian scientist who last week became the first Nobel Prize-winner to reach the age of 100, might be the result of a potion that is a little out of the ordinary: Professor Levi-Montalcini puts her mental vigour down to regular doses of nerve growth factor (NGF)– the discovery that made her famous.” (via)
Huffington Post: Treat swine flu with an enema; CNN: Thousands dead of regular flu since January; why we scratch
When she received the invitation to attend her 10-year [high school] reunion… she hired Amy Bernadette “Cricket” Russell, whom she met at a Los Angeles strip club, to impersonate her. Cricket showed up in a slinky dress, fishnet hose and spike heels. As the drinks flowed, Cricket’s clothes came off, and Wachner watched from a hotel room above the event, linked to her impersonator via wireless radio, TV cameras and a monitor. Wachner coached Cricket through the night, telling her the names of people she met and providing her with little secrets that only Wachner and her former classmates would know. (via)
