Public Health

Russell Mokhiber: Why Should W.Va. Help Coca-Cola Peddle Obesity?

September 7, 2015 Russell Mohkiber, www.wvgazettemail.com Organize! Coca Cola, Public Health, West Virginia

By Russell Mohkiber in West Virginia Gazette Mail - The West Virginia School of Public Health Should be taking the lead. Instead, according to a report in the New York Times last month, “Coca-Cola Funds Scientists Who Shift Blame for Obesity Away From Bad Diets,” Coca-Cola has given money to Dr. Gregory Hand, now the dean of the West Virginia School of Public Health, to fund a non-profit group — the Global Energy Balance Network — to promote the view that “weight-conscious Americans are overly fixated on how much they eat and drink while not paying enough attention to exercise.” Health experts contend that Coke is “using the new group to convince the public that physical activity can offset a bad diet despite evidence that exercise has only minimal impact on weight compared with what people consume,” the Times reported.

Lebanon – What If It Fell?

August 31, 2015 Andre Vltchek, www.informationclearinghouse.info Educate! Lebanon, Protest, Public Health

By Andre Vltchek in Information Clearing House - 24 hours after the concert, a crowd clashed with the Lebanese security forces in the center of Beirut, near the government palace. Dozens were injured and on 24 August, it was reported that one person died in the hospital. The “You stink” movement first organized the protests. Thousands of people hit the streets in response to an ongoing garbage crisis, which, according to many, has made the already difficult life in Beirut almost unbearable. “You Stink”! For 18 years, the government was unable (or unwilling) to build a permanent garbage-recycling site. For 18 years, poor villagers near the “provisory” garbage dumping grounds were suffering, getting poisoned, dying from unusually high level of cancer and from respiratory diseases. Then, finally, they said “Halas! Enough.”

Spate Of Oil Field Deaths Prompts Study Of Workplace Hazards

August 27, 2015 Jennifer Golan, www.revealnews.org Educate! Oil & Gas, Public Health, Worker Rights and Jobs

The oil boom in North Dakota and elsewhere has helped the U.S. become the world’s leading energy provider and has captured the attention of Hollywood producers. It also has claimed the lives of dozens of oil field workers. Now, that fallout from the boom is drawing renewed attention from government scientists. In the largest study of its kind, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which investigates the causes of workplace health problems, said it intends to examine the factors that cause injuries and accidents in the oil fields in an effort to improve safety. Scientists from the institute will distribute questionnaires starting next year to 500 oil field workers in North Dakota, Texas and one other state that will be determined in the coming months.

Hawaii’s Spike In Birth Defects Puts Focus On GM Crops

August 24, 2015 Christopher Pala, www.theguardian.com Educate! Environment, Hawaii, Pesticides, Public Health

By Christopher Pala in The Guardian - In Kauai, chemical companies Dow, BASF, Syngenta and DuPont spray 17 times more pesticide per acre (mostly herbicides, along with insecticides and fungicides) than on ordinary cornfields in the US mainland, according to the most detailed study of the sector, by the Center for Food Safety. That’s because they are precisely testing the strain’s resistance to herbicides that kill other plants. About a fourth of the total are called Restricted Use Pesticidesbecause of their harmfulness. Just in Kauai, 18 tons – mostly atrazine, paraquat (both banned in Europe) and chlorpyrifos – were applied in 2012. The World Health Organization this year announced that glyphosate, sold as Roundup, the most common of the non-restricted herbicides, is “probably carcinogenic in humans”.

Study: Fracking In The Delaware River Basin Would Threaten Health Of 45,000

August 13, 2015 Natasha Geiling, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Delaware River, Environment, Fracking, Public Health, Study

By Natasha Geiling in Think Progress - Encompassing the longest free-flowing river in the eastern United States, the Delaware River Basin also happens to sit partially on top of the Marcellus Shale, the second largest gas field in the world. To date, a moratorium put in place by the Delaware River Basin Commission has kept gas companies out of the Delaware River Basin — but environmental groups worry that without a permanent ban, the basin could be opened to fracking at a moment’s notice. Now, a new study seeks, for the first time, to quantify the environmental impact of opening the Delaware River Basin to fracking — and what natural gas extraction could mean for the communities that call the region home. The Delaware River, which begins its flow from springs tucked away in New York’s Catskill Mountains, winds for nearly 400 miles before emptying into the Delaware Bay and, eventually, the Atlantic Ocean.

Push For Healthcare Justice As Medicare Turns 50

August 5, 2015 John Zangas, www.dcmediagroup.us Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Public Health

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passage of Medicare, advocates for universal healthcare rallied at the Lincoln Memorial, saying that the private insurance industry is raising costs for millions of Americans while worsening the quality of care. Key speakers included Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate, Dr. Robert Zarr, M.D., president of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Dr. Margaret Flowers, co-founder of Popular Resistance. Since privatization of U.S. healthcare accelerated in the 1980s, millions have been left without care. Even under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), over 30 million remain uninsured. And for those with insurance, high medical costs are linked to sixty-two percent of all personal bankruptcies.

Celebrate Medicare’s Anniversary By Improving & Expanding To All

July 31, 2015 Robert Zarr, www.pnhp.org Educate! Health Care, Medicare, Public Health

By Robert Zarr in PNHP - Medicare was originally conceived as a first step toward covering everyone in our society under a national health insurance program. We need to fulfill Medicare’s promise. We need an improved Medicare for All, a national single-payer health care system, to efficiently and equitably cover everyone in the United States. Today the original Medicare program stands like a rock in a troubled sea of waste, inefficiency and profiteering in the rest of our health care system, dominated as it is by big private insurers whose paramount goal is to maximize their bottom lines. Commercial insurers increase their bottom lines by enrolling the healthy, avoiding the sick, denying claims, increasing premiums, and erecting barriers to care like co-pays, high deductibles, bureaucratic thickets, and narrow networks.

Medicare’s 50th Birthday Celebrated Across Nation

July 31, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Create! Health Care, Medicare, Public Health

By Sarah Lazare in Common Dreams - From California to Florida to Maine, communities in 25 cities across the United States are staging rallies, picnics, and flash mobs this week to celebrate Thursday's 50th anniversary of Medicare—and call for its expansion into a system that provides publicly-funded healthcare for all. "It is urgent that we continue organizing for the right to healthcare by fighting efforts to roll back or privatize Medicare and joining with movements around the country to establish a publicly-financed healthcare system that includes all people," Ellen Schwartz, president of the Vermont Workers' Center, told Common Dreams. The nationwide actions marking President Lyndon B. Johnson's July 30, 1965 signing of the bill that created Medicare were organized by a broad array5 of organizations including Physicians for a National Health Program, Alliance for Retired Americans, National Nurses United (NNU), and Public Citizen.

Celebrate Medicare’s 50th Birthday By Expanding It To All

July 30, 2015 Garrett Adams, www.pnhp.org Educate! Medicare, Physicians, Public Health

By Garrett Adams in PNHP - The nation has a lot to celebrate when Medicare turns 50 on July 30. Medicare has brought care and dignity to millions of seniors, relieving their suffering and extending their lives. Before President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in Independence, Missouri, in 1965, only about half of those over 65 had health insurance. In the 50 years since then, life expectancy has risen by more than nine years to a little over 79 years. Medicare ended segregation in our country’s hospitals when federal reimbursements for patient care were made contingent on ending discrimination. Within a few months the walls tumbled in the face of sound public policy and financing based on social justice. Today, Medicare covers about 17 percent of our population, over 55 million people, including those other than the elderly whom the private insurance industry has abandoned – the permanently disabled and those on dialysis from kidney failure.

Obamacare? Wall St. Suddenly Scrambles To Buy Doctors

July 29, 2015 Wolf Ritcher, www.wolfstreet.com Educate! ACA, Capitalism, Insurance, Medicine, Obamacare, Public Health

By Wolf Ritcher in Wolf Street - For PE firms, the fracking boom was nirvana. An eternal-growth industry. A big part of the money they poured into the scrappy oil & gas companies is now going up in smoke. Other industries are mired in a no-growth or shrinking environment. Chaos keeps breaking out in the international markets, most recently over Greece and China. So, healthcare, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of US GDP, “is really the growth opportunity,” Tom Banning, CEO of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, told The Texas Tribune: “The forces are aligned to force consolidation, and frankly, how those independent doctors are able to compete against well-heeled, deep-pocketed systems or networks is going to be a problem,” Banning said. “

How The Criminalization Of The Queer Community Affects Us All

July 29, 2015 Andrew Extein, www.centerforsexualjustice.org Educate! Criminal Justice, Law, police brutality, Public Health, Queer, Sexual Violence

By Andrew Extein in Center For Sexual Justice - Sexual minorities, including queer and LGBT people, face many obstacles when navigating the criminal justice system. One especially difficult challenge is the treatment of sex within the legal system. Sex crimes and sex laws have had far-reaching repercussions, and queer people often find themselves targeted. There is a long, well-documented history of law enforcement entrapping queer people in prostitution busts and gay cruising stings. HIV status is increasingly criminalized nationwide. Trans* folk are harassed and singled out by law enforcement. Queer people are more likely to be targeted for civil commitment. Current sex laws ignore the needs and realities of queer youth, while seeking to criminalize their unique experiences. In jails and prisons, queer people, especially youth, are extremely vulnerable, often the focus of sexual and physical abuse by inmates, guards, and staff.

100+ Doctors Tell Big Pharma To Not Make Cancer Drugs So Expensive

July 28, 2015 Tara Culp-Ressler, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Cancer, Inequality, Medicine, Public Health

By Tara Culp-Ressler in Think Progress - The pressure is mounting on pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices for lifesaving drugs, as a group of more than 100 prominent oncologists is calling for grassroots solutions to the skyrocketing cost of cancer treatment. In an editorial published on Thursday in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 118 doctors from top hospitals around the country argue that up to 20 percent of cancer patients don’t follow their recommended treatment regimen because they’re being priced out of the drugs they need. The oncologists say this financial burden puts sick Americans in an untenable situation as they’re fighting for their lives. “It’s time for patients and their physicians to call for change,” Dr. Ayalew Tefferi, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and the lead author of the paper, concluded.

Chicago Activists Fight For Survival

July 23, 2015 Maya Dukmasova, www.truth-out.org Resist! Inequality, Poverty, Public Health, University, Violence

By Maya Dukmasova in Truthout - On the first Wednesday in June, nine Chicago activists were arrested for occupying an administration building at the University of Chicago during an annual alumni reunion. They demanded to meet with Rob Zimmer, the president of the university, to discuss the lack of a Level 1 trauma center on the South Side, as hundreds of big donors were poised to arrive on campus. Two and a half hours later, firefighters cut a hole through the wall and the nine were detained by university police. In the previous month, nine other demonstrators for a South Side trauma center had been arrested during a march on Michigan Avenue. Currently, all four of Chicago's adult trauma centers are located on the North and West sides of the city, leaving almost a fifth of city residents and large swaths of the South Side without a trauma center within a 5-mile radius.

3 Senior Officials Lose Their Jobs After Torture Scandal

July 16, 2015 Spencer Ackerman, www.theguardian.com Resist! American Psychological Association, Criminal Justice, Law, Psychology, Public Health, Torture

By Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian - The torture scandal consuming the US’s premiere professional association of psychologists has cost three senior officials their jobs, part of a reckoning that reformers hope will lead to criminal prosecutions. As the American Psychological Association copes with the damage reaped by an independent investigation that found it complicit in US torture, the group announced on Tuesday that its chief executive officer, its deputy CEO and its communications chief are no longer with the APA. All three were implicated in the 542-page report issued this month by former federal prosecutor David Hoffman, who concluded that APA leaders “colluded” with the US department of defense and aided the CIA in loosening professional ethics and other guidelines to permit psychologist participation in torture.

Book Review: A Practical Guide To Tackling Factory Hazards

July 13, 2015 Kim Scipes, www.labornotes.org Create! Book Review, Public Health, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Kim Scipes in Labor Notes - For plenty of workers, health and safety is about as boring a subject as there is. They don’t want to hear about this “crap,” many will say—they just want to get the job done. Yet health and safety issues are as important as it gets, and a new book argues that organizers can use them to build power on the shop floor to “encourage” bosses to do the right thing. “The most important product of any factory,” the authors argue, “is the health and safety of its workers.” Production schedules and profits should come second. The comprehensive Workers’ Guide to Health and Safety, published in May, is based on 10 years of work. It’s been field-tested by workers in a number of countries. This book shows how to advance workplace health and safety from a worker-centered, pro-union, organizing perspective.

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