http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/medical+health/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Tue, 06 Jun 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2657/drug_warriors_push_eye_eating_fungus/ On April 16, the New York Times ran a full-page ad from contact lens producer Bausch and Lomb, announcing the recall of its "ReNu with MoistureLoc" rewetting solution, and warning the 30 million American wearers of soft contact lenses about Fusarium keratitis. This infection, first detected in Asia, has rapidly spread across the United States. It is caused by a mold-like fungus that can penetrate the cornea of soft contact lens wearers, causing redness and pain that can lead to blindness--requiring a corneal replacement. That same week, the House of Representatives passed a provision to a bill requiring that the very same fungus be sprayed in "a major drug-producing country," such as Colombia. The bill's sponsor was Rep. Mark Souder… Drugs International Affairs Agriculture Medical and Health Akito Yoshikane Thu, 27 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2746/nurses_fight_to_retain_right_to_unionize/ When an organizer first talked to Kathy Haff three summers ago about joining a union, the veteran cardiac nurse at Chicago's Our Lady of Resurrection Hospital wanted to sign up immediately. "I wanted to improve our staffing, which is lousy," Haff says, complaining that the hospital managers assign too few nurses to care properly for the patients. "With a union, we'd have some say in what's going on. Often they change things without even asking us or running it by us to see if it's a good idea." But this summer, if the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules as many labor lawyers expect, Haff may be denied her rights under federal labor law to join a union. This is… Labor Medical and Health Akito Yoshikane Fri, 28 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2741/processing_pain_at_smithfield_foods/ Located in Tar Heel, N.C., the Smithfield Packing pork processing plant is the largest in the country. It employs 6,000 workers who work to slaughter 33 hogs a minute, 24 hours a day. In 2000, Human Rights Watch issued a report that chronicles how Smithfield Packing, Inc. abused workers during union elections held in 1994 and 1997. The report detailed other practices at the plant: According to union officials, approximately forty-five workers were bused into the plant each day from the Robeson Correctional Center, a state prison. They were bused into the plant premises without stopping to receive union flyers and boarded the bus at the same internal point so they could not receive flyers leaving the plant. Smithfield management… labor Medical and Health corruption Akito Yoshikane Tue, 29 Aug 2006 06:12:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2803/no_cause_for_celebration/ The big news out of Toronto, where 26,000 delegates met for the biennial AIDS conference in mid-August, was not the work of tens of thousands of activists, social workers, doctors and nurses who continue to challenge governments and serve and treat AIDS patients. Nor was it that 75 percent of those living (and dying) with HIV still have no access to life-saving treatment, or that indigenous art forms are now being used to educate youth across Asia and Africa about sexual health. No, on this sad 25th anniversary of AIDS, the media focused on the charity of Bill and Melinda Gates and the rise of Bill Clinton as self-proclaimed world AIDS czar. No wonder Canada's new conservative prime minister, Stephen… medical and health activism africa Akito Yoshikane Tue, 05 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2779/sick_to_death_of_bush/ Trust me, George Bush says, perched on the remains of Geneva Conventions, the Constitution and habeas corpus. From this moral high ground, the United States is assuring the world that a new facility for researching a horror shop of weaponized infectious diseases will be used purely for defensive purposes. The National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center's (NBACC) $128 million, 160,000-square-foot facility is under construction at Fort Detrick, Md. There, the United States has already weaponized more than a dozen diseases--including anthrax, plague, botulism and ebola--and bioengineered war-friendly "improvements." Scientists are also using DNA-synthesizing techniques to fabricate genetically altered or man-made viruses, and to study the feasibility of creating germ weapons targeting particular ethnicities. "De facto, we are going to make… war and peace government agencies medical and health Akito Yoshikane Fri, 08 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2812/corporal_punishment_hidden_costs/ An errant bullet hit the eye of a 12-year-old Chicago girl on August 27 but she survived. Earlier this year, stray bullets killed two girls in separate incidents in the city's Englewood neighborhood and triggered a flurry of activity designed to address the chronic violence hammering Chicago's inner-city neighborhoods. In black communities across the United States, concerned people are gathering with increasing urgency, seeking solutions to rising rates of violence. Let me add one suggestion that is not likely to be raised at any of these gatherings: Stop spanking your children. If the civil rights community began a movement to discourage corporal punishment among African-Americans, I believe it would do more to stem the tide of interpersonal violence than any… civil rights medical and health race Akito Yoshikane Tue, 26 Sep 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2832/end_medical_experimentation_on_prisoners_now/ One of the most powerful movies ever to be made about the Holocaust was the 2003 made-for-TV movie, Out of the Ashes, which highlighted the sickening crucible faced by medical professionals held captive in the Third Reich's torture-and-killing camps. Medical experimentation on Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) women was one of Dr. Josef Mengele's favorite forms of entertainment. In the movie, Dr. Gisella Perl (Christine Lahti) faces an ethical crisis when she is forced to comfort a young pregnant Roma woman and then stand by and watch as Mengele, the Angel of Death, marks up and slices open her stomach without the benefit of anesthesia. Mengele's sadistic detachment as he walks away from the remains of the dead woman and her… medical and health prisons Akito Yoshikane Tue, 21 Nov 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2905/corporate_secrecy_spreads_pharmafakes/ The suffering of millions could be eased by issuing public health warnings from available information that is currently kept confidential by the pharmaceutical industry," reporter Robert Cockburn told the Global Forum on Pharmaceutical Anti-Counterfeiting. The secrecy concerns the flood of pharmafakes that may comprise 50 percent of drugs in some developing countries and 10 percent worldwide. Some experts put the annual toll at 1 million dead and rising. But the real numbers are hidden. "Why does the [pharmaceutical] industry continue to shy away from developing the infrastructure needed to assess the size of the global problem?" asks PharmaManufacturing.com editor Agnes Shanley in a 2005 editorial. "The answer is simple: fears of bad publicity and impacts on stock prices." The building… Corporations Medical and Health Government: Administration Akito Yoshikane Thu, 23 Nov 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2893/the_e_coli_free_market/ Since the advent of giant industrial enterprises in the late 19th century, corporate capitalism in the United States has been defined by its use of economies of scale to increase profits--profits further enhanced by the die-off of those businesses unable to compete. Today, vast corporate enterprises--protected by a legal system that defines corporations as persons endowed with the same constitutional rights as flesh-and-blood people--control whole sectors of the U.S. economy, the three branches of government and the Fourth Estate (the mass media through which the public gets its information). The end result: an interconnected, self-reinforcing system of political power--Corporate America--that operates outside human control. (Of course, the machine is oiled by a class in thrall to their six, seven and… Corporations Environment Medical and Health Agriculture Akito Yoshikane Tue, 12 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2935/ct_scans_a_radioactive_risk/ My dentist and I have been bickering for decades. Steve advocates diagnostic X-rays; I argue that ionizing radiation, an established cancer risk, is not worth the benefit of catching a cavity early. Every couple of years, he threatens to dump me as a patient and I agree to a few X-rays after factoring in the benefits of his skill and his generous hand with the nitrous oxide. Our negotiations rest on conjoined principles of Western medicine: risk-benefit analysis and informed consent. But when it comes to the far greater risk of a "procedure performed more than 150,000 times a day in the United States...most consent forms are silent," notes Georgetown University's Adrian Fugh-Berman, in a report for the Hastings Center,… medical health technology Akito Yoshikane Tue, 12 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2936/the_skinny_on_thin/ At first, it's hard to know who to identify with in Thin, filmed over six months at the Renfrew Center, a residential facility devoted to treating eating disorders in southern Florida. Sallow and bony, the patients cry over cupcakes and denounce each new ounce of flesh as an affront to their rituals of control. Shivering in their backless hospital gowns, they resemble catwalk caricatures. Documentarian Lauren Greenfield captures staff slagging the women behind closed doors--calling one a "bad seed"--and forcing them into corny group sessions in which they must speak while holding an "integrity stick." But as the film wears on, a more complex picture emerges. The narrative hones in on the treatment paths of four patients: Shelly, 25, so… medical health movies Akito Yoshikane Fri, 15 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2940/seeing_red_about_thinking_pink/ Along with the traditional browns and tans of falling leaves and Thanksgiving turkeys, each autumn's colorscape now includes a jarring bubblegum pink. October marked the 24th year of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM), which is sponsored by the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation along with numerous other organizations, medical associations and government agencies. Breast cancer is the poster child for cause marketing: There is no other disease we try to eradicate by going shopping. Too often, however, the solution and the problem are commingled. Who can resist pink M&M's or Oreo cookies with little pink ribbons, for example? Never mind that junk food makes our bodies more vulnerable to disease. Estée Lauder donates money from the sale of its Elizabeth Pink… corporations gender medical health Akito Yoshikane Tue, 19 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2942/cholera_and_the_city/ At the midpoint of the 19th Century, many believed that London, a city with almost two and a half million people, was unsustainable. For two decades, cholera epidemics had ravaged London and other major cities in Europe, and prevailing wisdom held that by packing an unprecedented number of people into an area the size of Victorian London the spread of disease was inevitable. And they were right, sort of. In The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, Steven Johnson tells the story of London's cholera outbreak of 1854 and how two brilliant men solved the mystery of the deadly disease's spread. In the mid-19th century, a Londoner's life expectancy… books europe medical health Akito Yoshikane Tue, 09 Jan 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2967/iraqi_health_care_hostage_to_war/ Zainab may be one of the 655,000 Iraqis who would be alive today if the Bush administration hadn't launched its criminally conceived and executed war. Violence caused most of the excess deaths. But 54,000 people died from non-violent causes, such as heart disease, cancer and chronic illness. They were victims of a health care system eviscerated by mismanagement, ill-placed priorities, corruption and civil war. The body count does not come from the U.S. government--which either does not bother to track, or won't release, the Iraqi death toll--but from a survey by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Baghdad's Al Mustansiriya University, published in The Lancet. Four years ago, just before the invasion, Zainab, age 10, sat small… iraq war medical health Akito Yoshikane Tue, 27 Feb 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3057/hpv_vaccine_betting_on_a_mercky_record/ Merck launched its new cervical cancer vaccine with a major advertising and lobbying blitz, and pushed to make the drug mandatory for all 11- to 12- year-old girls. Cervical cancer, caused by the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV), affects 10,000 women in the United States every year, and kills 3,700. The toll is far greater in the developing world, where women lack diagnostic Pap tests. Gardasil may well be what Merck claims: a lifesaving vaccine that protects against key HPV strains without any significant side effects. Because the drug is most effective on unexposed populations, the FDA recommends vaccinating girls as young as nine -- before they are sexually active. Merck -- along with Women in Government (WIG), a recipient… drugs medical health Akito Yoshikane Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3059/the_health_care_monster_returns/ Like the creature from the Black Lagoon, the health insurance monster has returned, creeping back onto the public stage. After President Clinton's jury-rigged pen to contain the monster collapsed in 1994, it never really went away. Political leaders tried to ignore the beast or deal piecemeal with its ravages, but it pushed more unsuspecting civilians into the uninsured pit, devoured more family budgets, squeezed even giant corporations' ability to compete globally, and raised fear and insecurity among the populace. Now its depredations have become too loathsome to ignore for even cautious politicians and business executives -- who still are inclined to see the monster as one of their own. After a rebuff in the fall elections, when voters ranked health… medical health social services Akito Yoshikane Thu, 05 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3084/gardasil_iraqi_superbugs_radiation/ In These Times started running "Health & Science" in January 2006. Below are three updates. Gag me with a campaign Merck's force-it-down-consumers'-throats-campaign for Gardasil proved a powerful emetic. The new vaccine protects against two of the HPV strains that cause 70 percent of cervical cancers, but consumers gagged on making vaccination mandatory for all pre-teen girls. Exposure of short drug trials and long money trails forced Merck to kill its campaign to make middle school entry contingent on vaccination. Problems with process and tactics go deeper. According to FDA guidelines, its advisory committee members are "qualified experts with minimal conflicts of interest ... [who] provide FDA with independent advice." But at least two members of the FDA panel that approved… drugs medical health Akito Yoshikane Tue, 24 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3130/poisoning_pets_with_industrial_food/ In New York City's East Village, a string of Indian restaurants stretches side by side for a block along Sixth Street. The running joke is that tucked behind the row is one kitchen that dishes up the same food for all the restaurants. But while that model makes for urban myth on Sixth Street, it is nearer to corporate reality when it comes to pet foods. Until a few weeks ago, Americans might have been amused to imagine that--despite the varieties of colors and adorably shaped fishes, bones and jolly little stars--the multitudinous brands of major pet foods come from the same factory kitchen. However, a recall of possibly poisoned cat and dog food revealed that for three months ending… drugs medical health Akito Yoshikane Fri, 04 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3137/circumcision_promotion_divides_aids_activists/ The last time circumcision made headlines in New York City, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene was objecting to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish practice in which mohels--professional circumcisers--sucked blood out of the wounds of newly cut infants. After three babies contracted herpes, the city tried to ban the obscure ritual in 2005, provoking an angry response from the Orthodox community and a media dust-up. Now circumcision is news again in New York, but this time the city is promoting the practice. The April 5 New York Times reported that the city health department has decided to encourage male circumcision as an HIV-prevention method among at-risk populations, particularly gay and African-American men. The move comes after several clinical studies in… lgbt medical health Akito Yoshikane Tue, 29 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3189/not_by_spin_alone/ Listen to national Democrats and you'd think that when it comes to preserving legal abortion, the answer lies entirely in messaging, framing and spin. Since the Democrats' defeat in 2004, liberals have invested a mountain of money and time on recasting their message on abortion (among other things). Hillary Clinton now uses her husband's phrase about keeping abortion "safe, legal, and rare" and takes it one step further, calling abortion "sad, even tragic." At last month's Democratic presidential contenders' debate, Barack Obama cast his pro-choice plan as a commitment to a "culture of life." Likewise, many women's groups have gone from talking about liberation and rights to abstractions like "privacy" and "choice." NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League) changed… activism gender medical health Akito Yoshikane