Mercury in my High Fructose Corn Syrup? April 24, 2009
Posted by Noor Osman in Environmental Health.add a comment
I’d like to give kudos to the Washington Post for their fairly well balanced evaluation of the mercury contamination of High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). (more…)
You Taught Us Something, Kitty Genovese April 1, 2009
Posted by Nalini Padmanabhan in Mental Health.1 comment so far
Anyone who’s ever taken a psychology class would be able to tell the story of Kitty Genovese and the societal observation it gave birth to, known as the Genovese effect or the bystander effect. Her story is not easily forgotten. According to Michael Dorman of NewsDay, her 1964 murder in Queens – witnessed by 38 neighbors, none of whom acted to help her – became “a symbol of Americans’ failure to get involved.” Two weeks after the murder, the New York Times’ Martin Gansberg described that failure to get involved as an example of the callousness and apathy of the big-city environment.
But why am I writing about this today? Today, on my way home in my own big-city environment, my mind occupied by trivialities like my upcoming thesis, I saw the Genovese effect proven wrong. (more…)
Feds Use Social Media for Peanut Recall Outreach March 2, 2009
Posted by Brandi Hight in Health Communications & Marketing.add a comment
Amid the rancor over the salmonella outbreak among 2,000+ recalled products produced by the Peanut Corp. of America (a few weeks back I wrote about the outbreak and the need to revamp the nation’s food safety system), federal health officials are using the recall as a test case to improve their communications outreach with social media tools. These applications (such as blogs, social networking websites, mobile applications) are being used to inform consumer and agency partners of when new products are added to the recall list and to disseminate legitimate info to an increasingly wired society.
What about my peanut butter? March 2, 2009
Posted by Noor Osman in Environmental Health, Global Health.Tags: peanut butter
1 comment so far
I feel that as an American, I am often outraged at slips in our system, for example, the recent contamination of a particular brand of peanut butter by salmonella. However, I recently learned some information that managed put my outrage into perspective. (more…)
HFCS and Mercury in the News March 2, 2009
Posted by Amal Rammah in Environmental Health.add a comment
Last January, an article in the Washington Post reported findings from two different research studies of high Mercury levels in High fructose Corn syrup (HFCS) and HFCS-containing food products. One of the studies was a research publication in the Environmental Health journal and the other a report published by the non-profit watchdog group, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP).
The Post article lays out the background for the HFCS products and Americans’ consumption of the sugar substitute with sufficient detail, yet it fails to highlight the important connection between HFCS and Mercury, choosing to merely report on the recent research findings and quote one of the author’s statement that
“Mercury is toxic in all its forms.”
Polio Gets Screen Time February 26, 2009
Posted by yostliketoast in Global Health.1 comment so far
A recent CNN article shed light on an important and often overlooked issue, polio eradication. The article describes an Oscar nominated documentary entitled, “The Final Inch” which explores
“the final stages of a 20 year initiative.”
A producer for the film states that the main goal of the documentary was to bring polio to the forefront of peoples minds stating that,
“ordinary American people have forgotten polio.”
Although I was excited to see that the issue to polio eradication was receiving new attention from the mainstream media, I thought the article did a poor job on explaining how and why polio remains a problem today.
The Chrianna Crisis:Let’s Take A Deeper Look February 26, 2009
Posted by Bobbett Plummer in Blogging, Mental Health, Prevention.2 comments
Everyone who watches the news or listens to the radio has heard about Chris Brown and Rihanna (aka Chrianna). On Sunday, February 7th, 2009, following Clive Davis’ Grammy Party, the pop-superstars got into a physical altercation. Chris will be 20 years old in May and Rihanna recently turned 21 on February 20th. Their story has remained at the forefront of news and gossip columns. Yet, the media has failed to highlight the occurrence of teen and tween domestic violence. Tween is a relatively new term that describes adolescents between the ages of 11-14. Chris and Rihanna are not that much older than the teens and tweens who adore them. (more…)
Health People 2010 – Chlamydia incidence far off the mark February 23, 2009
Posted by Katy Roberson in Prevention.add a comment
Healthy People 2010, launched in January 2000 by the Department of Health and Human Services, is a national agenda for the health promotion and disease prevention. The objectives are meant to serve as a framework for improving the health of Americans over ten years. During the first decade of the 21st century, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has and continues to be responsible for monitoring the progress toward the 2010 targets for each of the 467 objectives. This data is made available by the NCHS in DATA2010, the Healthy People 2010 database.
Taking a look at the database I noticed an alarming lack of change. Cases of chlamydia among women 15-24 years old have increased since baseline measurements in 1998 until the most recent measurements in 2004. What makes this increase more alarming are concurrent increases in responsible adolescent sexual behavior and increased use of condoms. Responsible sexual behavior includes students (grades 9-12) who never had sexual intercourse and students who had sexual intercourse but not in the past 3 months. Increases in condom use were shown among 18 to 24 year old women reporting partner condom use. It goes without saying that we are far from the 2010 target for cases of chlamydia. If behaviors identified as indicators for improving health outcomes are not affecting outcomes, what behaviors should we be targeting?
New York Times Chronicles Movement to Ban Trans Fat February 23, 2009
Posted by Anna Dillingham in Prevention, Uncategorized.Tags: Obesity
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In a recent New York Times article, Stacey Stowe reports that Suffolk is the latest county to ban the use of trans fats in restaurants. The legislation also requires restaurants to include calorie information on menus. Suffolk County, NY joins a growing list of local governments that have taken similar action in an effort to fight rising obesity rates. (more…)
