Wednesday August 3, 2016

August 2, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 3, 2016

With Zika outbreak in Florida, Congress plays political games

The Centers for Disease Control did a remarkable thing Monday. For the first time in its history, it issued a travel warning over health conditions in the continental United States. What led the federal medical experts to take such a step? Local transmission of the Zika virus in the Wynwood neighborhood of Miami.

June 30, 2016

The warning is straightforward. Among the precautions: Pregnant women should avoid the area. The transmission, health officials say, was likely via mosquito, while most of the previous mainland U.S. cases were linked to travel to Latin America or Puerto Rico, where the virus is more prevalent, or to having unprotected sex with an infected person.

That the virus is now mosquito-borne in the U.S. is alarming enough. Worse, six of the 10 newly discovered cases were people who had no symptoms — they were discovered during a door-to-door canvass conducted by the Florida health department.

Contrast the CDC’s response with that of Congress, which so far has done little more than play politics with the health and lives of Americans. The Obama administration sought $1.9 billion from Congress to combat the spread of the virus and to develop a vaccine, among other responses.

By the time congressional Republicans were down with it, the budget was whittled down to $1.1 billion, and included money set aside to fight the Ebola virus. They they also added some poison pills, including restrictions on access to birth control as part of their continuing attack on Planned Parenthood, and loosening some environmentally necessary guidelines on pesticide use.

So Democrats in the Senate blocked the measure and everyone went on holiday. Meanwhile, the Obama administration redirected more than $500 million to the fight against Zika, and has already spent about half of that. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

Thursday June 30, 2016

June 29, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 30, 2016

Stephen Colbert: Rio Olympics Are ‘Massive Catastrophe’

With the Summer Olympics in complete disarray, Stephen Colbert examined the mess in Rio: “I am pumped for the Rio games. They are less than two months away … or never,” Colbert said.

July 27, 2012

Just yesterday, Rio’s acting governor warned ‘The Olympics could be a big failure,’ which is actually an improvement because until yesterday, it looked like a massive catastrophe,” Colbert said.

“The Olympics are in real trouble: Many of the venues are still unfinished, possibly because over $10 billion dollars in construction contracts went to just five firms, all of which are already under investigation for price fixing and kickbacks, and this has already led to top executives being jailed or charged. Though on the plus side for those executives, the prisons won’t be completed until 2036.”

Colbert also pointed to Brazil’s ballooning violent crime rate and a police force strapped by budget shortfalls as reasons why this year’s Olympics could be a nightmare.

“But corruption and crime aren’t the only thing plaguing the Olympics: There is also actual plague,” Colbert said. “Because fear over the Zika virus, which can cause birth defects, has led some athletes to stay home, and others to take special precautions like freezing their sperm.”

Colbert then added some more reasons why the Rio Olympics might be doomed, from a heavily polluted Guanabara Bay, the site of some racing events, to the jaguar that was killed at an Olympics torch ceremony. “I believe that species of jaguar was the Spotted South American Metaphor,” Colbert said. (Source: Rolling Stone)

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

October 14, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Ebola vs. Flu

If you go by media coverage and public sentiment, the most important public-health problem in the United States right now is Ebola. Though the virus has infected only two people here, a recent poll found that forty per cent of Americans see Ebola as a “major or moderate threat” to public health, as Michael Specter points out in this week’s Comment. Meanwhile, over the past month, another infectious disease, Enterovirus D68, has made its way into the headlines. The virus causes respiratory problems, often severe, in children, and, in rare cases, kids infected with the virus have come down with muscle paralysis (it’s still not known whether the virus is actually causing the paralysis). So far, almost six hundred children, in forty-five states, have been infected by the virus, and though most have recovered quickly, five have died. Anxiety among parents has grown so much that some now wonder if we’ve been worrying too much about Ebola, and not enough about enterovirus.

In reality, we’re worrying too much about both Ebola and EV-D68, and too little about an infectious disease that is much more likely to inflict serious damage on the U.S. I’m talking, of course, about the flu. We know, based on past experience, that the upcoming flu season will kill thousands of Americans and send hundreds of thousands to the hospital. Yet the press seems relatively diffident about raising an alarm about this threat; its flu coverage has none of the high-pitched anxiety that suffuses writing about Ebola or EV-D68. EV-D68 has provoked headlines like “How Well is Sacramento Prepared for Ebola, Enterovirus Outbreak?” and “What Scares You More—Enterovirus D-68 or Ebola?” No one is asking “What Scares You More: Ebola or the Flu? (Continued: The New Yorker)

Friday, October 3, 2014

October 2, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday, October 3, 2014

On The Alert For Ebola, Texas Hospital Still Missed First Case

Hospitals have been on the lookout for the Ebola virus in the United States, and Texas Health Presbyterian in Dallas was no exception. A nurse there did ask about the travel history of the patient who later turned out to be infected with the virus. But some members of the medical team didn’t hear that the man had recently been in West Africa. So he was initially sent home — even though he was experiencing symptoms of Ebola, and that meant he was contagious.

“As a result,” says Mark Lester of Texas Health Resources, the hospital’s parent company, “the full import of that information wasn’t factored into the clinical decision-making.”

When the man returned two days later, by ambulance, hospital staffers finally realized what they might be dealing with.

The patient is now in isolation and being treated, while public health workers are tracking and monitoring anyone who had close contact with him.

Edward Goodman, hospital epidemiologist at Texas Health Presbyterian, said government officials have recently been bombarding hospitals with information on how to properly screen and isolate patients.

Just last week, in fact, a team at his hospital had a meeting to go over a special checklist sent out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We were prepared,” Goodman said.

Despite that preparation, they missed it. (Source: NPR)