In recent years, the U.S. and the World Health Organization (WHO) have had a relationship that makes Hollywood breakups look tame. In 2020, President Donald Trump walked out, slamming the door on what he called a dysfunctional, China-biased bureaucracy. A year later, Biden rushed to patch things up, eager to restore American influence in global […]
Tag: health
Energy Drinks: Does this quick fix really come without strings?
Energy drinks feel like the perfect quick fix. After drinking one can of Bang, I feel equipped with enough energy to go on a run, take two midterms, and still spare power to go to the Cal-Stanford football game. It just doesn’t seem like drinking one cup of coffee can give me the equivalent feeling […]
Who Calls the Shots?: Vaccine Inequity in Africa
Vaccine scarcity. Vaccine famine. Vaccine apartheid. An indictment on humanity. In whatever colorful language it is couched, the conclusion is the same: Africa is not getting vaccinated, and something needs to be done. Since Africa announced its first confirmed case of COVID-19 in February of last year, the pandemic has broken over the continent in […]
Coronavirus Vaccine Development: Urgency and Dilemma
The space of COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic development is crowded in 2020. As these companies race to the finish line of research and development, the problem of drug discovery and distribution has been politicized. This has subjected some companies to tighter development deadlines due to political pressure while others find their work prematurely disclosed and […]
Trump’s Misinformation Plague
How providing anti-vaccination proponents with a platform sidelines the greater discussion to be had regarding autism research “Vaccines worked so well… that people have forgotten the agony of infectious disease.” Kathryn Edwards, the chair of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University, made this remark concerning humanity’s unfortunate amnesia about the destruction of life wreaked by diseases throughout […]
Singapore’s Challenge to Democracy
Henry Kissinger, the great American statesman of the 70’s, once wrote, “One of the asymmetries of history, is the lack of correspondence between the abilities of some leaders and the power of their countries.” But whom was Kissinger bestowing this rather grandiose compliment to? It was Lee Kuan Yew, a close confidant and friend of […]
The Viral Consequences: Pakistan’s Polio Crisis
With the world focusing on the Ebola outbreak ravaging through West Africa, it is easy to overlook an equally dangerous disease lurking behind global headlines: polio. Polio, a highly infectious disease that can cause irreversible paralysis in children, is entirely preventable if young children are frequently given vaccines. Hundreds of thousands of children in the […]