Your kitchen fills up with smoke. Your immediate reactions are a) your meal is probably jeopardized and b) you should clear the air out before the smoke triggers the fire alarm. Although we regard smoke’s thick presence with agitation and a tad of disappointment, at least we have a signal that tells us that our […]
Tag: public health
Supervised Injection Sites Save Lives. Let’s Talk About It.
Our discourse on drug policy and addiction is often relegated to hyperbolized images of wayward teens, often racialized and targeted pictures of poor communities of color, dark alleys of anomy, shame, and fear, and the ever-present “Just Say No” platitude. At the heart of the discourse is the increasingly controversial subject of the creation of […]
Russia’s Losing Fight Against the Coronavirus
Much of the world is facing the beginnings of a post-pandemic world. While countries are starting to return to a semblance of normalcy given high vaccination rates, Russia is going into lockdown. The 25th of October marked a new somber milestone—what Russians refer to as “анти-рекорд” (anti-record)—of 37,930 cases in 24 hours. The day also […]
The Lasting Harms of Toxic Exposure in Native American Communities
“They never told us uranium was dangerous. We washed our faces in it. We drank in it. We ate in it. It was sweet,” explained Cecilia Joe, an 85-year-old Navajo woman, in a recent interview. Joe’s experience illustrates the under-researched but extremely pervasive problem of environmental injustice on Native American reservations. Due to decades of […]
A Yes to Vaccine Passports Means a Safer Return to Normalcy
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called it, “Biden’s mark of the beast” and a form of “corporate communism.” Weeks later, Rep. Madison Cawthorn compared it to the way Hitler required all Jews wear the Star of David band on their right arms. The executive order President Biden signed in January, which, among other measures aimed at […]
Everything You Need to Know About the COVID Vaccine: Part 2
It’s over in a second. A quick prick and then you’re done. You don’t feel any different in the moment, but that tiny shot has such far-reaching implications. It symbolizes the pandemic slowly grinding to a halt. For me, getting vaccinated was like finally being able to breathe fresh air after a year. It gave […]
A Death Sentence for a DUI — The Devastating Impact of the Pandemic in Prison
In March of 2020, as it became increasingly clear that COVID-19 would be a catastrophic threat to the United States, numerous criminal justice experts warned that the impending pandemic would have a devastating impact on correctional facilities and their surrounding communities. These early warnings proved to be prescient, as seven months later, amidst an unprecedented […]
Banning Wildlife Markets is a Good Start, But Not Enough to Prevent the Next Pandemic
Wildlife markets do pose a health risk, and authorities should permanently close them. However, if the world is truly dedicated to stopping future disease outbreaks, it must address larger issues.
What Gene-editing in China Reveals About Progress and Risk
On November 25, 2018, a Chinese researcher by the name of He Jiankui released a video of himself detailing the process through which he edited the genes of a set of twin girls. Against the backdrop of various scientific instruments and with a disarming smile, He reveals how his lab deleted the CCR5 gene in […]
The Talk of Toilets in India
Jaya, an educated college woman in India, falls in love with a man, Keshav, who has an incredibly superstitious family. She has to pretend to have two thumbs on her left hand in order to convince his dad to get them married. Despite the odd obstacles she went through in order to marry him, she […]