Harvard World Health News - AIDS, Malaria, Seafood, and Heat Wave deaths

[brdgt]

Harvard World Health News - Highlights:

Study Debunks Myth of How Well Africans Follow AIDS Regimens
Erin Cline (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 9, 2006)
"Contradicting the perception that AIDS drug regimens are too complicated to be effective in Africa, an international study has found that sub-Saharan Africans are better at taking their drugs than North Americans." Free registration required.


Age-Old Malaria Mystery Solved by Researchers
Kounteya Sinha (The Times of India, Aug. 8, 2006)
"Scientists from Germany and France have jointly cracked an age old mystery -- how do malaria parasites avoid the human immune system to move from the liver to the red blood cells and then cause cells to burst, resulting in classic symptoms of malaria, chills and fever?"


Sorting Seafood's Benefits From Risks
Sally Squires (The Washington Post, Aug. 8, 2006)
"The health advantages of eating seafood are sufficiently clear that the U.S. Dietary Guidelines, the American Heart Association, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recommend fish for at least two meals a week (unless it's deep-fried). But concerns about mercury and other potential risks continue to muddy the waters." Free registration required.


New York City: Heat Deaths Rise to 22, and City Checks Emergency Plans
Emily Vasquez and Sewell Chan (The New York Times, Aug. 7, 2006)
"The number of deaths attributed to last week’s sweltering weather rose to 22 yesterday, and the mayor said the city would study how it could prevent such deaths in future heat waves." Free registration required.

Comments

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

The fish concern is pretty big for me. I'd like to keep eating it, but especially as a pre-pregnant (ha!) woman I'm concerned.

It's going to be increasingly difficult to prevent heat deaths in urban heat islands like NY. They're already also having major power concerns with the draw on electricity.

I just started a really interetesting fiction you'd like - it's about cholera in Egypt in the 19th century. It's Anne Roiphe's An Imperfect Lens. I'll review it someday, but I had to share.

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

Public health officials seem pretty sure that the benefits outweigh the dangers. I'm not going to start eating fish out of Lake Mendota or anything, but I feel comfortable with Salmon and Tuna. Plus - the government may think I'm pre-pregnant, but as I never plan on going through that I have less concerns!

New York should really look to Chicago. After their 1995 heat wave, they really got their act together and are seen as a model for heat wave reaction. I could go on and on about heat waves, like I did, here:
http://brdgt.livejournal.com/673533.html

I'll check that book out - but just a warning, it might be a busman's holiday for me! When I read fiction about disease I tend to lean toward disease as a metaphor, like The Plague or Blindness.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about reading related research- related fiction...what I like is this so far an incredbly inflinching and yet somehow very literary depiction of cholera, and the author obviously did her research. My field has less fiction, and I was really disappointed with Clan of the Cave Bear. :(

[brdgt.livejournal.com]

In a way - it's the carefully researched ones that I really don't care for! If I want to read that I'll read a non-fiction account. It's one of the reasons I hated Quicksilver so much.

[antarcticlust.livejournal.com]

Maybe you SHOULD read Year of Wonders... :) It's second in line in my review queue, right after Intuition by Allegra Goodman, which I loved. It was all about falsifying research in Academia, but it took place in a cancer research lab, so I felt that it was familiar enough to relate but not so familiar that it was like being at work at home!