Student SPHere

Winter break. Winter break. Winter break.
It's been super so far. This last weekend was the first weekend in a long while that I after I woke up late, I read for a little while (a 'fun' book), felt a little heavy in the eyelid and just went back to sleep, without even getting out of bed. It was pretty fantastic. I really do plan on reading Lauire Garrett's 'Betrayal or Trust' (one of our books for Foundations of Public Health) from start to finish this break. It was really that interesting that I want to read the whole thing. However, I'm not going to lie. I will read it someday, but after I finish the book I'm currently reading, I'll probably just watch a lot of tv. I have many, many esisodes of all kinds of things to catch up on from Netflix. Right now, I'm watching Season 2 of Rome. It's so, so good.
I went back to St. Louis for X-mas which is always fun. My brother's finally 21 so he came out with me. He's the coolest guy I know. My biggest fear is driving in the snow but fortunately my route didn't hit any bad weather unlike the trek from here to Wisconsin. For those of you considering moving from temperate climates, beware of the scary snow drives.
And I made a big decision last week. I have decided to do my first marathon. I've only been running again for the last 8-9 months and I certainly don't have any really long runs under my belt but I'm up for the challenge! There's a really great website that had training suggestions I'm glad I've read. I would have gone about training all the wrong ways. The longest run it suggests before the marathon is "only" 20 miles. I would have thought I would have wanted to make sure I could do the whole thing a few times before attempting to run one. But hey, Hal Higdon knows way more than me. Here's the public health part- my coworkers and I are all motivating each other and two other ladies are going to train with me. And we've signed up for 5K's and duathalons and stuff to keep us on track. I'm pretty exctied. I've never gotten high before from a sporting good store but now I think I will salivate over new running shoes that will help ward off shin splints and really nice sports bras.
I'll keep you posted as I will probably be whining about sore legs.

Posted by Juliet Massie at 02:13 PM
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Hi everyone! I am ALL done with finals and papers and classes! YEAH! My finals this semester were by far the hardest I've EVER taken - one of the finals ended up with a class average score of 65%! OUCH! To celebrate (and as part of a lingering birthday present), I went to the Nutcracker Fantasy last night at the State Theatre in Minneapolis. IT WAS AMAZING! We started with dinner at the Capital Grille, which is right next door. The prices were fairly steep but the food and service were incredible.... I'd go back again in a heartbeat. Back to the show...WOW! I love the Nutcracker music and dancing and seeing the show yet again reaffirmed why it is my favorite. This was a (mostly) local production and let me say that Minnesota has some great dancers.

As for the rest of break, I plan on doing a whole lot of nothing. I'm heading home to Wisconsin today for the holidays and plan to return early next week and not move from my bed for a few days. I've found this semester to be particularly hard to "unwind" from and so hopefully my brain will starting turning off in the next few days here. That could be a good thing though, at least through the weekend, because I'm still very far behind on Christmas shopping! My problem is that I see the mall parking lot and people running around and just turn right back around! Somehow I don't think my family will appreciate that as an excuse for no presents.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend and break, talk to you soon!

Posted by Rachel Isaksson at 09:36 AM
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Well I have just scarfed down my victory Chipotle Burrito lunch after I finished my final final, Health Care Economics (what a way to end it). I gotta admit this was one of the more challenging final weeks I've had in my entire collegiate career. It all ended with a 26 page paper, a 12 page paper, a 6 page paper, and an exam in each of my most challenging classes (Finance and Economics) 2 days apart from each other. But hey, that makes it all the more enjoyable to be done with. Just some TA work and I am done with the semester!
Tonight we are going out in downtown Minneapolis to celebrate one of my friend's and colleague's graduation from the program (her second master's no less). Should be a good time to kick back with my friends before we all head our separate ways for the highly anticipated holiday break.
In reflecting upon this semester I have been satisfied with the way it went. Those of you who are close to me probably heard me moan and groan throughout different points of it all. I feel that all the classes had some important lessons to offer, some more than others but I think I will be using all of the skills I learned this semester at some point in my public health career.
In the immediate future waits a trip home to Wisconsin to spend time with my family and my dogs (I mean my pets, not my 'dawgs' like you know, my posse) and some old friends. We'll celebrate Christmas at home and then I'll fly to Ohio for a week to see some college buddies and one of my past roomates who is getting married, not to mention New Years Eve together with a bunch of great people. After a little more relaxation time in Wisconsin I'll make my way back to the Twin Cities.
Further on the horizon lies just one more semester before graduation. Three brand new classes to partake in. It also includes the bulk of my master's project which is very exciting. I can almost see myself doing my final presentation in May. Just 12 more credits to complete and one project to attend to. My Grandfather Fred would always say the same thing in such a scenario:
"What did the monkey say when he got his tail stuck in the lawnmower?"
"Won't be long now!"
Happy Holidays to you all and see you around the blog.

Posted by Evan Cole at 12:49 PM
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Christie Martin is almost finished!

Christie is grateful for facebook to keep her sane.

Entertainment of the week:

Chang Mai Thai
3001 Hennepin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55408612.827.1606
http://www.chiangmaithai.com/

Chino Latino
2916 Hennepin Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55408
612.824.7878
www.chinolatino.com

Minneapolis/St. Paul Happenings:

Touareg at the River of Goods
New Year’s Eve
Monday, December 31st 9pm
$20 at the door (21+)
For more information call 651.917.3838
www.riverofgoodshome.com
www.myspace.com/touaregmpls

Word of the Day, Sunday December 16, 2007 (dictionary.com):

complement \KOM-pluh-muhnt\, noun:
1. Something that fills up or completes.
2. The quantity or number required to make up a whole or to make something complete.
3. One of two parts that complete a whole or mutually complete each other; a counterpart.
transitive verb:
1. To supply what is lacking; to serve as a complement to; to supplement.

Week at-a-glance (weather.com):

Mon Dec 17
Partly Cloudy
30°/19° 10%

Learn to Keep Heating Costs Down
Tue Dec 18
Mostly Cloudy
27°/12° 0%

Wed Dec 19
Mostly Cloudy
29°/24° 20%

Thu Dec 20
Cloudy
29°/25° 20%

Get the Latest Flu Reports
Fri Dec 21
Cloudy
30°/23° 10%

Sat Dec 22
Snow Shower
24°/12° 30%

Sun Dec 23
Few Snow Showers
16°/12° 30%

Continue reading "Smile!" »

Posted by Christie Martin at 12:11 AM
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Hello everyone

Good luck on your finals week! Luckily, I only have one final, but it is the killer one. My previous two weeks were extremely bad, but this week is more breathable. I was on extreme stress and hitting high point nervousness for the last two weeks. I can not imagine how busy I will get for the next semester. But well, in the end, all these suffering will manifest great outcome.

I came to the All School Reception last week and had a fantastic time. Our Environmental Health divisions tie in the Match Game. There are pictures that Mellissa Lo posted in our UofM facebook, take a look if you missed the party.

Christmas is approaching and that means more food, shopping and fun. I have not had the chance to go shopping yet, perhaps this weekend is the big shopping day for me. If you have not gone shopping during Christmas in the US yet, I am telling you that it will be so busy, but there will be lot of sales going on.

There is a Comfort Food week that being sponsored by SPH Student Support Services. It is from 12:00 – 3:00 PM in room D387 (across from Student Support Services) come get some food and mingle with others.

See you there,

Thuy

Posted by Thuy Doan at 10:12 AM
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I was one of the fortunate types who finished with finals last Tuesday-the last day of classes....and it feels so good to be done after nearly killing myself tryin to beat the clock, so to speak, cranking out those last two final papers. To celebrate being done with finals, I got the flu. Apparently, it's my own body's way of thanking me....so much for 'herd immunity'

I had quite a lovely, jam--packed weekend: party at Intermedia Arts, drinking too much wine and singing way too much karaoke, making fresh mozzarella (yes, fresh) and fresh raviolli with friends, and then going to a birthday party on Sunday at a mediterranean restaurant that had bellydancers....It definitely was an eclectic, yet fun weekend

Nothing else going on since finals have ended. I'm trying to take advantage of having free time since I will be going into rehearsals again come the new year for shows in New York (January), and Minneapolis (April/May) and my free time quickly reduces to zero...

Happy holidays!

Posted by Gabriel Anderson at 06:44 AM
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3 papers and 2 grad school apps later, I'm checking the 'to do list', and it appears I've got another heavy load coming up.....Uh, that would be 2 tests, and a paper ya'll. Then it will be another whirl wind, as I have not started my Christmas shopping, and I really really need to clean my room. Hannah, bless her heart, has graciously accepted my heap of clothes that welcome her to our habitat. This weekend has been extremely busy, and I don't know where the time goes these days......

I must say, that this has been the busiest term yet, what with 6 courses and all. To briefly reflect, my courses have really been able to broaden my interests and I have thoroughly enjoyed my classes. I'm excited to be in this field, as it seems that there are limitless opportunities to engage in health and social change. I have registered for too many classes next term, simply because I can not decide on my course load.....! There are too many good courses to choose from, sheesh. I wish they'd make it easier for me....

At any rate, I hope that you all are surviving out there--hang in there, we're almost done! I'll have to do a better job at updating you all again, once this week is done.....

G'luck everyone!

Posted by Amenah Babar at 08:11 PM
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I have a new favorite thing to do that I forgot about. I did this last winter when it was so cold and it makes me happy. I started doing this week too and it just makes me feel good. Lying in the sauna at the rec center, make it really steamy, get a bottle of lemon flavored Dasani and listening to Joanna Newsom. If you haven't put all these things together yet, I highly suggest giving it a whirl. Well, most of that is true. The Dasani machine coin slot was jammed with coins so I had to drink Coke Zero which is far less refreshing but has at least maybe given me the lucidity to study a little tonight with the very small amount of sleep I obtained last night. I did have my big paper due today, but I wasn't up doing it all night. Instead, I finished it last night (for the most part) and went to the 7th St Entry to see some local bands including my favorite- Maps of Norway. It was way more fun than trying to finish a paper the night before. I'm no good at that. However, after an early work morning and what has now become a long day, I have been forced to succumb my Friday night to quasi-relaxing.
So, yeah for my paper being finished! It was pretty fun to write, really. After like 3,000 articles, the paper practically writes itself. All of the articles available to us are really, really helpful. I can't even imagine what doing research was like before the internet or really before the biomed library's database and images. How did anyone look stuff up? Like the card catalog? I think I vaguely remember that from elementary school. Did journals go in there? That must have seriously sucked. Also, I am going to re-emphasize the importance of Refworks. I will never write a Works Cited page again. After not doing it, I now realize how badly making them scorched my soul. I learned a lot about public health from the broad perspective and also about DDT and malaria. Knowing that the Bush administration is helping fund malaria control in Africa makes me think that the last eight years have at least done one thing POSITIVE for global karma.
Oh yeah, and a New York Times article that came out last week found that teen birth rates in the US are up!!!! AHRHHRHAHSHHHWHALHLJLKJFLKJlrkq. Hmmm... maybe the data that shows that abstinence-only programs don't work as well as comprehensive programs are valid....
Dude, '08 better show some results. I am reluctant to get too excited yet can't help it anyway. Health care reform?? Thank god. People are finally THINKING about really important things. I mean seriously. Why is abortion even a political issue? Isn't health care reform a little broader of an issue on the national scale? Maybe if young people had better ACCESS to birth control...
I won't do this again to you. Unless you like it.
Well, apparently I'm in a ranting mood. The only decision I really need to make at this exact moment is whether or not to do homework tonight for a study group tomorrow or watch Weeds, Season 3 that has been sitting here for like two weeks and I've had the self control not to watch yet. That would mean I'd have to get up really early...
I'll do one-third of the work tonight. Me and me can work with that.

Posted by Juliet Massie at 06:44 PM
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Hi everyone,
As if I need more encouragement to not study, the School of Public Health had its All-School Winter reception today. It was held at the Weisman Art Museum (on campus) this afternoon. And let me say I think the SPH has some money - we were served food, wine and beer AND there was a live band! In addition, I got roped into playing the annual game between divisions. This year the game was modeled after the 70's hit Match Game, only with a public health twist (sort of) and hosted by Dean Finnegan. Each team (one for Biostat, one for Epi, etc.) had a student, faculty and staff representative and there was a group of panelists representing each division as well. Each team had a white board and their goal was to answer fill-in-the-blank questions and match as many of the panelists' answers as possible. For example, one of the questions used our own Division head, Dr. Connett as part of the example. It was: "Dr. Connett's motto is "Safety First". When he rides to work on his bike he always wears a helmet and a _______". Despite the lack of students among the panelists, it got pretty risque pretty fast...it was lots of fun! I'll break the suspense and say that Biostatistics did not win, but we did come close and in my opinion had the funniest answers! I ended up really enjoying being part of the game and highly recommend to everyone who is around next year to attend the reception!
Now back to studying...two more finals to go! Have a great weekend.

Posted by Rachel Isaksson at 07:39 PM
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I'm sorry for the short posting, but I have currently been up way too long, and need to allocate my time to finish a final paper due in t-minus 2 hours and it's taking me longer than I thought.....tick tock tick tock.....sometimes RefWorks makes me want to scream....

I am, however, enjoying this website that my friend sent me:

www.catsinsinks.com

It definitely will be a great procrastination tool to add to my repertory for Spring semester

Posted by Gabriel Anderson at 06:35 AM
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Hi everybody. That's right, one class has been completed as of yesterday when I handed in a masterful 26 page paper on environmental health issues in Outagamie County, Wisconsin. Ok, probably not masterful, but it's done, and that makes me happy. The topic was Air Pollution and Occupational Safety in the county and was the final project for this course.
So that leaves me with four more classes to complete, the next one up being Research Methods which will be done on Monday when I hand in a final paper for that class. After that it's one more final paper on drunk driving in Wisconsin (man I'm fixing all of that states problems this month), and then a final test in both Economics and Finance, get your calculators ready.
So to distract myself in order to procrastinate from studying or more writing I have been keeping up on health news in the media. One such article that I came across in the Wall Street Journal reported that the American College of Physician's released their statement on universal healthcare, stating that in one way or another the government should implement universal healthcare. On this article readers could post comments about how they feel about the pursuit of universal healthcare, which I usually disregard, but since the spectrum of responses were so varied, I thought it was very interesting. I've decided to post portions of some of these comments, and then comment on the comments from what I've learned in the PHAP program here:

"The government is run by idiots who have borrowed huge sums of money for poorly thought out reasons; why should I support or pay for another poorly thought out program which will abused by both the “patients” and the “physicians”"
- Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Ah yes, just some good old fashioned government mistrust. This is actually a cultural characteristic that we do bring up once in awhile in my classes as to why our healthcare system is what it is.

"There is an abundance of money flowing into the health care system. We need to completely rid ourselves of this mentality that we must be insured...I want to insure me and my family against diseases such as cancer, heart disease, etc.; not for gingivitis and check-ups."
- Good call, who wants to be insured? Certainly not me. I'd much rather pay the full price for my atrial fibrilation prescription out of my own pocket. It's onlyyyyy...over $300 a month. Ok, on second thought I will take the insurance. And why don't you want to be insured for the checkups and primary care? Those are the cheapest things to cover and catch problems before they become expensive, not to mention life threatening. So you're gonna pay for your colonoscopy out of your own pocket? Or just wait till the cancer sets in and then you'll be covered? What a backwards view.

"The problem with everyone having health insurance is that there would no longer be a need for hospitals to control costs. Everything would get passed along to the government."
- You are perhaps unaware of how Medicare works. Medicare decides how much to pay a hospital or physician for a procedure or treatment (called DRGs) and that's that. If the provider wants to make money off of that, they have to find ways to do it efficiently. Other healthcare systems simply own the hospitals, so of course they're not going to charge themselves too much.

"Simplify the system. Policies are written at a graduate school level. Coverage is not guaranteed, understood, nor easily explained when calling the company. Pricing structure is as complicated as the airline industry. Payments are delayed, money is floated. Simplify the system and the waste would be reduced. Healthcare would be easier and cheaper, allowing access to more people. Fewer people would have to fight the system for the coverage they already have, freeing up money to reduce costs and make coverage more affordable."
- Simplification and reducing administrative costs are a good idea, but you can't do that to the entire system unless there is some more government intervention. HMO's have to compete, have to pay their executives, have to market, etc., so their administration costs are obviously higher than a single payer system. In some cases, it takes up 20 cents of every dollar they spend.

"If you try to obstruct the free markets they will punish all of us. Capitalism is a wonderful thing, because eventually someone will come along with a better mouse trap and cover most of these people anyway."
- Still waiting on that mousetrap. When will it come and who is building it right now? I need it bad because about 47 million of my buddies don't have "mousetraps."

"If there is no health care for those who can’t/won’t pay for health insurance, the rest of us will be exposed to TB, now drug-resistant, and other contagious diseases."
- That's an interesting point. It's hard to measure how having so many uninsured or under-insured truly effect the rest of the nation's health. Probably more than you think, whether physically or economically.

"I am consistently seeing costs driven by diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and asthma. There is a need for change in overall health behavior to make accountability a part of the plan. Any of the proposed plans will not result in anything more than pushing monies around. Without real incentives for behavior modification, the health crisis will continue."
- Another good point. Risky health behaviors do produce some high costs for everyone. In some policy classes we have talked about the growing obesity epidemic that may compound the issue of the aging baby-boomers. Not only will we have more of the elderly to take care of, but they're more likely to have health problems relating to obesity, meaning more heart and diabetes cases than ever before. Not an easy solution there.

"...please explain why healthcare is a right. A right against whom? God? Fellow citizens? If someone has an illness, what logic gives that person a “right” to dip into fellow citizens” wallets to pay the bills? In America, “rights” mean legal barriers against actions by the government and its agents. There is no constitutional right for anyone to take money from anyone else."
- Wow, you must be made out of stone. Every man for himself, baby! Personally, I'm not a big fan of leaving people to die from an illness that can be cured because they don't make enough money, but maybe that's just me. If there was someone in your community dying of an illness that would be cured by a $100,000 procedure they couldn't afford, and if everyone in that risk pool donated a quarter that person's life would be saved, wouldn't you do it? Or are would that "dipping" into your wallet be too painful for you?

Finally...
"1. The reason insurance exists (or is supposed to exist) is to spread the risk. That’s why mandating all people to have insurance (single-payer or not) is essential to controlling costs. If you intend for the government to carry the burden for catastrophic care then a single-payer system is the only way for it to recoup costs. If not, it’s private insurance’s responsibility.
2. Free market medicine requires a knowledgeable consumer. How many people here know what the details are of their current policy and those of available alternatives? How about the value of what you’re getting, e.g., cost and quality of their hospital, their physician, and the drugs on their formulary? Do you know what you’re getting for your money? If you can, great. Once everyone is where you are, then we’re ready for a free market. "
- Good one to end on that sord of summarizes this broad topic. What he says about the free market is a huge concern to what is taught in my program. Free market would be great, but the complexities of what things cost, who tells you what you need, what kind of quality you get, lack of cost transparency, that's definitely enough factors to cloud-up a free market.

Well I hope this was enjoyable for you. I just thought it gave a nice variety to what the feelings are on this debate, and how heated it can get. Tremendously interesting...at least to me. If you want to see the article for yourself here it is: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2007/12/04/docs-group-insure-everybody-one-way-or-another/
I'm done with my holiday shopping, I'm done with this blog....*sigh*, guess I should get some work done.
See you around the blog.

Posted by Evan Cole at 05:43 PM
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Here it is!!! I really shouldn't be using the energy of my typing fingers on anything that isn't my big paper that's due next Friday. I have just one class period left before the end of my first semester of public health school! I've almost made it! And I honestly have to say it was a great semester. I loved my classes, my professors and my peers. I really hope I get to spend some down time with my new class friends over break and NOT talk about school. Well,. at least we can talk about things in addition to school. Also, since I'm part time, I really hope that I still have classes with my cohort next semester. Going the 'slow' way doesn't lend itself to stay with the tight group, but hey, you gotta feed the monkey. Sans the last two weeks, my workload has been totally manageable. And most of why the last couple weeks have sorta sucked is because it's also just a really busy time for my job as well. That won't slow down over break, but it will slow down by the time the next semester rolls around.
Also, just to mention it, my mentor lady is really cool. We're meeting again next week for lunch. She works for the County with policy-making in some fashion; I'm not exactly sure how, but it sounds cool. I strongly recommend getting a mentor. The program here is well coordinated and hooks you up with a mentor in the community that does something in which you are interested. The SPH did an excellent job with the program. I really do look forward to working with Linda (my mentor) in the future- I'd like to tag along for a day and see what she does downtown and help gain some direction with my career planning. Or to step back a little, at least my master's project...
Let's see...fun stuff around town... I really haven't been going too crazy lately since I'm being responsible with my homework but I did see Modest Mouse and Man Man at the Orpheum Monday night. Man Man was AWESOME. They were really high energy, hilarious and delivered quite a show involving weird instruments and cut-off shorts. And Modest Mouse was good too. They're not the most exciting band to watch as they just kinda stand there, but the music was amazing and loud as expected. And I had never been the the Orpheum before and was excited to go because I love neo-classical architecture. Unfortunately, it was a let down. It wasn't that cool inside. But whatever. Besides that, seriously, I've been falling asleep to Southpark episodes at like 9.30 every night this week and getting up at 6 to go to work. And then I come home and do homework. For 'breaks' I see what's in the fridge which is usually a disappointment and read Pitchfork. I swear I'll have more fun stuff to write about in about 7 days :)
For all of you paper-writing fools out there... good luck.

Posted by Juliet Massie at 06:20 PM
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Hi everyone! I can tell that finals are coming up...my apartment is clean, my Christmas shopping is started and I'm reading for fun...oh yeah, I'm procrastinating! I've been very productive, but just not for school. I'm trying to study, I really am. I have a final project and two cumulative finals, both of which are 40% of my grades. That's right, a two hour exam is almost equal to all of the work I have done ALL semester for two of my classes. It is a little overwhelming to study, but I will start soon!
On a happy note, during my procrastination, I went to a WILD game! I have always loved hockey, but this was the first professional game I have been do. The Wild was playing the St. Louis Blues and it went into overtime - it was very fun and definitely helped me forget about school for a couple of hours... and of course the Wild won! YEAH!
Have a great weekend everyone - I hope you have better luck studying than I have so far! I'm going to kick it in gear...in a few hours!

Posted by Rachel Isaksson at 09:22 AM
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(From Mr. Forrest Stonedahl, an excellent friend and math geek)

Don’t Drink or Smoke
An excellent paper by Amenah Babar.
(Really excellent, trust me.)
1 Introduction
Too many fruitless words have been written about the alcohol and tobacco problems in India. I will not make this same mistake. Let’s get right to the heart of the matter.

As seen from Equation 1, the problem’s difficulty not to be underestimated.

However, in my inestimable brilliance, I suggest that a simple u substitution into Equation 2 will yield considerably lower rates of tobacco and alcoholism in India.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Case closed.

For some rather juvenile attempts at solving similar or related problems, please see the references section below.

References
[1] Paolo Alu, Singular schemes of hypersurfaces, Duke Math. J. 80 (1995),
325–351.
[2] , A blow-up construction and graph coloring, preprint?, 1996?
3] , Chern classes for singular hypersurfaces, preprint, February 1996.
[4] Paolo Alu and Carel Faber, A remark on the Chern class of a tensor
product, Manu. Math. 88 (1995), 85–86.
[5] V. Navarro Aznar, Sur les multiplicit´es de Schubert locales des faisceaux
alg´ebriques coh´erents, Comp. Math. 48 (1983), 311–326.
[6] Gottfried Barthel, Jean-Paul Brasselet, and Karl-Heinz Fieseler, Classes de
Chern des vari´et´es toriques singuli`eres, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris 315 (1992),
187–192.
[7] Jo¨el Biran¸con, Philippe Maisonobe, and Michel Merle, Localisation de
syst`emes di´erentiels, stratifications de Whitney et condition de Thom, Invent.
Math. 117 (1994), 531–550.
[8] Jean-Paul Brasselet and Gerardo Gonzalez-Sprinberg, Sur l’homologie
d’intersection et les classes de Chern des vari´et´es singuli`eres (Espaces de
Thom et contre-exemples de Verdier et Goresky), G´eom´etrie Alg´ebrique et
Applications 23 (1987), 5–14.
[9] Jean-Paul Brasselet and M. H. Schwartz, Sur les classes de Chern d’un
ensemble analytique complexe, Ast´erisque 82-83 (1981), 93–147.
[10] Jean-Luc Brylinski, (Co)–Homologie d’intersection et faisceaux pervers,
S´eminaire Bourbaki 585 (1982), 129–157.
[11] Jean-Pierre Dax, Points singuliers normaux, points singuliers normaux
simples et mod`eles d’´elimination, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris 315 (1992), 315–
319.

Posted by Amenah Babar at 12:56 AM
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So in Dr. Miller's class "Genetics in PubH", we grapple with some ethical questions....For instance, Dr. Miller presented a scenario:
A couple is referred by an infertility specialist for genetic counseling. They are both deaf from birth. They have one child together but they want to use 'technology' to ensure that the child is deaf.....[take a deep breath] The woman is 43 years old, and the couple want to use an egg donor from a younger woman who is also deaf to achieve another pregnancy. However, they want to select an egg from the donor that carries the gene for the same kind of hearing loss as the mom, thus ensuring that the child will be deaf............So.....What are the ethical concerns for such a question?

That brings us to the point of how we define disease. What is it? And maybe more importantly, who defines what is a disease? I am doing some research on Down syndrome for a paper, and one of the consistent concerns that I come across is the ethics in prenatal screening for downs-- new methods in which parents can determine if their unborn child has downs. These new techniques present some interesting questions when it comes to the implications they have for society--should we be able to determine who is born?

That brings us to eugenics. Eugenics being the "social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention.Throughout history, eugenics has been regarded by its various advocates as a social responsibility, an altruistic stance of a society, meant to create healthier and more intelligent people, to save resources, and lessen human suffering. More controversially, some, such as the Nazi regime in Germany, used eugenics as a pretext for racial discrimination."(Wikipedia)

Our generation will certainly be faced with some unique questions when it comes to genetics. (see extended entry for more controversy about new born screening...Did you guys here about the parents who had the child at home, and was forced by the state of [gosh, i forget] to have screening???)

On another note, who enjoyed the snow fall this past weekend???

:D

[ a parking ramp ]

[ my crazy twin ]

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Posted by Amenah Babar at 09:23 AM
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