Liz Borkowski
lborkowski
Posts by this author
November 4, 2011
SciDev.Net's TV Padma reports that tuberculosis experts are looking to India to develop affordable TB-testing kits. An estimated four million cases of the disease go undetected, and two million TB patients die every year. India has increased its efforts at finding and treating cases of the disease…
November 3, 2011
Bicycling has been in the news a lot this week. E&E News reports that China is trying to get people back onto bicycles in an attempt to address traffic problems. The city of Zhongshan has launched a bike-sharing system with 4,000 bikes; Hangzhou and Shanghai have systems with 50,000 and 19,000…
November 2, 2011
Something that's come up in a couple of the different sessions I've attended at the American Public Health Association annual meeting is the problem of inadequate definitions of success. It's important to set targets and measure progress against them - and missing targets can be a signal that it's…
November 1, 2011
One of my favorite parts of the American Public Health Association annual meeting is the Occupational Health & Safety Section's awards lunch. It's always inspiring to hear about and from the award recipients, who bring dedication, creativity, and much-needed stubbornness to the cause of…
October 31, 2011
The American Public Health Association is having its annual meeting in DC this week, and the theme is "Healthy Communities Promote Healthy Minds & Bodies." The APHA YouTube channel features several clips from yesterday's opening session, including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who…
October 27, 2011
The Obama administration has asked a federal advisory committee, the National Biodefense Science Board, to make recommendations about testing the anthrax vaccine in children. The vaccine has been tested in adults, administered to military personnel, and stockpiled so it can be administered quickly…
October 25, 2011
A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Maryn McKenna at Superbug: Scathing Report: Polio Eradication "Not ... Any Time Soon"
Douglas Starr at Discover Magazine: Sparks of Truth: Can Science Bring Justice to Arson Trials?
Scicurious at The Scicurious Brain: Grab your Coffee, I think this paper may…
October 21, 2011
The Institute of Medicine has released a report recommending that the Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture consider "a fundamental shift in strategy" when it comes to nutrition labeling." While the recommendation for a "front-of-package" (FOP) labeling system is not new…
October 18, 2011
by Kim Krisberg
Mark Martin isn't inclined to sit down and shut up -- well, unless it's on the seat of a bicycle."More people need joy in their lives and there's a real simple way to get it: ride a bicycle," Martin told me. "It's a joyous thing to ride a bike."
The Baton Rouge, La., bicyclist…
October 17, 2011
The kidnapping of two aid workers from the Dadaab refugee camp on the Kenya-Somalia border is a grim reminder of the crisis situation in the region, especially Somalia. Al-Jazeera's Peter Greste has some numbers:
[I]n Somalia alone, four million people are still starving nationwide; three million…
October 14, 2011
By Jay Graham
Global Handwashing Day is coming up on October 15, and events in its honor will be occurring all week. Children are a key focus of handwashing campaigns. Diarrhea continues as the second leading cause of death in kids under 5 years of age globally. Nearly one in every five child…
October 12, 2011
Back in August, events and exhibits marked the one-year anniversary of learning that 33 miners who were trapped underground in Chile's San Jose mine were alive. The rescue, which involved drilling a 2,000 foot shaft and lifting out the miners who'd endured 69 days underground, captivated viewers…
October 11, 2011
Last Friday, CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report included a report on the listeriosis outbreak associated with Jensen Farms cantaloupe (the grower is recalling the melons; look for "Rocky Ford" on the label). So far, 84 cases have been confirmed in 19 states, and 15 of these victims have…
October 5, 2011
The Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News has put together an excellent - and alarming - story on salmonella in chicken. Jeffrey Benzing, Esther French and Judah Ari Gross outline the problem this way:
Salmonella is found in a range of food products, including meat, produce and eggs. Chicken…
October 4, 2011
If you haven't already seen Spencer Scoper's in-depth story on working conditions at Amazon.com's Lehigh Valley warehouse, it's well worth a read. The Morning Call's investigation into the warehouse involved interviews with 20 current and former warehouse workers, and most of them were temporary…
October 3, 2011
One thing that drove me nuts during the healthcare reform debate was the scare tactic of claiming that proposed legislation would result in rationing of healthcare. The problem with making such a claim is that healthcare is already rationed in the US. We ration healthcare based on insurance status…
September 27, 2011
DC's Capital Bikeshare program has had a fantastic first year. Stations full of sturdy red bikes have been popping up all over the city, and the system logged its one millionth ride one the eve of its first anniversary. Members can take a bike from any of the more than 100 stations, and the ride is…
September 21, 2011
By Kim Krisberg
Just a few days ago, an event in the small town of Lilburn, Georgia, may have saved the life of someone living half a world away. It wasn't a black-tie gala or a celebrity telethon. It wasn't even about a disease that most of us here in the United States think much about. In fact,…
September 20, 2011
If you hold a job right now, here's something to think about: If you became disabled and were no longer able to work, how would you pay your bills? If your disability were due to an on-the-job injury or an occupational illness, you might be able to get workers' compensation benefits. But what if…
September 14, 2011
A few of the recent pieces I've liked:
Maryn McKenna at Superbug: Terror and Bioterror: 9/11 to 10/4 (This is the first in a series on the bioterrorism fears - some of which were realized - that followed the 9/11 attacks.)
Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times: India's night rat killers: Hunting shadows…
September 12, 2011
As Jori Lewis notes in the case study about World Trade Center recovery workers' health and safety, those who showed up at Ground Zero on the days and weeks after 9/11 got some misleading information about the risks they faced. Most notably, the EPA issued reassuring statements about the air…
September 11, 2011
Among the victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks are workers who responded to the scene of the disaster and suffered severe - in some cases, fatal - health problems as a result. Those who showed up at the World Trade Center site for rescue, recovery, and cleanup operations were exposed to…
September 9, 2011
Deriding government bureaucrats seems to be a popular pasttime among certain politicians and talk-radio hosts, so it's nice every so often to remind ourselves about the important and valuable work our civil servants do. An article by Patricia Sullivan in the Washington Post provides a glimpse into…
September 7, 2011
American Public Media's Marketplace program is taking a look at "the economic legacy of 9/11" this week, and this morning's story focused on security spending in the private sector. Marketplace's Jeff Horwich highlighted an unexpected example: security for grain elevators.
For you city-folk,…
September 5, 2011
The Department of Labor's Labor Day 2011 website features some interesting historical info on this holiday, and an address from Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis that focuses on job creation. What I found particularly interesting was an op-ed by Secretary Solis - one of many linked from the site's…
September 2, 2011
A study just published in The Lancet compares the incidence rates of cancers in firefighters who worked at the World Trade Center site during and after the 9/11 attacks to the rates in firefighters not exposed to the disaster or its aftermath. Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of…
September 1, 2011
Pictures of Hurricane Irene's destruction are circulating and making many of us realize we're lucky to still have our homes and power lines intact. There's also one Irene-related problem that's invisible to the naked eye: raw sewage in waterways. Here's the Washington Post's Darryl Fears on local…
August 29, 2011
Hurricane Irene wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been. The consensus here in DC seems to be "nowhere near as bad as Isabel" (which hit the Mid-Atlantic in 2003), and many of the New Yorkers who ignored Mayor Bloomberg's orders to evacuate are probably feeling smug. Nonetheless, millions of…
August 26, 2011
Deborah Blum at Speakeasy Science has put up a terrific two-part post about the early history of leaded gasoline, which bears much of the blame for lead poisoning in workers and the general population. (Paint containing lead is the other main culprit.) Blum's "At the Door of the Loony Gas Building…
August 25, 2011
I felt a sense of déjà vu Tuesday morning when I heard NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reporting on Senator Tom Coburn's attacks on National Science Foundation-funded research. I realized that the same thing happened last August, and I wrote about it in a post called "Scoring Political Points by…