Writing and Content Creation Posts
A Big Moment for the World’s Fight Against Malaria
The world’s leading malaria vaccine candidate crossed another milestone in a 30-year journey when it received a positive assessment from the European Medicines Agency for its use in protecting young children in sub-Saharan Africa. This is a tremendous scientific achievement.
Social Competence: Setting Kids Up to Succeed
This month, new research was published in the American Journal of Public Health with an important message: that a simple assessment of a child’s social competence can help to predict his or her health and social outcomes, well into adulthood.
Are High Drug Prices Here to Stay?
Last week the FDA approved PCSK9 inhibitors, which promise to help millions of Americans with high cholesterol. But these new drugs come with a projected price tag of about $14,600 a year. The PCSK9 inhibitors are the latest in a series of high-priced prescription drugs reaching the market.
Ebola: Getting to Zero, Staying at Zero
Dr. Philip Ireland has experienced the Ebola epidemic from two different angles: he is a Liberian physician and Ebola survivor. When he fell ill, his colleagues in Monrovia, Liberia, wrote off his symptoms as malaria, which Ireland knew wasn’t accurate. He’d had malaria many times. He and his mother took matters into their own hands. She quarantined him in his own home until he was finally admitted for treatment.
The Power of Placebos: Using Our Brains to Help Us Heal
Imagine if we could somehow trigger the brain to release endorphins, dopamine and other neurotransmitters to help relieve pain, depression and other health problems. It turns out that scientists and health care providers have already started doing this. It’s called the “placebo effect.”
Children’s Health Care Spending Driven by Rising Costs
With child visits to the emergency room declining and the overall use of prescription drugs by children at its lowest in years, it only makes sense that spending on health care for kids would be down. Right? Not quite.
Prescription Abuse Fuels Rise in Newborn Drug Exposure
Improving strategies for prescribing opioids to women of childbearing age are particularly critical to newborns and their families. Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) occurs when babies are exposed to addictive opiate drugs in the womb, and the effects are terrible. Babies can experience breathing problems, vomiting and tremors in their early days of life.
The Pope’s Climate Change Role Models
The Pope’s environment and climate change encyclical exploded on the scene this week, unleashing debate about humanity’s relationship to the planet. While the document, entitled Laudato Si, was generally critical of the way people have treated the planet, it praised one group for its respect for the earth: indigenous people.
Agriculture and the Africa Rising Narrative
Africa is the next frontier of the global economy. Several African countries boast some of the fastest growth rates in the world. Four of the world’s top 10 fastest growing economies in 2015 and 2016 are forecasted to be in Africa. And yet, the sector that employs as much as 60 percent of Africa’s labor force only accounts for 25 percent of the gross domestic product. Why the disconnect?
In Bonn, Forest Peoples Share Their Stories
Indigenous leaders from Africa, Asia and the Americas came together in Bonn to share their experiences at the frontlines of an often deadly battle to guard tropical forests. A recent report suggests these conflicts kill at least two people every week.
