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Chronic Health Needs Must Be Addressed After A Natural Disaster

Sichuan earthquake rescue workers carrying an injured person. Sichuan earthquake rescue workers carrying an injured person. In light of the widespread media coverage of natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami in Japan, the public and medical professionals are aware of the anticipated immediate medical needs in these kinds of emergencies. However, it is less well known that after the initial management of life- and limb-threatening injuries, there may be an enormous need to provide care to persons with chronic illnesses. This is because they are displaced from their homes, become exposed to adverse environmental and socioeconomic hardships, lose access to healthcare, are deprived of their sources of medications, and so forth.

Some of my colleagues were allowed to enter Japan after the tsunami, and their observations agree with this assessment, which was also confirmed in a recent paper, “Chronic health needs immediately after natural disasters in middle-income countries: the case of the 2008 Sichuan, China earthquake,” authored by Emily Chan and Jackie Kim (Eur J Emerg Med 2011;18:111-114). The authors considered physical, social and public health preparedness. Read more »

This post, Chronic Health Needs Must Be Addressed After A Natural Disaster, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..

Why Denying Science Is Dangerous

I came across a TED video of Michael Specter’s talk about the dangers confronting us as the war against science progresses. Here’s TED’s description of the video:

Vaccine-autism claims, “frankenfood” bans, the herbal cure craze — they all point to the public’s growing fear (and, often, outright denial) of science and reason, says Michael Specter. He warns the trend spells disaster for human progress.

Read more about The Danger of Science Denial, posted with vodpod.

*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

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