Coplans glorified aging

Misconceptions of Van Gogh

In Modern Painters, Matthew Collings writes about the longstanding misconceptions of Vincent Van Gogh in “Think About Van Gogh In a Different Way, but don’t Foreget we can never be like him.” Collings, reflecting upon the recently found letters written by Van Gogh contradicts man conceptions of his personalities. Collings disputes that Van Gogh’s works come from the “hallucinations” whose qualities included “sincerity, saintliness, naivete, and the failure to be grow up, to be tough, to be mature psychologically.” These traits no longer seem to hold merit. It seems that one can deduce from his letters, that Van Gogh was actually quite sociable. In fact, Collings describes Van Gogh as a talkaholic. His conversations were lively, exhilarating and filled with enthusiasm. This flies in the face of the image that Van Gogh is sad, and reclusive. Unlike the perception that Van Gogh is excluded from society, he is actually earnest to be connected. His conversations show his interest in society, the way people take their leisure, humanity, nature, literature and of course art. Van Gogh who is traditionally seen as a mad, and tortured artist, shows a an earnest interest in the world, and even a comedic side to him. He is entertained by business and is shows that he has a knowledge for the business aspect of his profession. Van Gogh also has a surprising comedic side to his personality. Also, the paintings which many have overlooked seemed to have had a deeper meaning to Van Gogh. According to his letters Bedroom in Arles is about his inner torture and claustrophobia. Even so, his inner torture may not have as all-consuming as many believed. He has been portrayed as the cliché of mad genius, but he does not mad man at all. He shows an interest of the world, and delight in words, and enjoys intellectual stimuli. Overall the author utilizes many examples from Van Gogh’s life, and testimony to point out the universally relatable aspects of his personality. Collings concludes that Van Gogh was very much like us, that he may not have been as inclined to lunacy or as tortured as we see him. At the same the Collings makes clear that despitethe fact that he may have been like us, we are in no way like him. Despite this new discovery of “normalcy” in Van Gogh, he is no less a genius than we thought he was. By Myanh Ta

Unit 3 Project: Premonition

Unit 3 Final: The Hundred Guilder Print

Feeder 3.1: Tactile Translucence

Joan Miró is unique as in artist in how much presence he bestows upon the backgrounds of his paintings. One hesitates to even call them backgrounds because the eye is drawn to them as much as it is anything that is in the foreground. In the 1920s Miró broke away from his Cubist colleagues and developed a personal style that would define the rest of his career. One of the most important characteristics of this style, that of his textured backgrounds, is discussed in the MIT Press Journal article Tactile Translucence, by Charles Palermo. He makes his thesis easy for the reader to find:

“My claim will be that, in Miró’s paintings of the early 1920s, pictorial space

becomes a surface in which the activity of a surrogate offers a metaphor for the

painter’s bodily entry into the surface of the painting. As I shall explain, this allegory of painting can be understood as Miró’s radical response to the Cubist pictorial sensibility—a response that he articulated in cooperation with his closest comrades, such as Michel Leiris.”

Throughout the article, understanding the role of texture in Miro’s works is of vital importance. His paintings were as much about reminding the viewer of a certain tactile feeling as they were about depicting a set of objects or scenes. The background of Head of a Catalan Peasant IV is examined thoroughly in the article. The author points out that changes in pressure and direction of single strokes bring about a sort of wishy-washy anti-pattern in the background. On top of this, Miró used a technique called scumbling, where one applies pigment with a dry brush to lighten up a color and create a glaze over it. Beholding the background of this painting and many others of Miró’s, the viewer gets the impression of translucence. Like the surface of a body of water, the expanse of the canvas seems to stretch over the contents of some fluid, giving it depth. As the author puts it, stacking these effects creates a visual “thickness” to his work.

However this translucence goes beyond the visual: it has an encompassing tactile feel of clarity and boundlessness; the translucence is physical. Again, if you think of the background as the surface of a body of water, it yields a look into the contents below, but if you penetrate that plane with your finger, while the physical water may make room for your bodily entry, there isn’t a physical rupture made by your hand in the concept of “the surface.” Your finger is a part of the surface. In this way, the fluid’s surface exhibits visual and tactile translucence. Just as sight is allowed to pass through a clear object, or rather, the surface gives way yet remains unbroken, the tactile surface that Miró creates seems like it would give way but remain unbroken if we extended our bodies to it.

Sight tends to objectify more than touch. That is to say, when you see a table, you tend to think of it being located there. When you feel it, it is there. It feels more like a continuous segment of your consciousness, much more than when your interaction with it was limited to its appearance. The importance to Miró of feeling his surroundings and having continuity between subject and object is documented by Michel Leiris.

(In fact, while Leiris was preparing the essay, he asked Miró for a few autobiographical notes. In his brief response, Miró featured an anecdote about his early artistic training, in which he was taught to improve his draughtsmanship by drawing objects he had only touched and had never seen.)

Michel Leiris was a ethnographer and writer during the Surrealist years in Paris. He was one of the few people Miró was close to, and has some of the only direct quotes from Miró documented in the essays he wrote on his paintings.

“I see Miró’s exploration of the surface of the canvas, as it is documented in his backgrounds, as calling forth a surface that it’s important to think of as being continuous with his “bodily space.” In other words, in such backgrounds, Miró may be said to have painted something like the horizon of “bodily space,” itself.”

So the paintings we see document Miró’s physical encounter with the canvas- the brushstrokes and stretcher bars and traces- but more than that, they, for a brief moment, were his body, his physique. To view his translucent, shimmering background is to be connected to his bodily horizon, thanks to the tactile translucence. The author uses this phenomenon in Miró’s paintings as a metaphor of the painter’s bodily entry into his paintings.
Art historians seem unusually friendly in their discussions on Miró’s spaces. Maybe it is because the movement and style he painted in were so personal, that different interpretations don’t evoke the same controversy they do elsewhere in the art world. The historian Michael Baxandall believes that Miró used his pictorial space, including a dreamy background and loss of true form, to comment on the civil war and political strife in his home country of Spain. And even if Palermo were entering into a hotly-contested debate, many times his points seem so ambiguous (to the layman at least) it is hard to tell if he’s trying to make a stand or go with the crowd. This was a line delivered toward the end of a paragraph, in a pivotal position that the author had been obviously leading up to: “The lack of gestural quality in the traced shapes makes them a new kind of motif, a new kind of “line” that seems to be prior to, or at least separate from, the exploration that reveals them.” However, he does not explain which “gestural qualities” he is talking about, nor what makes a “line” prior to its own revealing. These sort of ambiguities became frustrating when trying to wade through his argument. I did enjoy learning a bit about the physical process of painting though, such as the use of scumbling, tracing, stretcher bars.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/octo.2001.97.1.31
http://joanmiro.com/style-of-joan-miro/

Andy Warhol and Elvis

VanGogh--Transitioning through work

Feeder 3.2: Sacred Blue

A look in Warhol

Jane Kinsman’s look into the career of Andy Warhol is one of triumph in the face of adversity. In the midst of the American Pop Art movement of the 1950s and well into the 60s and 70s, Warhol emerged as a predominant source of masterpieces. He largely focused on celebrities of the era. They ranged from sex icon Marilyn Monroe to boxing legend Muhammad Ali. Interestingly enough however is that Warhol is more likely recognized for his work with soup cans then any of these famous figures.

Yet as Kinsman explains, Warhol was not always the face of American Pop Art. His struggles are well documented. Warhol began his career in the realm of Abstract Expressionism. Starting in 1960, Warhol focused on creating deadpan depictions of various cartoons. It was in these works that one can see Warhol’s “painterly, gestural manner”. This hands on brush to canvas style is rare in Warhol’s work and non-existent in most of his later works.

In starting out as a commercial artist, Warhol struggled to get by. Without recognition by his peers and society at large, Warhol found it difficult to find his work in large galleries: like in New York and Los Angeles. In his pleas to gallery owner Leo Castelli, Warhol discovered that works like Lichtenstein’s comic strip paintings were ideas and pieces he had done previously without any success.Instead of continuing this pattern of shadowing the work of successful artists of the time, Warhol began to seek out his own path. In his search for validation, Warhol contacted gallery owner Muriel Latow. It was Latow who encouraged Warhol to choose a subject that took place in every day life and was easily recognizable. Taking Latow’s advice, Warhol began his work with Campbell’s Soup cans.
It was Andy Warhol’s work with Campbell’s Soup that launched his career and made the artist an icon. Artists, gallery owners, and society at large were taken aback by the sheer absurdity of making soup the focal point of a painting. Instead of being rebuked as he had in the past, Warhol was welcomed into the artist community with open arms. In fact, he even received an offer to host an exhibition for Irving Blum at the Feris Gallery in Los Angeles. The most notable piece of Warhol’s work with Campbell's Soup is the series Campbell Soup 1. Each can presents a different flavor yet adds to the repetition and almost assembly like manufacturing of the piece. Warhol would later go on to say in 1977 that the Campbell’s Soup pieces remained his favorite works. While critics pointed to these works as a reproduction of commercial products, we are able to look back in hindsight and appreciate the works for the pieces of art they really are.

His Truth is Skipping On: Results

how much time do we really need? part 2

Unit 2 Project

By: Austin Hurwitz

How much Time do we really need?

Texting in Society: Do We Really Need It?

His Truth is Skipping On

Over Eating to Hide Your Emotions

Behavior Modification

What if you were a fifteen year old girl that was dealing with many issues and pressures, and the only thing that you could turn to was food. Not knowing how to deal with your emotions and all of the stress in your life in a healthy manner, you begin to uncontrollably eat.This leads to you being overweight which creates more struggles, so you continue to eat to cover that pain. This is a continuous cycle that many face.The article Binge Eating and Weight Control: The Role of Experiential Avoidance examines the relationship between emotions and overeating which leads to an increase of overweight and obese people in America.

In the United States, two thirds of the adults are overweight and this number is steadily increasing. There are many negative effects that people that are overweight and obese face. Health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease can be lumped into one major effect. Another outcome of this increase rise of obesity is direct health costs and loss of production. When factoring all of their expenses, people have to think about medication, procedures and surgeries, hospitalization, home care treatment and other expenses Many that are disabled are also disconnected from the world.

Experiential avoidance, which is attempts to avoid thoughts, feelings, memories, or other experiences even when doing this the outcome becomes harmful, is a problem that many people face on a daily basis. Binge eating is put in this category.Binge eating is defined as a pattern of disordered eating which consists of episodes of uncontrollable eating. This is an indicator of of psychological problems. This results in consuming an excessive amount of food.Many times people binge eat because they are feeling depressed or have anxieties or are just plain bored. This is a cycle that repeats itself continuously.

            Even though there are weight loss programs that emphasize proper diet and exercise that are successful in producing weight loss, they are not effective in long term treatment. Usually half of the weight that is lost is regained in the first year. Within three to five years after treatment, eighty percent would have either went back to their starting weight or even exceeded that number.Often times the ending result is that people are still overweight. Acceptance and Commitment therapy also known as ACT is a cognitive therapy that uses tactics to target experiential avoidance through a combination of behavioral change processes. Some of these methods are mindfulness, acceptance, and values. The question arises of whether you can treat binge eating and other psychiatric problems by focusing on experiential avoidance.
            A study was conducted that compared a one day ACT workshop that emphasized these techniques to 83 participants that already had received a weight loss intervention. These people had completed at least six months of a weight-loss program. The ACT workshop was for six hours. There they discussed different techniques that were changed or modified from the original ACT book to fit the circumstances and issues that were related to weight loss and maintaining this weight loss. These teachings included mindfulness, acceptance, defusion skills that are associated to eating, body image, and self-stigma.The intervention also clarified life values such as those that are related to health and relationships. They also examined barriers to staying on track with the weight loss and they also created behavioral commitments that related to their life values. At the beginning of the trial all of the observers weight and height was recorded by standardized equipment. They also filled out a questionnaire that reported their age, gender, and ethnicity. Binge eating was self reported through the question “ On average, how many days per week did you have a binge?” In the study the definition of binge was an episode of eating large quantities of food during a short period of time and having a feeling of being out of control. The results showed that weight loss and maintenance and the quality of life after three months had improved a great amount to the participants that had attended the workshop.

The results showed that emotions and eating are linked together.The study’s data revealed that higher levels of experiential avoidance predicted self-reporting overeating. People use food as a tool to regulate their emotions.

In today’s society, all around you there are images of what a successful person should be. One pressure that is more common to women but not just limited to them, is the pressure of weight and being the perfect size.Many people think that they cannot be happy just being who they are. Being that many have all of these anxieties they turn to food. This is why it is so important for people to make sure that they express their thoughts and feelings because there is a correlation between experiential avoidance and binge eating.

P.S. Whenever you are feeling down you can listen to this song and it might uplift your spirit. Born this way by Lady GAGA

Changing the image of Eating Disorders

When you think of eating disorders, the popular notion is to think of anorexia, or bulimia.  Binge eating often is overlooked, but it has caused more problems than people think.  According to the article 10% of the obese population have BED (binge eating disorder).

        BED is an emotion regulation strategy which uses food as a way to manage stress and regulate emotion.   Body image issues which are disturbed body image is number one contributor to eating disorder.  BED is an eating disorder, though not as widely associated with body image issues.
        The study conducted showed that treatment of BED does very little to change a person’s weight has a smaller effect than changing person’s body image issues.  They found that the same cognitive-affective components of body image to be the same in BED patients  as those affected with  bulimia and anorexia.  BED is associated with h (a) higher body dissatisfaction
(cognitive-affective component) as well as (b) a greater distortion in the perception of one’s own body dimensions (perceptual component) in relation to
both static and dynamic aspects of body image and (c) stronger body-related avoidance behaviors in obese women.
        This article proposes that instead of treating the eating disorder, it would be more useful to treat the cause of the eating disorder, body issues.  My problem with this article is the proposed solution.  How does a person treat body image issues?  Furthermore, what constitutes a body image issue?  Is it as simple as not liking a part of your body?  A “disturbed body image” is a very vague description.   I would posit that it is impossible to treat body image issues, simply because they are inevitable.  I cannot imagine a world where every female is completely satisfied with her body.   So rather than treating the insecurity, wouldn’t it be more useful to give tools in dealing with insecurities?
        The problem is the way people deal with their insecurities.  The body image issues will always be there.  For everyone. The real problem is the destructive ways in which people deal with their insecurities, whether it is over-controlling their food intake, or avoiding their body image issues by overeating.  There needs to be an emphasis on ways to manage this issue rather than “curing” women (or men) or their distorted views.  

by Myanh Ta

Beer! How is drinking effecting college life?

                 Abby L. Goldstein and Gordon L. Flett’s Personality, Alcohol Use, and Drinking Motives is a look into a comparison of independent and combined internal drinking motives groups. Published in March 2009 by Behavior Modification, the study hypothesizes that coping motivated drinkers were more likely to binge drink and thus have more alcohol related problems. This is compared to the other groups in the study: enhancement motivated and noninternally motivated drinkers. However, the alcohol use was predicted to remain constant between those who are motivated to drink for mood enhancement verse those who drink for coping reasons.
            This study was clearly geared towards college students. The introduction points out that in previous studies, it had been deduced that 40% of college students binge drink at least once every two weeks. It makes sense then that all 230 participants of the study were first year university students. It is important to note that the researchers chose only participants who reported some alcohol consumption in the past year. In essence, the researchers want individuals who they know will cater to their results. They are less concerned with who drinks but why they choose to do so.  
            Moving forward, the researchers had several measures they had in mind to test. Drinking motives for one were assessed using four 5 item subscales. The scales went as follows: enhancement, coping, social, and conformity. From this point, the participants were to rate the frequency (on a scale of 1 to 5) on the reasoning for their consumption. Other areas they aimed to test were anxiety sensitivity, neuroticism, sensation seeking, and positive/negative affect among others. It is important that the researchers chose to include alcohol problems as a measure. The questionnaire was aimed to assess if the participant has had experience with alcohol problems in the past 12 months. Failure to include such a test would serve as a serious outlier as the researchers would have no way of knowing if they are dealing with alcoholics or occasional weekend binge drinkers.
            From here the researchers describe the process of establishing a procedure for the tests. The participants were given two questionnaires; one during the first six weeks of the semester and the second three months later.  These questionnaires were filled with the aforementioned tests and measures. With all data collected, it was time to look at the results.
            The researchers determined that noninternally motivated consumers ultimately consumed less alcohol when they drank than their counterparts who drank to cope, enhance, or both. In addition these noninternally motivated drinkers actually drank less often in general than their counterparts. Those who drink for internal reasons were discovered to binge drink far more often and drink more when they do. In addition, those who drink to cope reported more drinking consequences than the noninternal drinkers.
            The study not only supports the hypothesis but seems fairly obvious. Those who drink because they believe it is going to help them internally some way clearly have problems that go far beyond drinking. These are individuals that are usually insecure about themselves. It also makes sense that these individuals, along with those who drink to cope, face more alcohol related incidents. These people are drinking to avoid their pain, to drown their sorrow. You cannot expect them to know when enough is enough. Instead they drink and drink until they cannot feel.  If you were to survey most college students it would be apparent that most drink for enhancement and to have fun. They do not have deep set internal problems, but rather drink to fit in and have a good time.

Our Google Conundrum

Oren Etzioni has had it up to here with search engine technology. Between teaching computer science classes at the University of Washington and working on the problem himself in labs, he decided to post an opinion article to Nature magazine entitled “Search needs a shake-up.” The fundamental problem he has identified is that there is so much information on the web, keyword-based search engines like Google simply aren’t cutting it anymore. He claims that with a large boost in funding researchers could revolutionize the way we search, interpreting our questions through natural-language analysis and finding an appropriate answermore quickly and efficiently. If you saw Watson on Jeopardy!, the IBM supercomputer designed specifically to take unaltered Jeopardy! questions (renowned for using subtle wordplay) and beat human contestans, that’s what Etzioni is going for: a natural-language question and answer machine. I disagree with the author’s claim that funding would be best-used on search engine improvement not only because those research dollars could be used in more essential areas, but because search engines such as Google have already wreaked havoc on the memory function of its users.

The author extols the values of funding research and development of new and improved searching techniques. He claims that we are drowning in a “growing sea of information,” and that because of the constant addition of new web pages and subsequently large pool of search results, the process of finding what one wants has become too large a task for today’s search tools.

“[Researchers] must invest much more in bold strategies that can achieve natural-language searching and answering, rather than providing the electronic equivalent of the index at the back of a reference book.”

Essentially. the reference-book approach requires the user to refine their question to within certain parameters to get the results for which they are looking. If you use Google a lot (and the fact that the word “google” is now officially a verb might be some indication that most people do) than you probably already know putting a question like “What do I do if my car is the radiator hose on my car is broken?” will yield less results, and more from less reputable sources, than if you had simply typed “broken radiator hose.” To accommodate our search engines’ strengths and weaknesses we have conformed to their keyword-based method. I certainly agree that people alive today are bombarded with more information than at any point in human history, and I have no doubt that putting money into database technologies could improve on the technology we currently have, but does that improvement justify the funding? Every dollar spent in the search for better searching is a dollar not spent in a different area, another possible technological improvement, a different paradigm shift. Why is funding search engine research more justified than funding quantum computing or improved genetic sequencing? Quite honestly, I think that anyone who is google-savvy can find answers to just about any question they have in a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Is shaving off those seconds worth, as the author puts it, “an order of magnitude more of funding” than the $10 million provided by a US Dept. of Defense natural-language search program in 2009?

Not only do I believe the funding isn’t justified, but that improved searching is actually harmful more than it is beneficial for the human race. In a study conducted by the University of Columbia under psychologist Betsy Sparrow, researchers investigated the effects of current search technology on our memories. Among many other parts to the study, participants were given the answers to difficult trivia questions; some were told that the answers would be saved in specific folders, others were not told nothing. Asked later to recall the answers, the group who was informed of the folders showed a significant disability to recall information compared to the other group. However, what they did remember was the specific file names under which they could look up the answers. The results supported their hypothesis that people often forget things that they are confident they can look up at any time (through Google or some other tool). Using these tools, the brain has shifted from remembering the information itself to remembering where it can locate that information if the need arises. As a direct result of the level of connectivity we have to the information on the web, through blogs, aggregates, social networking sites, and search engines in particular, we know less off the top of our heads, and instead just rely on the Internet to back us up.

So let’s say that Etzioni’s request is fulfilled, that someone provides enough funding, and lo and behold, the next Google arises. It has the ability to answer whatever question we give it, faster than anything else before it. It crawls through billions of page hits and instead of giving us an index of everything that appeared with our keywords, it picks out the few that are truly relevant. It revolutionizes the way we are connected to our information. What would Betsy Sparrow and the Columbia team say? This kind of breakthrough probably wouldn’t improve our memory of the facts and information we look up, now brought to us even faster and with less effort on our parts. No, it would most certainly widen that gap between the information and our recollection of it. We now know that any answer is a mere breath away, so why bother to remember it?

“Well, why should it matter?” one might point out. With the rise of smartphones it’s not hard to believe that we could be connected to the Internet at every waking moment if we so choose. One might even frame it like the rebuttal every math teacher has probably heard: “why should I learn mental math if I can just use a calculator?” Those kids were right, they probably will have easy access to a calculator at any given time in the form of a phone. And if Etzioni’s appeal is answered, it might not be long before you will have a new and improved Google along with you calculator. However, most people can find a use for the mental math they learned in school in their everyday lives. And I think being able to retain general knowledge is some degree more important to your everyday life than being able to multiply fractions or estimate a volume. If we are given yet another level of connectivity to the “growing sea of information” surrounding us, it’s not hard to guess what the cultural norm will become: know next to nothing, but be armed with your smartphone in case a thought wanders into your pathetic, vestigial brain.

Matt Hugo

Etzioni, O. (2011). Search needs a shake-up. Nature, 476, 25-26.

Study Finds That Memory Works Differently in the Age of Google. (2011). Retrieved 10 October 2011 from http://news.columbia.edu/googlememory

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/471027a.html
http://news.columbia.edu/googlememory

What is the right message towards vaccines?

               In the article “The wrong message on Vaccines” published in Nature, the author criticizes potential presidential candidate, Michelle Bachmann for her statements against vaccination against HPV.  While the author makes valid points about the need for a more educated public regarding vaccination, he misdirects his anger.  He is afraid of an uneducated public being misinformed by Bachmann and choosing not to get vaccinated leaving the US much like Europe with many rises in disease that have vaccinations.  While he makes some interesting criticisms, he is giving the public too little credit, discouraging discussion and places his own sense of duty upon public figures, ignoring the greater issue behind the skepticism.
            The author takes issues with Michelle Bachmann’s ignorant statements regarding getting the HPV vaccination.  He says that her claims that the vaccination could lead to “mental retardation” were irresponsible.  While this is true, she is within her rights to make these claims.   While her motives may have been in question, her controversial rhetoric did something positive: it brought to light an issue not discussed enough.  She brought to light the questionable nature of the Human Papiloma Virus Vaccine.   It is favorable for public figures to talk about salient issues, no matter what the stance because it creates a source of discussion
            The author is not giving women enough credit.  Bachmann’s comments while probablhy inaccurate, are at least controversial enough to start a discussion where the true facts and research will be examined.  We are at an age where information is attainable anyone quickly and simply.   From this, one can deduce that it is not the responsibility of public figures to educate us on anything, especially on issues where the information is so easily attained. Consequently, it is not Michelle Bachmann’s responsibility to speak a certain way on the issue of vaccination.  It is highly doubtful that one woman’s ignorant comments can leave our public health in jeopardy.  If anything were to be in jeopardy as a result of her comments, it would be her political career, not public health.
            There are those who, like Bachmann are skeptical of the vaccine.  Every woman should educate herself about every drug put in her body. It is only natural and healthy to be skeptical of a new drug that is heavily marketed towards women.  Human Papilloma Virus can be spread to anyone, regardless of gender.  To prevent this virus from spreading, would it not be just as logical to vaccinate everyone?  Women are protected from the virus by taking the vaccination, but one can easily deduce that they are as protected if the people from whom they can contract the virus don’t have it either. The Center for Disease Control has stated that males benefit as much from the vaccine as much as women and yet this vaccine is not being as heavily recommended to men quite as much as it has been pushed upon women.  While the HPV vaccine can help prevent cervical cancer, it also prevents genital warts and anal cancer, problems that I doubt men want any more than women.   Why is it the responsibility of the female population to bear this vaccine?   Why is it the role of women to take a vaccine whose effects have only been studied for six years (at most)?  The inequality is pretty severe, and yet women are expected to shut up, take the shot and be thankful.   This is not a plea against vaccination, but encouragement in enough skepticism.  It is not the Michelle Bachmann’s fault if women do not take the vaccine, regardless of her comments, her media exposure, or popularity.  There is enough about this issue that is murky to the public that would cause unease in taking this new medicine.
            It is not the duty of a public figure to take on a certain view, or in the author’s words a more “responsible” stance on a topic.  Even so, responsibility does not entail falling in line with a scientific community.  Like religion (an institution that many consider to hold empirical truth), Science has been wrong before.  “Responsibility” means to question what we are told to do, not to shut up and obey.  Michelle Bachmann may have questioned the scientific community in a controversial and unfounded way, but the editor has no grounds for putting the responsibility of the public not falling in line on her.  Skepticism should not be treated as ignorance, and women shouldn’t be expected to shut up and take a (rather painful) series shots without having their questions reasonably answered. The public must and can educate themselves.  We are not the products of our political figures, but rather our political figures are a reflection of us.  Perhaps Michelle Bachmann is an over dramatic reflection of the uncertain feeling many women have behind taking this HPV vaccine.

The Eradication of Smallpox is Not Complete

May 24^th 2011. A day that would seem no different from any other held major consequences concerning the future of one of history’s most dangerous viruses: smallpox. It was earlier this year that the member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) met in Geneva to once more debate-as they have since 1976-whether or not the remaining stocks of the virus should be destroyed.  The result of the assembly was not unlike any other, as the United States and Russia once more bullied their way into postponing the destruction of the virus for another three years. While the tide of opposition for keeping the live virus in two sanctioned repositories continues to grow, some have continued their support of the United States and Russia in keeping the virus intact. One of these pieces of support comes from the January 2011 edition of Nature. The editorial titled “Smallpox should be saved” is a clear backing of the efforts made by the United States and Russia to secure their virus stocks and calls for a political compromise that would allow them to do so. This argument, while intriguing in its own right, is simply outdated and narrow minded. Too often the article tends treat the political wants and needs of these two member states as superior to the other 191 member states of the World Health Organization. A much more fair and balanced insight into the dilemma comes from Jonathan Tucker’s “Breaking the Deadlock Over Destruction of the Smallpox Virus Stocks”. Published by the scientific journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science in January 2011, Tucker’s article is a chronological display of conflict that has spanned over four decades. It becomes clear that the patience of the member states with the United States and Russia over their desires to hold on to their WHO repositories is waning. As such, Tucker has successfully argued that two former superpowers can no longer hold the rest of the World Health Organization in gridlock. Efforts must be made to reduce and eventually eliminate the stocks of smallpox to ensure global stability and international security.

            The fate of the smallpox virus has been the topic of discussion among world powers for almost half a century.  This is a disease that has claimed a third of its victims, amounting to hundreds of millions of lives. It was in 1966 that the World Health Organization launched a global campaign to purge the world of this epidemic. By 1977 the last natural outbreak of smallpox had been contained and eradicated.  While contained accidents continued for a few more years, the WHO recommended destroying the stocks or transferring a limited amount of them to WHO collaboration centers in the United States and former Soviet Union. This was 1976. The year is now 2011 and stocks of the disease still exist because the United States and Russia refuse to give up their position that further testing is still needed.

     So why won’t the United States and Russia compromise with the rest of the World Health Organization? The answer is a complicated one but it lies between the node of public health and national security. As the editorial in Nature is quick to point out, the whereabouts of all stocks of smallpox remain clouded in mystery. It is possible that secret stocks of the virus could be in the hands of terrorists. This threat pulls at the emotional cords of the American people following the events of 9/11. With this in mind, Nature argues that the means of producing biochemical warfare have increased the need to keep the smallpox stocks that remain. Tucker himself further elaborates on this point in his own article; stating the uneasiness of the Cold War and the information that was leaked following its collapse as a major source of anxiety for the United States. It was in 1992 that Ken Ailbek, a defected Soviet official, revealed the biological warfare program of the former U.S.S.R.  The details of their program were nothing short of astonishing. Ailbek revealed that the U.S.S.E has developed a highly lethal strain of smallpox as a weapon. This strain had been stockpiled by the ton and shipped for delivery against the United States in the case that World War III broke out. This however was not the only source of concern as circumstantial evidence obtained by the CIA suggested more undeclared stocks of smallpox could exist in countries such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc.  There is no question this uneasiness influenced the United States’ decision to keep their WHO stockpiles of smallpox in order to decode the genome of the virus and prepare a vaccine in case of an attack. However, the excuses by both governments have run stale with the other members of the WHO and their opposition is picking up steam.

            It has become clear within the past decade that international support for keeping the stockpiles of smallpox has almost completely died out. According to Tucker, the stated goals of the smallpox research program have been achieved. In terms of DNA sequencing and progress of investigative kits, continued access to live smallpox samples is almost useless. Scientists have learned almost all they can from the disease. Critics of this approach rationalize their thinking by stating that further work with the live virus would aid in the development and testing of antiviral drugs. While in theory having these drugs would be a major milestone to the prevention of any biochemical threat, one major obstacle would make any chance of these drugs being passed remote. The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require an Animal model of the virus to secure approval of drugs and vaccines. To this day, an animal model has not been produced. The reasoning behind this is lies in the fact that smallpox is a uniquely human disease. Critics rightfully argue that the use of a surrogate virus such as the monkey pox would be a much better option than keeping smallpox intact. The case for the use of monkey pox is staggering. Not only does it contain ninety percent of the homology of smallpox, but it is far dangerous to handle. In addition, monkey pox is already prevalent in animals (monkeys specifically, where it gets its namesake) and prevents a much lesser risk to its human counterparts.

            The argument against keeping stockpiles of smallpox is strong and picking up steam. Public health officials of developing nations within Asia and Africa simply need to invest their scarce financial and scientific resources elsewhere. Smallpox has not been prevalent in over thirty years, while AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis continue to disrupt society. On the home front, Tucker argues that the United States’ policy makers need to decide how much of a defensive front against the smallpox virus they need. Russia is not capable of withholding off the scrutiny of the entire World Health Organization without the United States. This fact implies that Russia would have no choice but to concede to the WHO if the United States chose to drop its opposition to the virus destruction.  It is in Tucker’s belief that the United States should finally accept a firm deadline for ending smallpox research. In addition, it is time for the nation to destroy its stocks of smallpox, which had been authorized by WHO to begin with. While the Nature article claims any destruction of smallpox would be purely politically driven and symbolic, it fails to account for the unrest of the majority of countries in the World Health Organization who are calling for the destruction of the virus. However, the writers of the Nature article and Jonathan Tucker have common ground: both can agree that the elimination of some of the stocks would create some headway in a debate that has seen nothing but stalemates.

            It is clear that a consensus over the fate of one of the deadliest killers in history will not be solved overnight. Yet the time for delay is over. With May 2011 come and gone, and another delay on the future of this disease passed, the members of the WHO are putting society through the same endless game year after year. These stocks should be destroyed, if for nothing else just to promote stability between the members of the WHO. An organization that is driven by only two of its one hundred ninety three members is not fair and just. Instead, it is a mockery of democracy and teeters on absolute rule. Concessions have to be made by the United States and Russia in the upcoming years to prevent not only biochemical harm, but to protect international unity.

Bibliography

"Smallpox Should Be Saved : Nature : Nature Publishing Group." Nature Publishing Group : Science Journals, Jobs, and Information. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v469/n7330/full/469265a.html>.

D. A. Henderson. Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science. June 2011, 9(2): 163-168. doi:10.1089/bsp.2011.0011.

Just a Little Sugar

If we were playing “I Spy” and I described to you an object by the adjectives blue, round, and has a whole in the middle, what would you think? Well if you guessed the world, then you are wrong. Actually it is a symbol that represents a major disease that is affecting the world that we live in. This is a universal symbol for diabetes. Many would not consider diabetes as a serious illness. Often times you will hear people say “it’s just a little sugar,” but this disease accounts for almost four million deaths alone in 2010. In the article Management of diabetes and associated cardiovascular risk factors in seven countries: a comparison of data from national health examination surveys a study is given to see if this disease is destroying millions of lives because of the relationship between socioeconomic factors and inequalities in the health care system.

             Diabetes does not just have an effect on one part of the world. Every continent has seen major increases of the disease in their populations. Being that this is the case,the study was researched worldwide in seven different countries. These countries included Columbia, England, Islamic Republican of Iran, Mexico, Scotland, Thailand, and the United States. As they began their research, they broke the studies into four major categories which would determine how health systems were reacting to diabetes.These categories were undiagnosed, diagnosed but untreated, treated but not controlled which means that they were not meeting treatment targets, and last treated and controlled so they were making the targets for blood glucose, blood pressure and serum cholesterol. The results were that only a small percentage of individuals with diabetes actually reached the target for all three conditions. Wealth was not proven as a major significance in being diagnosed with diabetes.
            The study also broke down environmental factors that would impact the data.The following determinants were age and sex of the respondent, where they lived ( urban or rural), income, highest level of education, and insurance status. When it came to age, Mexico stood out with its high diagnosis of diabetes. In those over the age of 35, 24% were males, and 21% were females.In Columbia more women were actually willing to get tested and more were diagnosed than men.Another result was that coverage of treatment with medication was higher in more developed countries.Sadly though, overall in younger people diabetes was not diagnosed.

The article gives five approaches to help lower the pressure of diabetes. Case preventions through lowering factors that can be changed such as obesity through change of lifestyle. Screenings and lifestyle interventions with patients that have pre-diabetes. Quicker diagnosis and treatment plans, better management of complications such as renal disease and diabetic foot. Last but not least, improved organization on associated heart risk.

            Diabetes is definitely a silent killer. Even though millions are affected by the disease, people do not think of it as something that is detrimental to their health.Diabetes does not just affect one group of people.Age, sex, socioeconomic status, religion are not factors that determine whether a person will have disease. No one has a pass.It is important for us to gain knowledge on this crippling disease.


P.S. A few movies that I love that had a character affected by diabetes were Panic Room, Soul Food, and Mad Money.

Gakiodu,Mallinger,Abbott-Klafter,Guerrero,Villalpando,Ridaura,Aekplakorn,Naghavi,Lim, Lozano,JL Murray(2010).Management of diabetes and associated cardiovascular risk factors in seven countries: a comparison of data from national health examination surveys, Bull World Health Organ 2011:89:172-183, doi:10.2471/BLT10.080820

Are mental health services underutilized?

Do you know someone who suffers from depression or do you yourself suffer from depression? Most people can answer yes to one of those two questions, and depression is only one of dozens of mental illnesses that plague the human population. Mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, multiple personalities disorder, or schizophrenia, are not just abstract concepts that make up the plot of popular horror movies. They are real issues that create real problems and are in need of real solutions. In the article, “Typology of  adults diagnosed with mental disorders based on socio-demographics and clinical and service use characteristics” a study was conducted to develop a typology of individuals that suffered from mental illness in order to generate better and more efficient ways to improve the health care system to better serve the mentally ill. The study focused primarily on the predisposition, enabling factors, and needs factors of 2,433 people selected to participate in the study, as well as, the use of mental health services provided by those that had a history of mental illness.  

The study found that the most prevalent pre-disposing factors were gender, age, and marital status. Fifty six percent of participants were women around the mean age of 39.4 years. Fifty-one percent of the participants had never been married or were single. Socio-economic factors proved key in becoming enabling factors. Forty five percent of participants earned a salary as their primary source of income, and thirteen percent reported receiving government assistance in the form of welfare. Three percent received unemployment insurance, and the mean household income was $43,650. The needs related factors were shown to be major depressive episodes at fifty two percent, alcohol dependence at twenty-four percent, and social phobias at twenty percent. The average number of mental disorders per participant was found to be 1.47 disorders. These numbers reveal patterns of mental disorders  as an indirect result of various factors.

Among the 2,433 people that participated in the study, 406 people experienced at least one episode of mental disorder in the year prior to the study. Out of these 406 people, fifty-two percent, or 212 people, claimed to have used health care services for mental health issues at least one time. Most of the fifty-two percent suffered from major depressive episodes. The average number of services used by this section of the participants was 1.9 services. Most of the participants that had sought medical help used both primary care, which would include general practitioners, and specialized care, which would include psychiatrists and psychologists. Most of the participants that received specialized care had private health insurance. Forty of the participants consulted four or more different types of professionals. These numbers reveal patterns in the use of available public services for addressing mental disorders.

Through these findings the study found that there is an under use of the mental health services currently provided, with mostly woman taking advantage of them. The study found that because some services are underutilized and because mental illnesses vary with different pre-disposing factors, it is important to develop treatment programs for individual mental illnesses, and not more broad treatment programs that encompass the whole spectrum of mental illness. The study identified four main groups that need to be targeted, which include young females with anxiety disorders, middle aged, high income females with depressive disorders, young, low income earners with dependence disorders, and young low income earners with multiple mental and dependence disorders.  Outreach and promotion programs were found to be necessary for males specifically, as well as, for all four types of subgroups identified in the study.

Fleury, M., Grenier, G., Bamvita, J., Perreault, M., & Jean-Caron. (2011). Typology of adults diagnosed with mental disorders based on socio-demographics and clinical and service use characteristics. BMC Psychiatry, 11(1), 67-77. doi:10.1186/1471-244X-11-67

Viruses that Cross Borders

Imagine sitting on a bus  next to many coughing individuals, perhaps even sitting in  right in front of a violent sneezer.  The germophobe in you cringes, right?  Truth is, as many bottles of hand sanitizer we buy, or shots we take, there is not stopping viruses from spreading whether it be from each other, or between countries.

Photo by Xavier Donat

According to Yuki Furuse, Akira Suzuku, Taro Kamigaki, Emmanuel Abraham Mpolya, Irona Khandaker and Hitoshi Oshitani, there are four criteria to determine how spreadable each disease is, globally.  In their study “Viruses that Cross Borders: Factors Responsible for Global Dissemination of Viral Infections,” they study what  factors make a virus so contagious and resilient.

        The research concluded that viruses were classified as either Local or Global based upon the geographical distribution of genotypes of Viruses, how far ranging the Virus has spread.  Factors that were examined were : the biological characteristics of viruses, ways of transmission, host responses and epidemiological  factors.  The researchers found that viruses that were in closer range together looked genetically similar while the viruses that were far ranging came from the same familial tree.  This was a longitudinal study conducted over 10 years.  The researchers found that a lot of viruses while classified as Local can dually be classified as Global.  HIV is an example of a disease that is locally spread and yet has become a global problem.  There are many strains of HIV, many mutated versions.  This once “local virus” has become an issue for the global community.  With the advances in technology that has allowed for more travel of ideas, people, and culture, Viruses have inevitably followed. Globalization has become one of the biggest factors in the spreading of viruses as well as other factors including population density, lack of public health education.
        So then, how does this affect me?
        We live in a time of instantaneous transaction. People are no longer confined to the boundaries of their country because they have the motive and the means to travel.  As a result, their ideas, cultures, and diseases follow.  Perhaps this gives us an incentive to care more about what occurs in a small village in Africa.  Perhaps this should give us encouragement to put more money into foreign aid.   Whatever the result, it is clear that we are no longer a society confined to national borders, but rather a global community that is growing to share in culture, politics, and diseases.
        In today’s global society, everything is spread and shared instantly.  Whether it is ideas, fashion trends, fast food or news, it seems that nothing is set to one country’s boundary anymore.  The same can be said for Viruses.   
       
        Note:  For more: Check out the trailer for the upcoming movie, “Contagion”  this movie analyzes the breakdown of our political system as a disease is spread globally.

Furuse, Y., Suzuki, A., Kamigaki, T., Mpolya, E., Khandaker, I., & Oshitani, H. (2011). Viruses That Cross Borders: Factors Responsible for Global Dissemination of Viral Infections. Intervirology, 54(5), 246-252. doi:10.1159/000320967