Sexism in the ACA repeal

The ACA, among the many things it brought, was the ability for women to finally be covered completely for birth control. This came as a huge victory as this medication is desperately needed for medical and sexual assistance. In the sexual realm it prevents unwanted pregnancies and allows parents to prepare before they bring a child into this world. On the medical sides they help with a lot of different problems from menstrual problems to hormonal imbalances. With the change in administration, and the further crusade to repeal the ACA, there has been a more conservative approach to this with a very sexist agenda. The new healthcare repeal and replacement takes away the coverage of birth control and leaves it to the decision of the insurance companies individually. On the opposite side of this, we see that male sexual enhancement drugs like Viagra are completely mandated to be covered. The absurdity of this is baffling to anyone, left or right, but it falls inherently with the common underlying attitude that our social system has had for women for decades. This edict is that, we do not empower women with the idea of responsibility in sex. Instead we subjugate women with that idea. Men on the other hand are viewed as the control over the ability for women to reproduce. Condoms and male enhancement is a topic of social conversation, media display and pride while in the other case birth control is the topic of discretion and seriousness. The attitudes have been different for quite some time and when conservatives came into power over this issue, the wave of change for the better has ceased. The biggest issue in this department is that there are no women involved in that conversation, it is only decided by old white men. Birth control is simply seen as necessary and something that people need to pay for like condoms, which is extremely short sighted as condoms aren't used medically. Viagra is marketed to be a cure for a deficiency or a medical problem and cause men to get cardiovascular screenings which to the uninformed is far greater of an advantage compared to birth control. Men are only seen as the gender to have fun and be safe with nothing really at stake as we have shown, while women carry this burden walking into the age of sexual maturity. This dynamic has to end culturally and then it will further proceed to end in laws and in actions.

Who Sponsors Nutrition?

In the United States we have a very interesting system when it comes to nutritional guidelines and who creates them. Many people would think it’s a bunch of smart looking guys holding up tubes and tests to find out what makes humans function, but really it happens in boardrooms. Most nutritional guidelines we have in this country are made with the food industries behind them in mind. A great example of this is the dairy industry and how 2 servings of dairy a day became a staple of the American diet. This comes as a very surprising fact as humans don’t need dairy, 25% can’t even consume it and it has even been shown to be terrible at providing calcium to stop fractures. In World War II however dairy was very useful in feeding our troops and fueling the battlegrounds of Europe and japan and as a result the Army bought so much and farmers invested intensely in cows to produce milk. After the war was over there was millions of dollars in left over milk and cattle that were never used in the war but had to be utilized in some manner or it would spoil. A good portion of that milk was given to school lunch programs to fit a dairy requirement that the Dairy industry lobbied congress for. Ever since the post-world war II milk surpluses we had a section of our lives carved for milk because a corporation said we needed to for it to make money. This isn’t because of nutrition or any wholesome reason, solely profit. This same thing was done with the food pyramid in the section of 12 servings of grains every day. The industries that were behind that were the sugar and corn industries that lobbied congress to believe skewed and biased research with the end result being the overconsumption of carbohydrates. The profit margins for corn products and bread went up significantly and the government bought into it to send to schools as well, which would end up cheaper than more expensive products like meat and produce. Even today we overconsume on carbohydrates and we allow soda companies to advertise everywhere like they are not one of the root causes of the obesity epidemic. These are not relics of the 90’s and early 2000’s they still continue to this day. As a result we the people suffer instead of corporations. In government researched health systems like Scandinavian countries, they opt for heavier protein and fat diets with high amounts of vegetables and fruits, an opposite tune than the one the US subscribes to. As a result they are healthier as a country and the economics on marketing food is not as big of a deal over there as it is compared to here.

Science isn't always 20/20

Medicine and science have advanced substantially to the modern day. To shed light on this fact and how recent advance we take for granted came to light, it has been 44 years that Homosexuality was removed from the official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Although this period of progression give us many questions ponder over and look for solutions, but there is no doubt that most, if not all science, is not blind. The first thing that one has to look it in regards to the inability of science to be blind is the source of funding and investment. The money goes where it is can be seen to be the most profitable for a company and as a result, many services that can help lower class individuals are kept at the bottom of the totem pole while treatments that upper-middle-class insurance providers can pay for are kept. Impoverished people are not helped much because of a lower standard of insurance and inability to keep health up to par either due to working conditions or the lack of knowledge needed to keep themselves healthy[1]. In regards to race, bioethicists are unable to approach the topic as well as the inclusion of different cultures[2]. Many aspects of other cultures and races are incompatible with the western canon of bioethics, as other perspectives from people of color show different sides to the bioethical worldview that stems outside of Judeo-Christian belief that many tenants of bioethics rest on. There is a serious lack of inclusion of other races and cultures when it comes to race and bioethics. The stagnation in dealing with other cultures in races within doctors’ offices[3] and even research studies like Tuskegee which ended in 1972 show that there are many internal prejudices that need to be addressed. The most recent development for medicine is the emerging population of Trans individuals and the issues that they need help with in regards to transitioning, wellness screenings, risk factors in different individuals and basic discourse in patient-doctor contact. Due to the novelty of focused research and medical treatment for Trans individuals, it is not universally understood by doctors or physicians and outside dense populations it can actually be extremely hard to find care and research for issues in regards to the not only trans but the entire LGBTQ community. With all three factors of these put into perspective, it’s actually quite hard for science to be blind. Science in these respects of human issues is as specific as its variables, and, unfortunately, with humans, there are infinite amounts of variables at hand, and it can only advance as much as the researchers in control of the studies or physicians in control of medical care want it to. The idea of science advancing to a state of absolute blindness is an idea of personifying a massive subject, which is the incorrect way of going about this. Science will always have an aspect of human error because it's entirely reliant on humans, but it can also contrast have the benefit of ingenuity to accelerate it forward. Although we can’t expect science to be always blind, we can always expect it to move forward, and grow to be more inclusive.

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[1] http://archive.jsonline.com/news/health/poverty-linked-to-bad-health-lack-of-care-b99284864z1-262898801.html

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17366183

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3140753/

Scientific Literacy

Scientific literacy is an essential trait that is needed by all students in this day and age. As a result of the increasing amount of information we are made aware of on a regular basis, it’s extremely important that people realize how it integrates into our daily lives. Science is no longer something very distant, performed in labs by men in coats using big words, it’s something that affects people every day and as a result, it’s increasingly obvious how much we should pay attention to it. Scientific literacy is needed in every major, in every campus and is useful in any field of work. Every working field as some amount of science and innovative technologies behind it and as a result it requires some amount of understanding of how science functions. Alongside our immediate lives, the life of our planet, family members, and our own wellbeing we rely on understanding what goes on scientifically around us. In this case, no one has to go and understand quantum mechanics and string theory of how this universe is held together, but understand biological concepts that we hold as permanent theories, such as the theory of evolution are really important. This also doesn’t require anyone to open a textbook and start to take notes on biochemistry, understanding what is in the news and seeing minor inconsistencies when skewed stories come out is enough. More than actual knowledge this comes down to people looking up what they don’t know, and not relying on just one source for this information. A key premise of this class is to ask questions and, furthermore, to understand what people need to immediately known in regards to scientific knowledge today. The biggest stories that can cause people are harm are things like, not vaccinating your kids, not believing in evolution, not believing in climate change, or simply even not understanding basic nutrition. This class goes to touch on all these topics and does an extremely good job on allowing people to get whole stories before they publish them. However, it falls short in some aspects such as drawing the mistakes I’ve seen in science writing into question. The depth of explanation sometimes is too shallow and people oversimplify topics to an egregious extent and the readers become misinformed and they don’t believe experts to the depth they should. The best thing is to actually explain the science in words people can understand but not oversimplify them to the point where it gets lost. We also need to analyze more scientific articles, such as primary sources, and turn them into news stories more often. This comes from much of my time spent seeing how to do this from other journalists, but I genuinely believe this practice from going to the “crude,” product to the refined article is essential to progress in this field. 

CTE: The true cost of six points and a field goal

In the United States the sport of football has a devoted following of people that treat the game as a religion. The Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays spent watching games and the adoption of each persons' team into their family as if it was their family crest shows the devotion Americans have to the sport. This also leads to them enrolling their children into the sport, on the good faith that it'll make boys tougher and get them to learn cohesiveness of teamwork and even brotherhood within their own team. Although between the Saturdays spent within the spare training field of the local high school and the orange slices that come after the big win or loss, there is a lot that parents aren't understanding when it comes to tossing the pig skin. The unfortunate thing is when we see announcers and medical staff talking about concussions its only after a big hit where someone gets taken out with a stretcher and the game stops for a half hour. This gives the false sense that only the worst tackles and hits are the ones that cause damage. When it comes to the issues that plague many of kids with Cerebral Traumatic Encephalopathy its the minor tackles that actually are the worse. What people also don't understand is what constitutes a "minor" tackle, which is defined as any movement of someone getting hit to the ground, in any form or capacity. The reason for this is when some takes a hit the skull wont be taking the blunt of the pain, the brain will be moving around in the skull and slamming to the sides of the head causing inflammation. This inflammation will cause neurological trauma, learning problems, cognitive issues and reduced brain plasticity. However those are only the symptoms within adults, in children the learning capacity is stunted, sometimes permanently, and areas of the brain cant function for development. The real reason parents are willing to risk their children's safety isn't for  the pride and the glory of having a son being in the Superbowl, but its because the over idealization of padding and the underestimation of damage when it comes to the most underwhelming of hits. Even Peewee Football with its adorable take downs and hits can cause harm for children and at the end of the day, unlike the tackle, the child and parents wont know what hit them.

Scientific Literacy: Its desperate need

In the recent years where the steadfast accessibility of the internet has caused a large spike in information circulation, more and more people have started to gain some amount of scientific literacy. The source of this scientific literacy can be from published articles to YouTube videos and online lectures, but nevertheless the attempt has been made for citizens to become educated in matters of scientific work. The flint water crisis has shown us how necessary knowledge is when it comes to aspect of scientific literacy that go above the elementary teachings in schools during adolescence. The citizens who took the blunt of the crisis only saw the result in a very superficial way, commenting on the outcome of the problem but they had no way to actually determine the cause. The deadly results included microbes and heavy metals (Lead in this case) as well as the intense color change of the water and it was left up to a team of researchers from Virginia Tech to discover why all of this was happening. The formally trained scientists were able to get this highlighted in the way it did, while the citizens suffered at the hands of a corrupt government. The amount of scientific literacy in this case was necessary more than ever, because without citizens understanding what the researchers were telling them, there would not have been such a cohesive effort to change. However in this day and age with a new administration coming up to power, there should be a movement to become more literate than before. Not in the sense of relying on social media and the government for every last detail, but to go become pseudo academically trained in these matters. If someone hears a lot about climate change, I would encourage them to read academic literature and textbooks on environmental science. In the modern day there is no excuse for the lack of scientific knowledge when resources are extremely prevalent and in the largest cases now we have to make sure citizens are scientifically educated. Without being versed in common science and the issues that are on everyone’s mind its really quite difficult to understand how people are going to get past information blocks that Trump has on certain government bodies. This can happen to any branch funded by the federal government, which doesn’t limit it down to just the EPA but many other organizations as well, from the scientific grants we receive to the information given out in public schools. It’s vital that people understand what they are being told and when to spot the inaccuracies, because now is the time where the majority needs to band together and show the administration who it’s dealing with in regards to its receiving population.