The War on Drugs in Contrast to the War on Big Pharma: Contextualizing Shifts in Drug Policy During the Opioid Crisis

New drug epidemics often unleash punitive campaigns to end them- highlighted by the 1980’s drug wars. However, the opioid crisis has been met with public-health driven policies, like clean needle programs and community-based substance abuse therapy. This thesis asks why policy responses to the opioid crisis are so different than those of the War on Drugs. First, as the cost of the drug war became clearer, policy makers across the political spectrum became less inclined to wage a new punitive war against opioids, especially as public-health responses proved to be more effective while also less costly. Second, the demographics of those addicted to opioids is different than those who were addicted to crack cocaine. The brunt of War on Drugs policies was felt by those in the lowest socioeconomic brackets and perpetuated poverty in low-income communities. Today’s softer approaches have been informed by a greater percentage of middle- to upper-class individuals affected by the opioid crisis. Third, as opioids have legitimate medical purposes, they are harder to demonize or ban, rendering it more difficult to declare total war against them. Further, the influence opioid manufacturers have has made policy makers less inclined to declare war, taking supply-side action. Public-health driven policies and policies that minimize supply-side action against pharmaceutical opioid manufacturers are duplicate representations of the United States’ departure from War on Drug tactics. As long as the “medical model” of health care, which emphasizes drugs, medical treatment, and surgery is ingrained in society and the economy, these patterns will continue

Factors That Contribute to the Low Uptake of Skilled Care During Delivery in Malindi, Kenya

In Kenya, maternal mortality ratios remain high and the number of births attended by skilled health attendants hovers at just 44%. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, a study was conducted to determine the uptake of antenatal care and skilled attendance in Malindi District and to explore factors that contribute to the low use of maternal health services during delivery. It was found that after the first antenatal visit attendance to health facilities begins to decline ending in low rates of births attended by skilled care and that socio-cultural and economic factors play a larger role than access alone in women’s health-seeking behavior during childbirth. A pervasive lack of birth preparedness and the view that health facilities are for the treatment of complications added yet another barrier to the uptake of skilled care. We conclude that the eradication of TBAs is not a realistic measure in the context of poverty and traditional practices

The Role of Language Interpretation in Providing a Quality Mediation Process

This paper focuses on the role of language in mediation and the challenges multiple language fluencies bring to the practice. Beginning with a discussion of the process and ethics of mediation as a form of alternative dispute resolution, as distinct from other forms of dispute resolution including arbitration, the paper shifts to consider the importance of language. Language, and more specifically interpretation, plays a central role in the integrity of the mediation process and the quality of its outcomes. Each stage of mediation requires the participants and the mediator understand one another to ensure effective communication and a quality process. The most essential principles of mediation: self-determination, impartiality, and confidentiality, cannot be upheld when participants are unable to understand one another. Addressing language interpretation issues in mediation requires ensuring that interpreters with proper training and expertise are hired to assist in mediations. The interpreter should be a neutral and impartial third party. The mediator should be allotted additional time in a session for thorough and accurate language interpretation to ensure satisfying and sustainable solutions for participants

F16RS SGFB No. 3 (Refrigerator and Freezer)

To Allocate a maximum of one thousand three hundred and fifty-eight dollars and zero cents ($1,358.00) from the Student Government Surplus Account to fund a refrigerator and freezer for the LSU Food Pantr

Man's mission of subjugation : the publications of John Maclean, John McDougall and Egerton R. Young, nineteenth-century Methodist missionaries in western Canada

John McDougall, John Maclean and Egerton Young were Methodist missionaries among the Indians of Western Canada in the late nineteenth century and all published books based on their experiences. Contemporary readers of these stirring accounts of missionary valour would have been left with two main impressions. The first was that the Indian was clearly a member of a feeble, backward race. The second impression, however, was that the Indian could be saved from his nomadic, pagan life of ignorance, superstition and cruelty; through Christianity and education the Indian could be elevated so that, at some indefinite time in the future, he would be on an equal footing with his white brothers and could enjoy all the rights, burdens and privileges of citizenship. This interpretation of the Indians' past and future encouraged contributions to Christian mission work but it also assured the public that Canada was without doubt correct in entrusting the future of the Indians and their land to more enlightened capable hands. Writing of this kind is often found in societies where one group has imposed its will on another; a need arises among the dominant group to justify its actio s Through this writing, myths are created about subject people which sanction and sustain systems based on social inequality. The publications of McDougall,; Maclean and Young contributed to such a body of writing in Canada. Their perception of the Indians as an inferior race provided justification for removing them from their stewardship of the land. Their optimistic portraits of the glorious future in store for the Indians once they had been guided through a transition stage from "savagery to civilization" endorsed the supervision of their affairs by the more enlightened. The missionaries' caution that for an undetermined length of time the Indians would have to be "looked after" provided justification for a society based on the premise of inequality. The introduction to this thesis is an assessment of missionary publications as a source and subject of historical inquiry; they must be approached with caution but they have a legitimate place nevertheless. The second chapter provides background on the work of the Wesleyan Methodists in Western Canada and the three missionary authors are introduced. The missionaries' arguments for the inferiority of the Indians are the subject of the third chapter. Judging the Indians by the standards of their own society, the missionaries found them backward as they left no marks of their presence on the land, did not understand the importance of private property and did not appreciate the value of time and money, The idolatry, ritualism and superstition associated with their spiritual beliefs were further proofs of a weak race. The missionaries perceived some virtues in Indian society, however, and these are presented in the fourth chapter. They acknowledged a primitive moral order, system of-education and justice in tribal society, and admired the superior sensory ability and oratorical skill of individual Indians. The missionaries made it clear, however, that these were inferior virtues, worthy of admiration only in a primitive society; the image of the Indian as backward remained. Chapter five describes the missionaries' portrayal of the glorious future available to the Indians once they had accepted Christianity. Juxtapos ing their evidence of the hideousness and degradation of the indians' former way of life, the missionaries presented startling proof of the transforming power of the Gospel. The concepts of Christianity and civilization were inextricably linked in their publi ations; the convert immediately acquired a new attitude toward his temporal welfare. The missionaries cautioned their readers that for the majority of Indians in Western Canada there would be a transition stage from "savagery to civilization" that could last for an undetermined length of time. This transition period is the subject of the sixth chapter. The Indian would be guided and protected by his elder and stronger brethren during the transition stage and could not expect, to enjoy fully the privileges of citizenship until this gap of centuries had been bridged. The seventh is a concluding chapter

What is overdiagnosis and why should we take it seriously in cancer screening?

Overdiagnosis occurs in a population when conditions are diagnosed correctly but the diagnosis produces an unfavourable balance between benefits and harms. In cancer screening, overdiagnosed cancers are those that did not need to be found because they would not have produced symptoms or led to premature death. These overdiagnosed cancers can be distinguished from false positives, which occur when an initial screening test suggests that a person is at high risk but follow-up testing shows them to be at normal risk. The cancers most likely to be overdiagnosed through screening are those of the prostate, thyroid, breast and lung. Overdiagnosis in cancer screening arises largely from the paradoxical problem that screening is most likely to find the slow-growing or dormant cancers that are least likely to harm us, and less likely to find the aggressive, fast-growing cancers that cause cancer mortality. This central paradox has become clearer over recent decades. The more overdiagnosis is produced by a screening program, the less likely the program is to serve its ultimate goal of reducing illness and premature death from cancer. Thus, it is vital that health professionals and researchers continue an open, scientific inquiry into the extent and consequences of overdiagnosis, and devise appropriate responses to it