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A Timeline of Challenges and Progress in Addressing HIV/AIDS
In the 1980s and 1990s, fear, paranoia, and confusion over the enigmatic and epidemic HIV virus marked American culture. HIV, which stands for human immunodeficiency virus, weakens the human immune system and can easily spread through bodily fluids. It is often transmitted through needles and unprotected sex. HIV is especially noteworthy and dangerous because it…
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Boundless Bodies: Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Places
A woman loses both her legs in the aftermath of tampon-induced Toxic Shock Syndrome. A child suffers brain damage years after innocently biting a lead-painted toy. A man spends nineteen days on a ventilator after waterproofing his boots. We hear these stories on the news, but quickly tune them out. Our apathetic attitudes seem rational.…
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The Borders Around Our Own Empathy
When a suicide bomber detonated at an arena concert in Manchester in May 2017, it shook America to its bones. A little more than a week later, when a car bomb exploded at a busy market in Kabul, Afghanistan, America merely shivered. Terrorist attacks are ubiquitous and hard to keep up with, and an individual’s…
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Are Nurse Practioners Practioners Too?
In Butte County, Idaho, there is one full-time doctor serving the county’s 2,501 residents. While the Lost Rivers Hospital makes ends meet with innovative care delivery, this reality begs the question: are we delivering sufficient primary care to those in need? According to the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis (NCHWA), the country will have…
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The Inconvenient Science
BY FANGHUI ZHAO Stephen Colbert once told George W. Bush: “reality has well-known liberal bias.” Indeed, for the past few decades, emerging facts from the natural and social sciences have revealed a reality that seems to be overwhelmingly in support of the political agendas of American liberals. The present alliance of science and America’s political…
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Divestmentgate, Ctd.
This may be the first time Perlblog has inspired real ire on campus, and the heat is coming from the left (which is ironic if you’ve read most of the other items in this space). To backtrack, earlier this week I wrote a post about how Wash U’s nascent “divestment” movement — which seeks to…
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In Response to Perlblog: Why Divestment is the Real Activism Through Capitalism
[This op-ed is written in response to Steven Perlberg’s article, No, Wash U Shouldn’t Divest From Fossil Fuels — Yet] First, let’s get our facts straight. Contrary to what Steven Perlberg’s article suggests, the divestment campaign does not mandate investments in renewable energy, such as a “rural Oregon algae factory,” as he so colorfully puts…
