Sars-Like Virus being monitored
http://www.kpic.com/news/health/Global-health-officials-monitoring-new-SARS-like-virus-170986711.html


Another epidemic scare is starting to gain some weight in the health world these days. A germ has been linked to a death and a critical condition, and that germ is known as a coronavirus. A coronavirus is from a family of viruses that cause the common cold as well as SARS. So far it is believed to have killed at least one person in Saudi Arabia. Usually, one person is not enough to be wary of an epidemic. Yet there have been connections made between this case, and one about a 60-year-old Saudi who died earlier this year. The samples from both these cases match up. The last case could be the big breakthrough. There is one person in an intensive care unit at a London hospital that is believed to also be affected by the germ, one of the main issues they are having is kidney failure. As far as we know, respiratory viruses aren't usually known to cause serious kidney problems. At this moment, we have three cases, that may or may not be linked, they all did have one geographical thing in common though, each case had originated in Saudi Arabia. It may be too early in the stages to do so, but restricting immigration out of Saudi may be the next move to help contain this. "It's still (in the) very early days," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman. "At the moment, we have two sporadic cases and there are still a lot of holes to be filled in." Looking at this from a WHO standpoint though, combating an epidemic seems to have 3 steps, identification, containment, and constructing a cure. One of the scarier things is that we don't know how its spread, how fast it can spread, who else has it, are there carriers, is this from an animal infection, there are many questions that need to be answered before any drastic moves are made.

How Your Job Could Hurt Your Heart

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/14/161157317/how-your-job-could-hurt-your-heart?ft=1&f=133188449

Those of us with stressful jobs had a 23 percent higher risk of getting a heart attack than those without that added stress. What makes a job stressful? A stressful job has to have high demands and little control, sort of like college. In their study, only 5 percent, of the participants had stressful jobs. On a global scale, there are probably much higher percentages for having a "stressful" job. Before this article came out however, this subject had mixed results with previous studies. In the article they state why the data collection method this time will yield a much high correlation than previous accounts. They were able to synthesize a monumental amount of data by combining previously published and unpublished studies. Even so, will working off of these past studies reveal anything about our current understanding? These results can't prove cause and effect because the original work they drew upon only observed participating people, not a random sample where each individual was assigned randomly to high-stress and low-stress jobs. The results and numbers in this article are misleading though. By ending an article with such inconclusiveness and by pointing out their own flaws, these results and tests mean almost nothing. Halfway research is worthless, it is commonly known though that stress has a correlation with heart attacks, but that's why we collect data, so we can have an exact, trustworthy answer.

Sept 11th Post

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/10/160761974/when-heat-kills-global-warming-as-public-health-threat

When Heat Kills: Global Warming As Public Health Threat

Global Warming has often been portrayed as an Environmental issue, about how many animals are losing their habitats and starting to die off. With an effect like that, one should take Global Warming seriously, but alas it still i'snt given the response that Environmentalists keep pushing for. Taking notice of that, there has been talk of changing the slogan. More people are more effected if the issue affects not only themselves and their family, but also every innocent human on the planet. For lack of a better word, Marketing the Global Warming issue as a health concern rather than an environmental issue, gets much better feedback. 

Its not just a matter of marketing a concern either, the health risks are very much there. With all the climate changes taking place, there are a ton of major health concerns that go along with them, heat waves are just one aspect of it. Recent heatwaves have caused many excess deaths globally. Not only that, but with the heat comes many other complications, such as an increase and smog, infectious diseases outreach, and more deadly storms! With all that happening, we should take more interest in this issue, which is why it is being marketed more toward the average everyday person.

first post

here it is