Sunday, February 6, 2011
Submission deadline extended!
The abstract submission deadline for the upcoming APHA conference has been extended. I won't repeat the full Peace Caucus call-out, can be found here (http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/pc.htm). But note that the actual deadline is February 18 and not the 8th!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
On the Agenda at APHA 2010
Here's a list of our sessions this year:
MONDAY (November 7, 2010)
* 3235.0 - WAR, TERRORISM AND PUBLIC HEALTH - 12:30 - 2:00 PM • CCC 506
* 3413.0 - WAR AND SOCIAL INJUSTICE - 4:30 -6:00 PM • CCC 506
* MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS - 7:00-8:30 PM With Robert Gould, MD - A reception, presentation and discussion hosted by Colorado Physicians for social responsibility - Located at: Jefferson County Association of Realtors Building, SE Corner, 10th and Wadsworth, Lakewood, 1st Fl Conference Rm
TUESDAY
* 4209.0 - SOCIAL JUSTICE, THE US MILITARY AND THEIR FAMILIES - 12:30 PM-2:00 PM • CCC 507
* 4377.1 - THE ROLE OF PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTITIONERS IN RELATION TO ARMED CONFLICT AND WAR - 4:30 PM-6:00 PM • CCC 303 Roundtable discussions will provide an opportunity to learn the views of a wide range of APHA’s constituents about how war and the prevention of war does or could impact their work. Session leaders will facilitate conversations with the goal of exploring opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration to broadly leverage the benefits of war prevention across a wide range of public health issues and priorities (see PDF flyer).
*425.0 - PEACE CAUCUS BUSINESS MEETING
6:30 PM-8:00 PM • CCC 303
WEDNESDAY
* 5179.0 - SOCIAL JUSTICE, WOMEN, AND HEALTH: NO HEALTH WITHOUT JUSTICE - 12:30 PM-2:00 PM • CCC 507
For details check out the 2010 Peace Caucus Newsletter!
Also check out the Peace Caucus Endorsed Social Events described on the right
Armed Conflict and War: What’s A Health Professional to Do?
APHA’s Governing Council adopted a policy last year to guide our organization on the role of public health practitioners, academics and advocates in response to war and armed conflict, and further, to lay a platform for the adoption of future APHA policy statements and advocacy work on specific wars as they arise. The APHA policy paper provides the scientific basis and justification for an acknowledgment that war is one of the most significant threats to health, and articulates the roles that public health professionals can play in preventing war itself, as well as mitigating the public health consequences of war.
Medical students rally to prevent the
start of the Iraq War (Jan 2003)
“ War has profound public health consequences, and is an entirely preventable source of some the world’s worst public health catastrophes.” APHA Policy Statement (2009)
- Patrice Sutton
Sunday, November 8, 2009
March for Health Care Reform in Philadelphia
As many of you probably already know, the house narrowly passed it's health care bill 220-215 Saturday evening. The bill still has several major hurdles to pass before reaching the President for final approval. So to show your support of the bill, APHA conference-goers can join the Public Health Practitioners for Reform (a student group originating from the Harvard School of Public Health) on a march tomorrow afternoon, at 4pm, starting from 13th and Arch. All conference-goers are welcome. March to show your support for the public option in health care ! [Flyer]
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Of Nuclear Fuels and Medical Isotopes
A policy statement backgrounder
The medical isotopes we use today are made using nuclear fuels that could also be used to create nuclear weapons. What's more: it’s not even necessary. So why use them? That's the gist of the argument that Robert Gould and Victor Sidel make in their recent policy statement proposal. [update: read the final policy statement here]
As a new Peace Caucus member, I was pretty ignorant about all this nuclear medicine vocabulary, so I thought I’d do a little research to help myself understand. I hope you find this helpful too.
The most common medical isotope used in hospitals is called technetium-99m. It emits gamma rays and has a half-life of 6hrs, meaning that it is radioactive just for a short period of time. It is put into solution and injected into the blood stream of patients. Scanners then detect the gamma rays that escape, and create an image based on what they record. After about 24 hrs just a small fraction of the radioactive isotope remains, the majority of the technetium-99m having converted to technetium-99, a relatively inert material.
So let's go another step back to better understand how this radioactive isotope gets to the hospitals. Where does technetium -99m come from? Well, actually it is comes another radioactive material, molybdenum-99. Molybdenum-99 radioactively decays into technetium-99m. That's why, it's sometimes called a technetium “cow”. Nuclear medicine units at hospitals "milk" the technetium “cow” to extract technetium-99m. This is a simple chemical extraction process. After about one week, the technetium cow stops emitting technetium-99m in significant amounts and a new shipment must be ordered.
1. See this list of major uranium mining operations
2. NRU supplies molybdenum-99 to MDS Nordion, who then further refine it and send it to hospitals worldwide.
But how is molybdenum-99 made? Well, this is the problem. For the time being, there are just four major worldwide molybdenum-99 suppliers. One supplier, the NRU reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, supplies 40% of the world’s molybdenum-99. At NRU and most other reactors, molybdenum-99 is produced by a nuclear fission reaction that starts with Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). HEU is the same material that was used to make the first fission bombs, like the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. So HEU is a very dangerous material. Many organizations consider that obtaining or creating HEU may be the most difficult part of making a nuclear weapon.
What is HEU, exactly? HEU is a form of uranium that has a large amount of the isotope 235-U. 235-U is the most abundant naturally occurring fissile material. Fissile just designates a material that can sustain a nuclear chain reaction if it is in a large enough quantity (critical mass) and if packed densely enough. But, over 99% of natural uranium occurs in the 238-U isotope, which is non-fissile. So uranium is extracted and sent to enrichment facilities. Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) contains 20% 235-U, whereast HEU contains >85% 235-U. Generally speaking, HEU can be used to make a nuclear weapon whereas it would be extremely difficult to make a nuclear weapon using LEU. Enriching uranium is considered one of the most difficult steps in creating a nuclear weapon.
So, you'd think it would be in the interest of society to limit the production and access to HEU, right? That’s just what this APHA policy statement is trying to encourage. The technology to create molybdenum-99 from LEU is currently available; it’s just that government and industry are having difficulty making it happen (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, a crown corp. recently gave up on the development of a HEU-using medical isotope reactor called MAPLE - a particularly scathing account of the difficulties faced in it's development)
For more information:
• National Academies report on Medical Isotope Production Without Highly Enriched Uranium [a good reference that seems in line with the aims of the proposed APHA resolution]
What can you do?
• If you have shares in MDS Nordion, the major molybdenum supplier in North America, why not write to the president to ask him what he's doing to convert to LEU sources
• If you live in Canada, Netherlands, France or Belgium, write to your local representatives in order to express your concern with the use of HEU in the production of medical isotopes
The medical isotopes we use today are made using nuclear fuels that could also be used to create nuclear weapons. What's more: it’s not even necessary. So why use them? That's the gist of the argument that Robert Gould and Victor Sidel make in their recent policy statement proposal. [update: read the final policy statement here]
As a new Peace Caucus member, I was pretty ignorant about all this nuclear medicine vocabulary, so I thought I’d do a little research to help myself understand. I hope you find this helpful too.
The most common medical isotope used in hospitals is called technetium-99m. It emits gamma rays and has a half-life of 6hrs, meaning that it is radioactive just for a short period of time. It is put into solution and injected into the blood stream of patients. Scanners then detect the gamma rays that escape, and create an image based on what they record. After about 24 hrs just a small fraction of the radioactive isotope remains, the majority of the technetium-99m having converted to technetium-99, a relatively inert material.
So let's go another step back to better understand how this radioactive isotope gets to the hospitals. Where does technetium -99m come from? Well, actually it is comes another radioactive material, molybdenum-99. Molybdenum-99 radioactively decays into technetium-99m. That's why, it's sometimes called a technetium “cow”. Nuclear medicine units at hospitals "milk" the technetium “cow” to extract technetium-99m. This is a simple chemical extraction process. After about one week, the technetium cow stops emitting technetium-99m in significant amounts and a new shipment must be ordered.
1. See this list of major uranium mining operations
2. NRU supplies molybdenum-99 to MDS Nordion, who then further refine it and send it to hospitals worldwide.
But how is molybdenum-99 made? Well, this is the problem. For the time being, there are just four major worldwide molybdenum-99 suppliers. One supplier, the NRU reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, supplies 40% of the world’s molybdenum-99. At NRU and most other reactors, molybdenum-99 is produced by a nuclear fission reaction that starts with Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). HEU is the same material that was used to make the first fission bombs, like the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. So HEU is a very dangerous material. Many organizations consider that obtaining or creating HEU may be the most difficult part of making a nuclear weapon.
What is HEU, exactly? HEU is a form of uranium that has a large amount of the isotope 235-U. 235-U is the most abundant naturally occurring fissile material. Fissile just designates a material that can sustain a nuclear chain reaction if it is in a large enough quantity (critical mass) and if packed densely enough. But, over 99% of natural uranium occurs in the 238-U isotope, which is non-fissile. So uranium is extracted and sent to enrichment facilities. Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) contains 20% 235-U, whereast HEU contains >85% 235-U. Generally speaking, HEU can be used to make a nuclear weapon whereas it would be extremely difficult to make a nuclear weapon using LEU. Enriching uranium is considered one of the most difficult steps in creating a nuclear weapon.
So, you'd think it would be in the interest of society to limit the production and access to HEU, right? That’s just what this APHA policy statement is trying to encourage. The technology to create molybdenum-99 from LEU is currently available; it’s just that government and industry are having difficulty making it happen (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, a crown corp. recently gave up on the development of a HEU-using medical isotope reactor called MAPLE - a particularly scathing account of the difficulties faced in it's development)
For more information:
• National Academies report on Medical Isotope Production Without Highly Enriched Uranium [a good reference that seems in line with the aims of the proposed APHA resolution]
What can you do?
• If you have shares in MDS Nordion, the major molybdenum supplier in North America, why not write to the president to ask him what he's doing to convert to LEU sources
• If you live in Canada, Netherlands, France or Belgium, write to your local representatives in order to express your concern with the use of HEU in the production of medical isotopes
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Participate in the Peace Caucus Blog!
So, I haven't posted since setting up the domain in February, but things have started to move on the peace caucus blog front since the San Diego conference. I've been getting lots of helpful input and ideas for the blog, especially from member Gregory Pappas (thanks Greg!). He and I really want the blog to bring peace caucus members together, year round. In order to achieve this goal, you need to be able to participate in the blog! So here are three ways you can help make this blog vibrant:
1- Comment on the postings! Let everyone know about the postings you like, and why! If you can, add links to complementary info too!
2 - Add your own peace blog postings! If you're a peace caucus member and you'd like to contribute postings I'd really appreciate your help! [I will eventually add a bio of you to the site, so please send me a pic and a little info about yourself!]
Here are some posting ideas : reports about some of the peace caucus events that took place at the latest APHA conference, comments on recent news related to war & peace, reviews of events mentioned in the peace caucus blog's calendar (or see the sidebar)! Pictures from past conferences would be really neat too! Oh and conversations about some of the policy briefs the peace caucus has made in the past would be cool. Make sure your postings have interesting links too! As you can see, for the time being at least, our postings aren't going to be that narrowly focused.
3 - Subscribe to our blog feed ! Or, email me to receive blog updates by email.
4 - Send me ideas or material for postings ! Pictures especially - you can even snail mail! them to me so that I can scan and post them!
Together we can make this blog vibrant !
Kevin "email me" Brown
eggsbrown at gmail dot com
1- Comment on the postings! Let everyone know about the postings you like, and why! If you can, add links to complementary info too!
2 - Add your own peace blog postings! If you're a peace caucus member and you'd like to contribute postings I'd really appreciate your help! [I will eventually add a bio of you to the site, so please send me a pic and a little info about yourself!]
Here are some posting ideas : reports about some of the peace caucus events that took place at the latest APHA conference, comments on recent news related to war & peace, reviews of events mentioned in the peace caucus blog's calendar (or see the sidebar)! Pictures from past conferences would be really neat too! Oh and conversations about some of the policy briefs the peace caucus has made in the past would be cool. Make sure your postings have interesting links too! As you can see, for the time being at least, our postings aren't going to be that narrowly focused.
3 - Subscribe to our blog feed ! Or, email me to receive blog updates by email.
4 - Send me ideas or material for postings ! Pictures especially - you can even snail mail! them to me so that I can scan and post them!
Together we can make this blog vibrant !
Kevin "email me" Brown
eggsbrown at gmail dot com
Sunday, February 3, 2008
A 1st post
No, I didn't go AWOL. Yes, I'll be handling the website for the peace caucus for the upcoming year (as I said I would back in November)! I unilaterally decided that, for this year at least, the APHA peace caucus' website would actually be a blog (it's the easiest way to go).
So I've been spending this morning getting things in line for this, the peace caucus' (hopefully soon-to-be, pending your OK) official blog. Actually, I have'nt really done too much yet. All I had to do was register our domain name (www.peacecaucus.org) and then set up a google account for the peace caucus blog manager (currently me, I guess) in order to get our blogger account.
So why did we want to get a website? Well, truthfully, we wanted was to download costs to you, our members. Seriously! You see it costs us about 700$ a year to print out our newsletter. Hopefully, we'll be able to print out a few less of those newsletters by providing a link (this is the newsletter from last year's conference) so that you can print it out yourselves. Hopefully this way we won't go into the red and can free up some money for better things!
We want to keep you abreast about what peace caucus-y things will be going on at the upcoming APHA conference. We're still in the process of figuring things out for next year, but I'll try to keep you posted as things come up. Oh, and by the way, the postings on this blog will not just be coming from me! You'll hopefully be seeing postings from other active peace caucus members that have important or interesting info to share.
Here's a little list of things I'll be working on in the upcoming weeks and months ... please share your ideas by adding comments : a nifty logo for the blog, a little bit of historical info on the peace caucus, and most importantly, figuring out how other active members of the peace caucus (you - if you have something you want to share) can add postings.
Kevin Brown
Statistician
Direction de santé-publique de Montréal
peace [dot] apha [at] gmail [dot] com
So I've been spending this morning getting things in line for this, the peace caucus' (hopefully soon-to-be, pending your OK) official blog. Actually, I have'nt really done too much yet. All I had to do was register our domain name (www.peacecaucus.org) and then set up a google account for the peace caucus blog manager (currently me, I guess) in order to get our blogger account.
So why did we want to get a website? Well, truthfully, we wanted was to download costs to you, our members. Seriously! You see it costs us about 700$ a year to print out our newsletter. Hopefully, we'll be able to print out a few less of those newsletters by providing a link (this is the newsletter from last year's conference) so that you can print it out yourselves. Hopefully this way we won't go into the red and can free up some money for better things!
We want to keep you abreast about what peace caucus-y things will be going on at the upcoming APHA conference. We're still in the process of figuring things out for next year, but I'll try to keep you posted as things come up. Oh, and by the way, the postings on this blog will not just be coming from me! You'll hopefully be seeing postings from other active peace caucus members that have important or interesting info to share.
Here's a little list of things I'll be working on in the upcoming weeks and months ... please share your ideas by adding comments : a nifty logo for the blog, a little bit of historical info on the peace caucus, and most importantly, figuring out how other active members of the peace caucus (you - if you have something you want to share) can add postings.
Kevin Brown
Statistician
Direction de santé-publique de Montréal
peace [dot] apha [at] gmail [dot] com
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