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I published this news article about a hunger strike against Formosa Plastics that occurred in Texas this fall. Despite the extremity of a 30-day hunger strike, the protesting tactic has not gained attention from national media outlets. At the time I published this article, two small environmental organizations had announced the beginning of the strike, but none continued to cover the event in the unfolding weeks. While activists are driven to take on dangerous protest tactics, little communication of these tactics has carried across mass media.

The article itself introduces Formosa Plastics through its reputation as a "serial offender" of environmental and workplace safety regulations. I list several statistics on legal fines that Formosa Plastics has accumulated overtime, using these quantities to demonstrate the scale of their harm to environmental and human health. An important limitation of this storytelling strategy, however, is that many of Formosa Plastics' actions go undocumented, and even when documented, do not lead to legal consequences. Furthermore, we should still strive to acknowledge the harms committed by Formosa Plastics that are technically within legal limits.

Stakeholders:

Children and families vulnerable to asthma

Cattle ranchers

CALTrans

Almond farmers

NOAA

EPA

SJV Air Pollution Control

Kern River Oil Field

Central California Asthma Collaborative

 Teve Brown of NOAA said the valley suffers from cows + cards. At Harris Ranch a large industrial cattle farm trucks drive 6,000miles/day for 60 loads of feed producing nitrogen oxides (NOx). NOx combines with the ammonia from cow manure and urine to from ammonium nitrate which accounts for more that 1/2 of the areas most polluted days of PM2.5.

In addition, Interstate is a major thorough bringing more traffic pollution and farming practices including nitrogen fertilizer contributes 1/3 of NOx in California air.  The SJV also holds 9000 oil wells and because all the light oil has been drilled, the current production is described as the "thickest, dirtiest petroleum" in the nation.

Intersecting factors: landscape (bowl shape of the Valley); economic (agriculture that contributes to PM2.5); transportation corridor that add more traffic pollution; and state-wide wildfires that bring more particulate pollution which is trapped; and political environment in which area elects representatives  (ex: Devin Nunes) who deny global warming and reject environmental protection.

Air pollution--the result of cows+cars--is the focus of this multimedia article. One in six children in the SJV suggest from asthma. It is estimated that air pollution costs SJV as much as $11 billion annually the result of emergency room visits, lost school days, and other public health impacts.

The setting for this article is the San Joaquin Valley which encompasses 2/3rds of the Central Valley CA. Because of it's fertle farmland, it supplies 1/4 of the food to "American plates."

In terms of setting, like other valley's in CA (ex: San Gabriel Valley) and the whole LA Basin, the SJV's bowl-like landscape (mountain ranges on 3-sides) results in temperature inversion that traps smo closer to the ground during Wintertime.

Byron Good, Ph.D., is a professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School. His primary area of research is mental illness and how social perceptions evolves around these issues, in terms of both treatment and social acceptance. Dr. Good has several works on these issues, including several that explore the perspective of bio-medicine in non-western medical knowledge, the cultural meaning of mental illness, and patient narrative during illness. His publications including several papers, books, and edited volumes; he is regarded as a major contributor to the field of psychological anthropology. 

The article primarily asserts that how a patient narrates or describes their medical history is deeply rooted in their native culture. As such, physicians must be aware of how an individual's medical experiences can be altered based on this. In turn, physicians must recognize the importance of story-telling and anecdotes when receiving information directly from patients. Narratives project the patient's experience and events through their perspective, granting professionals a glimpse into their thought processes and action patterns.

The author, Byron J. Good, is a Harvard professor in the department of global health and social medicine. He is the director of the International Mental Health Training Program, and has significant experience with field research that has led to many publications.

The article’s main argument is that the narration of an illness is founded in the emotional connection it has to the sufferers life, the place from which they view the illness which includes individual and cultural aspects. Furthermore any lack of factual accuracy is an indicator of the social and cultural environment in which the illness presents itself and is revealing as to how it will be perceived and treated.

The main argument is supported primarily through interviews with many individuals living in Ankara, through which they describe the first presentation of their seizures and in many cases the steps they tool to attempt a cure. Along with the interviews, statistics of the individuals interviewed and their diagnoses is used to provide a reference point to better understand their stories. Finally the article includes an analysis of narratives in a more general sense that can be applied to the narrative of an illness.