Search

As a researcher, I’m interested in the political, ecological, and cultural debates around mosquito-borne diseases and the solutions proposed to mitigate them.

When we received the task, my first impulse was to investigate about the contemporary effects of anthropogenic climate change in mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans. But I was afraid to make the same mistake that I did in my PhD research. I wrote my PhD proposal while based in the US, more specifically in New England, during the Zika epidemic, and proposed to understand how scientists were studying ecological climate change and mosquitoes in Brazil. However, once I arrived in the country the political climate was a much more pressing issue, with the dismantling of health and scientific institutions.

Thus, after our meeting yesterday, and Jason Ludwig’s reminder that the theme of our Field Campus is the plantation, I decided to focus on how it related to mosquitoes in New Orleans.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito and the yellow fever virus it can transmit are imbricated in the violent histories of settler-colonialism and slavery that define the plantation economy. The mosquito and the virus arrived in the Americas in the same ships that brought enslaved peoples from Africa. The city of New Orleans had its first yellow fever epidemic in 1796, with frequent epidemics happening between 1817 and 1905. What caused New Orleans to be the “City of the Dead,” as Kristin Gupta has indicated, was yellow fever. However, as historian Urmi Engineer Willoughby points out, the slave trade cannot explain alone the spread and persistance of the disease in the region: "Alterations to the landscape, combined with demographic changes resulting from the rise of sugar production, slavery, and urban growth all contributed to the region’s development as a yellow fever zone." For example, sugar cultivation created ideal conditions for mosquito proliferation because of the extensive landscape alteration and ecological instabilities, including heavy deforestation and the construction of drainage ditches and canals.

Historian Kathryn Olivarius examines how for whites "acclimatization" to the disease played a role in hierarchies with “acclimated” (immune) people at the top and a great mass of “unacclimated” (non-immune) people and how for black enslaved people "who were embodied capital, immunity enhanced the value and safety of that capital for their white owners, strengthening the set of racialized assumptions about the black body bolstering racial slavery."

As I continue to think through these topics, I wonder how both the historical materialities of the plantation and the contemporary anthropogenic changes might be influencing mosquito-borne diseases in New Orleans nowadays? And more, how the regions’ histories of race and class might still be shaping the effects of these diseases and how debates about them are framed?

This design not yet implemented to any case in the report, but from the tests they did with the fields, the design is said to be successful in its aim and application.

Technical professionals could plan the possible solution to deal with the incarcerated group by using the data to observe the relevant age groups, race groups or income groups. For example, gain a further study with the reason with certain group accessibility to the health facilities to improve the public health. Or improve living qualities with other authorities. 

The article has first emphasis the number of death and corpses during and after the Hurricane Katrina, then with further investigation and research, the issue related to the lethal injection to the patient has raised. From the physician’s perspective, the lethal injection in this case is a way to relief the patient’s pain, as it is a “for” for the lethal injection, which not seems to be violating the medical ethical. From the conclusion parts of the article, the author provided the evidence that “that more medical professionals were involved in the decision to inject patients — and far more patients were injected — than was previously understood.”     

This policy is mainly focused on the first responders’ group. As the first responders should immediately take all reasonable efforts to contain the contamination and avoid or mitigate environmental consequences.

This report had analysed the populations that been affected, then predict the possible rate of  increasing in cancer with this accident. It was found out that the radiation risks towards human  beings has not increase (maintain stable), but to the ecosystems might have short‐term effects.  With scientific method, the over dose of radioactive substances due to Fukushima nuclear  accident can be controlled and maintained in a reasonable quantity. 

The users can either collect data or send data with the mobile apps or on the software their developed. In current stage the most engagement from the users are to gather submissions from the populations that need helps. In the future, users are able to submit reports and maps from their mobile apps.

The information of the article was collected by investigating several news agencies. For example, a team of journalists from the Guardian and health works went to the distant village of Guinea to cross the words about Ebola. From the words of the Guinea village chief, journalists from other news agencies are also known.

“The OSHA law makes it clear that the right to a safe workplace is a basic human right.”

“In 1970, an estimated 14,000 workers were killed on the job – about 38 every day. For 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports this number fell to about 4,500 or about 12 workers per day.”

Industrial works have increased in US such as construction works, shipyard employments and marine terminals. These works are highly dangerous and there were not standards set before the OSHA Law established to protect workers’ safety and working conditions.

Stakeholders with this film could be doctors, international-wide medical and health services or professionals studied within the field of health conditions in the third-world countries. The MSF members (doctors) are the first person who get into contact with the locals, they would experience a range of situations with during and aftermath of the disaster. They have focused on the practical side of the medical service with contrast to the United Nation, UNICEF only planned the theoretical plans with meetings that MSF would said that are not suitable with the situations they have faced (~49:00 – 51:00). After the mission the MSF member served, each one of them have decided the future paths which assist the development of medical health within these areas in some ways. Professionals interesting in this field might benefit from the film fieldtrip recording and gain relevant research based on the situations described in the film in order to plan a possible solution to current situations or make plan for the future possible situation to prevent lack of medical service within third world countries and increase overall public health.