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I looked into the aid organization Medicins Sans Frontieres and the incident mentioned in the article where the organization was forced to abandon their operations in Somalia.  The multiple mentions of a lack of data available on violence against aid workers led me to research the Aid Worker Security Database in order to better understand the system for which data was organized. Finally, I was surprised by the mention of government supported violence against aid workers and decided to look into that. There was a significant amount of news concerning government plots and political violence but very little appeared to be reliable or could be corroborated.

Funding for the ARC comes from donations, selling of health and safety products designed by the red cross, and the selling of blood products collected by the red cross. 

“There is no such thing as being “too secure.” Living with risk, by contrast, acknowledges a more complex calculus. It requires new forms of political and ethical reasoning that take into account questions that are often only implicit in discussions of biosecurity interventions.” (Lakoff 28)

“On the one hand, they examine the different political and normative frameworks through which the problem of biosecurity is approached: national defense, public health, and humanitarianism, for example. On the other hand, they examine the styles of reasoning through which uncertain threats to health are transformed into risks that can be known and acted upon” (Lakoff 12)

“These initiatives build on a growing perception among diverse actors—life scientists and public health officials, policymakers and security analysts—that new biological threats challenge existing ways of understanding and managing collective health and security. From the vantage point of such actors, the global scale of these threats crosses and confounds the boundaries of existing regulatory jurisdictions. Moreover, their pathogenicity and mutability pushes the limits of current technical capacities to detect and treat disease” (Lakoff 8)

The family followed during most of the film was able to get several members out of Liberia during the Ebola crisis, I was under the impression that travel across the border of affected nations was prohibited. The CDC webpage was able to confirm that travel bans were imposed to and from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone during the Ebola crisis. Travel to and from these places was only permitted for health officials and aid worked, and required a 21 day quarantine upon returning to the US. However, several cases in surrounding countries were reported and it is known that people would first travel to a different country before attempting to fly to the United States.

I was also interested in how health care workers and emergency responders kept themselves safe while working with such a dangerous virus, the CDC webpage was also able to clarify the PPE used when dealing with suspected or confirmed cases of Ebola, including gloves, gowns, respiratory protection and boots. Protocols also exist for training responders in the proper methods of donning and doffing PPE to protect themselves.

As a portion of the film focused on the public outrage concerning the quarantine, I read an article “Encouraging Compliance with Quarantine: A Proposal to Provide Job Security an Income Replacement” by Mark A. Rothstein which explains in greater detail the effectiveness but also challenges posed by a quarantine, and how this directly effects the infected and uninfected individuals inside.

The film largely plays on emotional appeals and drama. By documenting the interviews of the doctors, which often are about the other doctors, the viewers see just how hard it is to detach ones self from their work. There is a scene in which the doctors talk about how, despite all the issues they face in the medical setting, everything at the end of the day is about personal relationships. It even briefly touches on sex between the medical staff and how that contributes to the care given. Since the film is based on personal interviews, little to no scientific information is given about the disease and injuries seen; its all based on personal opinion. 

The article mentioned a database the Times was using to track the location of firefighters throughout the incident, I looked at that system. It is not publicly available but was interesting in that it entirely depended on the news footage, personal videos and eyewitness accounts.

The article mentioned helicopters were being considered for rooftop evacuation, which surprised me due to the smoke. I looked into the visibility in the airspace directly surrounding the World Trade Center, while the smoke was so severe as to be captured by the International Space Station the wind did clear the smoke sufficiently for a clear line of sight between the helicopters and portions of the towers.

The firefighters were climbing the stairs, and reportedly would take hours to reach the top. The article also mentioned several groups of resting firefighters, so I researched the weight each firefighter would have been carrying which added up to 45 pounds of gear and at least an additional 20-30 pounds of tools.

No bibliography found. 

The technical aspects of the site are quite complex, as the system has over 1,000 active data sites to compile in addition to the reports and reviews stored. The data collection software is the main function that the software supports as it relieves the users from needing their own data bank to work off of.  The publication functions are also supported by the storage system of the app allowing all users to access all publications.

The article is largely a review/update on the state of the research being done into disaster-related mental health conditions. Thus all the support for the arguments is research based rather than example based. The author backs up their definition of disasters in three categories: natural, human-made nonintentional, and human-made intentional. These criteria affect the outcomes for the psyches of the victims, with the human-made disasters carrying more weight, particularily the intentional ones. 

PTSD has been continually supported in literature, and the author simply recites sources of research dating back to the Vietnam War. The WHO has since devleoped more detailed planning tools and treatment tools for victims of trauma. 

The authors also cite multiple levels of research into the risk factors for multiple mental health issues, regardless of and related to specific disasters. 

Senator Stafford, after whom the act was named, was primarily responsible for the creation of the act, although many other individuals were involved in the writing and editing of the act.