MPH - 632 kbscherer

M10.8 Occupationally Related Disease I selected byssinosis, more commonly known as brown lung, specifically b/c I have never heard of it before. But brown lung is characterized as asthma like symptoms that, with prolonged exposures, can cause irreversible chronic obstructive lung disease. Brown lung is seen most commonly in workers who work in cotton processing plants, as well as hemp and flax industries. Brown lung has also been known as "Monday fever", which is characterized by workers coming back from the weekend after experiencing no asthma like symptoms and then once at work re-triggering their symptoms which would continue to get worse as the week goes on due to cotton dust exposure. Cotton effects on workers respiratory systems was known by doctors since 1705, however little was done prior to the later 1900's to actually make any regulations around the inhalation of cotton. 50,000 workers were being impacted at a single given time in the later 1970's with 7...

10.5 Occupational Safety and Health Organization I choose the World Health Organization (WHO), and their efforts toward occupational health have been through an initiative to promote workers health through a global plan of action. Their plan of action focuses on a couple of different areas:  To implement national policies to establish mechanisms and legal framework to implement, monitor and evaluate workers health To have full occupational health services for all workers globally To strengthen institutional capacities and human resource capabilities to deal with the special health needs of workers by developing evidence on the heterogenous needs of workers and translating that into policies and actions develop specific guidelines for workers and communities with positions that produce hazardous material Promote collaboration across all organization that focus on occupational health To encourage occupational health presence in more national policies Encourage collaborat...

M10.2 Safety Data Sheet In my line of work I do not have any safety data sheets that are used at my org nor do we have any trainings on the safety practices of specific safety measures that we need to practice around chemicals. The only safety training we have is around patient privacy and security. However, sometimes in clinical research we will using chemicals for some facet of the project. I looked up the safety data sheet for a product that we are utilizing in a virtual research study to investigate the incidence of flu this season. We are using the Quidel QuickVue Influenza A+B Test. The test includes nasal swabs for participants to collect a viral sample and equipment to run a lateral immunoassay. What are the health risks associated with this chemical? There are no health risks with this specific test kit or the material that it has. Is the chemical a carcinogen? The extraction reagent solution is the only chemical found in the product and it is not a carcinogen W...

M9.4 Heavy Metals It was really interesting to read both of these articles and learn that we have had an understanding of lead and been studying the health effects of lead for a long time. However, even today we suffer from lead poisoning. Reading the article about the health effects that happened in the Nigerian village due to ore mining in 2002 made me feel very uncomfortable that implementation and chemical usage was not thought about with greater intensity when building an infrastructure next to residential areas. In the end, by not investigating the full effects and health implications of situations like this, I feel that more money is being spent on halting production and potential law suits that come out of situations like these. Another aspect that I also found very interesting is how lead poisoning disproportionately impacts women. Because lead is very commonly found in bones, when women become postmenopausal they are loosing bone density and as a result lead in reentering...

M9.3 Green Chemistry I have honestly never really heard of green chemistry formally, in my mind chemicals should have always been developed with the entire lifecycle in mind of what was being created. Part of understanding science and coming up with innovative solutions is to also balance the cost and benefits of what is happening. Just because something works, does not make it right and ethical to put into the world. For example, in the early 2000's there was a lot of oppression with using and researching stem cells of therapeutic purposes. However, because the opposing side of this argument was more in line with anti abortion and christian values of law makers, the opposition almost seemed like it was taken more seriously than green chemistry. I think that I resonate the most with Green Chemistry principal #10, that states that the chemical should degrade after its actual use. I think thinking about the entire lifecycle of a chemical or a product is one of the most importan...

M9.2 Six Chemicals 1 - PFAS: Learning that 98% of American's have this toxic and man made chemical inside of them is disheartening. Because of its inability to breakdown, it can never leave our environment and is found in our water and even in remote areas because it is able to travel. So whenever any new PFAs are used in products that are created to provide stain or water repellency, that means that it is contributing to the total PFAs that we have in our environment. I think these types of chemicals, that do not breakdown in the natural environment need to be the ones that are most strictly regulated. 2 - Antimicrobials: I find antimicrobials the most surprising chemical, because in my mind they have always been good But the fact that they kill both good and bad bacteria and we can receive the same health benefits just by washing with regular soap and water means that their rise to mass usage was just due to capitalistic agendas. By marketing to the population that they w...

M8.5 Ideal Chemical Policy I think the ideal chemical policy needs two elements, it needs to be centralized and universal and it needs to be mandatory. I do not think that the mechanism we have now, which only seems to have restrictions for severely hazardous chemicals post unsafe exposure and harm to the population,  is the best option. We need to change our policy to cover all chemicals, both synthetic and natural under a regulatory umbrella and then decide specific chemicals that are absolutely necessary and the concentrations that are safe. Right now it feels like a lot of the best practices of chemical creation and usage is based off of guidelines, unless the chemical has previously shown harm to a population. I think to make the best policy, scientists, not politicians, need to make decisions, not on fiscal stipulations, but on actual health implications. These regulations will be made by individuals that do not need to campaign or barter for a seat at the table, so will ...