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This working group is focused on discussions about health.

The mission of this working group is to focus on discussions about health.

Members

Corey Watts John Girard jonber37 Kathy Gilbeaux Lisa Stelly Thomas Maeryn Obley
mdmcdonald MDMcDonald_me_com mike kraft

Email address for group

health-us@m.resiliencesystem.org

Public Health Preparedness Capabilities: National Standards for State and Local Planning

cdc.gov

One of the nation's key preparedness challenges has been determining appropriate state and local public health preparedness priorities. To assist state and local public health departments in their strategic planning, CDC developed 15 capabilities to serve as national public health preparedness standards.

CDC applied a systematic approach to developing the public health preparedness capabilities. The content is based on evidence-informed documents, relevant preparedness literature, and subject matter expertise gathered from across the federal government and the state and local practice community.

CDC's Public Health Preparedness Capabilities: National Standards for State and Local Planning now provides a guide that state and local jurisdictions can use to better organize their work, plan their priorities, and decide which capabilities they have the resources to build or sustain. The capabilities also help ensure that federal preparedness funds are directed to priority areas within individual jurisdictions.

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Next Fracking Controversy: In the Midwest, a Storm Brews Over Frac Sand

       

A truck dumps a load of sand at the loading terminal for Modern Transport Rail in Winona, Minn.  Andrew Link/Winona Daily News/AP/File

yahoo.com - csmonitor.com - by Richard Mertens - March 9, 2014

Sand is used in the fracking process, and there's plenty of it to be mined in the upper Midwest. As a sand-mining boom has emerged, residents are divided over whether it's lifting or ruining their communities.

. . . Sand has become a valuable – and deeply divisive – commodity in the upper Midwest. Hydraulic fracturing, a method of extraction also known as fracking that has boosted oil and natural gas production across the United States, requires sand, and there's plenty of it here. . .

. . . A big question about sand mining is the risk to public health from dust.

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State Consultant Slams Fracking

submitted by Margery Schab

capitalnewyork.com - by Scott Waldman - March 7, 2014

ALBANY—A consultant hired by the state Health Department to assist in a review of the health effects of fracking recently published a study that concluded “substantial concerns and major uncertainties” should be resolved before it is expanded nationally.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has indicated that his final, long-awaited decision on whether to permit fracking will depend on the department's findings. 

John Adgate, of the Colorado School of Public Health, surveyed a number of recent health-related studies of fracking and published his findings last month in the Environmental Science & Technology journal.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Potential Public Health Hazards, Exposures and Health Effects from Unconventional Natural Gas Development

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New Strategy for Controlling Epidemics in Big Cities

submitted by Luis Kun

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - January 27, 2014

In a large city like Washington, D.C., with about 50,000 visitors on any given day who stay for just a few days, there is a constant influx of new people who are susceptible to infections. Further, they visit highly populated tourist destinations, where they come into contact with other visitors as well as residents. Disease can spread quickly.

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CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Modeling the effect of transient populations on epidemics in Washington DC

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9 Maps that Illustrate the Struggles of the South

          

Source: USDA

huffingtonpost.com - by Emily Cohn - March 6, 2014

Look, there are lots of things to love about the South. It's clean and quiet. There's delicious food, good people and often amazing weather. But that's exactly why it makes us so sad to think about all the ways in which the region is struggling today.

First off, poverty rates are a lot higher in the South.

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Senator Boxer's Statement: The Keystone Pipeline and the Threat to Human Health

                  

epw.senate.gov

Senator Barbara Boxer
Keystone Pipeline and the Threat to Human Health
February 26, 2014
(As prepared for delivery)

We are here today to share dramatic new information that will shine a spotlight on the health impacts of tar sands oil - health impacts that are already being felt in communities exposed to one of the filthiest kinds of oil on our planet.

The Keystone XL pipeline will allow 830,000 barrels of tar sands oil every day to flow through our nation - an initial increase of 45 percent compared to what is being imported today - and this project could just be the beginning. In the long term, it is projected that Canada would produce almost 300 percent more tar sands oil by 2030.

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Fracking Boom Leaves Texans Under a Toxic Cloud

      

Natural gas is flared at a Pioneer Natural Resources well, in Karnes County, Texas in 2010. 
Photographer: Eddie Seal/Bloomberg

bloomberg.com - by Lisa Song, Jim Morris and David Hasemyer - February 20, 2014

. . . For the past eight months, the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News and The Weather Channel have examined what Texas, the nation's biggest oil producer, has done to protect people in the Eagle Ford from the industry's pollutants. What's happening in the Eagle Ford is important not only for Texas, but also for Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Dakota and other states where horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have made it profitable to extract oil and gas from deeply buried shale.

Our investigation and records obtained from Texas regulatory agencies reveal a system that does more to protect the industry than the public. . .

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Medical Repatriation

      

Photo by John Carroll

blogs.pjstar.com - by John A. Carroll, MD -  www.haitianhearts.org - February 18, 2014

The other day I read an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) from February 23, 2014 entitled “Undocumented Injustice? Medical Repatriation and the Ends of Health Care”.

This article made me think of OSF in Peoria and I will explain why.

Medical repatriation is defined as “the transfer of undocumented patients in need of chronic care to their country of origin.”

The NEJM article begins with a story:

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Hospitals Brace for National Saline Shortage

     

At Houston Methodist Hospital, Celest Powell, 20, receives an IV saline solution that helps keep patients hydrated.

houstonchronicle.com - by Lora Hines - February 6, 2014

A severe flu season may have contributed to tightened supplies of intravenous saline solution, those ubiquitous bags that hospitals use by the thousands every day to keep patients hydrated and IVs flowing smoothly. . .

Late last year, three manufacturers of intravenous saline solutions, particularly sodium chloride, began alerting hospitals nationwide about shortages. At least one blamed the flu, which can leave patients dangerously dehydrated and in need of hospital care.

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The 2013-2014 National Snapshot of Public Health Preparedness

cdc.gov - January 24, 2014

The 2013-2014 National Snapshot of Public Health Preparedness Adobe PDF file is the CDC’s fifth preparedness report, demonstrating how federal investments enhance the nation’s ability to respond to public health threats and emergencies. We present activities that occurred during 2012 and 2013 in the framework of CDC’s three priorities. The three priorities are:

- Improving health security at home and around the world

- Better preventing the leading causes of illness, injury, disability, and death

- Strengthening public health through collabora­tion with healthcare

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