Health

September 5, 2022 0

Aspirin, Heart Disease, and You

Once upon a time, bloodletting and lobotomies were common medical procedures. Cocaine was prescribed for depression, and doctors treated asthma with cigarettes. Conventional medical wisdom – fortunately for us – changes over time. The progress of science is cumulative: as we gather more evidence, we build upon our existing knowledge and abandon those practices for which there is little empirical support. Earlier this year, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a volunteer panel of experts that issues evidence-based […]

August 10, 2022 0

A Healthcare Clinician and a Community Provider Fear for the America’s Women

by Megan Wong

Across the country, many people have been outraged by the U.S Supreme Court’s recent decision in overturning Roe v. Wade, an almost 50 year precedent. In the Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization decision, the Court ruled that “the Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives. Abortion was first legalized throughout the United States in […]

August 7, 2022 0

World Health Organization Declares Global Emergency as Monkeypox Spreads

by Jeff Millman

It all started in Wisconsin. A three-year-old child was bitten by a prairie dog purchased from a local pet store. Shortly after, the child developed a high fever and a strange rash and had to be hospitalized. The child’s parents also developed the rash, but were otherwise asymptomatic. The Milwaukee Health Department tested the child and the prairie dog and confirmed that the cause of the child’s symptoms was the monkeypox virus, first discovered in crab-eating macaque monkeys in 1958. […]

July 25, 2022 0

How Massachusetts is Responding to the National Crisis in the Aftermath of the Dobbs Supreme Court Decision

by Chelsea Wang

In the first few days after the decision of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the landmark Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, thousands of Bostonians protested the ruling. They gathered in front of the State House and in Copley Square, marching and chanting across downtown Boston. They held signs displaying messages such as “guns have more rights than women in the U.S.A,” “bans off our bodies,” and “abortions save lives.” […]

July 25, 2022 0

Childhood Obesity Fueled By Consequences of the Pandemic

by Jeff Millman

Politics, to paraphrase the philosopher John Gray, is nothing more than a series of imperfect remedies for recurring problems. No policy results in unmixed blessings; every decision we make has both good and bad consequences. So it is with the mandates and restrictions that have ruled our social life for the past two years. Lockdowns, school closures, and mask-wearing reduced the transmission of COVID-19 and prevented some serious illnesses and deaths. But two years on, we are vastly more knowledgeable […]

July 14, 2022 0

Banning Juul e-cigarettes: Government Intervenes to Protect Youth

by Moninisha Yadav

“This really doesn’t make sense to me,” says Jenny (name changed by request), a rising senior at a Boston exam high school. “There are so many cannabis shops now all over the place. I’m too young for that, but I don’t want it. I don’t want pot or tobacco like my friends. Juul is convenient, affordable, and a better alternative to what my friends are doing. Why is it now being banned?” Jenny, who asked her name to be withheld […]

July 10, 2022 0

Sampan Analysis: What Abortion Ruling Means, What’s Ahead

by Chelsea Wang

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 upheld a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. This ruling comes 49 years after Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that struck down a Texas law banning all abortions except those necessary to save the mother’s life. The Court had ruled in 1973 that criminal statutes that outlaw abortions at all stages of pregnancy violate the Due […]

June 26, 2022 0

Baby Formula Crisis Hits Minority, Immigrant Women

by Sonia Cavazos

Since the shutdown of the Sturgis Michigan Abbot Laboratories plant in February 2022, mothers have been scrambling to find baby formula. That story is widely known. But what is less discussed is how acute the loss of formula has been felt by minority and immigrant women who depend so much on baby formula to go back to work. “My client, Mrs. Wong, began to worry (early on) when the cashier at Stop & Shop told her that she could only […]

June 17, 2022 0

Baby Formula Shortage and Minorities

by Sampan Staff

“It’s so sad. It shouldn’t be like this. We need formula for our kid, and where is this formula going to come from?” This is a lingering question from mother of two, Capri Isidoro, struggling to breast feed her one-month-old daughter. After giving birth, the hospital gave her baby formula without consulting her on any wish to breastfeed first, a common occurrence among minority moms. The baby formula shortage puts Hispanic and Black women at risk the most. The CDC […]

June 17, 2022 0

As Court Decision Looms, Remembering Boston’s Abortion Rights Legacy

by Jeff Millman

The relationship between medicine and law is complex and contentious. Rulings that have a finality in the public imagination are often put to the test in the real world, their consequences and exceptions worked out in a fashion far from ideal. The closing words of Supreme Court opinions – It is so ordered – suggest a solidity these rulings rarely have. Roe vs. Wade is no different. Just months after the Court released its opinion on the case, it was […]

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