Post 5: Masturbation

Masturbation still remains a touchy (pun intended) subject in our culture, even among college students, or so I've observed. I decided to do this subject as kind of a branching off point from sexual education, and May also happens to be Masturbation Month.

To take off from my last blog, there is obviously controversy surrounding masturbation education, even moreso than sex. This Mormon-based anti-masturbation website offers a way of "cleansing" the body from sinly desires such as not looking at oneself in the mirror when in the bathroom, getting out of bed immediately in the mornings, and "praying loudly when the temptations are strongest"... yikes.

There are plenty of other masturbation myths out there, many that claim masturbation is unhealthy, and can even cause bodily harm.

Masturbation advocators claim that masturbation is healthy, and some go as far to say that the act of mutual masturbation with a partner before intercourse leads to a better sex life, physically and mentally (1). In August 2009, the UN reported that it came out with a curriculum to teach children about masturbation as early as five years old. Though many protest sexual education at a young age, other experts believe that sexual education and masturbation ties in with other educational issues such as bodily control and abortion so that later in life they can make educated decisions on topics they are comfortable with and understand.

Why do silly myths such as masturbation causes bodily harm exist? People don't want to talk about it, or be open about it. This last blog is supposed to stimulate/motivate others to act, and the act that I am encouraging is to talk about issues surrounding masturbation and maintaining a healthy sex life.

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Post 4: Healthcare Education Change

So for my fourth blog, I decided to display sort of the other end of my last blog concerning sexual education. There is a lot of controversy and resistance on how and whether to teach the subject. I don't want to assume that this is the case globally (even though I think it is), but a lot of the resistance in sexual education stems from religious groups, in particular, Christianity.

Some main questions are who is responsible for teaching children about sexual education and what is the appropriate age for this kind of education?

This BBC news video discusses sexual education in schools in the UK. The video surrounds the issue of making sex education mandatory before the age of 15, or "age of consent". The Christian educator argues that sexual education should not be the school/government's responsibility, but rather, the parents'. He also states later in the video that kids these days are "oversexualized" due to the amount of resources we have such as television and the internet, and the distribution of condoms or other contraceptives promotes promiscuity. Andy Brown, a member of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, claims that an education system more tailored to this "Google"- age environment will promote children to be responsible to the media and sex they are exposed to, and to make the right decisions accordingly.

In terms of our country, I think this conversation with Amy Richards and Dan Savage, both authors and sex columnists. Their discussion of abstinence-only education is daunting, since they recall their experiences when actually going out and meeting students with abstinence-only education who think that douching with Mountain Dew prevents pregnancy. The surprising part of this short conversation was at the end when Richards and Savage talked about the hushing of sexual education at college campuses, where, at least here at WSU, college behavior of drinking, dating, having unprotected sex is more prevalent.

I wasn't able to find much on abstinence-only sexual education, but I did come across many Christian dating advice videos. This video from the Christian Broadcasting Network talks about Christian dating in U.S./Western culture. I think it's a fair representation of a source of media fairly popular among Christians. Instead of focusing on sex, this video narrows in on the relationship aspect, and the goals of being in a Christian relationship. In many of these videos, sex is not addressed. I'm not objecting to the concept of Christian dating, since addressing sex until after marriage does sometimes work under certain circumstances, but I do not believe it is the way, especially in this culture, to wait until children are over 18 or until after they become sexually active to teach them about sex and its consequences.

I posted videos concerning western culture because I feel like a realistic way to be involved with such a controversial issue is to start locally. We live in a wealthy nation with a plethora of information, and especially now that we are living in the age of technology and education, journal articles and free speech, it is so important to know how to be responsible with the resources that are given to us. Without first figuring out how to solve this problem here, we will never be able to find a consensus to help others with the same problem in developing countries.

To end on a less serious note, I thought this was an entertaining interpretation of sexual education in Monty Python's Meaning of Life

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Project Red: Blog 3

In class we recently covered boycotts and buycotts and how our roles as consumers in these actions influence companies' actions. I was particularly interested in Product Red, a brand associated with corporate companies such as Apple, Emporio Armani, Converse, and Starbucks. Product Red's overall goal is to use the purchasing power of Red-labeled products to help fight HIV/AIDS. I found the Red site visually pleasing: clean, minimal, easy to navigate. They even include other global issues such as education, agriculture, and elimination of debt. However, that's all it was. What irked me the most was the lack of resources to investigate the statistics and statements presented.

An article critiquing Project Red's motives and actual success claims that around 160,000 Africans will be put on anti-retrovirals, orphans are being taken care of in Swaziland, and an HIV/AIDS program has been established in Rwanda. This information still provides the general public without a good idea of how Product Red delivers the money, or how any other aspects of poverty mentioned above tie into these funds. This also might just be more difficult for me to understand since I am a science major, and have never taken economics or business.

What I do know, however, is that the overall goal of treating people with HIV/AIDS is not a solution to poverty or disease in developing countries, and I do not feel like Project Red helps motivate people to actually prevent disease, or get involved with the larger issues. HIV/AIDS is not only a retroviral disease, but also a political one. For example, the former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, claimed that AIDS was a plot in order to defame Africans and was instigated by "avaricious" pharmaceutical companies. Only until 2008, after Mbeki's forced resignation has South Africa become successful in obtaining and distributing antiretroviral drugs.

Although the purpose of Product Red clearly means well, could it end up doing more harm than good by saying that joining their website and buying their product is enough?

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15 Health care Education Sources

1. NPR Health Care Forum- This is just a forum of different health care topics ranging from insurance to nomacosial infection risks during hospital stays. I feel like this site provides non-biased articles on different health issues, the main one obviously being health care reform. At the bottom of the page there are also audio files to listen to for the multitasking student.

2. NY Times Health Care Conversations- As a premed student, I found the NY Times health care conversations perhaps one of the most useful tools in preparing for a career in the health care field. An issue is introduced where any person can respond with their opinion or personal experience regarding that issue. I feel that the responses to these issues come from a more diverse group of people than the NPR site (doctors, lower class, middle class, elders, etc).

3. Women's Health- When I googled "women's health", there were about 49 million results. I looked at about ten of them and chose this one because they all more or less presented the same information. It seems that most of them were aimed towards a middle-class, somewhat educated population. I chose this particular website because of its vast array of resources; it includes publications, different campaigns and causes regarding women's health, and topics ranging from pregnancy medications to depression.

4. Men's Health- I saw this site as a parallel to the women's health site above, except easier to navigate, probably just due to the organization of the page. I also found a broader range of topics including traveling health, HIV and syphilis among the bisexual and gay population, and cardiovascular disease.

5. Dan Savage Column- Sexual health- One question that always comes to mind regarding one's sexual behavior is "Is this normal?" or "Is this okay?". Dan Savage is a sex columnist and author of several books including Skipping Towards Gomorrah and The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family. Adults with relationship problems, bedroom issues, and everything in between write to Dan Savage for advice. This page also provides links to other columnists and experts if you want a second opinion as well as a feedback tool for the public.

6. Sexual Education for teens- I liked this sex education website a lot because it seems to be managed by young adults/teens. It's geared toward a younger audience who may be thinking about having sex or aware of changes in their body and behavior. Information on reproduction, STDs, and even body image are all present as well as chat forums. Topics also reach out to issues on abuse/violence and emotional health, which is really important. Since it is run by younger people, this website makes it more comfortable for the younger population to share and express their concerns on these important issues.

7. Center for Disease Control and Prevention- I mainly chose this source for its epidemiology, or the incidence and prevalence of disease within certain populations. Diseases have their own site with issues surrounding that particular disease. For example, only one class of antibiotics can treat gonorrhea due to its growing antibiotic resistance. One can find statistics in their region and track the progress of the disease over time.

8. Mental Health- I thought this page provided some good resources on mental health issues (mainly regarding the U.S. population). Depression seems to be more prevalent than ever in our culture. I think understanding depression, how it is caused, and how to find solutions to overcoming it without heavy doses of anti-depressants is extremely important. I found the research articles on depression and other mental diseases pretty useful and free from drug advertisements.

9. Diet and physical fitness-Promoting a healthy lifestyle is an important issue on avoiding preventable diseases such as some cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. This site provides the facts relating unhealthy diets to chronic disease and deaths. It also gives an overview of how to promote physical activity and wellness on a global level, and specific to different cultures.

10. Michael Pollan Articles- After reading the WSU common reading book, the Omnivore's dilemma by Michael Pollan, I started following his articles on his site. His writes about and comments on diet and the way a country processes and grows its food has a direct impact on its population's health. I think his experiences and research are worth reading and at least investigating.

11. Global Health Education- There are quite a few global health education organizations. I think the Global Health through Education, Training and Service is an good overall source for the subject since it is well organized and easy to navigate. The organization's main goals are to promote small local changes in developing areas, and raise well-trained and educated health care workers in that area.

12. Global Health Children- UNICEF stands for Unite for Children, and is an international organization aimed at improving the welfare of children through health care and education. I really enjoy the way this page is set up, and I especially appreciate the different forms of media the site provides. It's an overall great source if one wants to get involved with a child-related cause, good articles and videos on issues from emergency relief to disease prevention from a variety of sources.

13. Global Health Aid- Instead of focusing on broad global health aid, I decided to narrow down my source to HIV/AIDS aid. From my previous posts, I have cited the WHO page before. I think one of the most important aspects in improving global health is staying informed of what is going on in geographical areas of interest, both epidemiologically and politically. This page provides epidemiological facts as well as several campaigns going on in different areas, and how to get involved with them.

14. Natural Medicine Overview- I only started doing research on osteopathic/natural medicine when investigating medical schools a while back. I found this site really useful since it provides a lot of legitimate information on other types of treatments including yoga, acupuncture, and diet. I don't really think of natural medicine as an alternative to allopathic medicine, but rather as an additive to allopathic medicine since it promotes changes in lifestyle in opposition to temporary treatment with pharmaceuticals.

15. Natural Medicine Youth- This is a more basic site for youth on natural medicine. It's really easy to navigate and the topics covered range from mental health to drugs and alcohol. An important but basic key to reaching out to youth is presenting information in a way that youth can understand, and want to understand. Even though I'm a little older as a teen, I can definitely see the appeal this site has to a younger audience.

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Sex Ed

In light of our current healthcare issues regarding abortion, I thought I’d address sexual education. Most, if not all of us, have all had some sort of the “birds and the bees” talk, whether from school, parents, friends, or Cosmopolitan magazine. The differences in the way we view sex, sexual behavior, and the consequences of that behavior is a hot global issue.

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When I was in high school way back when, my form of sexual education could be compared more or less to the health class in the movie “Mean Girls” when the health teacher just told the class not to have sex until marriage. Fortunately, in 2008, the state of Washington passed a comprehensive sex education law that required schools to teach medically accurate information about preventing pregnancies and STDs. This consequently led to the Bush Administration cutting off funding to the state of Washington for abstinence-only sex education. According to Planned Parenthood, several states also denied abstinence-only sexual education funding (1).

Sexually transmitted diseases are a major issue and only continue to increase, especially in developing areas. According to the World Health Organization, about 15% of Zimbabwe’s adult population had HIV in 2007, with a current life expectancy of around 43 years (2). In Colombia the number of people living with HIV has increased from less than 20,000 in 1990 to over 150,000 in 2007 (3). The answer to the question of how and why STDs are so prevalent in developing is more complex than sexually educating youth beyond family and community teachings, but proper sexual education could be a key step in relieving the problem.

Designing sex education programs that can fit into a culture is a challenge, especially when that culture does not address or does not want to address sex. North Africa and the Middle East populations are predominantly Islamic, and do not support premarital sex. This collection of cultures also looks at the HIV epidemic as a result of sexual immorality, resulting in leaders denying that such a problem exists in their countries. Although UNAIDS reported only 0.2% of this region to be infected with HIV/AIDS, there is question as to how accurate the statistics are due to the negative light that is shed on people living with the disease. Possible ways of incorporating sexual education into Islam culture is to emphasize that Islam acknowledges sexual desires. These sexual desires are to be fulfilled, and their Prophet welcomes open discussion on sexual health. There probably are more specifics involved, but these basic concepts can be used to promote safe sexual activity (4).

(http://www.sex-in-islam.com/images/islam-sex-paradise-heaven-allah-brothel.jpg)

Finding these small niches in different cultures is the key to promoting healthy sexual behavior.

References

1. . http://www.seattlepi.com/local/344701_education24.html

2. http://www.who.int/countries/zwe/en/

3. http://apps.who.int/globalatlas/predefinedReports/EFS2008/short/EFSCountryProfiles2008_CO.pd

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4. http://www.arsrc.org/downloads/features/Paper%20Ahmed%20Ragab.pdf

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History Healthcare

Since the subject of healthcare is so broad, I am providing the milestones and events on healthcare issues that I hope/plan to address in the future. As other issues appear that are not addressed in here, I will just add background info then.

“WHO's objective, as set out in its Constitution, is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. The Constitution defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”- World Health Organization

In 1948 the World Health Organization (WHO) established their global role of “providing leadership on global health matter, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends” (WHO 2010). The 193 countries that apply to this Constitution range from Malawi to Austria, and detailed publications and statistics are readily available to the general public on all of them. This will become especially useful when statistics and countries’ health policies are needed.

Another milestone in public health was the famous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion in the first months of pregnancy, overturning Texas’ abortion law at the time in 1973. The controversy surrounding abortion is still a fragile subject due to religious and cultural ideologies on when the embryo is considered “human”. These ideas date back to the time of Aristotle where they thought the fetus “begins to live” 40 days after conception for males and 90 days for females. Although Roe v. Wade was a stepping stone in women’s reproductive rights, it leads us to question how well our health education system is on preventing these more or less unwanted situations.

A New York Times article on abortion in China stated that 13 million abortions are performed each year. The women’s age range from 20-29 and around half of them did not use contraception during intercourse. According to a pregnancy hotline in Shanghai, only 30% of callers knew about contraception and around 70% did not know that HIV/AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease. Abortion became legal in 1953, and due to the preference of males and one-sided gender population (32 million more boys than girls!), gender-preference abortion became illegal in 1994. Similar situations where young populations are uneducated on important health issues on pregnancy and STDs and STIs are apparent in other countries as well, especially developing countries. In the documentary “I Am Because We Are”, Malawi has an estimated 1 million orphans mainly due to the AIDS virus.

Though some cultures may not know how to accept certain concepts of modern medicine such as contraceptives, more fortunate others have taken responsibility to do what they can. Andrew Witty, chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, has promised not to charge poor countries (mainly in Africa and Latin America) more than 25% the cost of drugs than they do in rich countries, and to donate 20% of GSK’s profits from the poor countries to building health systems.

Healthcare Introduction

My topic is healthcare, and more specifically, the globalization of healthcare. I found this topic interesting because we as humans have the technological and literature resources to reach out to more geographical areas than we did ten or even five years ago. However, developing countries such as Malawi are still in the midst of preventable disease. According to the WHO, only around 56% of the 309,000 people infected with HIV or AIDS got treatment in 2009 (WHO 2009).

I want to explore cultural implications of healthcare as well, and healthcare policy regarding cultural differences between communities. My UH 370 class recently covered Melissa Wright’s “Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism”. Wright explores the issue of disposable women through her research in southern China and northern Mexico. Her studies in southern China particularly interested me when she mentioned that a factory plant regulated female menstrual cycles and required them to take periodic pregnancy tests on-site. She also mentioned that the managers of the factories saw their relationship with their factory workers as a father-daughter relationship and they were responsible for keeping “good” daughters. I got the impression that she frowned upon this practice, but I did not find this information entirely upsetting. I am half-Korean, and although I was raised in the U.S., I notice a big difference between Asian (in Korea and in the U.S.) and Caucasian family structure. It is not common for a whole Korean family to move with their student to his/her college town, or to set up children on dates (not as common). Even though these differences are less extreme than regulating reproductive cycles, I just think Wright should have delved deeper into Chinese culture before introducing the managers’ methods of controlling the workplace.

My goal for this blog is to maintain a plethora of valid resources to explore health on a global level and to apply my knowledge of science and technology to this class and global health issues.

References:

Malawi. WHO, 29 Jan. 2010. Web. .

Wright, Melissa W. Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.