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India at 60 – A Public Health Perspective

Byoliveridley

Well, at least I don’t have to take part in endless parades and listen to speeches any more. But India turned 60 today, and the head of the Indian public health foundation takes stock, and it is sobering.

The Hindu : Persisting public health challenges

Recent health indicators in India are a cause for both celebration and concern. While life expectancy at birth has risen to 63 years, infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) are still at unacceptably high levels (57 per 1000 and 301 per 100,000 live births respectively). There is widespread disparity among States with Kerala being the star performer. Within States, the rural areas are way behind the urban segments. Even as our economy has grown rapidly, the nutritional status of children has remained stunted, suggesting that wide income disparities are preventing the poor from becoming the beneficiaries of growth.

Yes, I be the killjoy.

More from Amartya Sen

There is reason enough to celebrate many things happening in India right now. But there are failures as well, which need urgent attention. For example, there is still widespread undernourishment in general and child undernutrition in particular–at a shocking level. The failures include, quite notably, the astonishing neglect of elementary education in India, with a quarter of the population–and indeed half the women–still illiterate.

The average life expectancy in India is still low (below 64) and infant mortality very high (58 per 1,000 live births). It is certainly true that India has narrowed the shortfall behind China in these areas–that is, in life expectancy and infant mortality–but there is still some distance to go for the country as a whole. The problems are gigantic in some of the more “backward” states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. And yet there are other states in which the Indian numbers are similar to China’s.

he goes on…

If India has to overcome these failures, it has to spend much more money on expanding the social infrastructure, particularly school education and basic health care. It also needs to spend much more in building up a larger physical infrastructure, including more roads, more power supplies and more water. In some of these, the private sector can help. But a lot more has to be spent on public services themselves, in addition to improving the system of delivery of these services, with more attention paid to incentives and disciplines, and better cooperation with the unions, consumer groups and other involved parties.

Ah, basic and boring infrastructure building!

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    Canada loves asbestos (in third world lungs)

    Byoliveridley

    In a normal world, when something is severely restricted in your country, you would not export it to another country under the pretense that used under certain, very restricted conditions, your product only causes a moderate increase in cancer.

    While the federal government projects an image of being a helpful, international Boy Scout on issues ranging from peacekeeping to nuclear proliferation, Canada has a peculiar relationship to asbestos.

    globeandmail.com: Asbestos shame

    But we don’t live in a normal world, because asbestos is exported from Canada to India where it is added to cement.

    Tushar Joshi, a noted New Delhi occupational health expert, is flabbergasted over asbestos sales by a country of Canada’s stature. “As a developed country, you expect more civilized behaviour,” Dr. Joshi says. Canada’s activities are “beyond comprehension,” he adds, calling Ottawa’s promotion of asbestos “a black spot on a sparkling white dress.”

    yes, well said. It is very mysterious that asbestos use in India went up in the 1980s just as evidence about its incredibly destructive effects on respiratory systems had curtailed use in most of the first world. Clearly, third world lungs are not as important as Canadian lungs.

    Asbestos is one area where Canada lags even behind the US. And Canada’s environmental practices are going to come under increasing scrutiny as climate change unfreezes the great white North and exposes the resources underneath.

    Canada, the world is watching.

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  • 20 killed as 5 bomb explosions rock Delhi

    Byoliveridley

    Twenty people were killed and about 100 injured in a series of five bomb explosions that rocked busy marketplaces in the Capital on Saturday.The first explosion took place at Karol Bagh at 6.10 p.m.; two bombs were triggered at Connaught Place; and two more in the bustling M-Block market of Greater Kailash.

    The Hindu : Front Page : 20 killed as 5 bomb explosions rock Delhi

    What is India going to do about this problem? The terrorists know exactly what they are doing. They want to polarize the Indian population and start a scorched earth Hindu-Muslim conflict. I don’t see that happening as of yet, but a country can only take so much. The current government does not have enough intelligence to stop the attacks. They react by arresting a person or two, but I think there are many more cells in the country. The inability of the central govrernment to make any major breakthroughs is only going to lead to more deaths.

    The BJP is saying that it warned the Central government recently that SIMI was planning attacks in Delhi. I guess I could have warned the Central government that terrorists are going to strike every major city in the country on an ongoing basis. The BJP of course claims that the congress is “soft on terror” (sounds familiar). They have not said what they would do differently, except have more draconian preventive arrests, which given the lack of intelligence would be mostly pointless.

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    Glass baby bottles making comeback

    Byoliveridley

    More Bisphenol A blowback, apparently, SF parents are switching to glass.

    Glass baby bottles making comeback / Stores selling out after health alarms raised about plastics

    Glass baby bottles, replaced decades ago by unbreakable plastic, are making such a comeback that parents can’t get their hands on them.

    Online and brick-and-mortar retailers report a run on glass baby bottles in recent weeks that they say was spurred by reports that the most common type of plastic in baby bottles may leach a toxic chemical.

    San Francisco resident Sean Mullins said he decided to switch his 6-month-old son, Mickey, from plastic to glass bottles last month despite manufacturers’ insistence that plastic bottles are safe.

    Independent tests done for The Chronicle and reported in November found bisphenol A, a chemical that mimics estrogen, in a baby bottle and several toys. Bisphenol A is also found in the lining of food cans, some anti-cavity sealants for teeth, and electronics.

    Watch for plastics manufacturers to fight back, this study ought to provide some ammo.

    Comparison of six samples of each of three brands of water available in both glass and polyethyelene terephthalate (PET(E)) showed that the waters bottled in glass contained approximately 57, 30, and 26 times more Pb due to leaching from the containers. Our study includes 25 brands of bottled water from Canada, and the median Pb concentration in these samples was 15.9 ng/L (n = 25), with a range from 2.1 to 268 ng/L. For comparison with the bottled waters, pristine groundwater from six artesian flows in southern Ontario, Canada, where some of the bottled waters originate, yielded a median concentration of 5.1 ng/L Pb (n = 18). In fact, all of the waters tested were well below the maximum allowable concentration established by the EU, Health Canada, and the WHO for Pb in drinking water (10000 ng/L).

    It all depends on which bolded sentence you chose to emphasize! So, glass bottles do leach some lead out, but nowhere near the amount needed to cause any effects whatsoever. I guess this is all the American Chemistry Council can come up with as a problem with glass.

    It’s irrefutable that glass can shatter, Hentges said. But there is “no scientific basis to conclude that BPA is something to be concerned about … at the extremely low levels that people might be exposed to from use of consumer products.”

    There is plenty of scientific basis to conclude that Bisphenol A has some very subtle effects at ambient doses. But science has never stopped the American Chemistry Council!

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    Climate Change Adaptation

    Byoliveridley

    I read a peripherally related blog post on a book about experiencing local climate change and that set me thinking a bit.

    One of the book’s biggest ideas is simply to emphasize what Seidl calls “true-to-life actions” (p.82), actions that discourage one’s habit of living without engagement with the people and the nonhuman around us, individually and in communities

    I like this sentiment a lot, and agree wholeheartedly. The book (I haven’t read it) appears to talk about local ecosystem adaptation, which got me thinking about adaptation in general. When we talk about climate change adaptation, we need to be very specific on who/what can/will adapt, and what community engagement will entail. Of course, I believe mitigation, or minimisng the causes comes first, but this post is primarily about adaptation.

    Species will adapt, so will ecosystems, and so will many humans. The Earth will, as well. It will just be a different world. Those of us living in affluent countries will feel the pain peripherally and will have enough buffer to change our ways of life. Some of us may even find ways to profit.

    Now some investors are taking another approach. Working under the assumption that climate change is inevitable, they’re investing in businesses that will profit as the planet gets hotter. Their strategies include buying water treatment companies, brokering deals for Australian farmland…

    Climate Change Vulnerability by region: White means low vulnerability (Ha!) – via http://www.careclimatechange.org/

    Adaptation is not a choice for the majority of humans on this planet that live in poor, coastal and vulnerable areas. They do not have the money to adapt, the effects on their ecosystems are bigger and faster, and we will not let them move to safer countries like Canada. They will lose land, resource, and when they have to fight to survive, their wars will be treated as caused by their virtue or ethnicity rather than being caused by our past and present consumption. Much of the resources that could mitigate effects may already be controlled by those who can profit from the resources. 

    Humans will have to adapt, and use any and all strategies, but there’s no “we” in climate change adaptation, there’s the vulnerable and the not-so vulnerable. So, it is insufficient to only think locally. We aren’t the first humans who will be forced to move because of abrupt climate change. But those needing to move this time will face closed borders and hostile states. We have seen time and again, resource stress increases racism and xenophobia, and decreases trust.

    What can affluent states do? For starters.

    1. Decarbonize. WIth intention, haste and unilaterally. 
    2. Help less affluent countries increase wealth, quickly.
    3. Help less affluent countries decarbonize, if less quickly because 2 is more important.
    4. Think long and hard about their borders, because current projections call for millions of environmental migrants.

    We are, of course seeing the opposite. Carbon infrastructure in US and Canada is being expanded. Resources in less affluent countries are being developed for the use of the affluent (not always from affluent states). Trade wars being fought to protect affluent interests over cheap expansion of non-carbon infrastructure. Of course, race-based immigration policy, while not officially stated as such any more, is still operational.

    We have a long way to go as a species to help everyone adapt to climate change. Humans are generally in a better place to take the necessary steps than we’ve been in the past, but the work should have started 20 years ago.

     

  • Bomb goes off In Hyderabad, India

    Byoliveridley

    An attempt to start another riot, I guess. It won’t work.

    Five killed, 16 injured in blast at Hyderabad mosque- Hindustan Times

    At least five people were killed and 16 injured in a bomb blast during Friday prayers at the historic Mecca Masjid here.

    Eyewitnesses said the blast occurred when thousands of Muslims were about to complete ‘namaz’.

    The blast took place near ‘wazu khana’ or water tank, where Muslims do ablution before offering prayers.

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    People way ahead of politicians on smoking

    Byoliveridley

    Dear state politicians, if you can’t lead, can you at least follow?? If you have not been following this issue, click here. North Carolina recently failed to pass a smoking ban in bars and restaurants.

    newsobserver.com | Poll finds support for tobacco ban

    More than two-thirds of North Carolina adults favor a statewide ban on smoking in public enclosed areas, such as restaurants, stadiums and shopping centers, according to a new poll by researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill.