“Keep Working for Environmental Justice No Matter How Bleak Things Look. Don’t Give Up. Don’t Just Go Away”: An Interview With Wilma Subra

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 487-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Sullivan ◽  
Katelyn Parady
Keyword(s):  
Health Risks ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Waste Storage ◽  
Health Advocate ◽  
Treatment Facilities ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Oil Rig ◽  
Gulf Coast Region

MacArthur prize-winning community scientist, Wilma Subra participated in the research of the Gulf Coast Health Alliance: Health Risks Related to the Macondo Spill project. Ms. Subra chronicles the arc of her career as a public health advocate who has informed communities nationwide of active and potential health risks. She has been most active in the U.S. Gulf Coast region where oil production infrastructure, petrochemical refining and production plants, and hazardous waste storage and treatment facilities seem as common as live oaks and red fish. A pioneer in the growing field of do-it-yourself citizen science, Ms. Subra shares her views on community engagement, community-based participatory research, and effective risk communication and also explains how citizen scientists were an essential component in the response to the Deep Water Horizon oil rig explosion and spill.

scholarly journals Building and Maintaining a Citizen Science Network With Fishermen and Fishing Communities Post Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster Using a CBPR Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 416-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Sullivan ◽  
Sharon Croisant ◽  
Marilyn Howarth ◽  
Gilbert T. Rowe ◽  
Harshica Fernando ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Science ◽  
Gulf Coast ◽  
Community Based Participatory Research ◽  
Deepwater Horizon ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Regional Food ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic ◽  
Potential Damage ◽  
Oil Rig ◽  
Coastal Louisiana

When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew out in 2010, the immediate threats to productive deep water and estuarial fisheries and the region’s fishing and energy economies were obvious. Less immediately obvious, but equally unsettling, were risks to human health posed by potential damage to the regional food web. This paper describes grassroots and regional efforts by the Gulf Coast Health Alliance: health risks related to the Macondo Spill Fishermen’s Citizen Science Network project. Using a community-based participatory research approach and a citizen science structure, the multiyear project measured exposure to petrogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, researched the toxicity of these polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compounds, and communicated project findings and seafood consumption guidelines throughout the region (coastal Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama). Description/analysis focuses primarily on the process of building a network of working fishermen and developing group environmental health literacy competencies.

scholarly journals Ethical Implications of Biohacking as Activism: Democratized Health Care, Danger, or What?

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Zheng
Keyword(s):  
Health Risks ◽  
Clinical Medicine ◽  
Biomedical Ethics ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Current Form ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Low Costs ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Diy Biology

Biohacking refers to optimizing one’s body through modifying biology. In the 20th century, do-it-yourself (DIY) biology emerged as a type of biohacking involving biotechnology. Current high- healthcare costs promote DIY -biology insulin and EpiPens as ways to challenge norms in healthcare, thus serving as forms of activism. Biohacked insulin is part of the #WeAreNotWaiting movement to support improved treatment of Type 1 diabetes, whereas biohacked EpiPens allow people to make lifesaving autoinjectors at low costs. Social media acts as a catalyst and aids in the spread of insulin and EpiPen biohacking as activism. In 1979, Principles of Biomedical Ethics by Beauchamp and Childress proposed four principles that continue to guide decision-making in clinical medicine: beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice. This paper applies these principles to explore whether the benefits of performing DIY biology outweigh the potential health risks. Examining biohacking with a biomedical ethics frame, as outlined by Beauchamp and Childress, reveals that biohacking acts as a response to current issues but cannot serve as a solution in its current form. However, biohacking can grant patients more power in their relationship with the healthcare system, therefore lessening the dominance of formal institutions. Out of the four principles, autonomy applies most differently when regarding biohacking than traditional medicine. Accordingly, a model of ethics for biohacking, such as of Beauchamp and Childress’ with the autonomy altered to acknowledge the additional implications of biohacking, should be developed in the future.

scholarly journals Placenta-Expanded Stromal Cell Therapy in a Rodent Model of Simulated Weightlessness

Cells ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 940
Author(s):  
Linda Rubinstein ◽  
Amber M. Paul ◽  
Charles Houseman ◽  
Metadel Abegaz ◽  
Steffy Tabares Ruiz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Risks ◽  
Stromal Cells ◽  
Therapeutic Potential ◽  
Medical Intervention ◽  
Hindlimb Unloading ◽  
Simulated Weightlessness ◽  
Potential Health ◽  
Long Duration ◽  
Induced Changes ◽  
Splenic Atrophy

Long duration spaceflight poses potential health risks to astronauts during flight and re-adaptation after return to Earth. There is an emerging need for NASA to provide successful and reliable therapeutics for long duration missions when capability for medical intervention will be limited. Clinically relevant, human placenta-derived therapeutic stromal cells (PLX-PAD) are a promising therapeutic alternative. We found that treatment of adult female mice with PLX-PAD near the onset of simulated weightlessness by hindlimb unloading (HU, 30 d) was well-tolerated and partially mitigated decrements caused by HU. Specifically, PLX-PAD treatment rescued HU-induced thymic atrophy, and mitigated HU-induced changes in percentages of circulating neutrophils, but did not rescue changes in the percentages of lymphocytes, monocytes, natural killer (NK) cells, T-cells and splenic atrophy. Further, PLX-PAD partially mitigated HU effects on the expression of select cytokines in the hippocampus. In contrast, PLX-PAD failed to protect bone and muscle from HU-induced effects, suggesting that the mechanisms which regulate the structure of these mechanosensitive tissues in response to disuse are discrete from those that regulate the immune- and central nervous system (CNS). These findings support the therapeutic potential of placenta-derived stromal cells for select physiological deficits during simulated spaceflight. Multiple countermeasures are likely needed for comprehensive protection from the deleterious effects of prolonged spaceflight.

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