With school, and work, and commuting, I have not had time to weigh in on this issue. I will, just as soon as the quarter is finished-which seems a lifetime away.
Of all the blogs I read, this one stands tallest.
There are many straight folks who read this blog. I'd ask one thing. Hear Dogpoet out. His perspective is important, and it is a sane defining voice coming from the corner we've been backed into.
http://www.dogpoet.com/blog/archives/698
More. Later.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Sunrise. Sunset.
Ghost Kitties...
In the last couple months we've come home to find several abandoned animals at our place.
Living way up in the mountains, one would think people would not be so cruel as to drive into the middle of the wilderness to abandon their animals-and just as winter arrives.
But, they do.
A few years ago someone abandoned a litter of puppies. I caught them out of the corner of my eye as the four of them scampered by my window each of them struggling for footing in the snow. By the time I found my boots and made it outside, the coyotes had also found them and all that remained was a bloody patch in the snow at the edge of the clearing. It happened within seconds.
The cats that we've seen lately seem to go where dogs and other predators cannot. So far they seem safe from the Coyotes and Mountain Lions. They've claimed the couch on the front porch. They've decimated the mice population.
Meanwhile we can only catch one of them. The others are skittish and will only approach if there is a window separating us from them.
Considering how their prior owners treated them, this seems quite understandable.
On the Road. On the Record. A trip to the APHA national convention, San Diego.
So this was our table. I handed out nearly 2500 condoms, several hundred assessments, and spoke to well over a thousand folks at the 2008 American Public Health Association (APHA) National convention attended by nearly 14,000 public health officials.
As we continue to work with researchers throughout North America, not to beat a dead horse, but here are some important issues we confront:
Truckers life expectancy has dropped as documented in a recently completed OSHA health survey. Life expectancy has decreased from 15 years less than other occupations (2005) to 18 years less than other occupations (2008).
Trucking remains the leading way to die on the job in North America. Drivers are eleven times more likely to be killed in on the job, while trucking than in other occupations. They rank second in non-fatal injuries.
Roughly 40% of long haul drivers have no health insurance. Of the remaining 60% that do, many find that their health insurance is of little value once they leave their home state.
In an assessment done in 2006, Spokane Regional Health District found that roughly 10% of the drivers they spoke to in the Spokane area self disclosed they were HIV positive. An additional 14 drivers came forward and acknowledged they were HIV positive but declined to participate in the full assessment.
Since that assessment was published, drivers continue to face an industry that is silent regarding HIV/AIDS and a complete absense of general health resources while they are on the road.
In late October of 2008, in the same week, two drivers presented themselves to Washington State Emergency rooms with late stage, full blown AIDS related infections. In both cases, the infections were life threatening. These truckers are not intentionally operating a large commercial vehicle while they are also very sick-They simply did not know the severity of their illnesses. They did not know their HIV status as they'd never been tested for HIV. To become as ill as they were, their immune system had been compromised for some time. Most importantly, they had little or no access to health care while on the road.
Over the last year, especially as the fuel price crisis devastated the trucking industry, we began to field escalated calls from HIV positive truckers. These drivers were nearing desperation as their carriers suddenly suspended their health insurance, or closed down altogether. We took calls from drivers who were thousands of miles away from their HIV case managers, who had run out of their meds, or worse, were suddenly ill with a serious infection. In an effort to get back to their home state where these drivers could access care, they continued to drive while fighting life threatening infections such as community acquired MRSA, or AIDS related Pneumonia. In several cases, the infections forced emergency hospitalizations before these drivers were able to make it home.
Our project is the only one of its kind in North America and has been an ongoing effort for nearly two decades supported by numerous agencies and local partners. Yet it remains minimally funded.
We are hopeful that within the next year this will change.
The SRHD assessment is found here: www.srhd.org/documents/PublicHealthData/TruckerHealthReport.pdf
With related coverage found here: http://www.thebody.com/content/news/art45391.html
And then there's the federal response. Another study, not yet off the ground, found here:
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/blog/nsb111907_truck.html
Notice the glaring lack of attention to Sexual and Reproductive Health and not a mention of HIV/AIDS? Or MRSA?
We are nearing the 30th Anniversary of when HIV/AIDS became a serious public health concern. To my knowledge, not a single trucking publication has devoted serious coverage to this issue among the 3-6 million people who are on the road.
If the CDC and NIOSH do not revise the focus of their study, HIV/AIDS among mobile populations could very well remain-On the Road, Off the Record.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
July's Wicked Supercell...
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