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The 19th International AIDS Conference is happening this week here in Washington, DC, and as the Washington Post's David Brown reminds us, it's a very different gathering from one that took place in San Francisco in 1990, when HIV was a mystery and AIDS a death sentence. Today, AIDS is still a…

Celeste wrote earlier about an excellent series of investigative stories on the resurgence of black lung disease among US coal miners. If you missed any of them when they first came out, they are: “Dust reforms stalled by years of inaction” and “Miners say UBB mine cheated on dust sampling,” by…

by Kim Krisberg Legislative attacks on women's health care are so commonplace these days that they make proposals that don't include a state-mandated vaginal probe seem moderate. In fact, so many legislators are introducing proposals under the guise of protecting women's health (2011 marked a…

If you haven't yet read Maryn McKenna's riveting Atlantic article "How Your Chicken Dinner is Creating a Drug-Resistant Superbug," you should. McKenna, working with the with the Food and Environment Reporting Network, has delved into research that's been accumulating about the association between…

by Kim Krisberg Hunger in America can be hard to see. It doesn't look like the image of hunger we usually see on our TVs: the wrenching impoverishment and emaciation. Talking about American hunger is hard because, well, there's food all around us. Everywhere you look, there's food — people eating…

I wrote last week about the importance of the Freedom of Information Act, and Stacey Singer of The Palm Beach Post has just published a piece that shows how important sunshine laws can be for public health. Singer revealed that Florida is in the midst of tuberculosis outbreak that's claimed 13…

For the New York Times' Well blog, Pauline W. Chen, MD writes of a nurse who kept working despite feeling a slight twinge in her lower back, reasoning that her patients would suffer if she weren't at work. And her story's not unusual, Chen reports: Nurses make up the largest group of health care…

by Kim Krisberg Last month, more than 70 ironworkers walked off an ExxonMobil construction site near Houston, Texas. The workers, known as rodbusters in the industry, weren't members of a union or backed by powerful organizers; they decided amongst themselves to unite in protest of unsafe working…

By Anthony Robbins On 19 June, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and other Federal agencies and private sector groups concerned with worker health convened a two-day workshop at the Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building in Washington.  About 100 researchers…

While the adoption of the Declaration of Independence is the most important anniversary that the US celebrates on July 4th, this date is also the anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act. President Johnson signed the FOIA on July 4, 1966 – although he apparently wasn’t happy about it, and…

Joe Paduda at Managed Care Matters has posted the second of two parts in the special edition of Health Wonk Review responding to the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Care Act: Part I is here, and Part II is here. I'm delighted with the Court's decision to uphold the law as a whole, but…

There's been a lot of great analysis and commentary since the Supreme Court issued its decision on the Affordable Care Act yesterday. Joe Paduda at Managed Care Matters is graciously hosting a special edition of Health Wonk Review -- check it out a variety of takes on the legal, economic, and…

As Kim has already reported, public health advocates are delighted that the Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act. The law takes important steps toward improving the way we pay for care and invest in prevention, but its most important achievement is in reforming the bizarre US health-…

by Kim Krisberg For me, there were few better places to hear about today's 5-4 Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act and its individual insurance mandate than at a meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Here in Charlotte, N.C., for APHA's Midyear Meeting, I was…

by Kim Krisberg Just a few years ago in Butte County, Calif., it wasn't unusual for public health workers to administer more than 1,000 free HIV tests every year. In true public health fashion, they'd bring screening services to the people, setting up in neighborhoods, parks and bars, at special…

This month, Environmental Health News has been running a fantastic series of stories in a series entitled “Pollution, Poverty, People of Color.” The editors planned the publication around the 30th anniversary of protests in Warren County, North Carolina, which are widely credited with launching the…

As we're waiting to learn whether the Affordable Care Act will survive the upcoming Supreme Court decision, it's a good time to remember what's at stake with the individual mandate -- the part of the law that's least popular with the public and that some Supreme Court Justices seem to find…

by Kim Krisberg When most of us think of sustainability and construction, the usual suspects probably come to mind: efficient cooling and heating, using nontoxic building materials, minimizing environmental degradation — in other words, being green. But in Austin, Texas, a new effort is working to…

The day after the Tony Awards honored excellence in Broadway theater, the NIOSH Science Blog posted information about some of the theatrical hazards and precautions that may not be visible to audiences. Gregory A. Burr and Deborah Hornback write: While the theater provides entertainment, the…

Yesterday, that National Academies Press celebrated its first year of offering free PDFs of many of its reports. NAP reported in an anniversary email that website visitors have downloaded over 1.3 million PDF versions of books -- and that over the next year NAP will be adding more books (new and…

Last week, the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response and Administration held a hearing on the National Preparedness Report released earlier this year by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. Subcommittee Chair Gus…

by Kim Krisberg When an explosion on the BP-operated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon caused what would be the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Glenda Perryman's friends and neighbors answered the call for clean-up workers. Perryman lives in Lucedale, MS, about 45 minutes from the Gulf Coast — "we're…

by Beth Spence Carrying enlarged photographs of their lost loved ones, family members of three of the 29 miners killed in the 2010 explosion at West Virginia’s Upper Big Branch mine spent June 6-7 in Washington, D.C., pleading with lawmakers to take action to improve mine safety and to stiffen…

Via Ezra Klein, here's a striking infographic from the Bipartisan Policy Center comparing what makes us healthy to how we as a nation spend our health dollars: Infographic from the Bipartisan Policy Center As it illustrates, behaviors are major contributors to our health status, but a tiny…

Last week, iWatch News (of the Center for Public Integrity) published an in-depth story on combustible dust explosions, which have killed or injured at least 900 workers over the past three decades. Chris Hamby tells the story of Wiley Sherburne, a 42-year-old electrician who was killed by burns…

by Kim Krisberg A recent report again confirms what comes as no surprise to public health practitioners: that income and education are inextricably tied to the opportunities for better health and longevity. In mid-May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its yearly report on…

Earlier this year, Kim Krisberg wrote about cuts to mental health funding in states across the country, and what that means for public health. Via Reporting on Health, here's a devastating portrait of the impact of mental health cuts to one California county, in a Modesto Bee series by Jocelyn…

By Kim Krisberg Wally Reardon stopped climbing towers for a living back in 2002 due to an injury. He had spent years putting up communication antennas anywhere employers wanted them — smokestacks, buildings, grain silos, water tanks. Just about anything that rose up into the sky, Reardon would find…

Today the United States honors those who died while serving in the military. The Washington Post's "Faces of the Fallen" gallery has photos and other information on the "6,440 U.S. service members have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom." Several entries have been added…

Earlier this month, NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health released the results (PDF) of a poll they conducted to learn about the experiences of the 27% of US adults who reported having serious healthcare needs (specifically, those who’d been hospitalized…