New wisdom - By RBL

 New wisdom - By RBL

In this blog I'll be telling you about the Akoben Rites of Passage Society that I'm learning from. In the fall-civic term, it's been meeting every-other Sunday and we've talked about important topics like how to be responsible, learn how to create our own part-time shelters, and how to defend our communities. There are a lot of programs like this located in different parts of the world. Their goals are how to teach black young men how to take care of each other, and the world. 

To be a Disease Detective - By RBL

To be a Disease Detective

This is my last action project for my disease class. For this unit, we looked into current diseases that impact people everyday. For this we got to play the board game Pandemic in class and see how doctors research and dissect different information to find causes for certain diseases. We also interviewed two health doctors who’ve done different jobs in the CDC. Leading to our action project, we were given a specific scenario for an epidemic of a certain disease. My scenario was an epidemic of Hepatitis A. 

Disease overview:

An epidemic of Hepatitis A occurred in the state of Washington in July 2019. Symptoms can start when you eat some sort of contaminated food. From there, the disease spreads out to your liver to cause severe damage. There were over 450 cases, more than 250 of which resulted in hospitalization and at least 9 deaths. Most cases occurred in unhomed populations, recently incarcerated populations, and drug users.

Hepatitis A (HAV) is a very contagious disease caused by certain viruses in the liver. Even though hepatitis A is a very contagious disease even though there are less than 1,000 known cases in a year because most of our population has been vaccinated against it. 

When inside your body, it can cause inflation's to the liver and can make it difficult for your liver to work properly. You can directly get it from things such as contaminated food or water, drug users, men who have sex with men (MSM), and homeless individuals who might have unstable housing. Those are some of the few ways hepatitis A can spread through communities. A few symptoms for hepatitis A are intense itching, fatigue, joint pain, nausea, and vomiting. It’s important to realize that even though most of these symptoms for hepatitis A can last about two months, if you end up with a virus it can then last up to six months. This can leave severe damage to your body system. The best ways to fight against this are to get vaccinated, wash hands frequently, and don’t do drugs. 

Vaccines at Sanofi “Hepatitis A virus (HAV)” Taken August 7, 2013 

Outbreak info:

    A recent outbreak of hepatitis A was reported in Seattle,WA in 2019 because of food contamination. The populations that were infected the most by this outbreak were the unsheltered, drug users (injection or non-injection), and people that have been, are, or recently incarcerated. Compared to those with the highest risk of getting hepatitis A, 36.7% of Seattle’s population has limited access to healthy foods compared to the national average of 64.2%. The interesting thing is that the parts of Seattle with the highest healthy food access are in the northern and southern parts of Seattle.  

According to the CDC, the incubation period for it is about 28 days. There were 465 cases total, 263 people hospitalized, and 9 people who died. There’s a 94% efficacy for the vaccine so there’s more chance that if you get vaccinated, you will recover quicker than if you don’t. The reproductive rate for hepatitis A is 2.4. This is important because it can spread relatively quickly so it’s important to take precautions to prevent the disease. In order for Seattle to keep their population safe from hepatitis A, 62% or more would need to get vaccinated. 

Here’s a timeline on how hepatitis A can affect someone:

RBL “Hepatitis A outbreak timeline” created March 9th, 2022

Those are some of the things states have done in the past. Here are some things that you can do to protect yourself and others from hepatitis A.

Recommendations:

To prevent hepatitis A outbreaks like these we should wash our hands more often, or get a vaccine for hepatitis A. Another thing you can do yourself is to be mindful of the things you eat and how they are made, as well as wear gloves when entering populated areas. As a whole we can advocate for those who have drug addiction or drug problems, so they won’t have to fight against their own drug issues. Another thing we can do is provide more housing or create more homeless shelters for those who don’t have the greatest healthcare options, and do more health checkups on local restaurants to make sure they’re selling healthy food. With taking these precautions, we can all stay safe from hepatitis A.

Sources: 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/. 

Flynn, Dan. “National Hepatitis A Outbreak Mostly over in West, but Continues in East.” Food Safety News, 7 Apr. 2021, https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2021/04/national-hepatitis-a-outbreak-mostly-over-in-west-but-continues-in-east/. 

“Hepatitis A Outbreak.” Washington State Department of Health, https://doh.wa.gov/you-and-your-family/illness-and-disease-z/hepatitis-information/hepatitis/hepatitis-outbreak. 

Widespread Outbreaks of Hepatitis A Across the U.S.. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/outbreaks/2017March-HepatitisA.htm

Should Kindred be banned from prisons? - By RBL

 Should Kindred be banned from prisons?

This is my last action project for my Humanities class, Forbidden Books. During this unit, we looked at several books that were banned for certain reasons. We read books like Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Fahrenheit 451, and excerpts from The Color Purple. We also looked at different books and the reasons why they were banned from school systems. Leading up to our action project which was to read a book that was banned from a school system. In my case, I ended up reading Kindred by Octavia Butler. Surprisingly, Kindred isn't banned from a single school system, but it was banned in prisons. Because of this, I had to do a lot more digging for information because it wasn’t directly banned in schools. If there is one thing I learned from Kindred it’s that power will come when you least expect it. Maybe it's banned because are worried about how it sees power. This is the essay that I wrote about the book. I hope you enjoy it.