Bioentrepeneur/Haas Event and other things;-)

Hello Foundations class this is my inaugural post to "the blog" so please bear with me.

First, I just wanted to remind everyone of the Haas Event "Bioentrepeneurship roundtable" tomorrow evening at 6pm. I registered yesterday and it sounds as if it should be pretty informative. The other bonus is that its in Redwood City, that's right on the peninsula about ten minutes from Palo Alto. I recognize that the Big Game is this weekend, but I promise that it's safe. The attendance fee is $35 which includes dinner, and its advertised as being pretty interactive, so I think it'll be interesting. Looking for company though. Here's the link:

http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=168599

Second, the NIH Health Disparities Summit is on Dec. 16-18. It will be held in New Harbor, MD which is right outside of Washington DC in a beautiful new complex that overlooks the Potomac River. I'm going to attend and I was blessed to have an abstract accepted for presentation. I've heard that its truly a great meeting and the registration is actually free. So once again it would be nice to have some company. I can even promise a personal tour of DC considering its 15 miles from where I grew up. Here's the link:

http://www.blsmeetings.net/2008healthdisparitiessummit/reg.cfm

Lastly, the data that I will be presenting at the summit was published in the Annals of Surgery this month. It has to do with diversity in the academic surgical workforce. Annals of Surgery is one of our most well respected surgical journals and it truly is an honor to get it published. They even wrote a little editorial about it. I went to Kim and Dr. Bloom with my idea to pursue this last July when Hari, Lyonel, and I started summer school (remediation) ;-). They were very supportive of the idea and then in September Jeff looked at one of the original drafts and was also supportive. So basically what I'm getting at is that if there is a research idea that you want to look into and are passionate about, the support is here at UC Berkely SPH/HPM and this article is proof of that. I would love to get your opinion on it if you find the time to read it. Its been well received by the other surgeons with whom I've spoken, which also serves as proof that many physicians care about health care disparities and public health initiatives more then might be expected/advertised ;-) Here are the links:

Article: http://www.annalsofsurgery.com/pt/re/annos/abstract.00000658-200811000-00003.htm;jsessionid=JjpWX8vQ0SRHkLDd1b2TYPm7pXnQMWCs01hXZrJrzQJtDXFb5rhy!620075815!181195628!8091!-1

Editorial: http://www.annalsofsurgery.com/pt/re/annos/abstract.00000658-200811000-00004.htm;jsessionid=JjpHPZgLyRV31Yp2kHLQkTl5CNQByy846Q57GSpv5k10fnPQ09TG!-409308177!181195629!8091!-1

Let me know if you can't get to it and I can send you the PDF. Well that's it. I hope to see some of you Thursday evening in Redwood City.

Health Econ in the NYT

New York Times has an article all about high-deductible health plans, one of our favorite topics from health economics!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/business/15insure.html?pagewanted=1&ref=health

The gist is that in a time of rising health care costs and the general economic downturn, employers are more often offering these consumer directed health plans as the only health benefits choice for their workers.

The article interviews David Lee, and executive from the Pacific Business Group for Health, an employer coalition that provides consultation on health care. They are based in San Francisco and I was able to do an informational interview there.

http://www.pbgh.org/

Googling the flu

Hey all,

This is a super interesting article from today's NY Times about how google is using keyword tracking to anticipate flu outbreaks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

Vaccinations: Good or Bad?

The movement of parents avoiding vaccinations for their children has become quite a popular phenomenon. Some studies have linked vaccinations to signs of autism; however, many studies have failed to find conclusive evidence of this. What do you believe?

Additionally, what sort of implications does this have on child attendance in the public school system, where certain vaccinations are generally required?

Read CNNs Vaccines: Separating fact from fiction and decide what you think is the right thing to do.

Personally, I think this is quite intriguing, and especially important for anyone having children to be well informed about. Let me know what you think!!!

UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution issues report on health impacts of nanomaterials

The United Kingdom's Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution issued its latest report, entitled "Novel Materials in the Environment: The case of nanotechnology" this morning (it is available here: http://www.rcep.org.uk/novelmaterials.htm). Commission members are concerned that nanotechnology is being used more and more in everyday life, but that regulations lag behind its use. This is partly due to the fact that knowledge about the health and environmental impacts of nanotechnology applications lag behind nanomaterial innovation. The report calls on the British government to recognize the divide between innovation and knowledge in this area, to which the government must (by law) respond. This is extremely interesting for anyone interested in that other link between innovation and health - not the one that makes health care provision all the more expensive, but the one that has the potential to make it all the more necessary in the future.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/africanamericanhealth.html
http://ndep.nih.gov/campaigns/SmallSteps/SmallSteps_index.htm
http://ndep.nih.gov/campaigns/SmallSteps/50ways/index.htm
http://www.womenshealth.gov/minority/africanamerican/diabetes.cfm
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/other/chdblack/cooking.pdf
http://www.blackhealthcare.com/BHC/Diabetes/Description.asp
http://www.netwellness.org/healthtopics/aahealth/
http://www.diabetes.org/communityprograms-and-localevents/africanamericans.jsp

African American Diabetic Websites

We were asked to post the websites we used in our survey of elderly African American diabetics. We look forward to sharing our findings!