Week 1 Readings

12 Great Achievements
Canadian Public Health Association
 Average lifespan of Canadians has increased by more than 30 years since the early 1900s

1) Acting on the social determinants of health

a) Recognize that health is influenced by things other than healthcare
b) Tackling broad determinant of health such as income, education and social connections
c) In 1989 they took an initiative to eliminate poverty in children by 2000, however the number of the children
relying on food banks is till increasing
d) Progress is disappointing

2) Control of infectious diseases

a) VD
 When many soldiers were found with syphilis and/or gonorrhoea during the first world war public health
officials became concerned
 Treatments were long and painful
 Public education looked like the best approach to inform people before Venereal Diseases could spread
more (VD)
 Herpes and HIV emerged in the 1980s and could not be cured
 More public information campaigns needed to be held
 New surges started occurring 1997 with curable STIs because people kept spreading them without knowing
b) Polio
 Till the vaccine was introduced in 1955, Polio crippled tens of thousands of Canadians
 Kids are at most risk of Polio
 It was the most serious national epidemic at the time in 1953
 The last major epidemic in Canada was in 1959
 With the vaccine, Canada became Polio free in 1994
c) Tuberculosis
 Came to Canada with European settlers
 Death rates were high among the First Nations
 TB rates fell in the 1960s due to an introduction in an antibiotic treatment
 The disease stills persist in communities today although

3) Decline in death from coronary heart disease and stroke

 Since the 1960s cardiovascular disease death dates have been dropping
 Preventing smoking, and increase in physical activity with a healthy diet in the general crowd is likely the
reason for this decrease in deaths

4) Family planning
 1969 all forms of contraception became legal
 a fight needed to be had with illegal abortions as they were very dangerous and women were under the
threat of life imprisonment
 Control was given to the women with contraception, they were able to make important decisions for
themselves and their future children

5) Healthier Environments
 Policies are reducing the toxic emissions
  Air and water quality have improved
 Adding fluoride to drinking water has been a measure in the last 65 years to help teeth
 Avoiding dog poop has been a measure across Canada as it pollutes the environment

6) Healthier mothers and babies

 Improved sanitation, nutrition, standard of living and level of education all help with improved maternal and
infant health
 Also an improved in health care and better surveillance
 A promotion breastfeeding as the best method for feeding infants
 Extending maternity leave

7) Motor-vehicle safety
 As alcohol-related collisions decreased substantially and seatbelt use increased, resulting in many lives saved
and injuries prevented
 Vehicles safety features improved
 Seat belts became law
 Anti-lock braking system

8) Recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard

 A shift in attitude has allowed for a decline in tobacco consumption
 During the 1970s anti-smoking areas and bylaws began being passed
 Canada has made more progress than most other countries in recent years
 Heather Crowe: got lung cancer from second hand smoke, she went around to workplaces pleaded to ban
smoking in the workplace environment, she advocated everywhere

9) Safer and healthier foods

 Fighting trans-fat: Trans fat task force
 Urged the food industry to limit trans fatty foods
 Trans fat increase risk of developing heart disease
 Milk today has vitamin D added
 Canada has one of the safest food systems as everyone (industry, governments, consumers) are all playing
role in food safety

10) Safer workplaces

 In the 1900s in Canada, many diseases or injuries were associated with unsafe workplaces or hazardous
occupation
 Over the years, regulations have been put in place to keep everything in control
 Keeping in mind all safety concerns
 Today, workers are covered by provincial or federal labour codes depending on the sector in which they
work.
 The rate of work-related injury has been steadily declining since 1988
 They have decreased by ½ in the last 20 years

11) Universal policies

 Universal programs for income maintenance, social welfare services and health care services have helped
Canadians maintain a high standard of living and of health
 In 1952 an old age security program was introduced to pay qualified residents over 70 years of age
 Pension plans are considered universal
  Family allowances were the first universal welfare program; gave to every family despite income as all
children were deemed worthy of public support

12) Vaccinations
 Immunization programs have been saving more lives than any other health intervention
 Infectious diseases now only cause 5% of all deaths instead of being the major cause
 Vaccines are among the safest tools of modern medicine and serious side effects are rare
 People oppose vaccines due to religion or safety concerns, this is the fight with completely eradicating
diseases as not everyone is being vaccinated
 “Until every child is immunized, your child is not safe”
 http://www.cpha.ca/en/programs/history/achievements/12-v/questions.aspx

Tarah Brookfield Review: Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical
Experimentation on Children in Cold War America

 Adolescent boys were subjects of a radiation experiment without consent, these boys had developmental
disabilities
 They fed them radioisotope laced milk each morning to test the effects of radiation exposure
 Against Their Will’s unique contribution to this dark era of medical history is to show how human
experimentation on vulnerable populations in the United States continued and even flourished long after
eugenics went out of fashion after the Second World War.
 Authors commented on the hypocrisy of the American medical community as they were doing same as
Nazis were in concentration camps
 The mindset that they need save “normal” children and these children were expendable lead to a doctor
feeding live polio viruses to 20 children in New York asylum
 There is a chapter on psychiatric experiments with lobotomies performed on children in hopes to curtail
anxiety, aggression, sullenness, autism, and schizophrenia
 Due to loss of records and reports, authors couldn’t quantify the number of deaths or effects on youth from
various studies
 There are still evidence a large deal of trauma was caused upon these participants (short and long term)
 Against Their Will is a thorough and thoughtful survey of the wide-ranging experiments on preventatives
and treatments conducted on youth across the 20th century as well as the evolution of mindsets and ethics

 In Australia, they did experiments on orphans because they were vulnerable and there was no one to defend
the child

The Bin Laden Vaccine: Yes, Vaccinations are a CIA Plot.

 CIA ran an operation to verify Osama bin Laden's location by gathering DNA samples through a false-flag
hepatitis B vaccination programme.
 American officials are defending this operation, not denying it. (Eventually they would admit this was a
mistake as Polio cases are increasing in Pakistan
 Around the world, people already have a belief that these vaccines are a ploy and this event proved their
theories to be true
 They thought the vaccine was a ploy to sterilize men in high populated areas
 These stopped all progress the WHO was having on eradication polio in Pakistan
 WHO reached to local religious authorities to advocate for the vaccine