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Although this unit wasn't as thought provoking as the food unit, I still learned a lot. While most people in our class consider a lot of things in our society to be atrocities, I do not. I see it as capitalism at it's best. People seeing oppurtunity to profit where others do not. We can sit around and argue for class after class, but that will change nothing. If someone really felt strongly about these so-called "atrocities", they would do something about it. If a bunch of executives can herd all of the sheep of America into believing their lives are fine and fair, than congrats to them. That just proves they're smarter than you. The majority of our class sits around whining about the capitalistic mentality, but they're just lazy. These "horrible people" took advantage of what they had, you all just say we live in a world where we're oppressed. So I invite you to do something about. Excuse my digression. Back to the point, this unit did show me inside the world of American health and there were many great insights. I do, however, stand by my argument that capitalism is good and bitching and moaning never got anybody anywhere.

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              We live in the technological era, and technology is only going to become more prevalent. Many view technology to be a good thing, that it's advancing the world and our understanding of everything. For my project, I decided to focus on the role of technology in medicine. New technology has helped millions of people who suffer from a serious ailment. I used three sources to make up my research. Theses sources are; internet research, real life interactions with AIDS patients, and the use of a text provided in class.
              

              Technology has helped to increase life expectancy and has helped decrease the threat of death in cancer, heart disease, and stroke patients. All of those three are main causes of death in rich countries, such as the US. Coronary Heart Disease is the main killer in high-income countries, and "increased use of new medical technology and a spike in the use of prescription drugs has occurred alongside a continual increase in life expectancy and decrease in death rates for cancer, heart disease, and stroke." We have seen many improvents in the quality of healtcare and life throughout the advancement of medical technologies.
With diseases like, the one we focused on, AIDS, technology plays a huge role in the advancement of medicine. New drugs that are released further the fight against monsterous diseases such as HIV/AIDS. "Similarly, the introduction of low-cost antiretroviral drugs has allowed people already infected to lead longer, healthier and happy lives."
              This brings up the next part of the research, the real life incounters with people. My peers and I visited VillageCare, a clinic in Chelsea that is seemingly a clinic for general purposes, but whose patients seemed to all be infected with the disease. We spoke to one man who was from Miami who said that when he found out about his disease he was devistated and was told he only had 6 months to live. In those six months doctors release a new experimental cocktail of drugs that was extremely succesful. This was twenty years ago. This man lives his life in search of new technologies that can not only further his lifespan but also make it more comfortable. Another man we spoke with treated it like a death sentence at first but eventually came to be able to live with the disease, without modern technologies he wouldnt have had the time to learn to cope with his lifestyle. He was given new life because of modern technology and now he says he has learned how to live life to the fullest. A third person that we spoke to was not a patient but worked with the clinic and helped them with new patients and such. He had bad things to say about our healthcare system, but he had great things to say about the new technologies and how they helped these people so much with their ailments.
              The text we reviewed in class was from the World Health Organization, it showed us the facts and figures about the leading causes of death in countries ranging from low to high income. In low income countries, AIDS is a leading killer but is not in high income countries such as America. This could be because of the technological opportunities that people in America have. Seeing that the US is a rich country we have more opportunities and more access to technology. No one can disagree that AIDS is an epidemic, but maybe the reason that it is more prevalent in poorer nations is because of the lack of technology available in those nations. In rich countries the number one cause of death causes 1.33 million, in poor countries the leading cause of death causes 2.94 million. This is a huge difference. The number one cause of death in poor countries is Lower Respiratory Infection, a serious ailment that affects many across the globe, but can still be cured with access to technology.

Where would we be without technology?




aidsportal.org/
www.who.int/
abcnews.com
cnn.com
wikipedia.org

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Everybody has heard healthcare and insurance brought up a lot in the past few years. Some are well versed and most can hold a conversation about the problems and the solutions that they believe would work. Right now the current law that was signed in in March 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, seeks to make life easier for the working class by prohibiting denial for pre-existing conditions, expanding the eligibility for Medicaid, giving incentives for business to offer care, subsidizing insurance cost, and pumping money into research. This act is unprecedented in America, it is a step towards universal healthcare, which if we get there will be revolutionary, as American insurance has always been privatized in our country.

The first documented form of insurance in America dates back to colonial times in Philadelphia, where Ben Franklin started a firm that insured houses in the event of a fire. Insurance is believed to be originally invented by Babylonian traders who paid into a large fund that whomever suffered a loss could take payment. Lloyds of London is the most famous of the early on private insurance companies. In America, before and during the Great Depression medicine got better and trips to the hospital were more frequent. However, when the depression hit, people were finding it very hard to afford the medical bills. So, in realizing that they had little revenue due to poor people, hospitals implemented a new insurance program that started a trend. Insurance went through a great phase, and then a not so great phase, now here we are hopefully transitioning to another great phase, but this time with fair care.

Death is inexplicable, unless you’ve been through it, in which case you have no voice in the dominant discourse, literally. How we die, well that we can explain, or at least attempt to. More often then not, we go to the hospital when we’re sick, and if you’re seriously ill, it’s really hard to recover. Some do, most don’t. Even people who know their chances are slim still insist on seeing a doctor, he eases the pain and tries his hardest to cure you, but if you know you’re going to die, isn’t that postponing the inevitable? But why do people go about all of this suffering in a hospital? I feel the suffering would be cut down monumentally if you were in your own home and around people who love you. Humans like what they’re used to, they find solace in familiarity. When we see a doctor, we know we must be in good hands. But who’s to say that holistic treatment isn’t better for your ailment. It boggles my mind why anyone would spend their last days, weeks, or months in a hospital when they know that they are their last days. How do we die? On a cold uncomfortable bed, hooked up to machines, eating shitty food, watching Jeopardy on a TV that must be circa 1993.

We look down on sick people, while also feeling strong distaste or embarrassment. This is stigma. We feel embarrassed for someone if they in a postion that we feel would be embarrassing if we were in it. We see everything as a disease, to the human mind anything not socially acceptable is on the level of leprosy. Someone get’s their as cleaned for them, we’re embarrassed. We feed off of other’s misfortune, we say we treat crippled people like everyone else, when we know we really don’t. You go against cultural norms, and you are met with social disapproval. Our social life is our everything, especially in high school. Our energy comes from the torturing of the different. We tell ourselves, “it’s their fault, they can try to make friends, they could be normal.” But we never ask ourselves, can we be more different?
　

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I didn't visit anyone in the hospital over the break. I don't know anyone who is ill and had I known anyone or found someone, I would not have gone to visit them in the hospital. I would be uncomfortable questioning someone about their life when they were sick. I think its wrong, people should be allowed their privacy. Yes, sure the have the right to say no, buy even if they had said yes, even if they wanted to be interviewed I'd still feel wrong about it. Why do we always have to analyze everything? Can't we just let some things be? Not everything has to be our own little sociological project. We are so up on our high horse, looking down on people and examining them. Were so fucking great at judging other people but how often do we judge ourselves? Hardly ever. Were fine with observing others and making conclusions about them, but we never seem to bring ourselves to question our own lives.

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What  I have learned:

- That dying contains many mixed emotions, for those who are dying and those close to the person in question. For example, when Beth visited the class she told us that for a while she didn't think about death or that it may happen to her husband. She pushed it to the back of her mind and decided it wasn't something to worry about. But when her husband died, she had no choice but to think about it. So, you kind of realize that death flips everything upside down and probably whatever you don't want to think about, you end up thinking about it.

- Documentaries may seem real, and some are, but often times directors will do different things to pursuade you, and they will show you so much that you agree with that eventually you forget the main argument of the movie. We saw this in Sicko, how Michael Moore strayed from the point all the time by telling us about laundry in France, or people who don't have healthcare insurance when the movie was originally about people who are covered.

-It seems as though the healthcare and insurance everywhere else is better than America's, it may be exaggerated slightly, but it is still true. Truth sucks.

-Doctors may not care on an emotional level, but they are not total jerks. They use what they logically think is the best course of action, and think with their brains, not their hearts, which is often the right thing to do.

The most helpful sources, have probably been the movies and Beth's presentation. This way we get a visual of death and illness.

I think it's important to study how we live, and how we take our health for granted.