Final Blog

There have been so many highlights of learning in this class this semester. It has completely opened my eyes even more to the environment and how we treat it and the class has also made me more of a pain in the butt to shop with.

I am so thankful that we are more educated on various topics and that we are now ready to share our new knowledge with family, friends, and the community. Also with strangers too, lol!

I really enjoyed blogging with Angela and Matt! It was great to read about their perspective on the topics.

Some of the modules I wish we talked about as a class instead of just among the 3 of us because a lot of the the blogs would have been great discussions in class.

A few highlights I take away from this class is, I should be a hippy, I am not as green as I thought I was, my skin care products are causing more damage than good, disinfecting wipes are not helping anything, I should live in a bubble because everything causes cancer, and bleach is the devil!

M12: 9 Climate Change

1. What do you personally find most troubling about climate change?

What I find most troubling personally about climate change is the misconception people have about it or that people do not know that it exists! Am I mistaken that Trump said that climate change is not a real thing?? If he did in fact say that, I find it sickening, not troubling, that someone in charge of this country would say something like that. Like hello, haven’t you read about the glaciers and hungry polar bears? So yeah, misinformation being given or advertised is very troubling to me!

2. As a public health professional, what do you think needs the greatest attention right now?

OMG I have to pick just one thing that needs the greatest attention? I feel like I am going to pick the wrong thing but I would say that the health of our earth needs great attention. I say the earth because the land is vital to most things and if we take care of that then people and animals will be healthy as well. 

3. If you were visiting with a long-lost relative who had never heard about climate change, how would you describe it and its attendant human health and ecological threats?

I would describe climate change as the weather being unpredictable and off. Like it is hot out when it is supposed to be raining by now. Or climate change is because of fire smoke being the new normal. Human health is suffering because of the unpredictable atmosphere

M11:5 A Zero Waste Life

After watching and reading the assignments in Module 11, I came to the realization that I would not survive a Zero Waste lifestyle. At first, I just thought about food waste but then I thought about all of my hobbies that come with packaging or fabric waste that come from project scraps. After listening to the TED talk video, I feel like a hoarder and that I need to do some deep spring cleaning! 

While watching the food waste video with john oliver, I honestly got annoyed with him and stopped watching about 9 minutes in to be completely honest. I felt he was yelling and pointing his finger at America, or whoever his viewers are, for being a part of food waste. I got frustrated because as my blogging partners and I learned in our behavior change class, people do not like to be told what to do, especially in an aggressive manor. He was being too aggressive in my opinion without having any credibility to his name. In the nine out of 17 minutes that I watched john oliver talk about food waste, I was saying “who the hell are you?” I am a public health person and I was getting pissed with his platform but it is because it was his approach of information. I feel he should have had an environmental scientist or someone with credentials on his show to talk about food waste. It made me think of the exercise we did in class last week asking is the person credible and do we trust them? Did he even mention at the end if he lives a Zero Waste life? I doubt it he is but maybe I am wrong since he is schooling us on food waste!

I already shop with reusable shopping bags so that is the change I have already done years ago. I have thought about taking cloth bags if I buy bulk but I would be buying the bags or making the bags, which will be contributing to waste. it is a vicious cycle! 

M10:2 MSDS & ToxNet

I asked my mom and a friend if their works had an MSDS form for this blog. My friend said "Not that I know-we are such a big company....there may be msds somewhere". So he was no help. Then I asked my mom and she said she would ask her HR. Felipe at HR said "We have MSDS for our facilities. They are not online in our web site. We can email to you the information. Please send me your email address. Having said that, you can also find MSDS information for paint, adhesives in the internet". As of right now, I am waiting for the information from my moms work but nothing to post yet on this blog.

Whenever I get the information, I will answer the questions from the assignment. Now I am really curious what the MSDS looks like because I feel like this assignment was looking for a needle in a hay stack. Now that I think of it, I am not surprised my moms HR was like, oh yeah we have it, because they are the courthouse and law and stuff so they they would be the best people to contact for paperwork because they do not want to get sued? lol

M10:8 Occupationally-Related Disease

Asbestosis (white lung)

I found a great timeline about asbestos at this website https://www.mesotheliomahelp.org/asbestos/history/  it is a lot to write a short blurb about so please take a look at it, it’s great! 

According to the WHO Currently about 125 million people in the world are exposed to asbestos at the workplace. In 2004, asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis from occupational exposures resulted in 107,000 deaths and 1,523,000 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). In addition, several thousands of deaths can be attributed to other asbestos-related diseases, as well as to nonoccupational exposures to asbestos. 

Elimination of asbestos-related diseases should take place through the following public health actions: 

a.     recognizing that the most efficient way to eliminate asbestos-related diseases is to stop the use of all types of asbestos;

b.     replacing asbestos with safer substitutes and developing economic and technological mechanisms to stimulate its replacement;

c.     taking measures to prevent exposure to asbestos in place and during asbestos removal (abatement), and;

d.     improving early diagnosis, treatment, social and medical rehabilitation of asbestos-related diseases and establishing registries of people with past and/or current exposures to asbestos.

https://www.who.int/ipcs/assessment/public_health/asbestos/en/

M10:5 Occupational Safety & Health Organization

I chose the WHO. http://www.who.int/occupational_health/en/  

Healthy workplaces: a WHO global model for action

 The WHO healthy workplace model: a comprehensive way of thinking and acting that addresses:

 Healthy Workplaces:  A Model for Action

• work-related physical and psychosocial risks;
• promotion and support of healthy behaviors;
• broader social and environmental determinants.

The United Nations high-level meeting on non-communicable disease prevention and control in 2011 called on the private sector to “promote and create an enabling environment for healthy behaviours among workers, including by establishing tobacco-free workplaces and safe and healthy working environments through occupational safety and health measures, including, where appropriate, through good corporate practices, workplace wellness programmes and health insurance plans.” WHO considers workplace health programmes as one of the best-buy options for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases and for mental health. Such programmes can help achieving the WHO objective of reducing the avoidable deaths of NCDs and the burden of mental ill health and to protect and promote health at the workplace as stipulated in the Global Plan of Action on Workers’ health 2008-2017.

http://www.who.int/occupational_health/healthy_workplaces/en/

M10:1 Video

My mom has been working at the Monterey County Courthouse for 35 years. The three branches are Salinas (Criminal), Monterey (Family Law), and Marina (Traffic). The Salinas building has been around since 1930 and my mom has spent her career between Salinas and Monterey. The issue that has plagued the Salinas Courthouse until its recent renovation is Asbestos. A good handful of my mom’s friends and/or collogues, have been diagnosed with cancer. Some are survivors of the diagnosis while others have not been so lucky. What they had in common, is working in the Salinas branch courthouse. 

I feel that the issue has already been addressed because the oldest part of the building has just finished a renovation/upgrade to get rid of the Asbestos. It took years to make the change and I think that many current and past employees were being diagnosed with cancer. I hope someone took the data into consideration for the change linking the courthouse, cancer, and Asbestos together. 

A barrier to workers exercising their rights to a healthy and safe workplace is budget, management, and people higher than you not listening. I used to work for a nonprofit until recently and every Friday the manager would bring in donuts. I love sweets but sometimes I would rather eat fruit or something at work. On three occasions I told the manager if she could bring fruit instead of donuts on Friday and she said “it’s not in the budget”. NO JOKE, that is a direct quote from her!!! And my response was “and donuts ARE in the budget”? I even suggested that she spend the Friday donut money on half donut and half fruit. Yeah, that NEVER happened. So, another barrier could be stubbornness (and I say stubborn so I don’t get in trouble for foul language, lol). 

M9:4 Heavy Metals

In the environmental health response article, I was surprised to lean severe soil led contamination was from artisanal gold. I was also surprised to learn that religious leadership was a part of the change because that is a group that you do not always hear about being a pioneer of change. It takes more than one person, company, or organization to make a change so it was refreshing to know that local involvement in management, design, implementation, evaluation, and adaptation were crucial for a successful change.

In the Lead Poisoning article by Herbert Needleman, I was surprised to learn that lead poisoning properties dates back to second century B.C., that was mind blowing! It made sense to me that early victims of lead poisoning were lead workers but the wine drinkers’ part was a curve ball. I had no idea lead had/has a sweet flavor. Another surprise was that childhood lead poisoning was recognized only a century ago and first described in the United States in 1914. If it has been around that long, why is it still a problem or cause for concern? It is also good to know that lead poisoning in adults can affect the peripheral and central nervous systems, the kidneys, and blood pressure. Also, hypertension has been associated with acute lead poisoning, along with renal failure. 

M9:3 Green Chemistry

·     Thoughts on green chemistry

I like that green chemistry prevents pollution and reduces the negative impacts of chemical products and processes on human health and the environment. 

·     Have you heard of or seen any examples of green chemistry in your work or in daily life?

I have not heard or seen green chemistry before. 

·     What are your thoughts on the 12 principles of green chemistry

There are a lot of designing chemical syntheses. My thought is that the 12 principles are to reduce and avoid waste which is a great idea. They have extremely great points but how come I have not heard about them before? Maybe more advertising and commercials or sponsorship to get their message out? 

M9:2 Six Chemical Classes

One of the six classes that I decided to look more into was Flame Retardants. I feel that I have heard about them before class and this assignment, but I do not know too much about them. Flame retardants are supposed to slow ignition and prevent fires and are used to meet flammability regulations. Flame retardants of concern included organohalogen and organophosphate chemicals such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and chlorinated tris (TDCPP). 

They are found in furniture foam, building insulation, textiles, car seats, infant mattresses, rebounded carpet padding, fabric blinds, paints and coatings, wire and cable sheathing, transportation interiors, gym foam blocks, and television cases. I am surprised that they are found in car seats because car seats are supposed to protect the baby and the chemicals in the seat are harming instead. Same for the infant mattresses because babies sleep a lot and they are being exposed to flam retardant chemicals. 

What can we do?

·     Look for TB117-2013 label stating the item does not contain flame retardants when buying upholstered furniture

·     Replace upholstered furniture with a TB117 label

·     Look for furniture and children’s products be filled with polyester or wool instead of foam

·     Vacuum with a HEPA filter, wet mop, dust with a damp cloth to reduce indoor dust levels

·     Wash hands often

·     Avoid using rebounded carpet padding

·     Tell manufactures and retailers you want products without flame retardants 

http://www.sixclasses.org/videos/flame-retardants

M8:5 An Ideal Chemical Policy

My mind was blow by the pesticide trap video. An essential chemical policy should be that pesticides should not cross countries. Companies should not take their pesticides to countries that are not educated about the product. 

From a public health protection perspective, there should be stricter rules on air and water safety for communities. Pesticides are being transferred to other crops making the cycle never ending. Crops around housing should not be able to spray harmful pesticides and communities and crops should not be able to get water from the same source. Toxic water from toxic land could be spilling into a communities water source, and again the cycle never ends

M8:4 Chemical Policy Reform

I chose Background Paper #4

“Act on Early Warnings”

There are two conditions that establish the threshold for protective action in the presence of scientific uncertainty, one, credible evidence that a synthetic chemical can cause biological changes that are known to result in unintended harmful outcomes to human health or the environment, and two, the presence of a chemical where it does not belong and where it can cause damage to biological systems.

It is important to create and strengthen human health and wildlife monitoring programs to detect and predict harm. It is important to take steps to prevent, eliminate, and mitigate exposure when credible evidence of harm is found. When action is taken, it must be based on precautionary definitions of “harm” and “credible evidence” and must include public participation. On the state and federal level, they should require safer substitutes, phase out persistent, bioaccumulative, or highly toxic chemicals, give the public and the workers the full right to know, require comprehensive safety data, and take immediate actions o protect communities and workers.

M8:3 Pesticides

Last night my dinner was salad and rice pilaf.  I found out that there are 52 pesticide residues found on lettuce. There are 35 pesticide residues found on tomatoes, and 86 pesticide residues found on cucumbers. I am not sure all that goes into rice pilaf but I looked up “rice” on the website because making white rice and vegetables is usually my go to and favorite ting to eat because it is so fast and easy to make. Rice has 15 pesticide residues I learned so I can just imagine what is in something like rice pilaf. 

In terms of public health, there should be regulations or minimum number of pesticides that can be on food. Regulations for sure but also food labels with toxic information on produce because what is on you food is just as important as what is in your food.

M7:8 Topic of Interest

Topic of Interest: Exposure to Environmental Heavy Metals Related to Breast Cancer


So I went to the SFDPH website looking for information on my topic and found nothing. I looked under diseases and only found things like STD, TB, immunization, and things like that for information. I searched my topic as well in the search engine and found nothing as well in correlation to my topic.

I think that the websites and search engines that we did at the library as a class will be more helpful for finding information about my topic. unless I am missing something?

M7:7 Agency's Role

I chose Agriculture. To be specific, Department of Agriculture (USDA). Then I clicked on Animal and plant health inspection services (APHIS). Popular topics are animal health, animal welfare, biotechnology, emergency response, imports & exports, international services, plant health, and wildlife damage. As I type the popular topics, I totally feel that this department is a joke. Animals are still being mistreated, animals are still not being killed in a humane way, all poultry is still not cage free and free range, poultry is raised in bad situations like at places that Tyson and other brands raise. Where is the USDA when documentaries are showing the cruelty conditions of chickens? They are probably chowing down on KFC somewhere! So, without reading into depth of how “great” the USDA is, I am going to read about meat recalls instead and how the USDA failed in those situations. 

Sorry, I am not sorry!

M7:4 Local Environmental Services

I went to sfdph.org home page and under “our programs” clicked on “environmental health section”. In there I found categories of health services. The categories were body art, hazardous waste, hazardous materials, childhood lead prevention, noise, rodent, mosquitoes and other insects, massage, healthy housing, agriculture, water programs, air and smoking, and weights and measures. 

The services that I was surprised to find were body art, noise, and massage. Body art makes sense as I write this but I thought that noise was taken care of by the police department. I remember a few years ago I was doing a ride along with my cousins’ girlfriend who is a police officer in Salinas, when she got a noise complaint call. We went to the house and at no time did she say, we should call the health department. So, noise was extremely surprising to me!

As the blog instructions say, SF does have a Department of the Environment known as SF environment. When I go to it, I found what I had already talked about previously. 

M6:7 Obesogenes

·      Utilizing the first article, discuss what is locally grown and what is currently in season in your area.

• Avocado, blueberries, cranberries, dates, dragon fruit, figs, grapefruit, guavas, melons, logan, limes, lemons, orange, passion fruit, pawpaw, pears, star fruit, sapote, pomegranates, persimmons

·      Discuss your thoughts on seasonal/local foods and hospital menus. 

• If hospital foods have seasonal ingredients, flavor will be incorporated. If flavor is incorporated, people will eat the food, get stronger, and be able to get discharged faster

·      Find a Harvest Calendar for your state (or a state you are interested in) utilizing the link in the first article (found underneath the example Harvest Calendar for New York State). 

• http://www.pickyourown.org/CAharvestcalendar.htm

·      What are your thoughts on the second article? Have you heard of obesogens before?

• I have not heard of obesogens before
• Are they blaming the environment for obesity?
• I only agree with this if the food we are eating is being tanted with some kind of substance that leads to obesity but from what I know, obesity is eating too much and not buring enough calories
• If people can not play or walk outside because of the environment, then I see where they cannot be active regularly or at all and I understand that that can lead to obesity

·      Pick one of the potential obesogens discussed in the article and using your resources from earlier modules (such as toxnet), do some research on this potential obesogen. Share what you found!

• Avandia

§  Hepatitis, elevations in hepatic enzymes to 3 or more times the upper limit of normal, and, very rarely, liver failure associated with fatalities have been reported during postmarketing experience with rosiglitazone

§   class I or II heart failure receiving rosiglitazone in addition to other antidiabetic and congestive heart failure agents, the incidence of edema, dyspnea, and cardiovascular events requiring hospitalization increased in patients receiving rosiglitazone

M6:6 Use of Antibiotics

1.    Antibiotic resistance 101: How antibiotic misuse on factory farms can make you sick

·     It makes me uncomfortable to know that AR bacteria can spread from farm animals to humans through food and animal to human transfer on farms and in rural areas through contaminated waste entering the environment

·     It is no surprise to me that the most common affected populations are the under developed, pregnant women, children, elderly, and people with health conditions

·      I was surprised that AR bacteria has the potential to affect anyone

2.    Nearby livestock may raise “superbug” risk

·     MRSA, great!, another thing to be worried about

·     It was unsettling to know that MRSA is found in community dwelling individuals with no know contact with livestock

·     MRSA is hard to treat and has become resistant to common antibiotics, wonderful! 

§ I’m living in a bubble

3.    Scientists discover that antimicrobial wipes and soaps may be making you (and society) sick

·     What isn’t making us sick now a days???

·     So what are we supposed to use to kill germs, we learned last week that bleach is the devil

4.    A report about the new practice of incorporating antimicrobials into the manufacture of hospital furnishings

·     It is unfortunate that data on the safety and efficacy of this growing practice are scarce, and potential unintended consequences have not been fully explored

·     Are they saying that healthcare associated infections are caused by the furniture, or possibly, because that would make some sense

M6:4 Industrial Farming

·      Your thoughts about the vanishing of bees (what else have you heard/seen about this issue?)

• My thought is now I know that pollination is important
• I learned that 1 out of 3 food products came from bees
• The first bee keeper is David hackenberg
• I had no idea bees were vanishing. I have not heard or seen anything about this issue

·      Dirt!: The Movie

• We take soil for granted
• We destroy dirt for coal, agriculture, paving
• Farmer suicides in India
• Damaging effects of GMO crops
• Dirt is the living source of all life on earth
• Dirt has given us food, shelter, fuel, medicine, ceramics, flowers, cosmetics, color
• We abuse dirt and ignore it 

·      Were you able to discover if there is a factory farm near you? Were you already aware of farms near you? What do you think about this? 

• There is not a factory farm near me
• I kind of thought there were none around here so I was not all that surprised
• There is more land and better weather in the valley for farming so it is ok with me that there are no factory farms near me

·      Composting: Do you currently compost? Have you composted in the past? Do you know anyone who composts? Would you consider composting, after learning about its benefits from the movie?

• I compost by putting food and compost items in the green bin. I do not compost directly at my place because it is not my place
• I have not DIY composted in the past
• I do not know anyone who composts
• I would love to compost if I had the space to do it properly