Interview

So I'm doing this interview thing via Tom's blog. His instructions to me were to answer the questions in order, without reading ahead. Here we go.

1. Who is your favorite superhero, and why?
Wolverine. Because he's played by Hugh Jackman. Plus the ability to survive a gunshot wound to the head is bad-ass.

2. You're an evil genius bent on world domination - what do you call the legitimate business entity used as a front for your evil organization?
Hmm...I dunno. Something like LifePlus or SurgiPro...because we will manufacture something used in surgery. I could afford to *buy* the world if I could just invent something used in surgery. Seriously. That's my goal. Just one tiny piece of plastic that's used in a common surgery. Appendectomies, tonsillectomies, gastric bypass, or CABG. I would be a gajillionaire.

3. (a) Name six of your closest friends or family members.
C, P, Bear, Scott, Richard, Brett

3. (b) If you and those six people were stranded in a desolate wasteland (tundra, glacier, iceberg, desert, savanah, Kansas), who would you eat first to stay alive?
(haha kansas) Probably Brett.

3.(c) How did you choose?
He's the meatiest.

4. Given the current state of the crude oil market, increasing threat of hostile nations arming for nuclear war, current shortage of blood and organ donors, and advances in computer technology, which of the following scenarios do you think the most likely: The Postman, Road Warrior, The Matrix, or,Terminator?
I'm tempted to go with "The Postman" because that's the only occupation which is currently available. Although with email that position is probably not the wave of the future. And soon we won't be able to afford gas so lets rule out "Road Warrior." Also, Arnold looks like hell. Lets go with "The Matrix." Because it's an awesome movie (And it's the only one of the choices that I've actually seen/know anything about.) Although to survive in that much leather we'll probably need some sort of nuclear winter to happen first. I'm sitting in Alabama in a tank-top, shorts, windows open and a fan blowing on me. I couldn't imagine wearing some skintight vinyl number at the moment.

5. What is the most crucial public health issue facing the global population in the next decade?
Really depends on what you're talking about. Developed or developing nations? Elderly populations? The young? There's a ton of different stuff. If you're an old person in the US, it might be drug-resistance. If you're a 25 year old woman in Africa, it might be AIDS. Depends on the situation.

5. (optional clarification): Facing the US? Facing Africa? Europe? China?
Haha...see, this is where the reading ahead would have been helpful. :-p
Facing the US, I would still want to break it down into subcategories but without going too deep I would have to go with drug resistance and obesity. It's a huge web of interconnected problems spanning in all directions. Doctors overprescribe antibiotics, but they're forced to because if they miss treating a bacterial infection they'll get sued, and they're already paying malpractice premiums that are so high they're discouraging people from practicing medicine blah blah I could go on for days. The other big thing in the US is obesity. People are looking at it as an aesthetic problem, and a personal problem. People shouldn't be fat, it's their own fault for getting that way, we shouldn't have to spend money on educating people about this because it's their own fault. The thing is, even assuming those things are true, the US public suffers the consequences. Overweight and thin alike. We're all paying increased health care costs because hospitals are having to buy special equipment for these patients. It's much better to pay for prevention than the gajillion dollars in healthcare costs overweight people accumulate through the variety of comorbid conditions and procedures that result from their condition.
Facing Africa, the big thing is HIV/AIDS. But that too is a result of a number of equally important conditions. Malnutrition, poverty, social norms, these things all work together to create an environment in which the disease can thrive. AIDS in Africa is no different than AIDS in the US or Europe or South America. The difference is the way its been dealt with. Seriously thinking about Africa makes me cry. So I'm moving on.
I'll assume Europe has a lot of the same problems as America public-health wise. I haven't done a lot of research into their situation.
China is eventually going to have a reproductive health crisis if they keep up their social norms of aborting female children. Their attempts at population control are going to eventually lead to a shortage of females with which to procreate. You're going to end up with mail-order brides that may have been prostitutes in the past (VD), mail-order brides that don't have STDs but still end up being the victims of abuse (studies have shown them to be a high-risk group for that type of thing), and those men that can't afford to buy a bride and end up as very sexually frustrated young men wandering around with too much testosterone in their system (increased violence and sexual assault rates.) Hopefully they'll fix that before it becomes a huge problem.

5. (bonus): How do we stop it?
Public health education. In all of these situations we need a plan, we need people to execute, and sweet baby Jesus do we need funding. Even in the US, where we spend more money on healthcare than anything else, we don't put any money into public health. We've got all these advanced treatments and world-renowned surgeons and what's billed as the best healthcare in the world. If bird-flu broke out right now, we would be completely screwed. We have NO public health infrastructure, no funding. "Oh, but we have a great health department blah blah blah." No you don't. The majority of health departments in the US are staffed by people that know nothing about public health. They know you should eat healthy and wash your hands. And that's why the US has these public health problems. The government is unwilling to pay money to qualified people. I have a master's degree in public health and every one of us in that school knew that we were not there for the money. Cause there's none to be had. Unfortunately it's going to take a major crisis in US health for somebody to step up and call for the funding we need to build a system that works. We'll see what happens.
Africa, God love them, doesn't have the money to spend. So there are tiny little satellite efforts at public health education. And don't get me started on Africa's inability to afford antiretrovirals. All I will say is that the CEOs of some of these US pharmaceutical companies are going straight to hell. Also, I love Brazil.
Seriously I could talk about public health all day. I'm going to cut myself off. But if any of you end up in government positions, remember. We need public health. Badly.

Want to play along? Rules of the game:
1. Send an email saying, “Interview me”, or words to that effect.
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions of my choosing.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You have to include this explanation, and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions...