Spring 2007 Issue

Many would consider the United States one of the greatest countries in the world. Yet, the U.S. struggles to provide healthcare to its citizens. While the United States’ bragging rights include the highest gross domestic product (GDP) in the world, one of the world’s highest adult literacy rates (99%), and one of the world’s strongest militaries, American healthcare, especially dental care, has not lived up to these statistics. A study published in the Journal of the American Dental Association reports that only 63 percent of the adult population (ages 18-69) seeks regular dental care. This low rate of dental care attainment is the result of myriad causes, and research has shown that its effects could be wreaking havoc on the health of millions of Americans.

Unfold the white pamphlet. Words divided into five sections: Method, How it Works, Advantages, Disadvantages, and Special Notes. Fifteen rows of Methods divided into four categories of Hormonal or Chemical, Barrier, Abstinence, and Sterilization. The information the pamphlet confers is reassuring because with these resources, one can have more control over the decisions regarding body and health. As citizens of a nation and members of a health community, it is a right to be provided with such knowledge and a responsibility of the government and the institutions that function by its law to protect and insure this right. Sadly, this is a fragile ideal and one that has been broken on many occasions.

The world’s largest open uranium mine sits on the Laguna pueblo in Western New Mexico.1 The Laguna Pueblo was one of the largest sources of uranium from when it opened in 1953, to when it closed in 1982. Ura- nium mines proved essential to the successful creation of the atomic bomb and nuclear reactors.2 They were also key components of the health problems and the environmen- tal effects that uranium radiation inflicted on the Laguna Pueblo and its people. This paper will discuss the uranium mines of the Laguna Pueblo and the Navajo Reservation and the relation of these locations to uranium use during the Cold War, the negative health effects of uranium mining, the social implications, and the racial issues surrounding uranium radiation compensation.

The use of ionizing radiation to sterilize, disinfect, and preserve food is becoming more widespread as technology enables safer irradiation practices; however, public sentiment, wary of the use of radiation, is resisting its implementation. Anti-food irradiation groups believe that there has not been enough study surrounding irradiated food for it to be ethically distributed for consumption. In contrast, pro-food irradiation groups feel that it would be unethical not to irradiate food as the radiation process makes the food safer to eat.

The use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture is rising, but not without debate. There are many scientists who argue that genetic engineering in agriculture is the best way to solve many issues of poverty, food security, environmental harm, and the need for increasing competitiveness in sales, but others raise ethical issues regarding the health of the people who consume the genetically modified products, the possible harm to the environment, the depredation of the welfare of the farmers and their food security, and the general introduction of engineering into mainstream use in society.