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Shots - Health Blog
10:01 pm
Mon March 26, 2012

Justices Tackle The Big Question: Can Congress Force You To Buy Insurance?

Credit Adam Cole / NPR
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether Congress can require people to buy health insurance.
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Originally published on Wed June 27, 2012 2:24 pm

The U.S. Supreme Court gets to the heart of the health care arguments Tuesday. Almost exactly two years after Congress passed the Obama health care overhaul, the justices are hearing legal arguments testing the constitutionality of the so-called health care mandate — so-called because those words actually do not appear in the law.

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Shots - Health Blog
10:01 pm
Mon March 26, 2012

Uninsured Will Still Need The Money To Meet The Mandate

Credit Seth Wenig / AP
A bulletin board in New York's Jamaica Hospital offers advice for uninsured patients.
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Originally published on Tue March 27, 2012 6:34 am

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court hears its second day of testimony about the Affordable Care Act. At issue is a central tenet of that law: whether it's legal to require individuals to purchase health care.

But apart from the legal debate, there are questions about the economics of the mandate. Some — like Peggy Bodner of Portland, Ore. — worry it may be difficult to find the money to pay for health insurance, even with government subsidies.

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Shots - Health Blog
10:01 pm
Mon March 26, 2012

In Haiti, Bureaucratic Delays Stall Mass Cholera Vaccinations

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Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Joseph Francis, 54, says he came to this cholera clinic in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince,after becoming so dehydrated he could barely walk. Cholera has killed more than 7,000 Haitians since the first outbreak of the disease in October 2010. At the start of the rainy season, cases are once again beginning to climb.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Cots are lined up in a Port-au-Prince cholera clinic run by GHESKIO, a Haitian medical group. GHESKIO is helping to organize a huge pilot project to vaccinate some 100,000 Haitians against cholera. Tens of thousands of people have signed up to participate. The health workers have been trained, and the vaccine is waiting in coolers. But the campaign is bogged down in bureaucratic red tape.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
A GHESKIO worker walks through a tent camp in Port-au-Prince with a megaphone, warning people about the danger of cholera and the need for sanitation and clean water.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
A sign produced by Haiti's water authority warns about the dangers of diarrhea and shows how to treat it — lots of fluids and a trip to a health clinic.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Residents of the Port-au-Prince slum Cite de Dieu step gingerly over a stream of sewage. Aid workers had planned to be finished with the vaccination program before the spring rains, when widespread flooding can bring cholera directly into people's homes.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Nadia Simone stands in front of her house in Cite de Dieu. She says she has been trying to get a trash-clogged ditch next to her house drained because she knows it brings cholera right to her doorstep. Last year cholera made her young daughter very sick. "I don't want cholera to come back to my house," she says.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
A lone pig roots through trash along a sewage canal that runs from the center of Port-au-Prince through Cite de Dieu. During the rainy season, the canal overflows its banks and fills nearby houses with sewage.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
A GHESKIO worker goes door to door in Cite de Dieu. As part of the planned vaccination campaign, an army of health workers has gone out to inform Haitians about cholera and sign them up to get the vaccine.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
A makeshift latrine hangs over Port-au-Prince Bay at the edge of Cite de Dieu.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Rice farmers work the fertile fields of Haiti's rural Artibonite River valley, which lies downstream from the site of the original cholera outbreak.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Most people in this rural part of Haiti, near Saint-Marc, get their water from the Artibonite River. Though the river is known to be contaminated with cholera, few can afford chlorine tablets to purify the water.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Esperante Jean-Louise, who goes by Fifi, got cholera last year. The experience was terrifying, she says: "I first felt it in my head. And then once I started vomiting, I had diarrhea at the same time. I couldn't stand up — I was near death."
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Rice farmer Alexis Rochenel, Fifi's husband, shows his blank cholera vaccination card. People will need two doses of vaccine spread over several weeks. Health workers could have been finished with the first round of vaccinations by now. But they're still waiting for the government to sign off on the project.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
A young girl cools off from the midday heat in an irrigation canal near Saint-Marc. People in this area were chosen for the pilot vaccination program because they draw their water from the contaminated Artibonite River.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
Men bathe in the evening in a branch of the Artibonite River outside Saint-Marc. Haiti's cholera outbreak began about 60 miles upstream from here. Well over a half-million have gotten sick.
Credit John W. Poole / NPR
A young girl bathes in an irrigation canal. The canal and nearby river are the primary sources of water for most people who live in the country around Saint-Marc, Haiti.
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Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 8:56 am

A hundred thousand people in Haiti are ready and waiting to get vaccinated against cholera.

The vaccine is sitting in coolers. Vaccination teams are all trained. Willing recipients are registered and entered into databases.

The impending mass vaccination project aims to show that vaccinating against cholera is feasible in Haiti. It has never been done in the midst of an ongoing cholera epidemic. So far, more than 530,000 Haitians have fallen ill with cholera, and more than 7,000 have died.

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Movies
10:01 pm
Mon March 26, 2012

'October Baby' Tells A Story Hollywood Wouldn't

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Credit Lovell/Fairchild Communications
First-year college student Hannah (Rachel Hendrix) goes on a road trip in search of her birth mother after she learns she was adopted following a failed attempt at an abortion.
Credit Lovell/Fairchild Communications
October Baby co-director Jon Erwin speaks to lead actress Rachel Hendrix.
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By NPR Staff

October Baby tells the story of 19-year-old Hannah, a first-year college student, who leaves home on a search for her birth mother. In many ways, it's a Hollywood-style road trip movie dealing with questions of identity, but at the movie's core is also a vigorous message about abortion.

In one scene, Hannah tracks down a nurse who worked at the health clinic where her birth mother had sought an abortion — one that failed when Hannah was born prematurely.

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The Two-Way
4:44 pm
Mon March 26, 2012

'Decorah Eagle Cam:' A Beak Breaks Through First Egg

Credit Raptor Resource Project
A close up view of mom, on the nest in Decorah, Iowa.
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By Eyder Peralta

A quick update on the Decorah Bald Eagle cam that we've been keeping track of and became quite the sensation last year.

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