Issue 3

July 2022

Public Health in the News

The W.H.O. declared the spread of Monkeypox a global health emergency.

New York, California, and Illinois have also declared a state of emergency amidst their rising cases. As of August 2nd, there are 6,326 cases in the United States and 25,391 globally; 83 countries have reported cases.

It is spread through close contact and intimate contact.

Close contact includes: contact with rashes, scabs, or bodily fluid from a person who's been infected, touching objects, fabrics, and surfaces that have been used by an infected person, and contact with respiratory secretions.

Intimate contact includes: oral, anal, vaginal sex and touching genitalia, face-to-face contact, massages, kissing, and having multiple sexual partners increase the chances of someone contracting the disease.

Despite much of the discourse, it is not a "gay disease," as anyone of any sexual orientation could contract the disease.

Learn More About Monkeypox

50th Anniversary: AP Exposes the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study

"On July 25, 1972, Jean Heller, a reporter on The Associated Press investigative team, then called the Special Assignment Team, broke news that rocked the nation. Based on documents leaked by Peter Buxtun, a whistleblower at the U.S. Public Health Service, the then 29-year-old journalist and the only woman on the team, reported that the federal government let hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama go untreated for syphilis for 40 years in order to study the impact of the disease on the human body. Most of the men were denied access to penicillin, even when it became widely available as a cure. A public outcry ensued, and nearly four months later, the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” came to an end. The investigation would have far-reaching implications: The men in the study filed a lawsuit that resulted in a $10 million settlement, Congress passed laws governing how subjects in research studies were treated, and more than two decades later President Bill Clinton formally apologized for the study, calling it “shameful.”

Upcoming Event with the North American Indian Center of Boston

Alumni Spotlight

Damian Lima (he/him), MPH

Damian is a member of cohort 4 in the MPH program at Simmons University and completed the program in the Winter of 2021. He was recently hired as Director of Quality Improvement and Training at Casa Esperanza in Boston. He is also running for House Representative in District 6 in Rhode Island!

"I am the Director of Quality Improvement and Training at Casa Esperanza in Boston. I am also running for House Representative in District 6 in Rhode Island. I bring my passion for social justice and health equity to both endeavors. I will work to change our government systems to serve the people and not financial interests. There is a deep connection between corruption and the lack of investment in disenfranchised communities. Our economic system reduces the value of human life to its capacity to produce and how little we can invest in people. We need to value human life above profits. Our world produces enough to provide for basics such as food, water, education, basic healthcare, and shelter to workers and those who cannot work for money due to their disabilities or age."

Congratulations, Damian! We, the Simmons community, are so proud of your accomplishments!

What We're Listening to

All My Relations, a podcast where the hosts explore what it means to be a Native person in present times. To be an Indigenous person is to be engaged in relationships—relationships to land and place, to a people, to non-human relatives, and to one another. All My Relations is a place to explore those relationships, and to think through Indigeneity in all its complexities.

On each episode hosts Matika Wilbur (Tulalip and Swinomish) and Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation), delve into a different topic facing Native peoples today, bringing in guests from all over Indian Country to offer perspectives and stories.

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