Economic Policy in an Interdependent World – “A Brave New World: Genetics, Insurance, and Policy Options in Evolving Times”

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The following post was written by Kerry Solomon.

Kerry Solomon is a Graduate Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a Master of International Public Policy Candidate at the Balsillie School of International Affairs 2016-2017. Her research interests include equity and global health.

Canada has protection from discrimination based on one’s race, religion, and sexual orientation; however, it may come as a surprise to some that genetics is not one of those grounds. In fact, Canada is the only G7 country that does not already have laws in place to protect its inhabitants from genetic discrimination. On a personal note, as someone of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, I am at increased risk compared to the general population to have an inherited mutation in the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2. This means that that if I carry this mutation, I am at a much greater likelihood of developing breast or ovarian cancer. Does this leave me vulnerable to discrimination based on my genetics?

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Economic Policy in an Interdependent World – Let’s Talk About It: Men and Mental Health

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The following post was written by Jeremy Wagner.

Jeremy is a Graduate Research Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a Master of International Public Policy Candidate at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. His research interests are in food security and public health.

Openly discussing depression and anxiety can be difficult for anyone who struggles with their mental health — but for men, the cultural baggage of traditional masculinity bears with it unique challenges.

There’s an obvious stigma when it comes to men and anxiety. Research suggests many men find it difficult to disclose anxiety and depression symptoms. In a society where “being a man” is conflated with being stoic, it’s hard for men to come forward and reveal they struggle with their mental health. As a result, it goes unheard; it hides in the shadows.

Yet, it’s a chronic public health issue. Anxiety is systemic in men and women alike; an estimated 11.6% of Canadians aged 18 years or older have a depression or anxiety disorder. Gendered social constructions ensure that mental health experiences can vary between men and woman.

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False Spring? I hope not!

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In the middle of February I greatly enjoyed sitting in my office or my apartment and watching the snow fall. It was quite magical. In total we probably had about 10 cm, enough to cover the ground and make everything into a winter wonderland. Normally here there is a period when the ground is covered by grey snow as it slowly melts. In the corner of the parking lots there are piles of the white stuff, bulldozed there by the clearance teams. This year it warmed up from about the 18th of February and most of the snow disappeared very rapidly. I woke one morning to see a digger loading the snow into large trucks in our apartment parking lot. It is taken away and dumped somewhere. There must have been at least six or seven loads. It was probably necessary to do this, because the piles take a very long time to melt, and the snow was heaped in the guest parking. It provided an insight into the workings of Canada in the winter, and perhaps even into the cost, as I’m sure this service will appear on the bill.

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Understanding AIDS

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I’ve written a guest blog post on Oxford University Press’s blog titled Understanding AIDS:

In 1981, the first cases of patients with the disease that was to become known as AIDS, were identified in hospitals in New York and San Francisco. By late 1983, the cause of AIDS — the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) had been identified. Significant numbers of cases had been reported from central Africa. In southern Africa, where I lived and worked, we had seen only sporadic occurrences — mainly among gay white men. However by 1987, HIV-infected men were identified in the workforce serving the mines industries and farms of South Africa. Armed with knowledge of labour migration and the potential for the spread of this disease, I wrote and presented my first (highly speculative) paper on AIDS at the first ‘Global Impact of AIDS’ conference held in the Barbican Centre in London.

Continue reading this post on Oxford University Press’s blog

‘January brings the snow, makes your feet and fingers glow’.

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It is most unusual for the first of the month of the year to have come and gone without my having prepared a new blog. I’m not quite certain what happened. I can only think it was a combination of the pressure of teaching and preparation which distracted me. There is quite a lot to report, both events of the past month and ones for the next few months. I have been, and will continue to be, busy.

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Returning to Canada, not as easy as I hoped

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Christmas day in Norwich was abnormally warm. The temperature rose to 14° C and it was possible to walk around without even a coat on. It then turned very cold, with a layer of ice on the car in the morning, and much scraping before we could go anywhere. I was quite pleased with this. I had cut up a lot of wood for our wood burner in the lounge, so I was able to use some of it. In addition to this, one of my Christmas presents, which I must stress I actually asked for, was a couple of sacks of coal. I had such fun building and tending the fire.

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Sharing 60

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Sharing 60

Normally when I post on the website I comment, at the end, on films I have seen or books I have read. This month’s post unusually begins with the two films I watched on the flight from Amsterdam to Johannesburg in early November. The first was the new Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake. It was excellent, thought provoking and depressing. The story is of a 59 year old scaffolder who is unable to work because of a heart problem. He is caught in a bureaucratic nightmare of not getting the state benefits he should, because he is deemed fit enough to look for work. It is a searing indictment of the failure of the welfare state, increasingly the case in the UK. This is the result of global trends to elect people who don’t care, at least not in the way I was brought up. It made me ask what I would do if I had power, probably a basic income grant for all.

In Durban I am sharing the car with Rowan, who has travelled over to spend five months in South Africa. She has two days’ work a week in Umhlanga, so on those days I walk. There was a youngish white man, on crutches, begging on the street a few hundred metres from the flat. I asked him over to tell me his story and, in exchange, gave him a decent amount of money. He said he was a welder by trade. He lost the lower part of his left leg in a motor accident a few years ago. He said he was trying to scrape together enough money to replace his identity document in order to get work. He is living with his wife and child in one room in the town centre. How much of that was true? I don’t know. South Africa is a harsh society for people who don’t have resources.

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HIV and AIDS: A Very Short Introduction

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The second edition of HIV and AIDS: A Very Short Introduction, by Alan Whiteside, has just been published by Oxford University Press.

HIV/AIDS: A Very Short Introduction provides an introduction to AIDS—the most serious human epidemic in centuries—tackling the science, politics, demographics, and devastating consequences of the disease. The first case was identified in 1981; by 2004 approximately forty million people were living with the disease, and about twenty million had died. The outlook today is a little brighter. Although HIV/AIDS continues to be a pressing public health issue, the epidemic has stabilized. The worst affected regions are Southern and Eastern Africa. Elsewhere, HIV is found in specific, often marginalized populations. Although there remains no cure for HIV, there have been unprecedented breakthroughs in understanding the disease and developing drugs

You can find out more on the Oxford University Press website.

Autumn in Canada, Switzerland and England

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The autumn colours in Canada are amazing, more so in some parts than others. I was invited to a meeting on ‘Outbreak Interventions’ organised by Quebec International in Quebec City, held early in October. The trees in the city were on display. Words would fail should I try to describe the reds, yellows and oranges, so I am not even going to attempt it. We were given a tour of the city and were told that they had spent money of preserving their elms when Dutch Elm disease swept through North America. These were indeed very magnificent trees, so the money was well spent.

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Money in Montreal

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My main event in September was the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GF) replenishment meeting in Montreal. This took place on a Friday and Saturday in the middle of the month. To get there, I took the train from Kitchener to Toronto and changed for Montreal. The journey took from 9 am to about 5 pm and was incredibly productive; I got through a mountain of reading. The rail service in Canada is a great way to travel. It is not fast but the trains are comfortable, there is an ‘at seat service’ for tea, coffee or meals, and it is a good place to read, work and generally chill.

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