Last Blog, Sydney St.Pierre, Immigrants lead plunge in U.S. birth rate

The birth rate has been declining because of the recession and people don't want to have children they can't take care of and provide for. The lowest reported year ever for birth rate was in 2011. From the hispanic women who have come here it has dropped 23% because they haven't been having babies here as well as americans. Another reason people don't seem to be having many children is because people are getting married later and later into their lives. The highest year for teen marriage peaked many years ago in 1991. Just in 2010 the birth rates for foreign women was as much as 50% higher that the birth rates for american born women. They said that immigrants are less educated so they are more likely to get married. Teen moms were more likely to be american in 2010 than foreign teen moms. Most new immigrants are a very large amount of nations population increase. In the next couple decades american will look completely different. The plunge in birth rate is a major global and sociological problem. If there are no kids being born to start growing up and taking new jobs when the older people die out there will be no one to replace them. When birth rates are low, that effects many places like day cares, schools which affects the teachers, even grocery stores because the baby section is not getting bought out like it should be, also baby retail store. You see play grounds everywhere that are empty and if affects the entire country. It's a problem everywhere, sometimes the issue is baby-boom and there's too many babies being born, but as of now that's not the case because not enough children are being born.

News Source: http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/29/immigrants-lead-plunge-in-u-s-birth-rate/?hpt=us_c2

Blog #12, Prescription drug deaths, Sydney St.Pierre

People and kids are taking prescription drugs with out knowing the harmful effects it could have on them. An 18 year old girl simply took one pill at a party that ended the rest of her life because she mixed it with alcohol and never woke up. In 2009 about 37,000 died from illegally or legally taking prescription drugs. They are saying that people are not dying from simply taking the drug, but be actually abusing the use of the pain killers. Emily died because she took a pill called Oxycotin which is an anti depressant that slows down your breathing and her brain just didn't know how to handle it. People are not only dying from an overdose on these pills, but even accidentally overdosing on them. The Drug Control is saying they need to communicate with people better about the kinds of effects these drugs can have and what happens if you some how manage to take too many, and telling people not to mix them with other things because the brain shuts down with too much going through it like that.This is a global issue because everywhere in the world people are taking drugs that end up having bad side effects. People try to get drugs from all around the world to try and help them or give them what they need, but in the long run it only harms them more and more and could possible kill them. People even take other people's prescription drugs for the fun of it and wonder why it has bad side effects. Every drug a person takes reacts differently in the system of one person versus the system of another. They need to start doing more tests with certain pills so things like this don't keep happening everywhere. As advanced as we are when this happens here, think of how worse it probably is in other countries  People take drugs to try and help them, not trying to die.

News Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/15/health/deadly-dose-jackson-rummler/index.html?hpt=he_c1

Blog #11, 2 states legalize pot, but don't 'break out the Cheetos' yet, Sydney St.Pierre

Something that many people have wanted for awhile is happening in a couple more states, the legalization of marijuana. After 50 years the law had been passed in the states of Washington and in Colorado. Other states have been considering the use of medical marijuana, like Massachusetts would do it for people who need it for serious medical purposes. The saying of "Don't break out the Cheetos" was said by the governor of Colorado because he says there are still some federal issues they have to deal with first. In California it's said that 2 years ago because they allow medical marijuana there are more places for people to get that than there are ABC stores. Of course it should have been expected some of those places would have to shut down due to illegal sale and use of the so called "medical marijuana" in California and would end up with drug trafficking tickets. Some people are only okay with it because marijuana itself can not cause death if you smoke to much of it, but smoking to much of anything can still lead to other deathly diseases. These two states are the first states to allow marijuana to be purchased for recreational uses, but you have to be the age of 21 and over. It's coming to a point where there is far more criminal cases that have to do with marijuana than people being arrested for things such as rape, murder, and assault.This is a global issue because all over the world people are fighting drug battles. In school everywhere when people don't know what to do they start resulting into selling drugs. Families are being torn apart because people they care about and possible bread winners of their families are going to jail for the possession of marijuana or the selling of it. This day in age the police and government and losing the war between keeping drugs off the streets and people selling and somehow consuming the drugs they are secretly buying.

News Source: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/marijuana-legalization/index.html?hpt=hp_inthenews

Blog #10, Kids who smoke menthol more likely to get hooked, Sydney St.Pierre

There have been new studies done that have showen kids who start off with menthol cigarettes are more likely to get hooked than others who start off with other non-menthol kinds. The percent was a very large 80% that teens would be more likely to be regular smokers starting off with menthol. They aren't saying that menthol cigarettes are to blame for the teen smoking, but the minty flavor it has is more addicting than just that tabacco. The surveys were even done with kids as young as middle school, the age people are starting to smoke is becoming younger and younger as time passes and as new things are coming out to try. They have even debating taking those menthol cigarettes off the shelf in possible attempt to benefit public health. Any change to cigarrettes whether it would be taking certain kinds off the shelves, or even raising the prices of specific or all packs could benefit public health overall. Even though smoking menthol cigarettes did not show any higher risk for lung cancer or heart disease, the more they like it, the more they will smoke, and that still leads to high risk for all possible problems smoking can cause. I find this to be a global issue because it's not just here that people have this problem. Many people everyday lose their loved ones to lung cancer that is a result of their smoking, and many of them started off at an early age. In other countries it's even considered more normal of younger people to start smoking at an early age. In Europe they used to recently have cigarette machines outside on the street than anyone of any age could buy them from. In many places around the world smoking has become a great social thing. It's understandable that everyone has their stress and needs ways to help it, but lung cancer won't fix that.

News Source: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/10/31/kids-who-smoke-menthol-more-likely-to-get-hooked/

Blog #9, New Laws Add a Divisive Component to Breast Screening, Sydney St.Pierre

Medical groups everywhere are finding new things that they think patients should be aware of, the new one being "dense breast tissue". Laws are now being passed that is making places tell their patients whether their mammagram shows dense breast tissue if it does. It is possible that tissue can have tumors, or could be possible breast cancer in the future. Because of that their doctors are supposed to inform them if they will need further tests on the tissue. So far it has only been passed in a few states because the facilities are saying they shouldn't have to tell because they don't want to worry people for no reason, but then some of the people are arguing that they have the right to know something that could possibly mean something else. The first state to have this law was Connecticut because she went to legislators and told her story about them finding dense breast tissue in her, but not telling her, and then later on it turned into cancer. She wants to help other women so the same thing doesn't happen to them as well, because it's the sort of thing that can only be detected by a mammogram, not by simple touch. Dense tissue is a normal things and about 40% of women have it, but it's possibly doctors may read the tissue differently.  Unfortunately it is very possible that once the dense tissue is found or in any one else that when given an ultrasound it is more likely to find tumors or cancer that mammograms have missed. After that is it also possible that once it is biopsied it can turn out to be a false positive for cancerous tumors. This is going on because one lady had the power to speak up because if the doctors would have told her she would have asked for more tests to be done and her cancer could have possibly been found a lot sooner than the four of five years down the road it was actually found. Even though breast cancer is being teated everyday it is still a very deadly disease that people are dying from because it goes unchecked or just simply unnoticed. You can never be too careful because if you don't catch something in time by the time you finally do it could possibly be too late.

News Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/health/laws-tell-mammogram-clinics-to-address-breast-density.html?ref=health

#8 Blog Sydney St.Pierre, Boy Scout Files Detail Decades of Alleged Sex Abuse

In 1981 in Portland, Chicago it was made known that 3 boys had been sexually abused by a troop leader in the group they belonged to. The writer of the letter was one of the sexually abused boy. After the letter was given the man was still in contact with the 3 boys. It is said that they have people there to watch out for sexual predators like Joe. Today after almost 20 years of people fighting in court files have finally been released of over 1,000 predators and what they were accused of, these papers have finally been released to the public so they can see the kind of people their children are being allowed to be around. Some say the scouting people were just trying to protect those who did wrong and others are saying that if they feel bad about it and know they did wrong that they should get a second chance. Leaders in the Boy Scouts of American are hard to detect as predators because they seem like regular people except they have the power to manipulate the kids they get to know and work with very closely.   The president of the Boy Scouts of American said that he was sorry for what those kids had to go through, and apologized to the victims and parents. The only reason that today the files have been officially been released for the public to see if because there was efficient evidence against all of those people. Due to the files not being released sooner a man who got fired from a summer camp job for doing wrong to a child was still in the scouts and once again arrested 5 years later for committing a crime of the same assault and threatened to kill the boys by poisoning their food if they ever told. At times the past of some leaders was not even shared because there was nothing ever filed about what he was accused of. This just goes to show that you always have to watch out for the people your kids are around, because as safe as you think they may be it's very possible there are deep hidden issues going on. Things like this just don't happen in the Boy Scouts or in the United States, things like this happen to kids everywhere in the world and it a huge problem.

News Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/us/boy-scout-documents-reveal-decades-of-sexual-abuse.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&ref=us

Blog #7 Sydney St.Pierre, Does mom's depression affect baby's language?

From the moment babies come out of the womb they start to learn about the world and everything around them. They can sense vibes or the person who is holding them and their moods can depends on those vibes. Babies as young as six months old can tell whether someone is French or English just based by the speakers mouth shapes and rhythms, but it doesn't last very long. It is a very important time in the babies life for their development. Researchers are studying how babies develop when their parents are in the middle of depression and the language it gives off, their language development milestones being effected are what they are most concerned about, not about what do it about it just yet. As beautiful of a thing as pregnancy, statistics say about 20%of mothers go through depression while pregnant and 13% take antidepressants. Studies have shown that the babies of the depressed mother and ones who had taken antidepressants are sensitive to different languages. For the mothers who had depression but didn't take antidepressants the babies sensitivity was delayed because they failed the tests at 6 months old but passed10 months old. Different for the mothers who actually were taking antidepressants the babies failed both tests at 6 months old and at 10 months old. As for the mothers with the babies who did not have depression their child passed the 6 month test but failed the 10 month test, which was expected of them. They are trying to figure out how to connect the depression with the babies development, and right now are thinking the antidepressants are effecting the brain while it's in the process of developing all together. Their next question it to fin out if any of this is a good or bad thing and also if it's possible that any of this could have long term effects as far as the child being about to develop and language sensitivity.

News Source: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/08/does-moms-depression-affect-babys-language/?hpt=he_c2

Blog #6, Infant DNA Tests Speed Diagnosis of Rare Diseases, Sydney St.Pierre

This started because a 5 week old baby died because no matter what was tried for her, the seizures never stopped. Doctors are discovering a new way to scan a new borns DNA for mutations that are caused by genetic disorders and get results as quick as a couple days. This specific baby has a mutation that was not common and had not been seen more than 1 other time in a newborn baby. Dr. Joshua E. Petrikin was one of the doctors trying to help her said even if they woud have found what was wrong, they still could have not done much to save her life. One of the couples also has a son who was born with his heart on the opposite side. They are saying that what they found in the baby is a step towards the future because after some research they found other babies had the same thing happen to them, but no one ever had any sort of explanation about it. They still are unsure about what it causing these sort of problems such as skin missing over his eyebrows, and some blisters. There is ethical concern of if you go through your babies genes and finding problems that won't occur with them until they are adults and way down the road from where they are now while looking for symptoms of diseases that they could possibly have now. The test to scan your babies genes is about 13,500 and will show and uniformly fatal genetic disease the baby could be carrying. 

News Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/health/new-test-of-babies-dna-speeds-diagnosis.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ref=health

Blog #5, Sydney St.Pierre, Iranian president dismisses war threats

  The president of Iran was in New York on Monday, his name is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There had  been talk about military threats against Iran and their nuclear program because they have a project to enrich uranium. The president was there to dismiss all threats and said it would only be used for peaceful use and has no worries at all. While he was here he also stated the fact that it was not to late to try and fix issues and differences between the United states. There was also talk of them providing weapons and training to Syria because of the civil war they are currently having, he also put a stop to those rumors and said Iran was a neutral party in the matter. He has visited theUnited Nations a total of 8 times now in hope to prove that he understood where the other countries are coming from. He would not talk about Israel by there name but only called them Zionists and would not talk about Salman Rushdie because he felt that it was jeopardizing his safety if he happening to be in the United States as well. Due to the fact he is not going to be president of Iran much longer, this trip to New York would be his last one because he does not see himself serving a third term as president, but it is possible he could one day return as a delegate of Iran. Iran does not take the threats from the Israeli  people seriously because he is confident if anything were to happen their country would be able to defend themselves. Ahmadinejad says if they did attack or try to start anything it's only because they are trying to find an adventure because they are at a dead end and would be trying to get out of it. His views on the nuclear program are that it's not a legal matter as it is a political matter and that's how it should be resolves. The Israeli history is showing the president that he doesn't really have much to be concerned about and not even their ties to the Middle East, he does not except all problems to be resolved but it is able to have a discussion about it all.

News Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/24/iranian-president-ahmadinejad-dismisses-war-threat/

Blog #4 Sydney St.Pierre, Syrian activists: Airstrikes kill at least 30

A gas station in Beiut, Syria from up in the air along with a helicopter crash on Thursday. The airstrick also set on fire several cars and a large bull dozer and they could hear people talking about who was dead on the video that they have. Fortunately, out of the 200 hundred people on the helicopter no one was hurt of injured unlike the gas station where 30 people were killed with many others injured. In Syria a large amount of people have been killed in the last year because everything going on there has turned in to a civil war. In the largest city there was 35 more deaths, August was the worst month for things to happen and has the largest death tole of around 5,000 people. The rebels in Syria are trying to fight with light weapons, but won't get anywhere because the people they are fighting are using weapons that are big enough to shoot down helicopters, even though they seem to be having mechanical difficulties. Military vehicles from Turkey tried to rush towards the loud noise they heard when the gas station was hit because it was only 25 miles away from them. Some people aren't letting their children out of the house, and schools have been closed for a couple days in a row to try and keep people safe until things die down. I think if they really want to get anywhere with it all, they should use larger weapons that can cause some damage instead of ones with just gun fire, because if not they aren't going to get anywhere with it and hundreds or thousands more people are going to die in Syria.

News Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/20/syrian-activists-airstrikes-kill-least-30/

Blog #3 Sydney St.Pierre, U.S. Suspects Libya Attack Was Planned

On Tuesday September 11th, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks back in 2001 there was an attack that killed the american ambassador in Libya. After looking over what happened Obama has said that it is thought of as a planned attack. That conclusion is due to this attack being compared to another attack in Cario where they have said it looked spontaneous killing other americans. This event happened with the men shooting rockets at the ambassador in Benghazi who might have been waiting for him while he was going to a safer place. This attack was also the Mohammed Magarief the president of their national assembly said he was sorry for the attacks and called it "cowardly". Obama was happy about the fact that Libya security had people who fought back against the people who were attacking to protect the americans. The event that happened has made people question how vulnerable American officers are when they don't think something is going to go wrong. It is also possible that because of the fact that it happened on 9/11 that Libya might be plotting against America, which means they have to start paying much closer attention to any unusual actions or communications that might be going on between the people they were around. This isn't the first time this has happened 5 other ambassadors from the United States have been killed there before, even kidnapped, but that has not happened since 1979. One of the men died from smoke inhalation because the building was also set on fire by the mob, they tried for 90 minutes to save his life, but unfortunately it didn't turn out as they had hoped. It was a very unjustified act from those men. 

News Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html?pagewanted=1

Blog #2 Sydney St.Pierre, Earthquakes in China Kill Dozens

Beijing, China has been hit with multiple earth quakes, one being a magnitude of 5.7 destroying many homes. The earth quake hit a place in China where some of the poorest people call their home. It has taken away over 6,600 of these peoples homes and has killed about 76 people. For the people that weren't killed there was still an estimated total 700 injured and 120,000 other homes that had very serious damage done to them. The earth quake caused huge rock to fall from the mountains, rocks that were big enough that they crushed peoples car. A small school in the town of Luozehe was luckily not destroyed with the children inside but still faces damages of cracks due to some poor construction. There are many projects undergoing development near where the earth quake had stuck, but they don't think yet they were harmed or have and immediate damage. Also luckily this earth quake was not as bad as the one that killed 90,000 people in 2008. The people who at the moment have no homes have been given tents and blankets. Even though these people are being helped there is no say how long those tents and blankets will last or how long any of them can go without having a home to live in. It could have been a lot worse, and caused a lot more damage to the area surrounding Beijing but for the people who lost their loved ones or the homes they lived in who now don't know what to do or where to go, it's possibly as bad as they could ever imagine. 

News Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/world/asia/earthquakes-shake-southwest-china.html?_r=1&ref=world

Blog #1 Sydney St.Pierre, Fearful Pakistani Christians Make Home in Forest

   Due to the actions of a little girl that may or may not be true yet, 600 Pakistani Christians have fled their homes to stay with friends and families, and some even living outside. In Islamabad a young girl was accused of burning pages from the Koran, the Islams holy book; she was accused by her neighbor who doesn't even know for sure if it was pages from their holy book, or from anything important at all. If proven guilty, due to the country’s blasphemy laws this little girl could be sent to jail for the rest of her life or even death. People in the neighborhood she lived in have been evicted from their homes, and most of the Christian families have left their homes because they are now afraid of their Muslim neighbors. Some people have said the little girl being accused is possible to have Down Syndrome, but they won't give the age of the girl. For the people who have moved back, they are allowed to go to their place of worship even though they do not want them to be there, but the Muslims prefer them not to join along and sing songs. As for the ones who are still to scared to go back home and the ones who  have been evicted, they all went to a clearing that they cleared out for themselves to have a new place to call home. A pastor Arif Masih, prays for the families out there and believes god will bring them water and fruit will start to grow in the clearing for them. They have started putting together sticks and large parts from trees to try and build a church for all of them left that can not go back to their own homes yet. Groups have called for investigation on this little girl because it is possible the girl was not burning any part of the Koran, and the talk of a possible mental illness. If it comes down to her just burning simple pages of anything else, everything these people have gone though and the fear they have for their Muslim neighbors would have all happened because of what one person said they think they might have seen. 

NewsSource: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/30/fearful-pakistani-christians-make-home-in-forest/?page=1

August 30, 2012