Here is the link to the video I found.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iLTfG75s6g

The commercial was about daily valtrex.  This is a medication used help the herpes patients.  Accurate information was given in the commercial.  They actually have to by law since they can't do false advertisement.   They said that herpes is not curable and that even thought there isn't any symptoms that it is still possible to spread herpes.  They gave stats on how people get herpes and that the drug doesn't cure herpes.

The message of this commercial was that of hope of living a normal life with herpes.  They made it sound that its okay that some can have herpes and that they just have to live with it. There wasn't anything about any preventative measures.  The main reason for this is because the target audience people who already have herpes.  This form of advertising I think is great because it is easy to reach the masses.   It gives the company good chance of reaching their target audience in the comfort of their own home.

I think that media and general advertising can have a huge role in the prevention of STI's.  They have a great record of promoting other things such as violence and consumer goods.  This kind of promotion of prevention of STI's would be easy and effective.  The role the media could take is that of creating awareness of STI's and of methods to preventing them through commercials.  Non-profits groups already do this sort of stuff such as the foundation for a better a life.  This could be a great way of preventing STI's.

Clinton's Apology

The tusksegee study was a study done by the public health service of the United States.  It was to study the natural history of syphilis in males.  It was racist and very unethical.  The men of the study were all poor black sharecroppers.  They were not informed of what the government was doing.  They were thought that the government had them in a program to help them with free clinics and things of that sort.  The men that had syphilis were studied until death.  Penicillin was found early in the study but the men did not receive treatment even though it was available.  The last from the early thirties to until 1971 when the story broke out.

Former President Clinton made an official apology in 1997.  It was done at the white house in a public event.  Some of the survivors and their family was there for the event.  Clinton talked about the study and gave a fairly good apology.  He then went into some goals of getting the trust of the African American community and making sure that a incident such as the this one would never happen again.

Some of the steps for the goals was the apology, grant money for Tuskegee to make a center for bioethics and health care, and by increasing regulations on medical research.

This apology is a good step for the government to reach out to the African American community.  It shows that the government admits to being at fault which is good.  In the video we saw in class, some of the doctors and people involved in running the study didn't see anything wrong with the study after so many years.  This so bad because the study was so racist and unethical.

The topic of the presidency brings me to the inauguration of Obama. I think it will have a big impact on the African American community.  I believe that there will be more trust in the system of our government seeing that the president of the United States is African American.  People we'll see that it is possible to for any person of any walk of life can achieve great things in this country if only one tries.

MDR TB

The main topic of this pod cast was about tuberculosis.  More specific is the multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) that is more threatening.  This is tuberculosis that resistant Rifampin and Isoniazid which are the normal drugs used to treat tuberculosis.  The MDR TB is treated with more expensive and more toxic drugs. It also takes up to two years to treat.

 The interview shed light that MDR TB is becoming more of a problem around the world.  There was a cases of people in the US coming down with it because of refugees from Thailand bringing it here to the US.  This should cause some fear because it there is out break of this disease, many people could die.  This disease could keep evolving and becoming more resistant to the drugs available to us.  If it ever becomes resistant to everything we have, then a global pandemic could result.  We should be worried because we cannot regulate the whole worlds healthcare system.  MDR TB results from missed diagnosis and improper treatment.  The world is also getting smaller as the traveling is made so easy.  The transfer of this disease could be easily done around world.  

I think that this issue has also effected other diseases.  Any disease that is treated with antibiotics has a similar situation that MDR TB has.  The drugs used to treat always have the chance of not having an effect because of bacteria evolving to resist the drug.  I believe that treatment and management of it will be similar to that of MDR TB.  Here in the US, law regarding antibiotics is more stringent.  I think that they are all by prescription only.  This gives the system more control over this situation.  The same problem still exist though.  teh US does not control the other health care systems in place around the world.  In Mexico, penicillin is available as over the counter.  Even "Mexican stores" here in the US sell them illegally. 

Diseases such MDR TB and similar one will have to approach this problem together.  It is important because if not, many lives could be at stake.  As the world becomes smaller, a problem in one part of the world will effect us even here in the states.