Brazil has become the epi-center for this emerging disease -- one that can cause birth defects by severly stunting the development of a baby's head. Although only about 20 percent of those exposed to the virus get sick -- everyone of those people becomes a carrier.
150 health professionals wrote this letter to the World Health Organization -- taking the unprecedented step of asking the games either be postponed or moved saying, "The Brazilian strain of Zika harms health in ways that science has not observed before. An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire the strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic."
Dr. Holly Fernandez-Lynch (@PetrieFlom), who signed the letter the W-H-O and is the executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard University, and Andrew Campbell (@TheAndyCamps), a rower who is planning on competing in Rio discuss the issue.
Also, an issue Massachusetts voters will probably be asked to weigh in on this fall: balancing the humane treatment of farm animals and the cost of feeding a family. A likely ballot question asks, in part, whether animal products and eggs should come from cage free animals, a change farmers say will increase costs. Stephanie Leydon (@stephanieleydon) explains what’s at stake.
Plus, The Old Bags Project is an exploration of being a middle aged woman in America today. The idea is simple: pictures of women in their underwear with bags over their heads, often along with audio and video of women talking about their many different experiences at this point in life. Faith Baum, an architect and mother of three from Lexington and Lori Petchers , a documentary filmmaker and mother of two, from New York City discuss the project.
Lastly, Jim shares his thoughts one company's culpability in the ongoing opioid crisis.
