Environment, News

What if the BP Gulf oil spill had occurred in Hawaii?

1 Comment

What would Hawaii look like if the BP Gulf oil spill had happened here instead of Louisiana?

I wondered which islands would it effect, given the spill’s current size, and found an interactive map that moves the spill to any location. Disturbingly, if the spill was centered in Honolulu, it would coat O’ahu, Kaua’i, Moloka’i and Maui.

If the spill grows as expected, it would reach all of the islands within a few weeks. It would be an epic disaster, given our rare and endangered plant and animal life, dependency on beach tourism, and general reliance on the ocean for food and recreation. Perhaps this puts into better perspective what the people in the Gulf are suffering.

 

Health, Travel

Vaccines for travel to Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo and the Amazon

6 Comments

I was lucky enough to travel recently for the first time to Brazil and the Amazon. After negotiating the complex travel visa process, I learned from the Brazilian Consulate that I also need a vaccine for yellow fever, which is a virus endemic to most of South American and Africa, according to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Do I have to get vaccinated for yellow fever?

Without the yellow fever vaccine, I could have been denied entry into Brazil, according to the Brazilian Consulate. However, vaccination is not a requirement to enter any country, according to the CDC, so denied entry was unlikely, especially to modern cities like Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paolo. Further, I received my tourist Visa from the Brazilian Consulate without proof of vaccination.

In short, no, a vaccine is not required to enter Rio, Sao Paolo or other major cities in Brazil. However, it is recommended.

Map of yellow fever zone in South America

What are the risks of skipping the vaccine?

The risk of actually contracting the yellow fever virus is lower in South American than Africa, according to the CDC. However, unvaccinated travelers risk developing the horrible skin disease marked by pussy yellow, blistering boils spread by mosquito bites in infected areas. Somewhere between 10% to 90% of US travelers don’t get the vaccine. All of the cases of yellow fever in the US are brought back by these people. I didn’t want to be one of them.

Since we planned to visit the Amazon, vaccination seemed like a sensible preventive measure. So I made some calls to local health care clinics to set an appointment. Of the five major health care clinics on Maui, only two offer international travel vaccines: Kaiser Permanente and Dr. Chad Meyer. Kaiser only treats members. Fortunately, Dr. Meyer sees everyone else.

You might have to call around to find a doctor that specializes in travel medicine in order to get vaccinated for yellow fever.

What else do I need to know about the yellow fever vaccine?

Here’s a summary of what my doctor told me about the vaccine for the yellow fever virus:

  • Vaccine against the yellow fever virus must be given 3 weeks before travel to affected areas in order to be effective.
  • The vaccine is a single injection of 0.5 mL of reconstituted virus. In other words, it’s a live virus vaccine.
  • Side effects could include fever, pain, swelling and yellow fever. (Yuck!) But immunity, once developed, is lifelong.(Yay!)
Yellow fever virus transmitted through mosquitos producing pussy boils

Dr. Meyer also recommended that I receive vaccinations for additional diserases:

The total cost for these vaccines, plus the office visit to review traveler’s health tips, cost about $500 cash.

Have you been vaccinated? If so, please reply and tell us about your experience with the vaccine, yellow fever or travel to endemic areas.

Hawaii resources for international travel vaccines:

  • Kaiser Permanente, Travel Medicine Department — (808) 243-6000
  • Dr. Chad Meyer, Maui Travel Medicine — (808) 573-5088
  • O’ahu has more resources than Maui, including Kaiser, Queen’s and Straub clinics.
  • On Kauai and the Big Island, area hospital clinics have the vaccines.
Family, Health, News

Which Sunscreens Work Best? Not What You Think.

1 Comment

Summer’s here and strong sun in Hawaii means higher risk for skin problems, but which sunscreens really work, especially on children and people with sensitive skin? The Environment Working Group (EWG) recently released its ratings of beach and sport sunscreens.

EWG reviewed over 500 products and found only a few sunscreens worthy of top marks, including Badger Sunscreen for Face and Body Unscented SPF 30, California Baby Sunscreen Lotion Unscented SPF 30 and UV Natural Sunscreen SPF 30+. The best sunscreens share a few factors common, according to their website:

Our top-rated sunscreens all contain the minerals zinc or titanium. They are the right choice for people who are looking for the best UVA protection without any sunscreen chemical considered to be a potential hormone disruptor. None of the products contain oxybenzone or vitamin A and none are sprayed or powdered.

What Doesn’t Work

The EWG took its ratings of sunscreens and created a list of the worst products as well, a sunscreen hall of shame. Products at the bottom of their list include Banana Boat Baby Max Protect SPF 100, Peter Thomas Roth Instant Mineral Powder SPF 30 and Hawaiian Tropic Baby Creme Lotion SPF 50. The EWG especially scorns products claiming UVA protection that don’t deliver as well as powder products.

Coming Soon: New FDA Regulations on UVA Sunscreen

The FDA has been hashing out new guidelines for sunscreens since 2007. Currently UVB, the sun’s burning rays, are labelled using the SPF (sun protection factor) system. If a sunscreen claims SPF 30, that means that it takes 30 times as long to burn as it would without sunscreen. For example, a person who burns in five minutes unprotected would burn in 150 minutes wearing an SPF 30 sunscreen.

The problem is lack of a clear standard for labeling protection from UVA radiation, the kind that causes many cancers. Sunscreens will say on the package if they contain UVA protection, but their is no clear way for consumers to know exactly how much UVA protection the product actually contains. So the proposed guidelines would label UVA protection with a star rating system, where one star is the lowest and five stars the highest.

But the problem with the star rating system is that most dermatologists agree that the amount of UVA protection represented by three stars under the new rules is really the safe minimum. European regulators recognized this minimum and have taken a different approach to UVA labeling in sunscreens. In 2008, they established a safe minimum below which a product cannot claim UVA protection.

Today on KQED the program, Forum, aired a discussion of the issue of which sunscreens work best and what the proposed labeling to UVA protection really mean. The archived program is available here.