A Brief History On February 20, 1905, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states have the authority to require mandatory vaccinations against disease, well over a century before the controversy over the Covid vaccine in 2020 and 2021. Digging Deeper In the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the court ruled that Massachusetts and other states had the right to enforce compulsory vaccination laws and that individual liberty is not absolute. In this case, the disease involved was smallpox, and the law in the Bay State required people over 21 to be vaccinated or face a $5 fine. …
Browsing: Health/Medicine
A Brief History On January 31, 1915, the German Army, in violation of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases, launched 18,000 artillery shells containing xylyl bromide tear gas against Russian positions, the first truly large scale use of poison gas in combat. Digging Deeper While people have used various poisons to deny the use of water wells as far back as 600 BC and to foul the air with toxic sulfur fumes in 479 BC, the 19th and 20th Centuries saw efforts to outlaw such use of poisons. In World War I, the first and most common use of…
A Brief History On January 26, 2009, a single California woman gave birth to 8 babies at one time, becoming the first mother of octuplets that survived infancy. Digging Deeper Nadya Suleman was born a native Californian to parents of Lithuanian and Palestinian descent, and while she was married from 1996 to 2008, she was single when she underwent fertility treatments prior to having her 8 babies. She attended Mt. San Antonio College and earned a BS and a psychiatric technician license, applying her education to a job in a mental health facility for 3 years. Prior to the record…
A Brief History On January 22, 1992, NASA launched mission STS-42, the space shuttle Discovery, into space with a crew that included Ukrainian Canadian Dr. Roberta Bondar, a neurologist. The first Canadian woman and the first neurologist to become an astronaut, Bondar is a woman of many accomplishments, and is yet another example of Canadians of Ukrainian descent (such as Alex Trebek and Wayne Gretzky) to achieve great things. Digging Deeper A highly accomplished scholar, Bondar was educated at the University of Guelph (BSc), the University of Western Ontario (MSc), the University of Toronto (PhD), and McMaster University (MD). Bondar’s…
A Brief History On January 17, 2013, renowned American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted on Oprah’s Next Chapter, a prime time television show, that he was, as suspected and accused, a cheater that won 7 consecutive Tour de France bicycle races through the assistance of banned drugs. Digging Deeper Professional and amateur athletes have been using performance enhancing drugs for decades now, including stimulants such as cocaine and amphetamines and a variety of hormones, usually characterized as “steroids.” Other banned substances include “blood doping” agents that increase the ability of blood to carry oxygen and even gene manipulation to enhance performance. …
