HealthViews

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1#

Back to re-shifting this blog to health issues.

I am one of the people who gets the seasonal flu vaccine yearly.  I debate about it with my friends since many of them don't get it while others religiously get it.  In Boston, free flu vaccine clinics are widely, publicly announced.  In SF, I have not received any information regarding flu clinics.  This topic of flu vaccination is deeply divided.  Some will get it yearly while others have never gotten the vaccine and haven't ever gotten the flu.  What is happening here?  Why the debate?  Isn't this science where something is tested, then the trials, studies and results tell us the answer?

The article, Does the Vaccine Matter by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer questions seasonal and H1N1 vaccine efficacy/effectiveness.  While it is true that we do rely heavily on vaccines as the answer for the flu season, I agree with the article that more public education should be conducted regarding prevention via washing hands and isolation when feeling flu-like symptoms.

I am surprised about the resistance faced of conducting a placebo-based trial. But, if we know the vaccine causes some good then is the trial unethical?  And alarmed of the Rumsfield association of Tamiflu reserves into the market.

I think the strongest point from this article is yes, vaccines are not the be-all answer. I also believe that placebo-based trials should be conducted on the vaccines - perhaps in healthy patients where the risk is low of getting severe symptoms. There are many confounding factors that may influence our perception of the efficacy of these flu vaccines. Yet, avoiding the answers is like skipping over science and basing our actions on theory and hand-me-down knowledge. What happened for the push and the movement towards evidence-based medicine and standards?  Page 3 of the article is great- maybe the vaccination of the healthy people is a herd effect where it keeps the flu from spreading.  Perhaps we continue on this path.  If it has been proven that it doesn't cause any harm and we are unsure of how much good it causes, then wouldn't we take that risk of the unknown amount of good it causes and get the vaccine?

Intro
Lakshmi Pratury, host of TEDIndia starts the last session to explain the theme - The most important journey that we need to take is within ourselves.  This is a journey in which we have no tools.  We have to be open to learn all the time and be incredibly honest with ourselves.  This last session is a journey to focus on what we have.

Speaker 1:  Sivamani, Percussionist
Sivamani starts by displaying "Rhythm is God"
His beats are a combination of mystical, energizing, peaceful.  I've never heard anything like it.  The drum keeps on beating.  While the calming chords keep repeating.  Gunguru (bells) can be heard in the background as the drum beat gets faster faster.  It something words cannot describe.  Look up his music. 

Speaker 2:   A. Balasubramaniam, Artist

Bala was another inspirational talk at TEDIndia.  He has a wonderful open-mindedness and starts by saying the person sitting next to you may change your life.  He integrates humor to show how everyone has a different perception (sharing with us the joke of why a cow crosses a street through different perceptions, school teacher, Martin Luther King, Freud).  Meaning is created by the mind.  "Our senses are so limited.  All of our construction of our reality is through our limited senses".  It makes one to go seek out beyond what we can sense and see what we are missing to see if our preception of reality will change. 

Speaker 3: Shashi Tharoor, Politician and Writer

Wow.  This was a great talk.  Honestly, I've never heard of Shashi Tharoor (I know I know excuse my ignorance).  I didn't know what a great speaker he was until TEDIndia.  He combined serious issues of the world with humor.  It reminded me of sitting in Colorado, back in the day at one of my International Poli-Sci classes.  But, it also gave me hope for politicians.  Tharoor is not unique in his job as a successful politician but what makes him successful and people listening to him is his passion and drive to connect with the people.  The proof to mention a few - his talk at TEDIndia - his tweets on Twitter - his writing in books - all show his desire to communicate.

Tharoor begins by mentioning World Leadership and to him, the traditional meaning is archaic.  The meaning is transforming in the 21st century and he refers to "SOFT POWER" as the new character that will influence and lead the world.  Soft power is defined as the ability of a country to attract others through culture, policy, etc (eg Beijing olympics for China, Hollywood/MTV/McDonalds for the US).  Soft power is more than the influence presented by a state's government.  Does that mean that there can be more than one/two dominant soft powers in the world at the same time?  What does this imply for 21st century international politics/relationships? 

As I started to ask myself these questions, Tharoor started explaining how our relationships, politics is changing.  Via communication.  "Countries are being judged by many communication mediums".  Soft power makes connection important.  Tharoor shares a story and the importance of communication today:  in 1984, our telephone system in India was so poor, a parliament member stood up and said that in a developing country, a phone is a luxury and if someone isn't happy, please return the phone due to a long waiting list....but now look at India today- there are over 15 million cellphones!  That is a point of celebration.  The cellphones seem to be one part of the answer of many different issues - it provides the empowerment of people from low socio-economic backgrounds. 

Another example of Soft Power influence that Tharoor shares is Bollywood and how it is reaching beyond the Indian diaspora across the globe.  He particularly mentions an Indian soap opera that is played at 8:30pm in Afghanistan where all signs of life is in front of televisions- weddings are put on pause while everyone gathers around the tv, thieves are succeeding while watchmen breakout to watch the show - it is part of the media life.  I wish Tharoor mentioned reading and how books and literature are also doing the same.  Indian authors are also reaching and influencing others - I always get asked if I have read the "Namesake" or "God of Small Things" or "Shantaram" and how "real" are those books to Indian culture.  People are interested.

I agree that India's image has moved beyond the image of "snake charmers to software wizards" as Tharoor describes.  He emphasizes the importance of a pluralistic democracy where difference is "endured" (his word not mine).  His point, "you don't really have to agree on everything all the time, so long as you agree on the ground rules to disagree.  Manage to sustain consensus on how to survive without a consensus".  Tharoor ends his speech saying that there is more to do in India - to develop our hardware (infrastructure) and software (people). 

Tharoor's talk influenced me.  I admit - I immediately added him as a twitter follower, looked up his books and am curious as how this person will influence and impact others.  We need more people like him with the openness and attitude to embrace difference.  We need more people to accept uniqueness and cultural differences.  It is all good in writing and speech I realize.  It is hard to implement - but, I think and so do others from TED and beyond that we are up for the challenge to act upon these words.  We have started to see more of it today.  This is the beginning!

Speaker 4:  His Holiness Karmapa, Spiritual Leader

The last talk of the TEDIndia conference was by His Holiness Karmapa.  He emphasizes the need for inward development along with the outward development taking place.  We need to deepen our heart connections.  "As we speak about design, we need to push forward on the design of the heart.  We need to invest a lot of technology to improve the technology of the heart...the development that we create should improve the fundamental lifestyle of how we live in this world".

Conclusion:  Feeling good and inspired.  I look forward to attending a TED event to meet a few of the amazing people doing cool things around the world!

So I caught session 2 live from TedIndia staying up until 2:30am!  Here are a few recaps of the speakers:

Speaker 1:  Srivasta Krishna asks why is the future of infrastructure changing?  Is it the government's or business' responsibility to keep sustainability in mind when applying it to infrastructure?  The way infrastructure is thought of today needs a fundamental change in how it is created, maintained and funded- if the taj mahal was built before how come a road can't be built today? 

Great points.  My favorite fun fact that Mr. Krishna shared was that most emerging markets do not have laws for funding elections.

Speaker 2:  Dr. R.A. Mashelkar gave us some great terms and definitions.  The most noteworthy, "Ghandian engineering" which means "more from less for more".  Dr. Mashelkar gave examples including drug development where we are getting less results for more money for less people.  He left with words of advice, "focus and you can achieve" along with his most inspirational moment being "convex lens leadership".

Speaker 3:  Anneka Jong represented generation Y and emphasized that Gen Y is on board with social entreprise and that we are now more interested in teaching a person to fish.  I agree.

Speaker 4:  Tony Hsieh from Zappos really impressed me.  I loved his talk about the science of happiness. He explains how Zappos' business model is happiness.  2 books were mentioned as recommended reading, "Good to Great" and "Tribal Leadership".  I have read "Good to Great" and have "Tribal Leadership" on my list.  Both of these books talk about what makes companies succeed and last.  The most common characteristic is that great companies have a vision.  They ask themselves, what would you be so passionate about doing beyond $$$.  Hsieh says, "Chase the vision, not the $$$".  To have a good workforce, managers, supervisors, leaders need to ask what is the largest vision in your employees work besides money. 

The second thing Hsieh mentions that separates companies are companies with a core value system.  These core values need to be written in a simple, committable way.  For example, Zappos' core values include, be humble besides talented.  To motivate employees, companies need to inspire employees through company culture where corporate values match personal values.  Vision and culture and inspire and motivate employees.

Hsieh takes the second half of his speech to talk about happiness.  He says, if you ask someone what is their goal in life and keep following up with why, everyone will reach the same answer of happiness.  He recommends another book, "Positive Psychology" which explains how normal people can become happier.  In general, people are very bad at predicting long term happiness.  If the ultimate goal is happiness for everyone, what if everyone just spent some percentage of time to learn about the science of happiness and take a shortcut to get to their state of happiness. 

Hsieh continues to talk about a few of the frameworks of happiness:
1.  Perceived control
2.  Progress
3.  Connectedness (# and depth of relationships) and vision (being part of something bigger than yourself)

Hsieh mentions Maslow's book "Peak" and explains the trasformation of the perception of work from, job -->career --> calling.  To get to the point of calling, you retain employees as long as they keep growing personally and professionally within the company.

Hsieh explains the 3 types of happiness:
1.  Rockstar happiness- chasing the next high but not sustainable
2.  Passion/Flow of Happiness - engaged in some activity - change environment to have more of those happy activities
3,  Meaning - being part of something bigger than yourself
---most people focus on the 1st type of rockstar happiness but research shows being part of meaning is the happiest state.

Overall, it was a great talk.  Hsieh ends with asking, what percentage of time do you want to spend to learn about the science of happiness?  It is a thought I hadn't considered.  But, his talk has inspired me to look into it.  It makes sense.

Conclusion:
The rest of the speakers included Scott Cook from Intuit, Mohnish Pabrai who won a date with Warren Buffett and cricket star, Harsha Bogle.  Cook's talk mentioned the use of mobile texting to share price information with farmers except he needs input of how to make it a cost-affordable business model.  Pabrai questions when to give money, at the time when we have less but more energy or later when we are frail but have more money.  He alludes to the method that Buffet has given money to the Gates Foundation as a good example.  His quote of the session was, "We come naked and we leave naked" from the world.  And of course, Bogle talks about Cricket and how it has been "the world's longest running soap opera".  And explains the introduction of movie starts and cheerleaders to cricket and relates that as how one small change has led to a big revolution in the sport. 

I believe what Bogle says, "how a small change leads to a big revolution".  It is good to think about.  At times, ideas are not given enough credit because it will not disrupt a system.  But I am seeing how sometimes the smallest change from methodology has created some of the biggest impacts in our world.

I left sesion 2 excited.  Inspired.  And ready to sleep.  I look forward and hope that TED posts the rest of the talks and am looking forward to catching day 2 tonight!