Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A— Monday, March 5, 2018

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Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Jeremy Kaplan

 
 
 
 

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

 
 
 
 

 

Ali Safawi
Alex Satola

Kevin Sweitzer
Tara Jayaram
 Ashley Zhang

Gun violence as a public health issue

The benefit of medical supply reallocation

O

n Feb. 14, 2018, a school 
shooting 
occurred 
in 

Parkland, Fla. at Marjory 

Stoneman Douglas High School. 
Seventeen people were murdered, 
and the country was left to mourn 
yet another senseless killing.

Since the 1999 shooting at 

Columbine 
high 
school, 
our 

generation has recognized the 
recurring 
incidence 
of 
mass 

shootings. Every time, the nation 
is shocked and motivated to 
change. But in reality, there has 
been a distinct lack of change 
on a policy level related to these 
shootings. 
The 
control 
the 

National Rifle Association has 
on politicians makes it hard to 
utilize the government as an agent 
of change. This control involves 
millions of dollars in contributions 
to numerous politicians in both 
political parties, making it difficult 
and unappealing to advocate for 
policies the NRA may not support. 
I believe after the Parkland 
shooting, however, national reform 
will finally begin to succeed. 
The students who survived and 
witnessed this act of violence have 
opposed the stagnation and lack of 
action over the past 19 years. Our 
generation is breaking the status 
quo by challenging politicians, 
the NRA, corporations and the 
American people for allowing 
these systemic problems to exist.

As I have written in previous 

columns, questioning your beliefs 
and engaging in direct political 
action spawns change. Yes, we 
can say education as a whole is the 
agent that could fix our nation’s 
problems. This could include 
teaching the reason for the current 
state of things or how to make them 
better for the future. I continued 
to echo this mantra time after 
time, but have begun to realize 
education is only one small portion 
of social change. When problems 
have very complex solutions, it 
is difficult to recognize the long-
term action that is required to 
disrupt the status quo.

The solution for gun control 

is nowhere close to simple. It may 
require a shifting of public rhetoric, 
bipartisan support, research and 
education. And changing the 
laws and actions in our country 
will not happen overnight. But 
the most effective way could be 

to look at gun regulation from a 
public health approach. Our nation 
has watched political action fail 
repeatedly. We have even watched 
a digression in regulation and laws 
in states across the nation.

Yet, public health approaches 

have been used to regulate and 
increase the safety of automobiles 
and air pollution in the past. 
For example, according to the 
National Highway Traffic Safety 
Administration, in 1946 there were 
9.35 deaths per 100 million vehicle 
miles traveled. As speed limits 
were lowered, seatbelts were 
required, and safety reporting was 
heightened, this rate dropped to 
1.18 in 2016.

Nicholas Kristof, a New York 

Times columnist, also advocates 
for this public health approach to 
decrease the rate of shootings. He 
argues the “liberal approach” to 
regulate guns is “ineffective”. One 
of the first steps in reducing gun 
violence in the U.S. is research. Our 
country faces a disproportionate 
amount of gun violence and 
gun-related fatalities compared 
to other nations. According to a 
study in the American Journal of 
Medicine, Americans are 25 times 
more likely to be killed by guns 
than citizens of other high income 
countries. Though this striking 
data is important to take into 
account, there is an overwhelming 
lack of research conducted on 
gun ownership, training and 
violence. Funding needs to be 
allocated to federal organizations 
to complete this research to attain 
a comprehensive conclusion about 
the trends in this violence.

Furthermore, 
increasing 

background checks and limiting 
the access that young people 
have to guns is an important step 
to increase the efficacy of gun 
regulation. Current background 

checks are only required for gun 
sales at licensed dealers. As a 
result, it is not difficult for guns to 
change hands to other buyers after 
this process, undermining the 
goal of the surveillance. Kristof 
says, “Our laws have often focused 
more on weapons themselves 
(such as the assault weapons 
ban) rather than on access.” 
Mass shootings are not the most 
common type of gun violence, but 
they are often the most publicized 
because of their horrific display of 
violence. Scrutinizing individuals 
to strict background checks and 
training would make the U.S. 
more similar to the processes 
that other countries require gun 
owners to complete.

It is too easy to get firearms 

in our country. A recent article 
in the New York Times compares 
how guns can be purchased in 15 
countries. Australia, responding 
to a 1996 mass shooting, requires 
gun owners to be a part of a 
shooting club, provide reasoning 
for owning a gun, pass a thorough 
background check and apply for a 
permit for a specific type of gun. 
The multiple steps that buyers 
are required to undergo have 
resulted in a drastic decrease of 
gun violence.

The students who survived 

the 
Parkland 
shooting 
are 

using their anger, grief and 
frustration to create important 
change. We cannot allow the 
danger and violence that stems 
from guns to persist. Kristof 
writes, “Yet more Americans 
have died from gun violence, 
including suicides, since 1970 
(about 1.4 million) than in all the 
wars in American history going 
back to the Revolutionary War 
(about 1.3 million).” Regulating 
guns to reduce the number of 
deaths and violence will not 
be easy, nor will it happen all 
at once. From a public health 
approach, it requires changing 
the environment and focusing 
on taking small steps that will 
eventually lead to increased 
safety and important change.

Julia Cohn can be reached at 

julcohn@umich.edu

JULIA COHN | COLUMN

GEOFFREY GAMM | OP-ED

W

hile 
many 
of 
us 

spent Spring Break 
sunbathing 
on 

warm beaches, visiting friends 
and family or indulging in an 
unhealthy dose of Netflix while 
huddled under a mass of warm 
blankets, hundreds of University 
of Michigan students travelled to 
the most impoverished regions of 
the world to bring about positive 
social change. These service-
oriented 
students 
witnessed, 

for a week, what hundreds of 
millions of people experience 
throughout 
their 
lifetimes: 

Ravaging 
illnesses, 
systemic 

impoverishment and minimal 
access to basic health care.

The 
World 
Health 

Organization 
cites 
severe 

shortages of sterilized needles 
and gloves as one of the main 
reasons for why 40 percent 
of 
medical 
injections 
in 

impoverished 
countries 
are 

classified 
as 
“unsafe.” 
Ten 

nations, with a combined 100 
million people, have no access 
to any kind of cancer treatment. 
Even underfunded international 
hospitals fortunate enough to 
receive vaccine and medicine 
donations 
from 
charities 

oftentimes lack the basic gauze, 
syringes and bandages needed to 
administer the life-saving drugs.

Despite the United States 

spending over $10,000 per person 
on health care annually, many 
countries spend fewer than $10 
per person each year. What does 
this mean? It means hundreds 
of millions of people rely on 
damaged, expired, unsterilized 
and unsafe medical supplies. 
It means millions of people 
needlessly die of premature and 
preventable deaths.

Conversely, 
the 
U.S. 
has 

a gluttony of excess medical 
supplies that end up as waste. 
The U.S. disposes of more than 
4 billion — with a “B” — pounds 
of medical supplies each year. 
These discarded supplies end 
up in landfills, contribute to 
greenhouse 
gas 
emissions, 

increase the cost of health care 
and don’t go to people in need. 
Though a majority of disposed 
medical supplies are no longer 
usable, 13 percent of all disposed 
medical supplies are never used 

in the first place and an estimated 
50 percent of single-use supplies 
could be safely reprocessed.

The University is not an 

exception to this problem. Despite 
an 
ambitious 
sustainability 

initiative to reduce University-
produced waste by 40 percent 
from 2006 to 2025, the University 
is failing, and waste levels have 
actually increased over the past 12 
years. Michigan Medicine is one 
of the main culprits and continues 
to discard thousands of pounds 
of medical supplies every day. 
Worse yet, Michigan Medicine 
has thrown out an estimated 
$180 million of pristine, unused 
medical supplies since 2006. In the 
three minutes it takes you to read 
this article, nearly $100 of unused 
medical supplies were discarded 
in our very own backyard.

So what can we, as students, 

do to address this tremendous 
global health disparity?

Blueprints For Pangaea is a 

startup, nonprofit organization 
founded by University students 
to 
reallocate 
excess 
medical 

supplies from our local hospitals 
to 
impoverished 
countries 

overseas. Since 2015, Blueprints 
For Pangaea shipped more than 
30,000 pounds of medical supplies 
— valued at $2.5 million — from 
Michigan Medicine to hospitals in 
Ghana, Niger and Myanmar.

By collaborating with hospital 

administrators, doctors, nurses 
and volunteers, Blueprints For 
Pangaea 
is 
already 
making 

a major impact by reducing 
domestic medical supply waste 
mismanagement and by providing 
more accessible health care to 
countless people around the world. 
Nearly 10 Blueprints For Pangaea 
chapters have sprouted up across 
the country and are exponentially 

increasing the amount of medical 
supplies 
that 
are 
salvaged 

and redistributed from their 
respective universities (yes, even 
Michigan State University and 
Ohio State University).

Other University students on 

campus have joined the cause. 
Some are forging connections 
and providing medical supplies 
to doctors affiliated with medical 
disaster-relief organizations like 
the Syrian American Medical 
Society. Undergraduate Research 
Opportunity Program and pre-
medical students are supporting 
“spring cleaning” drives in their 
laboratories and clinics to collect 
and donate unneeded medical 
supplies. Planet Blue volunteers 
are 
increasing 
awareness 
of 

waste and sustainability issues. 
Still, other students are using 
alternative spring break programs 
as an opportunity to fill a carry-on 
suitcase with life-saving medical 
supplies as they travel to some of 
the most impoverished areas of 
the world.

In ways both big and small, 

our fellow University classmates 
are saving lives.

Now that Spring Break is over 

and campus is alive with students 
and future leaders, we are again 
called to fulfill the University’s 
mission 
statement 
to 
“serve 

the people of Michigan and the 
world.” I urge you to consider 
what you can do this spring to 
combat medical supply waste 
here in Ann Arbor and to help 
save lives abroad. Do not consider 
this spring’s Earth Day as an 
event, but a target.

Between now and April 22, 

join a student or professional 
organization 
dedicated 
to 

alleviating international health 
disparities 
and 
unnecessary 

medical supply waste. Encourage 
your 
laboratory 
and 
clinic 

mentors to initiate a medical 
supply 
“spring 
cleaning” 

program if they do not already 
have one. Join the Earth Day 
2018 movement to “End Plastic 
Pollution.” Do your part to help 
the Earth and the people on it.

Geoffrey Gamm is a Senior in the 

Ford School of Public Policy

A

s I type this, I am 
currently sitting in a cafe 
on the streets of Bogotá, 

Colombia, about two blocks from 
the U.S. Embassy, waiting for 
an emergency passport so I can 
return home. The following is 
a true recounting of events that 
transpired over my 2018 Spring 
Break.

For my Spring Break, some 

friends and I planned a 10-day 
trip to Cartagena, Colombia. We 
traveled in a fairly large group, 22 
of us in total. I would like to think I 
was among the most excited for the 
adventures ahead, because I had 
never been on an airplane before, 
let alone traveled outside the 
country. Had I known what would 
befall, I imagine I would have felt 
therwise.

After arriving Friday, we spent 

the first evening buying groceries, 
exchanging currencies and just 
settling into the apartment complex 
we rented. The next day we would 
go to the beach and see how 
sunburnt we could get. I have an 
affinity for water and, as one should 
expect, as soon as we arrived, I 
threw my bag onto the pile with 
everyone else’s and jumped in.

Now, 
being 
University 
of 

Michigan students who generally 
act in rational manner and try to 
think ahead, we left two or three 
fellows “guarding” the bag pile at 
all times. It also turns out that being 
a large group of white Americans, 
we were swarmed by vendors like 
I’ve never seen before the entire 
time we were at the beach. As the 
vendors distracted us, someone 
was able to sneak in and grab my 
bag off the top of the pile.

When we were all sufficiently 

burnt and the time came to pack 
up and hail a taxi back to the 
apartments, I noticed my bag 
was not with the others. My first 
thought was that someone was 
either playing a prank on me or had 
idly grabbed my bag, thinking it was 
their own. Once I returned to the 
rooms and interrogated everyone, 
I decided the next step was to call 
my bank and cancel my debit card 

as a precautionary measure. It was 
then that I discovered my card had 
actually been attempted at an ATM 
near the beach, and I realized I had 
indeed been robbed.

The fact I had been robbed was 

slightly less unsettling than the fact 
that my bag not only contained my 
(brand new, bought for this trip, 
three-day-old) phone, my wallet 
with all my money and all forms of 
picture identification, but also my 
passport — the only way to enter 
back into the U.S. They had stolen 
my ticket home.

As a foreigner in a country 

where I could not speak a lick of 
the language, it was quite difficult 
to figure out where to even began 
the process of getting home. After 
several calls to the U.S. Embassy, I 
discovered that I needed to travel to 
Bogotá in order to get an emergency 
passport. Easy, right? Fat chance. 
Bogotá is over 1,000 kilometers 
from Cartagena (or about 620 
miles) 
through 
dangerous 

countryside and hundreds of miles 
of unpopulated national parks. My 
best chance was to fly there, but 
how does one fly with no form of 
identification? Well, several more 
calls to the embassy later, I now 
know that I must go to the police to 
file a report, get it signed and print a 
picture of my passport.

That same evening, I went to 

the “police station” with a friend 
who spoke minimal Spanish. We 
walked in and were greeted by a 
lone officer sitting in a dimly lit 
room, only slightly bigger than 
my closet. His desk was bare save 
a typewriter that was at least 70 

years old and thoroughly surprised 
me when it actually worked. The 
officer proceeded to type up a 
report and upon completion gave 
us the paper and told us we had to 
get to the other end of town to file 
it. A 20-minute taxi ride later, we 
discovered this next police station 
was only open during regular 
business hours and it was still 
Saturday evening.

After foregoing most of the 

weekend excursions to get my 
paperwork in order and prepare 
myself for a flight to Bogotá, 
Monday rolled around and I was off 
again with my Spanish-speaking 
friend. Four hours of waiting in 
line, a game of pass-and-play risk 
and an hour-long meeting later, I 
finally had my signed police report.

Thanks to the multitude of 

help I received from my University 
family, after a post to Facebook 
looking 
for 
English-speaking 

contacts in Bogotá, I was able to get 
a trustworthy ride from the airport 
to the embassy and had a ride 
waiting for me afterwards.

As I sat in this restaurant, 

continuing to wait for my ticket 
home, I couldn’t help but think 
how lucky I was to be an American 
citizen, when so many people are 
being ripped from their homes and 
displaced by war, famine, fire or 
deportation. I know my country, 
friends and family are there for 
me and were ready to help me get 
home, when I was terrified I might 
be stuck there for much longer than 
anticipated.

I have always been fond of the 

saying “you win or you learn, there 
is no losing” and I have indeed 
learned a great deal. I learned to 
always lock your valuables up and 
avoid traveling or going out with 
them whenever possible. But most 
importantly, I learned a newfound 
appreciation for my friends, my 
family and my country. I have 
learned that I should take nothing 
for granted.

My (not so) typical spring break

LUCAS DEAN | COLUMN

Lucas Dean can be reached at 

lbdean@umich.edu.

But the most 
effective way 

could be to look at 
gun control from 
a public health 

approach.

The US disposes 
of more than 4 
billion pounds of 
medical supplies 

each year.

I was terrified I 
might be stuck 
there for much 

longer than 
anticipated.
NATALIE BROWN | CONTACT CARTOONIST AT NGBROWN@UMICH.EDU

