Essays on Blaser

The Challenge of Antibiotic Resistance: Has our use of Antibiotics Caused more Problems than it has solved?

Antibiotics are medicines which have bactericidal or bacteriostatic properties and used in treatment or prevention of microbial diseases (NPS 2012). Antibiotics a have been in existence for a long time and were initially known as antibiosis which meant against life, and by Jean Paul Vuillemin first used this term. He used the word to describe the properties which were exhibited by the early antibacterial drugs. In 1877 Antibiosis was first described by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch when they observed the inhibition of growth of Bacillus anthracis by an airborne bacillus. In 1928 penicillin was identified by Alexander Fleming. ...

The Martin health care system was started in 1939, with an objective to provide high-quality health care to all, economic status of patients notwithstanding. At its inception, the center aimed to offer hope and compassion to all the sick people. The founders of the center had identified a gap in the provision of affordable health care and they aimed at constructing a center that would provide the essential services. As part of the strategic plan, the Centre has been on an intensive expansion program aimed at upgrading the existing infrastructures to cater for the increasing number of patients (Swayne, ...

Theoretically speaking, the term 'stakeholders' refers to "any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of organizations objectives" (Freeman, 2010). It is obvious to expect the differences in stakeholders expectations for a profit business to that of non-profit organizations. The biggest difference is the monetary expectation. As non-profit organizations don't make monetary benefits from their operations, stakeholders cannot expect financial benefits. The goals of these firms are, usually, providing a charitable and educational service. As such, stakeholders including funders, volunteers, participants, clients and government officials may have different expectations ranging from providing quality service to ...

Whether it is a genre, subgenre or visual style, or if they followed German expressionism and French poetic realism, noir films came about as an outcome of circumstances of political relevance (Hayward 129). Under the shadow of the fore coming World War II, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, many European film makers decided to run away from their homelands and reside mainly to Hollywood (Hayward 129). Naturally, noir films created during the 1940s and 1950s expressed the political crisis of the time and dominant societal ideologies, such as the nuclear family that became “an absolute political and cultural ...

Antibiotics usage in farm animals is rather heavy and extensive and has been a characteristic practice of farmers in Europe and North America for some time. Based on the health hazards that usage of antibiotics on livestock pose to human health, they should completely be banned from animal feed. A good number of pork, beef, and poultry eaten by humans have small levels of antibiotics. This is an outcome of efforts to improve quality, as well as quantity of farms output. The United States utilizes more than 29 million pounds of antibiotics in farm animals per annum, which accounts for ...

Helicobacter pylori, which was formerly known as Campylobacter pyloridis, is a microaerophilic, Gram-negative bacterium present in the stomach. In 1982, Robin Warren and Barry Marshall discovered that it was found in persons who were suffering from chronic gastric ulcers and gastritis, diseases that were not formerly thought to have been caused by microbes. It is also associated with the development of duodenal ulcers and stomach cancer. Nevertheless, more than 80 percent of persons infected with the bacterium show no symptoms, and it has been contended that it may have a crucial role in the natural ecology of the stomach (Blaser, 2006). ...

One look at the teaser poster of Casino Royale (2006) is enough to decipher that the film contains elements of film noir. A cold-eyed James Bond can be seen dressed in a tuxedo, a bowtie loosely draped around his neck, and a gun hanging from his hand with the shadow bathing him almost entirely. In the background, Vesper, Bond’s brunette love interest in the film, can be seen dressed in a black ballgown, just standing there and somberly gazing at Bond. Clearly the film’s poster has the dark and gritty feel of classic film noir. While categorizing film noir has always ...

Crude, a documentary directed by Joe Berlinger, focuses on a law-suit in which the plaintiffs are Ecuadorians living in the Amazon rainforest. Crude highlights how communities living around Amazon suffer the consequences of oil extraction close to their households. The local communities have to endure a lot: from polluted water to cultural debasement and diseases such as cancer. The multinational company involved (Texaco/Chevron) has no respect for the people and their customs. The beautiful land is turned into a toxic wasteland where nothing can grow; the communities living around Amazon face extinction, along with flora and fauna. Analysis of the documentary “Crude” reveals ...