10 Years After Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, an Actionable Preparedness Reminder

The 10th anniversary of this disaster is a reminder to review the availability, accessibility, and dosing of potassium iodide.

In the midst of a global health pandemic, it’s difficult to imagine focusing on the seemingly more nebulous threat of a nuclear accident. Yet the 10th anniversary of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster on March 11, which occurred following an earthquake and tsunami, serves as an important reminder of the unexpectedness of these events and the need for greater preparedness, especially among health care providers.

Climate threats to nuclear plants raise concerns.

“More than one-third of Americans live or work within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant,” the authors of the February issue’s Environments and Health article, “Lessons from Fukushima: Potassium Iodide After a Nuclear Disaster,” point out (the article will be free until March 21).

As the frigid weather last month in Texas demonstrated, sources of power are particularly vulnerable to severe weather events. This threat is especially acute for U.S. nuclear power plants, many of which are situated in areas, such as along the East Coast, susceptible to extreme weather. Hurricanes in the Atlantic, for instance, have been occurring more frequently and intensely in recent years.

Concern that such climate change events could lead to a nuclear accident has heightened awareness of the need for preparation.

Ensuring potassium iodide availability as a public health preventive measure.

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2021-03-03T12:05:23-05:00March 3rd, 2021|climate change, environmental health, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Joy, Relief, Reverence: Positive Side Effects of a First COVID-19 Vaccination

A family’s long year, brushed by COVID-19.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

On February 23, 2020, three days before a flight to Israel to speak at a nursing conference, I received a message from the host that the ministry of health had issued a restriction to stop all conferences and meetings in the health care system because of the coronavirus. I had other business scheduled, so I boarded the flight. While in Israel, I followed the global health news, and returned home a week later fully aware that COVID-19 was an emerging pandemic. But when I landed and entered the international arrivals terminal at Newark Airport, business was as usual and only a handful of us in line wore masks going through customs.

It’s been a hard year since that time. My son, a healthy 27-year-old, had COVID in late March, during the worst surge of positive cases and deaths in New York City. Testing wasn’t available. He lived a subway ride away. For 10 days, I monitored his symptoms by texts, along with his primary care provider. He fully recovered. My 95-year-old mother died in April in a  New York State assisted living facility. We don’t believe her death was COVID related. Restrictions prevented my visiting […]

2021-02-26T09:33:01-05:00February 26th, 2021|COVID-19, infection control, Nursing, patient experience, Public health|3 Comments
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For the Mentally Ill in Crisis, Someone Safe to Call for Help

A troubling encounter.

by julianna paradisi

Although it happened over two months ago, I’m still haunted by the memory, particularly during this cold, harsh winter following on the heels of a politically tumultuous summer and fall.

I’ve run the same loop along the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, for years. This particular morning, a young man walked some 20 feet ahead of me on the sidewalk. He carried by its neck a 1/2 gallon jug of apple juice. Unexpectedly, he tossed an opened box of granola bars, with several individually wrapped bars inside, to the ground and kept walking.

He stopped abruptly at the same time I stopped to wait on the curb for traffic to subside so I could cross to the other side of the street, which is what I routinely do on my route.

We were now six to eight feet apart. From my peripheral vision I noticed him turn and face me. Because we’re in the middle of a pandemic, I was wearing a mask; this and my proximity seemed to disturb him. I stepped away a few paces, giving him more space.

Over my shoulder he said, “You’re a bitch.” I ignored him. He stepped closer, and repeated more loudly, “You’re a […]

2021-02-25T10:54:11-05:00February 25th, 2021|mental illness, mental illness|0 Comments
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With Severe Mental Illness, A Vicious Circle of Stigma and Lack of Support

Although psychiatric facilities no longer treat patients the way movies like The Snake Pit and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest depicted, society’s treatment of people with mental illness is still lacking.

As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I provide care for patients coping with the challenges of mental illness. Symptoms are often painful, life altering, and frightening. Sadly, patients experience additional suffering from the guilt, shame, and social isolation that comes with having a psychiatric disorder. That’s because mental illness continues to carry a stigma that inhibits people from seeking help and limits the amount of services available for those who do seek it.

Had they received the support they needed….

In this month’s Viewpoint in AJN, Juliet Hegdal, a family nurse practitioner, discusses the impact severe mental illness has on patients and their family members. The author shares what it was like being raised by a mother with schizophrenia and the lack of resources available to her and her family. She posits that her mother and society would have been better off had she received the support she needed. […]

2021-02-23T13:48:16-05:00February 23rd, 2021|mental illness|0 Comments
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COVID-19 Vaccines Explained

As we in the U.S. struggle to set up systems for the rapid administration of SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations, what do nurses need to know about these vaccines?

Two vaccines have received emergency use authorization (EUA) in the U.S.—one manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech, the other by Moderna. (A third, manufactured by AstraZeneca, is likely to receive EUA by April.) New, more efficient vaccine technologies along with a huge financial investment by the U.S. government have produced these products in a much shorter time frame than has been typical for other vaccines.

Currently available vaccines.

The two vaccines that are available now are messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines. This type of vaccine has been developed and studied for decades for possible use in preventing influenza, Zika, and other infectious diseases. Human mRNA is a strand of genetic material used for cell building and maintenance. For SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, mRNA based on part of the SARS-CoV-2 genome is synthesized and standardized in a lab.

When administered in a vaccine, this mRNA delivers to our cells the instructions  to replicate a “spike protein” found on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. (Important to know and tell patients: The mRNA never enters the nuclei of our cells, and can’t be incorporated into our own DNA.) After a cell follows these instructions and “posts” the spike protein replica on its surface, the immune system recognizes it as foreign […]

2021-01-19T11:08:24-05:00January 19th, 2021|infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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