Spin from the June 22 Meeting
Posted by Tony McNair on Jun 25, 2015
Deborah McMahan, MD.¸ was our speaker on Monday. Our topic for the month was International perspectives and her specific concern was with the easy importation of diseases for other nations, by immigrants, tourists and other travelers. She really gets your attention talking about people going on business travel, or even “Medical Tourism.”.JPG)
Dr McMahon has been our Medical Director at the Board of Health for 15 years hand has brought several programs over the years but this one seemed most riveting. Just think…2 million people visit China each year! How many go on Missionary trips, doing good but exposing themselves to terrible diseases.
Then you come to increasing resistance to antibiotics and folks who resist immunization for various reasons but who leave holes in our protective system. Add tourism TO the US and the extreme danger of some of the diseases floating around – Ebola, MERS-CoV, and Chikungunys! And Fort Wayne is a destination for a significant number of refugee populations. There are abouit 50,000 refugees coming into the US each year, with 250-300 coming to Fort Wayne.
Don’t take any of this as anti-immigrant…these populations are making Fort Wayne a fascinatingly diverse community, but the risks are in the background.
As a footnote, many of the club’s members met outdoors before Monday’s meeting for a group picture. Fortunately it wasn’t raining or we might have all drowned while looking up with our mouths open. It’s nice to have this kind of record.
There will be a program on our club's Little Free Library Campaign featuring our very own Candace Schuler and LFL Founder Todd Bol on Primetime39 Friday, June 26, 7:30pm on PBS39.
The show will also be shown on PBS39Explore (39-4) Saturday, June 27, 6:30pm and Sunday, June 28, 8:00pm. An encore weekend of the program’s broadcasts is also planned for July 31, August 1 and August 2… same times and channels.
A big thanks to Bruce Haines for this coverage. We would also like to congratulate Bruce on offering PBS39 as a home for one of the Rotary Club’s 100 Little Free Libraries!
THERE WILL BE NO REGULAR ROTARY MEETING ON MONDAY, JUNE 29!