Jeff Ketchel, Administrator, Snohomish Health District addresses our Club on Friday, January 25th. Jeff loves science and environmental health. Public health is a cooperative effort and he mentioned Rotary's role in the plan to eradicate polio. Safe food and water is absolutely crucial. This is the 60th anniversary of the Snohomish Health District. Healthy housing was an early part of his job. Antibiotics important for animals. No new antibiotics are in the research pipeline. The car tab initiative of a number of years ago in eventually harmed the agency and trimmed their staff from 230 to 130 employees.
During his presentation he sited the work of John Snow-1850 London and the SoHo are of London issue where a water pump created an epidemic which involved a cholera outbreak. The water pump was connected to the sewage line. Jeff talked about the agency's work with the opioid crisis. Working with the County and the Sheriff's Department. There are 10,000 people addicted to opioids in Snohomish County with another 80,000 using opioids in some way. Working with hospitals on public awareness and distributing information is important activity to combat opioid use and addiction. Alerting doctors to the problem as well.