Burma is gorgeous!

I went to Burma for a week, stopping in Bangkok for a couple days on either side. It was a great trip -- Burma is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. I'll let the pictures do the talking. Bangkok felt like going back to the US -- a big, busy city, where I drank Starbucks and ate sushi. The street food is the best thing about Bangkok, there is lots of great stuff and it's all cheap and clean.
Here's my album of pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/64846389@N04/sets/72157631980212777/

Watching the election from abroad

I so missed being in the US during the election, especially for some really exciting races in Washington state. I did vote, though -- got my ballot through email!
This was by far my favorite comment about the whole election -- a tweet from Dana Bash at CNN:

@DanaBashCNN: Ladies and gentleman - 4.2 b spent for status quo government.

As the election highlights the large disagreements and polarization in America, I think this is one problem that we can all agree on. The amount of money spent on campaigning for the election this year was absurd. I don't know what exactly this figure is -- total spending only for the presidential election, for all the races combined, only for the federal ones, etc. -- but the point is that sooo much money was spent, and to what end? If this contributed to truly informing voters, I would be more ok with it. But I think the vast majority of this went to creating ads full of half-truths that helped to further polarize Americans and dumbed down complex issues into sound bites. I think there should be no campaign ads, so that people hopefully turn more to publicly funded debates, candidates' voting records, and their histories of achievements in office to evaluate them. On top of all that, the irony that we are spending billions of dollars on an election for which reducing the deficit has been called one of the most important issues is not lost on me. I wish there was a way to take all the money spent on these campaigns and use it for something worthwhile and lasting. Sigh. 

This NYTimes page also has some interesting information on campaign funding: http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance

Fun with tropical diseases

Last month, I celebrated one full year in Delhi by having dengue fever! Ok, it's not funny. It was scary and uncomfortable, but luckily I came out fine. But it's actually a big and growing problem. There have been a lot of cases in Delhi this year, the topic of several recent news stories:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/07/world/asia/alarm-over-indias-dengue-fever-epidemic.html?hpw

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/Your-house-is-dengue-mosquito-s-favourite-spot/Article1-956476.aspx

I wanted to point out that it is no coincidence that there is no vaccine for dengue fever while there is for influenza, hepatitis A, or certain other viruses. Dengue disproportionately affects people in poorer countries, so the market for any pharmaceutical products developed to tackle it is potentially much less lucrative than, say, a new product for heart disease or something that afflicts lots of wealthy people. For this reason, dengue is one among a group of diseases that have been deemed "neglected diseases" to highlight their need for greater research funding. This relates directly to my project at work right now, which is to assess the funding given for health research in India, including which topics/diseases receive what proportion of that money and looking at that in relation to their share of the total disease burden.